Why ‘Swimming in the Light?’
 

Using ‘Swimming in the Light’ as the title to my new writer’s website may seem overly cryptic and misleading regarding my novels. The phrase is not a decision I fretted over for hours. The four words, ‘Swim in the light’ are thematic in my newest effort, Just To Be Fair, and are spoken by a cameo character. They are an important four words that popped back into my head when I saw the photo of grandson Rory bathed in a tunnel of light streaming down through an upper window in their house. Light being one of the primary symbols of good since the Bible, the image of a four-year-old swimming (well, standing, staring) in the light simply seemed right.

​

Only one of my novels, Birdbrain, is openly moralistic, but I wrote that one to show my grandkids that the challenges and temptations of the preteen years are not new to them.

 

Not surprisingly, my Civil War and Texas Ranger novels are not especially moralistic, but they all do include good people wrestling with the specter of slavery, and the southern mores that prevented any acknowledgement of interracial kinships.
 

Even in A Different Dragon Entirely, my flying horny toad dragon Leine grapples with light vs. darkness after a century-long practice of non-interference in the conflicts of humans. When her new teenage friend calls on her to help rescue women captured by raiding Comanches, Leine has the choice to accept the heretofore dormant human side of her nature, or remain in the dark, just a giant flying (swimming) mutated reptile.
 

There you are, cryptic or not, that’s why I think ‘Swimming in the Light’ is a apt phrase that links to each of my novels. Your feedback is welcomed.