I’ve always been drawn to the past — not the textbook version filled with dates and declarations, but the lived-in kind: the weathered hands, the half-remembered family stories, the quiet decisions that changed everything. The kind of history that’s made up of people, not just events.
That’s why I write historical fiction.
I don’t write to re-create famous battles or to walk in the footsteps of presidents. I write to imagine what it felt like to stand on a dusty trail in Texas, unsure of your future. Or to climb aboard a wagon train and watch the horizon roll slowly toward Oregon. Or to fall in love, lose someone dear, or make a life-changing choice in a world without modern conveniences — when what you had was grit, faith, and each other.
Historical fiction, at its best, does more than just set a story in the past. It gives voice to those who didn’t leave journals behind, who didn’t make headlines, but whose lives mattered deeply. It lets us see ourselves in a different time — not as tourists, but as participants.
I didn’t set out to write in this genre intentionally. In fact, I tried writing other kinds of stories over the years. But the more I read and the more I wrote, the more I was pulled toward settings where character, place, and hardship collide. There’s something deeply human about the struggles of the past — something that still speaks to us today.
I also think historical fiction lets us slow down. It forces us to strip away distractions and listen more closely — to the cadence of speech, the creak of wagon wheels, the hush before a decision. You can’t just jump to the next plot point. You have to live in it, walk through it, and understand what it cost.
Of course, there’s research involved. I’ve spent more hours than I can count reading old newspapers, maps, diaries, and journals. But for me, the history is only the frame. The real story is always the people — how they lived, what they feared, what they hoped for. That’s what I try to bring to life in my novels.
Maybe it’s a way of honoring the past. Maybe it’s a way of understanding myself. Maybe it’s both.
Either way, I’m glad to have found this path — and grateful to those who read along as I follow it.