I love Indiana. My roots there go back several generations. It’s where I’ve spent some of my most glorious and also my most heartbreaking days. Summers in Indy included firefly hunting, catfish dinners, frozen custard, and Wildcat Creek.
I was thrilled to write about a setting so dear to my heart, but because it’s fiction, I made a few tweaks for story flow and continuity. I’ve also played with the geography to make it work for me. I beg the forgiveness of Hoosiers who notice the changes. Landmarks like the Wabash River, Wildcat Creek, Fort Ouiatenon, Eiteljorg Museum, and Prophetstown really do exist and can be visited, though they’re not quite as close together as I’ve made them.
My grandmother, Connie Wick, was instrumental in stopping the creation of a dam in Wildcat Creek that would have flooded farmland and been an environmental disaster for the state. So the Creek has been part of my family’s history for many years, and it felt right to have Juliet find solace along its banks.
Carmel is a real town, and was home to an actual Helios Tea Room. I changed the store’s layout, its merchandise, its design and decorations, and how it’s operated. While Joi is its fictional owner, Kathy Kraft was Helios’s actual proprietor. Unfortunately, between the writing of this story and its publication, Kathy lost her battle with cancer and Helios was closed.
Feast of the Fireflies is not real, but Feast of the Hunters’ Moon happens each year in October, near West Lafayette, at the real Fort Ouiatenon. It is a full reenactment and does have food, merchandise and crafts demonstrations. As the song says, I do so love to be “Back Home Again in Indiana” when I visit.