Missteps of the Past
Bella & Rami begins with first love in 1980s India and follows two people whose lives continue in different directions while their connection quietly endures. Why did autofiction feel like the right form for this particular story?
For me, autofiction was the most natural way to tell the story of Bella and Rami, as it allowed me to move seamlessly between memory and imagination, incorporating bits and pieces from my life along the way. I wrote Bella and Rami because I wanted to understand a puzzle that had confounded me all my life: Why did two people who manifestly loved each other passionately fail to get together when young, and why had the connection been broken repeatedly? At first I turned to the tangible, my diary from 1980, the letters, photos and keepsakes that I had carried with me through my life. But the record was incomplete. Although I had hundreds of thousands of words written to me by Rami’s real-world counterpart, all of mine to him had been lost. Reading his letters was like looking through a window and seeing him on the other side of the pane – my own image a mere reflection on the glass. It seemed that the only way to go back in time was to imaginatively inhabit Bella and see how she moved through the world. So this is what I did. Autofiction allowed me to anchor the story in lived experience while moving forward in time with my characters, revealing more and more about their internal and external worlds as I went. It is an emotionally risky way to write, but it is a form that sits naturally alongside being a diarist and a letter writer, both of which are intimate forms of writing.
Bella and Rami often understand their relationship differently at different points in their lives. What did you want to explore through those changing perspectives?
Bella and Rami are intelligent, reflective people, and yet the stories that they carry within themselves affect how they hear what the other says, interpret what is written, and understand what is happening to them. I think that this is true for most of us: In ordinary life, our understanding is imperfect. For Bella and Rami, distance and time amplify this ambiguity, making it sharper and more consequential. In one of my early attempts to describe Bella & Rami, I said that it was about “the search for self and other that takes most of us a lifetime.” It is that journey that I wanted to explore.
Letters, diaries, emails, poems, and WhatsApp messages all become part of the storytelling. How does the evolution from handwritten letters to instant digital communication reflect the changing relationship between Bella and Rami?
Bella and Rami are shy, young people when they first meet. In the beginning, letters let them share intimate thoughts and feelings in a way that they might not have been able to express in person. However, the time delay between letter and response means that the threads of the conversation are often left hanging and unresolved. Time in and of itself is not enough to bring clarity to Bella. Reconnection, and a change in the physical means of communication, from letter to email to WhatsApp, is what enables Bella and Rami to finally work through the missteps of the past in more or less real time and fully appreciate their respective journeys.
What do you hope readers take from the novel about first love, memory, and the stories we carry about our own past?
That the first love experience is profound and stays with most of us a lifetime, that memory is imperfect and coloured by things we are not conscious of at the time, and that by revisiting our stories and bringing them into the present, sometimes, if we are lucky, we can make sense of them.
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Bella is an Australian schoolgirl living in 1980s India. Rami is an athlete just out of college, about to start life abroad. From the start, their connection is powerful and physical. As they navigate distance, family, trauma, and complicated lives, first love becomes something deeper, more complex, something impossible to forget.
When Rami disappears abruptly from Bella’s life, she is filled with foreboding. Has something happened? Is he okay? To find answers, she must return to the past and confront the shadows that shaped her. She must also find Rami and ask him to tell his story.
Lyrical, intimate, and emotionally fearless, Bella & Rami is a sweeping romance about the intensity of youth, the adversities of life, and a rare love that endures long after the first embrace.
Backstories
And the Walls Came Tumbling Down follows American and German families across two world wars as their children inherit dreams, prejudices, loyalties, and choices that eventually place them on opposite sides of an altered World War II. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
Several.
First, not all Germans were Nazis, just as not all Japanese Americans were loyal to Japan. (See my novel The Two Terrors of Tulelake)
Second, I wanted to explore the backstories, the local stories, of those who fought on both sides of that conflict.
Third, how would the war have changed if certain key historical events had failed?
What interested you about exploring not simply whether history could have happened differently, but what those changes might have cost?
