Why I’m Writing Light Still Stands

When I began Light Still Stands, I believed I was writing a Catholic young adult novel about a parish, a bell tower, and teenagers navigating faith and doubt. The book is still in progress. The manuscript is not finished yet. But as the story has unfolded, I have realized I am writing about something much deeper than I first imagined.

I am writing about endurance.

There were experiences in my childhood that introduced fear and confusion far too early. For a long time, I did not have language for them. Silence felt safer than explanation. My body carried tension long after circumstances changed. Those early fractures shaped how I understood trust, safety, and belonging.

And yet, beneath all of that, something steady remained.

Light still stood.

I was raised by my grandparents, whose faithfulness shaped me long before I formally entered the Catholic Church. I was not Catholic until I was nineteen years old. But I was raised around people who believed in God and who showed me what it meant to live with moral conviction and consistency. My grandparents created rhythm, structure, and stability when other parts of my early life felt uncertain.

Alongside them were close friends and neighbors who became steady souls in my world. They modeled what it meant to live the Catholic faith in practical ways. They showed up to Mass. They volunteered. They stayed in hard conversations. They kept choosing community even when faith felt complicated. From them I learned that faith is not the absence of doubt. It is the willingness to remain.

There were also absences in my early years that left quiet but lasting questions about belonging and worth. Before I could articulate what abandonment meant, I understood what it felt like when someone did not stay. That awareness shaped how I viewed relationships and how I measured safety. And yet, against that backdrop, there were people who did remain. That contrast between leaving and staying lives at the heart of this novel. Light Still Stands asks what truly makes something endure. Is it perfection, or is it presence?

In 2025, I lost a dear friend to cancer. I did not know she was sick. She chose to carry that privately. The loss came with sorrow and with surprise. Grief like that has a particular weight. It leaves you reflecting on conversations you did not know were final. It reminds you how much of life unfolds quietly, beyond what we can see. That experience deepened my understanding of how fragile and sacred relationships are, and that awareness has shaped the emotional landscape of this story.

Forgiveness has been one of the longest journeys of my life. It did not arrive quickly. It did not excuse harm or erase failure. It was not about pretending the past did not matter. It was about refusing to let brokenness define me. It was about releasing what was never mine to carry. That slow work of healing threads through this novel. The characters wrestle with fear, doubt, and the question of whether they will measure the world by its instability or by who stands beside them when it trembles.

For years, I have written for children because I believe stories shape hearts early. I want young readers to encounter courage, virtue, imagination, and faith in ways that feel honest and hopeful. As I move into young adult literature, that conviction deepens. Teenagers deserve good, quality, faith-filled literature that respects their intelligence and complexity. They deserve stories that acknowledge darkness without glorifying it. They deserve narratives where faith is resilient, thoughtful, and rooted in reality.

Light Still Stands is still unfolding. The bell tower in Maple Hollow bears cracks and signs of repair. It is not flawless. It requires tending. But it stands. In many ways, that image mirrors my own life. Structures can fracture. People can fail. Loss can arrive without warning. Yet presence, perseverance, and grace can hold.

That is why I am writing this novel.

Because even when the structure shows its history, light remains.

Light still stands.