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Welcome to Layers of Shimmer — a publication featuring speculative fiction, essays on health politics and institutional power, and poetry exploring care, memory, and resistance.

I’m Monica Leyva, writer and researcher. My work centers on ethical storytelling and the ways systems shape bodies, care, and belonging. I bring together lived experience, narrative craft, and research to examine how language, policy, and power move through everyday life.

This Substack is for readers who want:

• Serial speculative fiction that examines bodies under systems of care

• Essays on health politics, institutional harm, and implementation in real-world settings

• Poetry that traces memory, consent, and survival

• Reflections on writing ethically about lived experience

• Occasional behind-the-scenes notes on craft and world-building

My work blends research with creative writing and lived experience. The goal is simple:
to tell truer stories about care, power, and the people living inside them.

Trademark Notice: The Witness Method™ is an original conceptual framework created by Monica Leyva. © 2025 All Rights Reserved.