Can you find belonging in a time and place where you shouldn’t even exist?

On a spring day in 2018 I walked alone through the gentle streets of Newburyport, Massachusetts. Two days later, I stood on a hill of wild Irish grasses meeting my ancestral grandfather in the year 1560…

After the sudden loss her mother Sara, Lindsay McDonnell not only learns of her mother’s time traveling abilities, but that she is the only heir to their secret.  From the depths of her grief, Lindsay faces the certainty that unless she follows in Sara’s wake, there is no telling how many lives will be devastated throughout the centuries.

Inspiration for author Debra Anne LeClair

Can you find belonging in a time and place where you shouldn’t even exist?

On a spring day in 2018 I walked alone through the gentle streets of Newburyport, Massachusetts. Two days later, I stood on a hill of wild Irish grasses meeting my ancestral grandfather in the year 1560…

After the sudden loss her mother Sara, Lindsay McDonnell not only learns of her mother’s time traveling abilities, but that she is the only heir to their secret.  From the depths of her grief, Lindsay faces the certainty that Unless she follows in Sara’s wake, there is no telling how many lives will be devastated throughout the centuries.

A Lifetime of Writing

How many of us are fascinated by the Tudor Dynasty, from the saga of Henry VIII’s six wives to the renaissance of the Elizabethan Era? For me, the story of that time is visceral and haunting, yet irresistible. It wasn’t until I unearthed that my own Irish ancestors tangled with the Tudors that the grip Queen Elizabeth I had on my psyche, made sense. I wrote The Common Hours from a need to explore the story as it resides in my DNA.

In my own history, I began writing fiction by 3rd grade.  Through grad school and afterwards, my writing life was exclusively non-fiction articles and book chapters in the areas of psychology, business and wellness until fiction writing grabbed me back by the hand and guided me to write novel and film scripts.

A Day in Another Life, a joint effort screenplay about a time-traveling millennial who finds himself the drummer for the Beatles made it to the quarterfinals at the Austin Film Festival in 2016, and the Script Pipeline Competition and Page International Screenwriting Awards in 2017.  My education in fictional writing has spanned several years at the Yale Writers Conference and courses at Grub Street, Gotham City Writers, The New Hampshire Writers Project and Arvon in the UK.