I wanted to examine what those changes might have cost, both physically and mentally, to individuals, groups of people, and nations. My own family had several veterans of World War II, and they were not comfortable in sharing their stories. The History Channel‘s World War II with Tom Hanks had two interesting questions from survivors and participants alike: “Who could do such a thing?” “How can one people do this to another people?” I wanted to share with a younger generation the horrors of concentration camps. Also, the 1846 translation of Eugène Sue’s novel Memoirs of Matilda included a famous quote — “Revenge is a dish best served cold.” This quote served as a connection to the second book in the trilogy, The Spies From Camp X.
What did you want to explore about humanity’s relationship with increasingly powerful weapons?
Someone can always create a bigger gun, a faster bullet, or a higher platform from which to destroy mankind. J. Robert Oppenheimer once said, “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”
Albert Einstein once said, “I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”
T.S. Elliott wrote, “This is the way the world ends / Not with a bang but a whimper.” I ask, “Where will it end?”
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Two families, one American and one German, collide across World War I, the Great Depression, and a radically altered World War II, shaped by hatred, sacrifice, and forces that feel uncomfortably divine. As twin brothers choose opposing paths within Nazi Germany and a Texas farm boy takes to the skies, history veers off course. D-Day collapses in disaster. Britain faces annihilation. Volunteer pilots launch desperate missions, and a single flight toward Berlin carries the weight of ending the war at an unimaginable cost. Biblical echoes of Jericho haunt every turning point, raising unsettling questions about destiny, justice, and intervention.
Blending military history, family saga, and psychological tension, this gripping alternative history challenges readers to ask what if history changed, and what the cost of that change would be.
Oliver’s Garden
Oliver’s Garden, written by Evelyn A. Fisher and illustrated by Declan T. Fisher, is a gentle picture book inspired by a real dog’s adventures in the garden. Oliver, an enthusiastic white pup, explores a Northern California garden through the seasons, searching for favorite snacks such as asparagus, strawberries, cucumbers, raspberries, and apples. His excitement makes the garden feel like a place of discovery, comfort, and belonging.
The story’s language is simple and inviting, with repeated actions that young children can easily follow. Oliver waits, sniffs, searches, and gently gathers each treat, giving the book a calm rhythm that suits reading aloud. The descriptions also introduce children to seasonal changes and show where familiar fruits and vegetables grow. There’s a nice balance between Oliver’s playful appetite and his patient, careful behavior.
Declan T. Fisher’s illustrations give the book its warm, handmade character. Soft washes of green, blue, yellow, and red create a garden that changes naturally from spring’s first shoots to winter’s darker sky. Oliver’s rounded shape, curious expressions, and energetic poses keep him appealing on every page. The wide garden scenes encourage readers to look around, while closer images of asparagus, berries, cucumbers, and apples make each snack feel like a small prize.
Oliver’s Garden celebrates the everyday pleasure of spending time outdoors with an animal companion. Its seasonal structure gives the book a satisfying journey, ending with Oliver resting by the fire and dreaming of spring. Young gardeners, dog lovers, and families interested in nature will find plenty to talk about together, from how plants grow to the way a familiar place can feel special because of the memories made there.
Pages: 26 | ASIN : B0HF6N2M5K
An Unconscious Choice of Chaos
Tessa Kinsela’s An Unscious Choice of Chaos is an emotionally candid coming-of-age novel about how quickly adolescence can outrun a young person’s ability to understand it. Ashley begins Year 9 believing that careful thought can keep life orderly. Then friendship, desire, grief, alcohol, secrecy, and trauma begin exerting their own momentum. Kinsela makes the butterfly effect more than a recurring image. It becomes the book’s emotional structure, with each seemingly small choice altering the shape of everything that follows.
Ashley’s voice is intelligent, observant, funny, and intensely analytical. Her attention to bedroom colours, family rituals, school timetables, books, trees, and food gives the novel a vivid everyday texture, while the Queensland heat and bushland make its setting feel lived in. That domestic detail matters because it establishes the warmth surrounding Ashley before her inner world starts to fracture. The chapter titles, from “Anticipation” and “Exposure” through “Shame,” “Resilience,” and “Equilibrium,” create a thoughtful map of that psychological journey.
