Novel Beginnings

Let’s Write Contest Winner: This is the story of a story and why it came to be.

Written by: Gail Gallifant Collins

It’s the story of a quiet, fatherless girl growing up in Germany during World War II. She was bombed twice and walked for three weeks with her mother, following the rail lines to locate relatives and shelter. Some harrowing things happened to her before and after that, but she prefers to remember the kindnesses people showed to her.

It took the girl a long time to tell me any of this though. She is old, and I am growing old. When finally she shared it with me, she said, “It wasn’t a beautiful life.” Continue reading “Novel Beginnings”