I Wrote a Novel And Made My Daughter the Hero
My main character saves the world without hair or health or the guarantee of tomorrow.
I self-published my first novel, Doorways to Arkomo, in May 2014 after submitting it to roughly thirty agents. I heard back from about half of them, mostly with variations of this sentence, “We like your writing, but the book is not for us.” It was disheartening, but not unexpected.
I knew the book was going to be a hard sell because one of the main characters — Grace — is an 11-year-old girl with cancer.
Grace was inspired my daughter, Ana, who was diagnosed with a rare, malignant liver tumor a few months after her 11th birthday. Ana spent many weeks in the hospital, underwent chemotherapy and endured a litany of scans and other procedures before having a liver transplant in February 2013.
My reason for creating the character of Grace was simple. I wanted to cast my daughter in the role of a heroic protagonist even though she was sick.
Most heroes in kids’ books are healthy — and male. Harry Potter, Charlie Bucket, Christopher Robin, Peter Pan — they are all strong, healthy, adventurous boys. And when there are female protagonists in children’s stories, they are robust and beautiful and so very strong — Matilda, Alice…
