My Journey with Storytelling

In 2002, I first learned about Dr. Mary Percy from her granddaughter, who kindly shared books on Mary’s life and the Peace River region. That same year, inspired and compelled, I wrote a screenplay based on Mary’s extraordinary story and submitted it to the Academy’s Nicholl Fellowship in 2003 and again in 2004.

Mary stayed with me.

I returned to the script often, rewriting and reworking it over the years—but something was missing. The screenplay, though powerful, couldn’t fully capture the atmosphere, the quiet beauty, or the inner landscape of Mary’s life. I wanted readers to feel the land. I wanted them to know her. And so, I began writing Battle River Prairie.

That first draft was overflowing with detail—lush, immersive, and frankly, too much. But as I learned more about prose and the power of subtext, I began to refine. With each revision, I cut closer to the heart of the story, trusting readers to feel what lay between the lines.

Writers will often tell you that a book is never truly finished—and I understand that now. If you handed it back to me today, I’d probably want to rewrite half of it. That’s the nature of this craft. It’s demanding. It’s relentless. And sometimes, it means stepping away so you don’t start again.

But after twenty years, I’m finally at peace with what I’ve written. Mary’s story opened a path, and other stories soon followed. Echoes Across the Snow is one of them—another novel shaped by many drafts, many doubts, and a growing confidence in my voice.

Echoes in Secrecy, inspired by a friend’s family history, is yet another world I now live in—its characters, Elise and Mattie, are always with me.

Today, writing feels easier, freer. I can immerse myself in new places and people and bring them to life with clarity and joy. That joy is what keeps me going. I’m currently working on a follow-up to Battle River Prairie, tentatively titled Keg River, which follows Mary through the next five transformative years of her life. A third and final novel will eventually complete her journey.

Echoes in Secrecy will continue too—the espionage is far from over for Elise and Mattie.

In between, I’ve fallen in love with short stories. I’ve written over 45 so far, and collected 20 of them in a published volume called Where Tides & Time Meet. These are stories meant to linger—brief, rich, and quietly resonant. Another short story collection is already underway.

Thank you for reading, and for following this journey with me.

—Doug