I started this project in March of 2025 after I decided I didn’t want to write a memoir about getting my daughter through high school. I had the perfect title– Needs, Wants, & Longings: Notes from the Helicopter Pad. When it came time to write, I had no desire whatsoever to relive that experience. It would be painful to write and perhaps painful to read. She’s fine, I’m fine, but we’re all glad to be done with high school.

I decided to save being a writer for my next life. I took it easy. I knit, listened to audio books. I indulged myself with stories– stories with a little magic, but some human connection to them as well. Novels that had some element of folklore or a combination of fiction, history, and magic. The kind of book I have always enjoyed reading (when I wasn’t trying desperately to be a better mom). If I could write a book like that, I thought, I would. I didn’t think I could.

The more I read, the more I wanted to contribute, write a story that other people would want to read–a story that would be fun to write, fun to read and have meaning.

Then I remembered a place I saw in a music video some stranger shared on social media over a decade ago. The music, the landscape, the song in a foreign language made me want to go there. During covid, I’d find that video and play it over and over. It’s a real place that evokes story and magic. All I have to do to write the kind of book I’ve been wanting to write is research and imagine.

Why I shouldn’t be undertaking this project:

• It will take forever
• I will never be as good a writer as I want to be
• I have never visited most of the places I’m writing about
• Going in I didn’t even know much of the history or the stories of these places
• It’s really hard to get a book published if you’re not a movie star/super model/professional athlete/politician
• I’m a terrible typist

Why I decided to go for it:

• Once I chose the location, the ideas kept falling into place. I don’t feel like I am forcing anything— characters and plot just emerge.
• I really enjoy research and know how to do it. (I have a masters degree in library science and have worked in libraries for over 20 years.)
• Precedence. I know of others who got away with it. I sat in on a panel discussion by members of the Northern Exposure writing team when I lived in Alaska. I listened to them explain how this was their first trip to the state even though their show had already aired for a couple of seasons. They had actively avoided visiting before. They were after a mythic Alaska, not a documentary. I realized I was OK with that. Being an insider and noticing when they got it wrong didn’t keep me from enjoying the show. Yes, Alaska is mythic. So is my location; it’s just more obscure. (My hometown, Milwaukee, is not.)
• I also have a masters degree in creative writing. I do know something about how to write. I have always wanted to do this. Bachelors degree also in creative writing.
• I’ve learned to live with my bad typing.
• I’ve been working on my project for a over a year, and it’s happening. I still enjoy working on it. I try to touch it daily. About a third of it already exists in draft form.
• I think I have something special going on in this project. I believe there’s a place for this work.

Working title— Needs, wants, & Longings: An Epic Yarn Spun from Magic, Myth, Irish Monks, Sheep, Selkies, Vikings, Barbary Pirates, and One Untrustworthy American Anthropologist.

• There you have it– it’s exactly that kind of book
• Please excuse the 17th Century style title – I couldn’t resist. I think those titles are fun. Really, they are fun! And it’s fitting to evoke a little Robinson Caruso here. You’ll know what I mean when you read the book.

Setting– The Faroe Islands (real place if you don’t know it — small archipelago in the North Atlantic, midway between Iceland, Scotland, and Norway)

Characters– Main characters are all fictional and human, minor characters are often historic or mythic

Structure– four story threads, each about a novella in length, each takes place during a different century. I think the four sections comprise one hefty tome, but they may be four separate volumes. It’s too early in the process to know for sure.

• First thread takes place during the 6th Century and includes St. Brendan (Irish monk), who some think may have sailed to the Faroes.
• Second thread, 9th Century, early Viking settlement, plays with elements from the Poetic Edda and the Faroe Islander Saga.
• Third thread, 17th Century, includes a fictionalized account of an actual pirate raid on Suðuroy Island in 1627
• Final thread, contemporary, tells the story of the untrustworthy American, a newly-widowed woman named Maeve, who pads her resume and lies her way onto a Danish archeology crew in an effort to get a work visa, allowing her to leave the U.S. for the duration of the current political cycle.  She arrives in Copenhagen only to discover the archeology project is likewise a scam.  She decides to take a ferry to the Faroes as planned because, why not?  When she disembarks in Tórshavn, she encounters an old crone of a cab driver. Readers will recognize the cabbie as a faerie/huldufólk/spirit person character named Tara Rose, who works as a catalyst in all four threads. Maeve makes some poor choices, but is not without resources. She really did study cultural anthropology decades earlier and has some understanding of the importance of folklore.  Ultimately, she figures out a path for the next chapter of her life.