How history saved me
It sounds so dramatic to say that history “saved” me. But it’s true. I started working on my novel before I retired, but when I finally found myself without a job, for months I felt so lost. Finishing all the research on Colonial America, in order to write A FALSE DAWN, feels like it saved my life.
Discovering the history behind my novel enabled me to express so many things in the story – about family, about making your voice heard – that I could never have expressed in any other way. What’s more, my research helped me become a much more critical and insightful reader of newspapers and magazines. Now I know there at least ten sides to every story.
Learning about history continues to inspire me as I give lectures at local libraries on the topic of women in colonial America (my main character is a woman). The people who show up really love the stories I tell about real people who inspired my characters.
When I share my love of history with others, history is once again saving me — from boredom, from complacency, from thinking that as a retired person I had no role or function left to perform. I do. I’m a writer, a lecturer, a man with a passion for telling stories. Thanks to history.
About The Author
Jeff Heller
I'm a historical novelist who focuses on Colonial America, particularly the French-Canadians who settled North America in the 1600s and 1700s. My first novel, A FALSE DAWN, features Louise, a young wife and mother who must search for her son and her husband when the English invade their home in French-held Montreal and torch the city.