The novel’s most affecting quality is its willingness to remain close to Ashley when her reasoning becomes tangled. Her relationships with Tanner, Maddy, and Bray reveal different forms of intimacy, but the emotional heart of the book lies in her bonds with her family, especially Lacey. Kinsela handles consent, sexual assault, self-harm, substance use, and emotional distress with seriousness and compassion. The story also captures how shame can distort responsibility, leaving a person convinced that every harm they’ve suffered began with some earlier mistake of their own.
This is a confronting read, but it’s also a deeply humane one. Ashley’s recovery arrives through honesty, professional care, familiar places, books, and the quiet presence of people who keep loving her. The ending feels earned because healing is presented as an ongoing practice. Tessa Kinsela captures the terrible velocity of one small choice becoming a storm, then shows how tenderness can teach a life to hold steady again.
Pages: 252 | ASIN : B0HBRGDZR3
Acceptance is Not Surrender
Brokenness Becomes Beautiful is more than a collection of poetry and reflections; it is an intimate journey through loss, healing, self-acceptance, and the quiet courage of becoming someone new. What does the title Brokenness Becomes Beautiful mean to you personally?
To me, Brokenness Becomes Beautiful is about learning that what has been broken does not have to be hidden.
After my stroke, many parts of my life changed — my body, my speech, my confidence, and the way I saw myself. For a long time, I thought recovery meant trying to return to the person I had been before. Gradually, I began to understand that perhaps I was not meant to go back.
The title reflects that shift. Brokenness can leave scars, but those scars can also become part of something meaningful. Beauty, for me, is not about becoming perfect again. It is about accepting the fragments, carrying them with honesty, and discovering that a different life can still hold purpose, dignity, and hope.
What has living with aphasia taught you about language and communication?
Aphasia has taught me that communication is much larger than words.
Before my stroke, I rarely thought about speaking. Words simply came. After aphasia, even a simple sentence could become difficult. I might know exactly what I wanted to say but be unable to find the words to express it.
That experience has changed my perspective about communication. I have learnt that we communicate through pauses, gestures, expressions, writing, silence, patience, and simply being present with another person.
It has also taught me how important it is to give someone time. When a person with aphasia struggles to speak, it does not mean there is nothing inside. The thoughts and emotions are still there. Sometimes they simply need another way — and a little more time — to come through.
What does self-acceptance mean when someone is adjusting to changes they never chose?
Self-acceptance does not mean that I have to like everything that happened to me.
I did not choose my stroke. I did not choose aphasia, weakness, dependence, or the many changes that followed. There are still moments when I miss the person I once was and the things that once came easily.
For me, self-acceptance means no longer fighting every part of the person I have become.
It is recognising my limitations without allowing them to define my entire life. It is giving myself permission to grieve what was lost while also remaining open to what may still be possible.
Acceptance is not surrender. It is making peace with reality so that I can continue moving forward from where I am, rather than spending my life wishing I were somewhere else.
How has sharing your experience publicly affected your own understanding of recovery?
Sharing my experience has made me realise that recovery is much more complicated than I once imagined.
When I first began writing about my stroke, I was trying to make sense of what had happened to me. But when other stroke survivors, people with aphasia, caregivers, and families began responding to my words, I started to see that many of the emotions I thought were mine alone were shared by others.
Their stories have changed my understanding of recovery.
I no longer see recovery simply as getting stronger, speaking better, or reaching a particular milestone. Recovery can also mean learning to live with uncertainty, rebuilding relationships, finding confidence again, discovering purpose, and accepting that progress is rarely a straight line.
By sharing my journey publicly, I have also had to look at my own experience more deeply. Writing and speaking about what happened forced me to confront emotions I might otherwise have kept buried — grief, frustration, fear, vulnerability, and the struggle to understand who I was becoming. It also made me pay more attention to my mental and emotional well-being, not just my physical recovery.
