Author Talk: June 10, 2026
JOURNEYING HOME is a sweeping, dual-timeline love story that begins in the early 1900s and unfolds across generations. In this interview, Emily Saxe Nydam talks about her inspiration for her debut novel, her thoughts on fate and destiny, the meaning of home, and why she includes poetry in the book.
Question: What inspired you to write JOURNEYING HOME? Are any of the characters influenced by people in your life?
Emily Saxe Nydam: The book is, in fact, loosely inspired by a real person -- my own great-aunt. She was born in the late 1800s and became a nurse, an ambulance driver in WWI, a poet, and a social worker. She lived in a row house in Richmond, Virginia (which is still there, although much gentrified), with three of her sisters. None of them ever married. She gave me a keepsake box that, much like the keepsake box in the book, was moved from house to house until finally, when my boys left for college, I had time to explore its contents. I started asking myself a lot of “what if” questions, and slowly a plot started taking shape. (Just to be clear, though, the love stories in my book are completely fictional!)
Q: Throughout the story, it feels as though something greater than herself is pushing Gwen to Richmond and to reconnect with her family’s history. What are your thoughts on fate and destiny?
ESN: I think that fate, destiny, whatever you want to call it, is real. Sometimes we make our own, but sometimes connections overtake us. Have you ever thought back on an experience --- maybe an encounter, a sudden feeling of being pulled in an inexplicable direction --- but in hindsight realizing that that path is the absolute right one? That feels like destiny to me.
Q: There is something really beautiful about Gwen’s relationship with her adult son. Even though he has a busy life, we see him being very supportive and encouraging. Have your own experiences with motherhood informed how you wrote these characters and this relationship dynamic?
ESN: I think I wrote about the “ideal son”! In real life, I have twin boys who are now “grown and flown,” and my relationship with them definitely inspired the character of Rob. I'm lucky to have great relationships with both of my sons to draw on!
Q: House and home are big themes in the book. The story is anchored by the row house in Richmond, but we also start the novel with Gwen packing up the house she’s lived in for decades with her family, which no longer feels like home post-divorce. What do you want readers to take away about the meaning of home after reading JOURNEYING HOME?
ESN: Home is a feeling --- of belonging, of love. Home is the place that draws you in.
Q: Many of Lizzy’s chapters open with one of her writings, in many cases poetry. Is poetry one of the ways you also express yourself as a writer, or was this fully unique to the character?
ESN: Great question! I have never really tried writing poetry, and I have never thought of myself as a poet. But I felt compelled to honor the talents of my great-aunt. At first, I thought I'd use some of the actual poems my real great-aunt actually wrote, but after going through some of the manuscripts she left in my keepsake box, I realized they weren't quite what I thought Lizzy would have said. I decided to try my hand at crafting the poems that felt more like Lizzy. The poems in the book are what I imagine Lizzy might have composed.
