I started writing Finding Alberta in 2013.

That sentence feels small compared to what it has meant.

This book has been finding me for a long time.

In 2013 my children were younger. I was younger. We were in a different state. A different season. I did not know who I was becoming yet. I only knew there was a story sitting inside me that would not leave.

I can hardly believe those little children are now almost adults, and I have reached what could be the midpoint of my life.

I thought I was writing a novel.

What I was actually doing was entering a long conversation.

About mothers and daughters.

About the things we remember and the things we forget.

About what we miss when someone is still standing right in front of us.

If you’ve been here for a while, you already know the themes I circle. I circle them on this blog, in conversations, and in prayer. I circle them when I’m washing dishes or driving.

Finding Alberta is where those circles finally formed a shape. This book began as fiction, but like most stories I write, it carries pieces of my own remembering.

The story follows Tiffani as she returns home to Michigan and wrestles with memories of the past, discovering things that were not so secret after all. It is about how we sometimes understand a woman better through the stories other people tell about her than through the stories we told ourselves.

It is about Detroit and small towns and kitchens and quiet conversations. It is about the kind of love that is not loud but steady.

And maybe it is about this question:

Do we ever fully know our mothers?

Or do we spend our lives finding them in pieces?

I did not write this book quickly. I wrote it slowly. Through moves. Through homeschooling. Through becoming Catholic. Through working at a school. Through seasons when I almost let it go.

But something in me would not.

I wanted to finish.

Not because I wanted to prove anything.

I wanted my children to see what staying looks like.

Staying with a story.

Staying with a calling.

Staying with the quiet belief that something you started matters.

So here we are.

Finding Alberta is finally stepping out into the world.

Read more about the story and follow along with updates here:

***Finding Alberta***

Before you go, I want to thank you for your support and your prayers.

Thank you for reading this blog.

Thank you for watching this story grow up alongside my life.

One last thing. May I ask you something?

Who shaped you in ways you did not fully understand at the time?

Who are you still trying to forgive, or understand, or piece together?

Is there someone whose absence taught you something their presence never could?

This book is for readers who sit with those questions.

It is for daughters and women like me who are still becoming.

It is for anyone who has stood in a quiet room and realized love looks different in hindsight.

I hope you read it and enjoy.

With love and popcorn,

Martina