Over time, I came to understand that healing also means learning how to live with those emotions, rather than pretending they are not there.
Writing has become a way of witnessing my recovery rather than measuring it. I can see that I am still changing, still learning, and still becoming.
Perhaps that is what recovery means to me now: not returning to who I was, but continuing to discover who I can become.
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These poems were not written to offer easy answers. They were born out of searching — through days of questioning, nights of reflection, and the slow, often difficult process of growth. In this collection, Terence explores what happens when life breaks us in quiet, unexpected ways, and how those moments of fracture can become the very places where truth, healing, and transformation begin.
Moving through themes of self-discovery, self-awareness, self-acceptance, self-love, self-healing, self-care, self-growth, and self-empowerment, Brokenness Becomes Beautiful does not turn away from pain or hide behind polished illusions. Instead, it creates a brave and compassionate space where vulnerability is honoured, honesty becomes strength, and becoming is seen as its own kind of beauty.
This is a book for anyone who has ever felt wounded, lost, or uncertain, yet continues to move forward one small step at a time. Gentle yet powerful, Brokenness Becomes Beautiful reminds readers that even in brokenness, something new and beautiful is already taking shape.
Separateness
Lila’s Dance follows a young Carthusian monk whose discovery of a secret letter leads him to question Church doctrine and, after being sent to St. Kitts, develop a transformative relationship with a woman shaped by religious persecution and Indian philosophy. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
The inspiration came from three distinct sources. First, as a lifelong meditator, I have wanted to share my inner path experiences with others. But I am not a Guru, and a non-fiction “this is how you do it” book didn’t seem right. The idea was to weave it with some kind of fictional narrative that would be fun as well as informative.
Second, I was inspired by the documentary movie Into Great Silence (cited in the Afterword) about monks living in silence at the Grand Chartreuse Monastery in the French Alps. What is the inner experience, and how does it compare to my own? These were questions worth exploring.
Third, while on our annual holiday on the Caribbean island of Nevis, I came across a set of books written by a British expat who had lived on the island, in which he recorded the history of Nevis and its sister island, St. Kitts. One short paragraph briefly described an incident where a St. Kitts priest who was asked to convert the French governor’s Huguenot daughter to Catholicism instead eloped with her to Protestant Nevis and married her. This was certainly a story that had to be told.
What attracted you to Lila as a character, particularly her background as the daughter of a Huguenot mother and a Catholic scholar interested in Indian philosophy?
When writing Lila, I wanted to maintain a balance between the masculine and feminine perspectives. Having grown up with four sisters, I have always enjoyed and appreciated the company of strong women. It was important to me that I fully develop Lila’s character and that it be a strong one.
As noted in the Introduction, “lila” in Sanskrit means “play,” as in the “play of consciousness.” Early on, I saw Lila as the “Krishna” to Sebastian’s “Arjuna” in the Bhagavad Gita. Being an historical novel, Lila required adherence to a specific timeline and actual events that occurred during that timeline. I also needed a vehicle for showing how the principles of Eastern mysticism apply to all seekers on the inner path regardless of cultural or religious background. While researching the history of France and the Huguenot movement at the end of the 17th century, I found Pondicherry, which fit perfectly in the timeline and provided the connection to Eastern mysticism. From there, Lila’s character began to write itself. I didn’t write the last chapter, “Eternal Dance,” until the final draft because I felt I needed to emphasize the importance of Lila’s inner journey as well as that of Sebastian.
How did you balance the novel’s philosophical and metaphysical ideas with its historical-adventure elements?
It has become increasingly apparent to me that the difference between the inner world and the outer, physical world is an illusion created by our concept of separateness. We are all searching, in one way or another, for the divine. The mystic will tell us that to reach our goal, we must lose the idea that we are separate from the divine. To do this, we must become detached from our ego, not lose our self-identity, but not be driven by it. And we must come to understand how we create our world through the power of our consciousness.
