Hello, bienvenue! 

You’ve found the little corner I carved out for myself in the aether. From this humble digital page, hear me shout into the void that I am a writer!

Now that’s done, my inner child in her blanket fort is very proud. Creating this space is another small step in a very long journey towards affirming this integral part of my identity as a creative person. As a graphic designer and visual artist, I’ve spent the last 20 years making art for other people. At the moment, I work for a non-profit publisher, and the majority of my projects involve designing marketing content for books on adult spirituality. My own book, with my own name on it? Maybe someday, I would tell myself as I churned out social media graphics and author cards for book launches. I needed a story first.

In 2017, I was given a copy of The Dufour Saga by Julie LeClerc Knox, which detailed the epic emigration of my wine-making ancestors from French Switzerland to the United States in 1801. I was astonished that I had never heard this tale. As a shameless Francophile, enthusiastic traveler and wine lover, I had long believed that I had been born into the wrong Midwestern family. As I read The Dufour Saga, my particular cocktail of interests in history, language, and even my love of the mountains suddenly made sense. I was astonished to discover the breathtaking countryside of the Pays de Vaud in French Switzerland, called Romandie, located on the northern shores of Lake Geneva, called Lac Léman. However, Julie LeClerc Knox, for all her research and anecdotes, had precious little to say about my direct ancestress… Only that she was a daughter, a wife, and a mother. Like so many women in history, her identity was defined by the men in her life. I decided that this footnoted matriarch deserved her own story, and set out to write towards this goal, not knowing where the road or writing may lead.

So here I am, an aspiring debut novelist (ahem, romancière) wading through the slush piles of the publishing swamp with my newest manuscript draft held aloft, praying to whatever historical fiction and magical realism deities might be listening.

WordPress thinks this is a blog; maybe it is. Maybe I’ll just pen notes to self and pin them here to read later. Maybe I’ll share anecdotes from my ancestry research. Maybe I’ll start a sporadic newsletter. Stay tuned!