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

Jamie's grandpa travels with Jamie after he's died. He died when Jamie was little, so she has few memories of him, but I'd imagine what she has are fond. What if Grandpa John--or any grandparent for that matter--could write a letter from beyond the grave?