Stephanie Jane: A DAUGHTER'S JOURNEY by Myra Lee Glass

Book Details:

Book Title:  A Daughter's Journey by Myra Lee Glass
Category:  YA Fiction (Ages 13-17), 132 pages
Genre: YA Historical Fiction / Adventure
Publisher: Coleche Press
Release date:   Feb 2023
Content Rating: G: Written for a high school school project :) by a highschooler

Book Description:

The year is 1938 and a family in the small South Carolina town of Beaufort faces serious adversity. After the birth of her long-awaited son, Mary Banks dives into a dark postpartum period, throwing her into a deep depression. Thinking that her sister, Rose, is offering her a helping hand, Mary leaves her family and goes to Boston in search of a medical cure, not to be heard from again.

Where is Mary Banks? What has Rose done with the much-loved mother and wife of the Banks family? Finally, Mary’s 15-year-old daughter, Estelle can wait no longer. She gathers her wits and her courage and without a word, runs off to heroically rescue her beloved mother in faraway Boston. This is where the adventure begins……

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Author Interview with Myra Lee Glass

What I Think Makes a Good Story

I think what makes a good story differs for each reader and writer, but to me what makes a good story is the effect it has on me after I am done reading. Some books I can close, tell myself, “that was good.”, and then move on, but the books that keep me thinking about them for days, weeks, and sometimes months afterwards are the ones that I consider truly amazing. Maybe that book had a character that I really connected with, or maybe the way the author was able to connect different ideas and emotions together was astonishing. Everytime I finish a book, emotions either roll over me all at once, affecting my mood, forcing me to dissect every part of the book in my mind for ages, or I put the book back on the shelf and think about it every now and then. I listen to music so much, and even though it seems strange, I know a story was thoughtful and well planned if I can thoroughly associate a song with it. After reading “The Ballad of Song Birds and Snakes” by Suzanne Collins, I listened to “I Bet You Think About Me” by Taylor Swift for weeks after, associating every lyric with every single scene in the book. After a good book, I can sit in my bed with my little pink journal, and write cohesive poems and songs about it. If I can tell someone else that I wish I could erase my memory and read a book for the first time again, I know that book did its job of being an astounding story.

Does Writing Energize or Exhaust me?

For me, both. I think any teenager can agree with me, that doing something when you HAVE to do it is a lot harder than when you WANT to do it. For example, maybe I thought to myself, “Oh, my room is looking a bit messy, maybe I should clean it later.” But then the moment my mom or dad asks me to clean my room, it becomes the last thing I want to do. That's what writing became for me. I could spend hours creating storylines and characters for fun in my free time, but when deadlines and editing started to get included with that, it became a lot more difficult for me to get done. I would always remind myself that this is something that I actually enjoy, so I shouldn’t let a deadline that is built in to help me be my downfall. Some days, all I can think about is new stories, characters, themes, and ideas, while others I don’t think I muster up enough brain power to even write a sentence. If I am feeling exhausted but want to continue writing, I’ll blast music as loud as I can and type away. Music can put me in any mood. While writing my book, I would change genres based on the theme of the scene. I would blast Taylor Swift if I wanted the scene to be more lighthearted and inspiring, Hozier for a more sad scene, or even Green Day if I wanted the scene to feel angry and upsetting. Writing can put me in any mood, whether it is energized or exhausting, but I also have to decide when the right time to write was, and when the write time to relax was.