Four years ago this month, our nation shut down with the onset of the COVID pandemic. Thinking back on those days still elicits painful memories of confusion, disruption, and terrible loss. We each have unique stories of how COVID impacted our lives. The first half of 2020 irreversibly changed my outlook. I became fixated on our world’s fragility and brokenness, feelings that led to selling our family home in Boston and investing in farmland among other things.
My desk in the pantry, guarding the food and close to the coffeemaker. Also, Brady and Churro kept me company (furry friends bottom left).
But mid-March of 2020, before those personal shifts were set in motion, I was hunkering down in our pantry while the rest of my family staked claim to more private workstations, and threw myself into drafting the manuscript that would eventually become Daughter of a Promise.
It was inevitable that the storyline would coincide with COVID. How could it not? One early draft practically read like a diary of domestic insanity including tracking down n-95 masks, washing off groceries, and wearing rubber gloves to get the mail. I knew of authors whose manuscripts were drafted or were in the publishing queue during big world or political events, leading to the question of how to address them. When I equivocated, an author friend reminded me:
“It’s our job to document the blood in the streets.”
Several in the publishing industry warned against it, saying readers would not have an appetite for revisiting those years. Nevertheless, I sensed COVID would play a major role in my novel from the onset. Stories exist, after all, to help us make sense of what’s happened. Perhaps returning to those days in a character’s shoes makes it easier to process. What do you think? Given that three of my favorite novelists recently came out with books incorporating COVID puts me in good company:
Daughter of a Promise will pub in less than two weeks!! I’m dropping teaser videos like the one above on #trailertuesday, follow my Instagram to not miss any!
A full schedule of live events is on my website, but my first three stops will be:
- April 6, 2-4pm at Dolly’s Bookstore, Park City
- April 18, 5pm at Beacon Hill Bookstore, Boston
- May 14, 7pm at Porter Square Books, Boston Edition
I WOULD LOVE TO SEE YOU!!