The Storm next door origin story

“What gave you this idea?” 

I’ve heard that question quite a few times now. Usually with an emphasis on this, as in, “What gave you this idea?” 

It started with a news story I read online about tornadoes touching down in a trailer park in Wisconsin. But the story wasn’t really what got me. It was a picture.

Can you help identify the news photographer who took this photo?

I saw this picture and I couldn’t help but wonder about these young people. What were they feeling? How could they could tune out, if even for this moment, the world around them? Can you imagine the tornado (pun intended) of emotions spinning up young love mixed with so much destruction? Maybe one of them has lost everything. Maybe they both have. Maybe they thought they had lost each other.

I’ve long forgotten what news site posted the photo that I printed out and tacked to the bulletin board above my desk. I’ve Google image searched and haven’t come up with anything. I think it may have been either the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel or the Wisconsin State Journal in Madison. I searched again a couple weeks ago because I wanted to let the photographer know what their photo has meant to me. 

Anyway, the more I thought about the people in the photo, the more I was drawn to what might be next in their story. There was no way for me to know, of course, so I had to make it up. As the story took shape I asked myself, what’s the worst that could happen in this situation? What’s worse than an entire community losing everything?

A young girl could be missing. That would be terrible. And someone who is a threat to her could also be unaccounted for. That would be even worse.

What would the town do then? 

If you don’t yet know what the town would do then, you can find out by ordering a book here.

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