I believe the best fiction starts with truth, but moves away from it, becoming its own truth. All of my books begin with truth--a story someone has told me, a childhood memory of my own, or merely an observation.
This week, my new book, PART OF ME, hits the bookstores. PART OF ME is an example of how truth spins into its own story, in this case a story of a Louisiana family shown through the eyes of four generations. Rose, Merle Henry, Annabeth, and Kyle tell their stories and in doing so, tell their family's story.
Each story contains a bit of truth--my grandmother taking me to the Rapides Parish bookmobile, a relative who dreamed of trapping a mink, a boy I noticed walking carefree out of a school. The stories have been shaken and mixed with other details and twisted into different plot lines, so much so, that they became their own stories. Still they remain a part of me.
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