Readers ask me a version of this question a lot: "Is Brett Poole based on your dad?" The short answer is no. Brett Poole is not my father. He's an Egyptologist who used to be a paleontologist, for reasons no one — including his own daughter — can get him to explain. He disappeared when Jamie was six months old. He keeps secrets the way other people keep houseplants: quietly, persistently, and with a great deal of guilt he refuses to discuss. None of that is my dad's story.

There is a moment in the Jamie Poole Diaries (Destiny of the Departed) when a character named Nassor the Jackal, clan chief of Larupus, stands in his hall and makes an accusation against his own daughter. He blames her for the death of her mother. He blames her for the weather.

Every family carries its share of generational trauma. Some inherit the pain; others inherit the strength to endure it. Resilience doesn’t erase scars—it simply refuses to make them the center of the story.

A Jamie Poole Diaries character blog — on Za'id, diversity, and what it means to be two people in one body

I've spoken of how family relationships have influenced my creativity in the book series and in the tarot deck. This is my paternal grandmother. Most of the tea cups I used in The Time Travlers Tarot are hers. To say they've traveled is to put it mildly.

There are moments in a life that become portals. You don't always recognize them when they happen. They look ordinary — a Saturday afternoon, a bookstore, someone handing you something and saying, I think you'll like this one. I did.