#ThrowbackThursday – My Mom and My New Book

My mom has been on my mind a lot lately, maybe because the new book I’m working on contains many real-life stories about my mother, our journey to the United States, and the aftermath of it. I tried for many years to write about my mother but couldn’t. I felt stymied because there was so much emotion connected to the story. Including her story in a fictionalized work, through the eyes of other characters, has freed me to explore those emotions and build on them to create a tale about the journey of three women to find each other and for one, to find love. So for today, here’s a picture of my mom taken when she was just a toddler. Amazing how dressed up she was for the photo!