Going Back in Time to Write a Middle-Grade Novel
Author Donna Galanti shares how traveling back to the campground where she grew up inspired her to write a middle-grade novel.
The beginnings of my newest middle-grade story, Loon Cove Summer, took hold of me back in 2013. It’s grown and evolved since then but never let me go.
It’s also very personal with much of my real life and relationships poured into it—including my childhood lakeside campground, shared grief between my dad and myself, my love for loons and raptors, bird conservation, and the Appalachian Trail.
In the 1970s after my parents and I moved back to the United States from England, my dad’s dream was to own and operate a campground—and so we did. We bought Bethel Woods Campground in Holderness, New Hampshire, by Squam Lake (where they filmed the movie On Golden Pond). As an only-child, it was a magical place to live where I always had other kids to play with. Loon Cove Summer is a love letter to my childhood there.
Overlooking Squam Lake, Holderness, NH
Writing this story prompted me to go back in time to this campground in 2015 for a book research trip. When I drove up, I was zapped back to the 1970s. Suddenly, I was nine years old again. I swam in the pool, fished with my dad, romped through the woods, collected dead butterflies and shotgun shells, whizzed about on strap-on roller skates, played pinball machines, and spun 45 records on the jukebox. The only items remaining are those old 45s packed up in a tub. This flood of memories prompted me to journal about them before they faded.
It’s also where I had many firsts. My first dog. My first time snowmobiling. My first time fishing. My dad also got me a tackle box and took me out on the lake where he nearly rammed his Boston Whaler into a rock just so I could reel in that first fish.
With my first fish, Squam Lake, Holderness, NH, 1977
This visit 37 years later filled me with a jumble of emotions all tied up with a childhood bow. I mourned my innocent youth and my mother, who had since passed away—and relived the grief over her passing. It’s bittersweet that I can’t share this book with my dad as he passed in 2023, but I smile knowing he would have enjoyed reading it and revisiting our campground in his mind. I wish he were still here to share more stories about our time there. What a gift this would be.
Squam Lake, Holderness, NH, 2015
What did this trip back in time deliver for me as a storyteller?
- The vivid feelings of childhood—good and bad—to enrich my writing.
- A chance to revisit my creative foundations where I wrote my first stories.
- The inspiration of a majestic setting to fill my soul.
- The connection from childhood to adulthood, and how the paths we travel drive who we become.
- As a parent now, an appreciation for my own parents and their challenges of running a business and raising a child.
- That I write to understand and feel so not alone.
- Through writing I can find meaning in my past and face the future with fortitude—and peace.
- Remembered what I am in my heart: a storyteller.
Have you ever journeyed to your past to relive a time in your youth? How did it affect you? What did you take away from it?
Check out Donna Galanti's Loon Cove Summer here:
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