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I was raised in Myrtle, Mississippi. That’s about sixty miles from Memphis, forty miles from Tupelo, and eight miles from the hometown of William Faulkner—where storytelling is inherited more than it’s learned. Around here, history isn’t confined to museums. It lives on front porches, in country churches, beside the Mississippi River, and beneath weathered headstones shaded by old oaks.

 

    Before I was a writer, I was—and always will be—a mother. I’m the proud mother of two beautiful daughters born sixteen and a half years apart. That, in itself, is a story.

 

     Long before I ever wrote a novel, I spent ten years behind a hairstylist’s chair listening to people’s stories. Later, I earned my Associate Degree in Nursing from Northeast Mississippi Community College and spent more than a decade as a registered nurse. My love for storytelling eventually led me to study Creative Writing and Communications at Louisiana State University, but some of my greatest teachers never stood behind a lectern. They were ordinary people living extraordinary lives.

 

     Today, I own a historical restoration company and spend countless hours restoring historic cemeteries across Mississippi. Every weathered stone reminds me that history isn’t made only by famous names. It’s built by ordinary people whose love, faith, sacrifice, and quiet perseverance shaped families and communities long after they were gone.

 

     People often ask why I write about the South.

 

     The answer has never been complicated.

 

     Throughout my life, I’ve witnessed incredible things. As a nurse, I stood in awe of the human body and the intricate way God created it. I’ve watched lives begin, watched lives end, and seen more of His handiwork than I ever imagined possible.

 

     Yet through it all, one question has always stayed with me.

 

God, of all the places in the world You could have allowed me to be born… why here?

 

     I have never found an answer worthy of the question.

 

     I only know that I have always considered it one of the greatest blessings of my life.

 

     Perhaps that’s another reason I write.

 

     Gratitude has a way of making you want to preserve the things you’ve been given.

 

     Whether I’m writing historical fiction, Southern humor, or restoring a forgotten headstone, my purpose is the same: to remember the people history nearly overlooked and to tell the stories that deserve to be carried forward.

 

     Because every stone has a story.

 

     Every river remembers.

 

     I’m simply writing them down.

 

— Amanda Isalee Hargrove

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