As a historical fiction author, I travel across the country and centuries. Research takes me from street maps of 1900 Philadelphia, where I trace how many blocks my medical student might walk in The Unlocked Path, to archival photographs at Drexel University documenting the American Women’s Hospital Service in rural Appalachia for The Path Beneath Her Feet. Most recently, I stepped inside a music studio to observe a young opera singer rehearsing her etudes for my forthcoming novel, Under Two Flags (March 2026). These physical and imaginative journeys shape my characters and storylines and help me write with authenticity. My trusty Microsoft Surface keeps it all organized; that 11.5” x 7.5” tablet folds neatly into my backpack and comes along for every mile.

About ten years ago, my husband and I committed to a modified nomadic life. My sales role and his semi-retirement let us split time between our “permanent” Cape Cod home for summer and fall, our New Hampshire cabin for the holidays, and a snowbird route to Florida or South Carolina to escape negative 20 mph wind chills in NH. This year, we rented out the NH cabin and booked an off-season stay on the Jersey Shore to be closer to our 14-month-old grandson—our first grandchild, who deserves to know his Nana and Poppy beyond FaceTime.

Even better, our travels conveniently pair with my author life. With my husband’s support, I’ve landed speaking engagements up and down the I-95 corridor. “Hey honey, can we hop off this exit in Florida? The Hawthorne Public Library wants me to speak. No problem for you and Taylor (our rescue mutt) to wait in the parking lot for an hour, right?” Or: “Honey, the Atlanta Library wants my #31titleswomeninhistory program. Atlanta isn’t too far out of the way from Amelia Island to Cape Cod…right?” And my favorite: “Honey, a reader organized a book-club-in-a-bag with ten copies of my novel for her library. She’d love for me to visit. Canton, Ohio may be a detour, but it is home to the Football Hall of Fame.”

Thanks to modern technology, my Kindle library of 300+ books and Audible collection of 100+ titles also hit the road. Before each snowbird trip, we pick one audiobook we’ll both enjoy. I won’t lie. You may find us in the parking lot of a Holiday Inn Express somewhere in North Carolina finishing a chapter, while the dog whines in the backseat to escape our road-weary Jeep with 120,000 miles on it—and counting.

And counting.

Monthly Musings

Wagyu Steak Made Me Cry

By Mary Helen Sheriff

Plato believed that everything in the real world is but an imperfect shadow of some intangible ideal.

I beg to differ because last summer, while traveling in Oahu, I tasted Plato’s ideal in the form of a wagyu steak at Mugen and the experience literally made me cry. My family and friends may have relegated my quirky tears to a punchline (and it is kind of funny), but I stand by my emotional reaction to overwhelming beauty.

The talent, labor, and study required from Chef Colin Sato and his team, not to mention those people, animals, and plants behind each of the dish’s ingredients is kind of mind-boggling. None of them will ever know that they played a part in my transcendent moment. They didn’t pursue that level of excellence for my sake. They pursued it for its own sake.

It’s like that with art.

The food that comes out of my kitchen is not art, but I’d like to think occasionally my writing reaches the level of art. Literature, both the reading and writing of it, have been a lifelong passion. And though I’ve yet to read or write the perfect book, I’ve experienced much beauty in the pursuit.

Words, in and of themselves, can be beautiful, but the way an artist weaves them together can steal your breath, paint masterpieces across the landscape of your imagination, and, yes, even make you cry.

Beauty in literature, though, is not limited to the craft itself. Words carry stories full of meaning, ideas, and truths. Stories with characters, relationships, and settings that steal our hearts and poignant moments of such beauty that they linger long past the last page.

Then there is the beauty that literature can bring to our own lives. By providing a narrative arc for our own hardships, stories can impart a sense of community, purpose, and reason to our personal tragedies. Growth and healing are their own kind of beauty.

The reading and writing of imperfect books have graced my life with astounding beauty. I know I’ll never write the perfect book, but if a bite of perfect steak can garner that profound of a reaction, perhaps the pursuit of capturing beauty in words and stories for its own sake is a worthy aspiration.