Press Room

CJ Gryffin, a special education teacher and debut author, announces the release of The Color of Silence: A Dreamers' Dragon Novel, available June 20, 2026. Set in 1930s Atlanta, this sweeping work of historical fantasy follows Darius Turner — a nonverbal Black boy dismissed by the world around him — who discovers a dream realm where a dragon named Azure finally sees him as he truly is: not broken, but destined.

The story began as a dream. In 2008, Gryffin woke from a vivid vision of a boy named Darius and a dragon, and spent the next years transforming that image into a prequel to an ambitious four-book saga spanning four centuries. What emerged is unlike most fantasy novels featuring neurodivergent characters: rather than portraying autism as a superpower or plot device, The Color of Silence centers authentic communication strategies, sensory experience, and the quiet, hard-won breakthroughs of a child finding his place in a world that was never designed for him.

Gryffin's nearly ten years in special education classrooms inform every page. The novel weaves together the richness of 1930s Black Southern life with the luminous dreamscape of Somnoria, where Darius trains alongside Azure, a jewel-scaled dragon, learning to navigate both worlds. Themes of belonging, family, faith, and identity run through a story that honors the complexity of neurodivergent experience without reducing it to metaphor.

The Color of Silence serves as the prequel to A Dreamers' Dragon Novel series — an ambitious four-book saga spanning four centuries. Darius's story is told first because of the extraordinary complexity of his character and his world. Beginning with the second novel, readers will encounter the full ensemble of Dreamers, whose journeys interweave across the centuries in ways that only Darius's origin makes possible.