Novel Nonfiction
Truth in Tales
Tangible ~ Thrilling ~ Timeless
novel:
fresh, unique, original… stands out as different
When I returned from Africa at age 11, I found myself in 8th grade in a Boston suburb. I spoke four languages, my too-short jeans prompted classmates to ask if I was expecting a flood, and I thought Grease was a movie about American cooking. Before I knew better, in Social Studies I admitted that I read 150-200 books a year. (The next highest by one plucky student was 4 books.) Yikes! Then kids in gym class threw basketballs at me every time the teacher turned her back.
What was a huge disadvantage in school (oh, the irony!), turned out to be a remarkable benefit in real life. To this day, I continue to read 3 to 4 books a week because I have discovered what a tremendous advantage reading is. It opens up the world, teaches, entertains, improves memory, expands knowledge, increases vocabulary, boosts cognitive focus, provokes philosophical thought, develops analytical skills, fosters empathy, reduces stress, and is always an adventure!
Except for horror or historical romance, I enjoy most fictional genres. My favorite is always an intriguing story, and if I am pressed, I admit I love a good mystery. When it comes to nonfiction, I enjoy well-written true tales. Unfortunately, I have discovered that many memoirs and biographies bog down in either too many details and dates, are not compellingly written, or focus entirely on the author with no context within the culture or world.
One day I started looking for a novel approach, dreaming of what would make fantastic reading in a nonfiction genre. Since every person’s life is set in the framework of God’s Story, it means we are all living a tale that is important and precious to Him. I thought about all the interesting stories I have read about people’s lives. What if writers would take their personal memoirs or biographies and place them in the context of culture and history, artfully showing ways in which God’s Kingdom is touching earth through their story? Blending memoir, historical, and spiritual genres. Compelling true-life stories that read like a novel set in the context of what God is doing in the world. Or you could say, “my story within His story.”
That’s how Novel Nonfiction was birthed. Truth in tales, exceptional nonfiction writing that is tangible, thrilling, and timeless.
When God began inspiring my heart and mind to write a series of books in the Novel Nonfiction genre, I began mapping out ideas. It wasn’t long before I realized that each book had a color theme. Maybe God simply wants my life to be more colorful!
Color is the language of the poets.
It is astonishingly lovely.
Keith Crown, American Abstract Painter
As an example, my working title for Diary of a Third-Culture Kid, Book 1 was Yellow. See below for a few reasons it was Yellow. Then read on to see what other colorful books will be coming out in the future!
It’s A Colorful Life!
Yellow—aka, Diary of a Third-Culture Kid, Book 1: Swazi Girl
Here are a few ways that Diary of a Third-Culture Kid, Book 1 is my Yellow story:
The King of Eswatini is identified with the sun. His people are known as ‘the people of the sun.’ Yellow is a lovely, cheerful, warm color. My childhood in Eswatini, with lemon-yellow blonde hair, was filled with warmth and laughter, pale yellow sunrises and golden bronze sunsets. And of course, the yellowing of time, all the places where the yellow dusty silt of longing softly settles.
Black & White—aka, Diary of a Third-Culture Kid, Book 2
A few weeks after I turn 10, I am sent to school almost 400 miles away in another country, only seeing my family on school holidays. Filled with hardship, courage, peril, grace, and friendship;
set in South Africa against the harsh backdrop of apartheid (hence the Black and White color theme). Gripping, mesmerizing, biting, and even sometimes sidesplittingly funny, this book will embrace your grace and steel your faith.
Blue—aka, Diary of a Third-Culture Kid, Book 3
After nearly dying on two of our last five days in Eswatini (told in Diary of a Third-Culture Kid,Book 1), I am suddenly thrust from rural Africa to one of the largest cities in the world, Boston. Blue is a highly unusual coming-of-age story as I navigate being a pre-teen in high school, almost daily cultural shock, wounded in a cafeteria food fight, the only girl in Chess Club, mercy in very unexpected places. This book starts off with a riveting story of tick-bite fever on the Swiss Alps and a psycho fire as I begin 8th grade at age 11.
More books to come, filled with unique, compelling true-life stories told in novel style:
Green
Marriage, college, moving 18 times in nine years, seven years kinda in Ohio, birthing three sons (smallest 10lb12oz), my life saved by a frog, Mom’s ultimate April Fool joke.
Chocolate Brown
Living for six months in the Lakes District of England. Discovering my “adjustment to the water” is actually morning sickness. Traveling by train, driving on the “wrong” side of the road, getting lost in the mountains, coming upon a sign: “you have been warned.” Being surrounded by some of the world’s greatest writers of poetry, plays, stories and even Peter Rabbit – Beatrix Potter, William Shakespeare, Agatha Christie, William Wordsworth, Robert Southey, and more . . . Oh yeah, and a month in Ghent, Belgium and time in Glasgow, Scotland.
Crimson
A broken face, a botched surgery, a mistaken surgery, an explosive surgery, and all the other times a doctor has told me, “I’ve never seen this before.”
Grey
Betrayal and mercy in the Church.
Pink
Pink for happiness, and a surprisingly delicate note of sorrow.
Orange
Marriage is not a word, it’s a sentence…and in-laws are a whole new culture.