Sebastian learns of these goals through his inner journey, but he seems to make the most progress toward achieving them while on his outer journey. In Lila, I was not concerned with balancing mystical philosophy with historical adventure, but instead was focused on blending them together and losing the distinction between them. “Nothing exists that is not Shiva” sounds abstract and incomprehensible, but it is a simple and practical mantra. There is nothing that is not spiritual; that simply living your life is as spiritual as spending it in silence in an Alpine monastery. It is a plain truth you cannot avoid.
What do you hope readers will continue thinking about after they finish Lila’s Dance?
The world at the end of the 17th century was as messed up as it is today. Love, devotion, and righteousness were how we survived it then and how we will survive it today.
The metaphysical principles are universal – detach from self-identity, accept your oneness with the divine, and understand the power of consciousness.
Though the inner journey may be a most useful and wondrous path, the outer journey is no less important and wonderful in our quest for the divine.
Putting all the metaphysical philosophy aside, Lila’s Dance is simply a fun read.
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Lila’s Dance is an historical fiction that weaves a narrative of adventure and romance with a soul’s inner journey and the mystical nature of reality.
The story describes a soul’s experiences exploring the infinite and not-so-silent world of inner meditation with an epic tale that touches on four different millennia and three different continents.
Sebastian, born in the Dutch low country in1670, faithfully follows a destiny that leads him to life as Catholic priest in the Grand Chartreuse monastery high in the French Alps, committed to a life of silence and inner exploration.
Eventually, he comes to a crisis of faith which propels him into a new world where a different reality awaits him.
Lila is born in 1681 to French parents who are living in a French trading colony on the southern coast of India. Her parents are Huguenots in a time when the Church and King of France are violently persecuting such believers. When her parents return to France, Lila grows into a gifted young woman in Paris society while her family’s religion remains precariously hidden from those who would persecute them.
How these two souls come together to support and instruct each other in their divine quests offers the reader a profound understanding of our reality and the power of our consciousness.
Good Intentions
Glee the Christmas Goblin follows a group of mischievous goblins who set out to save Christmas after Santa’s elves hide the children’s presents, discovering the joy of giving along the way. What draws you to write children’s literature?
Jones: Children’s stories are often where our earliest ideas about courage, kindness, and identity begin. Before children can explain those values, they can already recognize them in the characters they love.
Olivo: We wanted to create a story that encourages positive behavior without using threats, shame, or fear. Glee is mischievous, imperfect, and still learning, which makes his growth more meaningful. Children do not need perfect heroes. They need heroes who show them that making a mistake does not define you, but what you choose to do next can.
The elves hide the presents because they’re tired of watching children receive gifts. What inspired this unusual twist on the traditional Christmas story?
Olivo: We began with a question: What if the people responsible for giving Christmas presents became convinced that children had forgotten how to give? That allowed us to reverse the traditional roles. The elves, usually seen as Christmas heroes, create the problem because their disappointment leads them to make the wrong choice. Meanwhile, the goblins, who are expected to take and cause trouble, become the unlikely characters capable of putting things right. That reversal reflects something we deeply believe: people are more complex than the labels placed on them. Good intentions can still lead to poor decisions, and someone with an imperfect past can choose to do something extraordinary. In our story, Christmas is not saved by the characters who appear to be the best. It is saved by those willing to change.
How did you develop the personalities and relationships among Glee and the other goblins?
Jones: We approached the goblins as a group of imperfect friends rather than as a collection of moral examples. They have different instincts, fears, strengths, and definitions of what it means to do the right thing. Those differences naturally create humor and conflict, but they also make the group stronger. Glee became the emotional center because he is caught between the goblin he has always been and the person he is discovering he can become. His friends challenge that transformation in different ways. Some encourage him, some question him, and others would be perfectly happy returning to ordinary goblin mischief. Their relationships reflect a lesson we wanted to explore honestly: change rarely happens in isolation. The people around us can resist our growth, complicate it, or help make it possible. Friendship does not require everyone to be the same. It asks them to keep choosing one another while they learn how to become better.
