Social Impact Authors: How & Why Author Judy Goodman Ikels Is Helping To Change Our World

You need to “put yourself” into the action. For example, a friend and writing coach told me one day, after reading my first chapter, “Judy, you need to get in that plane and fly that last flight with your father. Imagine what he was thinking and feeling and write about it.” That comment set me on a course which I think improved my writing for the rest of the project.

As part of my series about “authors who are making an important social impact”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Judy Goodman Ikels.

Judy Ikels, a graduate of the University of Texas in English and Spanish, retired after a 28-year Civil Service career with the Department of State in 2018. She also served with her late husband Larry Ikels, a Foreign Service Officer, in El Salvador, Colombia, Venezuela, Mexico, Brazil, and Greece. The story of her birth father who died in World War II China, the surprising discovery of a memorial dedicated to him near Kunming, and Judy and Larry’s visit to the memorial is told in her book Death in Wartime China: A Daughter’s…