Sea
December 26, 2004, while many American teenagers were opening their holiday gifts with their families, an underwater earth-quake measuring 9.1 on the Richter scale shocked the Indian ocean, created a tsunami of epic proportions. The death toll in Banda Aceh, Indonesia (it’s epicenter) alone was 150,000 people.
My husband, a new, young psychiatrist, heard so many kids and teens needed mental health care after experiencing the lost of so many loved ones, so he organized a volunteer trip to go and see what he could do to help. In the end, it was only him and one other doctor friend who followed through on the journey.
He spent a total of four weeks at an orphanage in Indonesia. And even traveled up to Banda Aceh and observed the devastation. He heard horror stories, yes, but he saw hope.
When he came home, he was a different person. Seriously. I was working on another book at the time and he said, “You need to write about this.”
I thought about it.
I didn’t want to try and write from a point of view of one of the Indonesian kids, I didn’t feel like, as a new writer, I could do their experience justice. So I made up the character of Sienna. Like me, she was from California, like me, she lived with a psychiatrist. I knew I could tell the story from her eyes.
The plot and the other characters quickly followed and SEA became a project of epic proportions in my life. I started writing it fall of 2005. It took me two full years to write while I stayed home with my little boy.
I was active in a local critique group, and luckily found an agent quickly. She sold it right away, and now, five years after the tsunami, it is being published.
How long did it take to get published, people ask? Well, that depends. I’ve been writing since I was five. So thirty years? One year? Six years? Publishing, like in all things, the journey is what matters. All the train trips along the Hudson River to grad school, all the short-stories I wrote for my sisters, all the plays I wrote for the voices of teens.
The tiny steps that lead to this point.
One of the best writing advice I’ve ever heard is “Write the book you want to read.”
That is what I tried to do with SEA.
I hope you enjoy it.
What readers are saying about Sea
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"SEA is a richly woven story as turbulent and beautiful as the sea itself, plunging us headlong into the depths of loss, devastation, compassion, and hope. A touching and romantic debut about the redemptive power of altruism and the heart's capacity for love."
-- Sarah Ockler, author of Twenty Boy Summer -
"From the first page of SEA, the reader is plunged into a world of love, loss, and hope. The heat between Sienna and Deni is mirrored in the steamy exotic setting of Indonesia. Once I started reading, I couldn't put this book down. Sienna is conflicted and compassionate... I truly loved this book and can't wait to recommend it to all the teenagers I know!"
-- L.K. Madigan, William C. Morris Award winning author of Flash Burnout -
"From the opening pages of SEA, the hair stood on the back of my neck, as it does whenever I encounter a writer who really knows what she's doing with words. Tragedies and miracles coexist in this entrancing debut novel about the aftermath of a tsunami."
-- Jennifer R. Hubbard, author of The Secret Year -
"Heartbreaking but always hopeful; achingly romantic but never sappy-- SEA is simply luminous. What a remarkable debut!"
-- Jennifer Laughran "Not Your Mother's Book Club" Books Inc. in San Francisco
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