If Glee could return for another adventure, what kind of Christmas or holiday trouble might he find himself in?
Olivo: Glee would probably learn the right lesson and then apply it in the most spectacularly wrong way. Perhaps he decides that if giving brings joy, the answer is to give everyone everything they could possibly want.
Jones: Soon, the workshop is empty, the sleigh is dangerously overloaded, and Christmas has become complete chaos. Glee would then have to discover that generosity is not measured by how much we give, but by how carefully we understand what another person truly needs. That feels like the heart of any future Glee adventure: a well-intentioned mistake, plenty of goblin-sized chaos, and a deeper lesson hidden somewhere inside the trouble.
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The Comet Line
The Belgian Girls follows two young women resisting German occupation in Belgium, one during World War I as an intelligence agent, and the other during World War II involved in resistance efforts. What interested you about portraying courage as something that can look different from one person to another?
My first book, Women Heroes of World War II, includes the most heroic stories of Second World War resistance that I could find at the time, including the one that inspired me as a young adult: Corrie ten Boom, the devout Dutch resister who was sent to the Ravensbrück concentration camp for hiding Jewish people from the Nazis. I always wondered if I would have the guts to do what she did, to put my own life on the line for the sake of conviction. And as I saw Women Heroes of WWII gain a fairly large audience, I thought that perhaps some young readers, when encountering the book’s stories of remarkable courage, might entertain the same self-doubt I had. That’s why, while writing The Belgian Girls, I deliberately gave the fictional Julienne a quiet, reserved disposition, to illustrate that courage is a choice, not a personality type.
Gabrielle Petit’s personality was basically how she is portrayed in the novel!
Family history becomes an important bridge between the two timelines. What interested you about exploring the ways one generation’s experiences can shape another?
When one of my sons dressed up as WWI American hero, Sergeant Alvin York, I asked my WWII vet father to identify which historical character he was trying to portray. He guessed immediately. That was the first time I realized part of the Greatest Generation’s alacrity in signing up for the military after Pearl Harbor was that they had been raised on stories of the previous war’s heroes. Then, while writing my books on the two world wars, I discovered a generational inspiration factor among Europeans. For instance, WWII special agent Pearl Witherington, who led an enormous team of French fighters against the Nazis, was inspired by Louise de Bettignies, the French First World War spy Kate Quinn wrote about in The Alice Network. And as I point out in The Belgian Girls, Andree de Jongh, founder of the Comet Line, was inspired by Gabrielle Petit and Edith Cavell, both of whom worked against the German occupation of Belgium during World War I.
What challenges come with placing fictional characters alongside people who actually lived through these events?
Actually, it was great fun. An author of nonfiction has to make certain that every sentence is absolutely factual. For once, I was free to make things up, to fill in the blanks of what I already knew about Gabrielle’s life and work and everything I already knew about the young women who worked on the Comet Line.
Why do you think stories about women’s roles in wartime resistance continue to resonate so strongly with readers?
Everyone loves a good underdog story, and it can be stated that women in the first half of the 20th century were underdogs, often considered less valuable, less qualified, and less capable than men. But because of the strange reality created by war, women rose to challenges not normally afforded to them. And those who prospered in those unusual circumstances continue to inspire us today.
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When the Germans overrun Brussels during the First World War, Gabrielle is infuriated to see her newfound happiness shattered. It isn’t long before she is faced with an impossible choice. Three decades later, shy and bookish Julienne moves to Brussels with her widowed father at the height of the Nazi occupation and is horrified to witness the city’s callous treatment of Jews.
In this dual timeline novel inspired by the life of Belgian spy Gabrielle Petit, two very different young women must discover their inner strength to become the heroes their city needs. And when loyalties are tested and decades-old secrets are revealed, their legacies will become entwined forever.
Written by historian and storyteller Kathryn J. Atwood, The Belgian Girls is a tale of hope, forgiveness, and the healing power of friendship.
