Tigest Girma’s journey to becoming a New York Times bestselling author began in an unlikely way: by revisiting the Twilight series during the 2021 COVID-19 lockdown.

While watching the on-screen romance between Edward Cullen and Bella Swan, the Melbourne primary school teacher experienced an inspiring revelation.

“I couldn’t shake the thought,” Girma shared with 9news.com.au, “What if the origins of vampires were traced back to Africa?”

Driven by this intriguing concept, Girma quickly drafted a few sentences on her phone and shared them on social media to gauge public interest.

The feedback was immediate and overwhelmingly positive, sparking a wave of enthusiasm for her unique idea.

Three years later, her debut novel Immortal Dark hit shelves and a week after that, it was a #1 New York Times bestseller.

Now the pressure’s on to recreate that success with sequel Eternal Ruin, which drops tomorrow.

But Girma once doubted her Black vampire romance would ever see the light of day.

Born and raised in Ethiopia, her family moved to Australia when she was 15.

It was a culture shock to say the least.

She found solace in books, but none of the paranormal romances she adored featured any characters that looked like her.

”I had that itch, that craving for representation,” Girma said.

As an adult, she tried to write the books she needed growing up but after three failed attempts to get published, she was almost ready to give up.

Immortal Dark was her last-ditch attempt to get a story centring Black characters on Australian shelves.

It took about a year to write the draft around her casual teaching work, juggling plot points with lesson plans, but by 2023 she had a manuscript and an agent.

The hardest part was going to be finding a publisher willing to pay for a story like hers.

The paranormal, fantasy and romance genres skew white, as does the publishing industry.

Girma was floored when not one but two publishing houses wanted to buy Immortal Dark.

A bidding war ensued and she walked away with a hefty three-book deal.

Her debut hit shelves to rave reviews and at just 26, Girma officially became a New York Times bestselling author.

“I was in shock, I was floating around the whole day, buzzing with too much energy,” she said.

“How is it possible to achieve your wildest dreams in such a short time?”

It was especially meaningful because of what the book represented to her and other Black women and girls; a place where they belong.

“Being able to put out these books [is like] being able to go back into the past and hand them to my own teenage self and say, ‘this is the one for you,’” she said.

Uxlay University, where Girma’s stories are set, is full of Black characters with unapologetically African names like Kidan Adane, the protagonist, and Susenyos Sagad, her nemesis turned love interest.

It was an intentional choice from an author who has spent years correcting people who mispronounce her name, as is the experience of so many immigrants and children of immigrants.

She won’t stand for Westernised nicknames or mispronunciations either.

Girma shared videos on social media explaining how to pronounce her name and the names of her characters, so no one has an “excuse” to get it wrong.

Especially when some readers can learn to pronounce made-up fantasy names but claim real Ethiopian names are “too hard”.

”Saying ‘this is my name and you have to call me by my full name,’ is a powerful thing,” Girma said.

“Readers can say these complicated fantasy names, but somehow they struggle with ours? I have no idea how that logic works.”

Her characters also never have to deal with incidents or discussions of racism.

So many books about Black characters deal explicitly with race but Girma wanted to offer readers, especially young Black women, an escape from that.

“BIPOC [Black, Indigenous, and people of colour] authors have always been associated with these traumatic topics in normal fiction,” she said.

“I did not want to see stories like that anymore.”

Readers have lauded her for these details and for championing diversity in fiction, which has become a popular topic of discussion on BookTok, the online reading community on TikTok.

It’s part of the reason Girma’s idea for Immortal Dark first gained traction online.

She’s grateful for these spaces that encourage conversations about the ways in which whiteness still dominates the publishing landscape.

“I’m reaching audiences that I never thought I could [and] this is just proof that people want to read Black fantasy books,” Girma said.

“There’s an audience for us, we can be successful in these commercial spaces.”

But there are drawbacks to having almost 100,000 people following her every move online.

Social media can be a powerful tool for authors – for example, Girma’s editor first discovered her on TikTok – but the pressure to perform online can be overwhelming.

And many emerging authors can’t afford to opt out.

“It is something that a lot of authors have to think about, specifically BIPOC authors,” Girma said.

“We sort of have no choice but to be visible on social media, to get attention, to prove ourselves or our readership online before publishing takes a chance on us.”

Girma has taken a step back from TikTok and Instagram lately to focus on the launch of Immortal Dark, plan the third and final book in the trilogy, and keep up her day job.

The 27-year-old kept up her casual teaching work even after becoming an international bestseller and considers her “main profession”.

“I genuinely do enjoy it [and] it’s a good stable job to have next to something as unpredictable as writing.”