I love nonfiction. It plays a needed role in our psyche. I hunt for it and use these tomes in my research.But fiction is as essential as the air we breathe.When lives were never fully recorded, storytellers do the remembering.
Still a Storyteller
Right before I sat down to finish this essay—and to record this podcast—I completed the copy edits on my thirtieth book.
Thirty books. Nine with traditional publisher, Kensington Books. I am proud of all the writing I’ve done, but I’m particularly proud of A Deal at Dawn, a novel I’ll be talking about more in 2026. I’m proud of it for a simple, powerful reason: I told a story, a complete story, one with a beginning middle, climax and end.
When I was growing up, being called a storyteller didn’t always carry a positive meaning. Sometimes it was a euphemism for someone who told lies. Years ago, I was interviewed on a podcast by a preacher who genuinely could not understand why fiction mattered. He kept circling back to the same question: Why are you writing lies? As if nonfiction were the only form of truth that could be wholesome or valuable.
I love nonfiction. It plays a needed role in our psyche. I hunt for it and use these tomes in my research.
Fiction has the ability to transform, to tell a message or moral, and to leave impact in ways nonfiction or true to life people can often miss. When lives were never fully recorded, storytellers do the remembering.
Historical Fiction is important for marginalized groups. We often don’t have cradle-to-grave records of most human lives. Especially before computers, there are gaps—vast ones. The Truman Show, was a 1998 movie where Jim Carrey played a man whose entire life was scripted, recorded, and broadcast on television. I found the concept terrifying. And now, in our real world, where our apps listen to us, ads stalk us, and algorithms search for the precise moment where we are most vulnerable to be persuaded the invasion of our privacy is true.
I merely wish that all the people watching and recording… that all this was for our good. Instead it shapes narratives—often not to preserve truth, but to exploit it.
When I wrote Fire Sword and Sea, I had to piece together the life of Jacquotte Delahaye using the records of her contemporaries—white Europeans like Anne Dieu-le-Veut and Michel Le Basque. These lives. Anne’s and Michel’s were deemed important by the chroniclers. Their records survived. Jacquotte’s did not. That absence does not mean her life was less meaningful or less extraordinary. It means the people left to tell her story were also label unimportant. They weren’t given the opportunity to record and make sense of history.
I am profoundly aware of how fortunate I am to be in a position to tell stories like hers, about bold women who dared to dream and live different lives.
In the absence of storytellers, we are surrounded by people presenting lies as nonfiction and weaponizing so-called “truth” to influence the next generation.
I call on the storytellers to step up and do their job—those who care deeply about history, those willing to tell the good and the bad and, yes, sometimes the ugly, alongside the beauty—need to come forward and write. And if you can’t write, share the stories that moved you. Talk to friends about the storytelling that matters.
I watch the news and see stories about modern- or present-day activities being suppressed. There are times in 2025, where I wonder if storytellers will survive. The number of writers particularly in marginalized communities who’ve been impacted, by layoffs, positions eliminated, and those just so tired that they quit—I wonder about those storytellers in the upcoming years. It seems scary.
Don’t believe me, track Publisher Weeklys deal announcements or the sections that announce firings.
Traditional publishing is hard, impacted by an unwillingness to support authors or that they don’t want the heat that can come by championing true facts in a world where truth is something people want to shut down. I don’t know what it means to exist in a nation where only certain truths are permitted, while others must be redacted, distorted, or denied. How can anyone claim strength if they shatter at the mere presence of truth, hard ones that you want suppress?
There are days I look at the screen, I don’t know what to say.
Today, as I finish my thirtieth book—a novel that places sickle cell anemia, an ancient disease, at its center—I find myself asking: What is the truth of a “happily ever after” when forever is not guaranteed?
That may sound like heavy material for fiction. But that is exactly what storytellers do, make hard topics understandable and compelling. Storytellers want to sweep readers away from the status quo. Storytellers want to bolster a reader’s courage and humor. Sometimes, storytellers show paths where none seem to exist. Storytellers offer encouragement. And we, storytellers honor and tell the truth. All of it.
So even though the world feels shaky, I’m still here. I will still tell stories. Prepare to be sick of me.
Please stick around and join me on this journey. One of my goals for 2026 is to have bigger conversations with my heroes—people who ve dedicated their lives to storytelling that changes the world. I’m not just a reformed engineer. I was once a reporter for a college magazine. I’ve interviewed Desmond Tutu, Wynton Marsalis, and After 7. That doesn’t mean I’m a brilliant interviewer; it means I am lucky, persistent, and unafraid to put my mind to something and make it happen.
I plan on making a lot of things happen in 2026.
I need you with me in this upcoming year, in this season two of Write of Passage. I’ll continue to share essays about what I’m feeling, grounding them in history and context. And maybe—just maybe—I’ll also share conversations with heroes who are still faithfully putting pen to paper, fingers to keyboard, film to camera, who are telling the stories that shape and change our world and build up our resilience.
Books to make you a better storyteller or to make room for one In your life:
The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human by Jonathan Gottschall — A non-fiction exploration of how storytelling is fundamental to human psychology and culture.
Languages of Truth: Essays 2003–2020 by Salman Rushdie — A collection of essays about literary creativity, storytelling, myth, culture, and the power of narrative in human life.
And go watch:
The Truman Show (1998) — A chilling meditation on surveillance and manufactured truth, where a man discovers his entire life has been scripted, sold, and watched.
This week, I’m highlighting M. Judson through their website and Bookshop.org.
We are twenty+ days away from the release of course Fire Sword and Sea on January 13th, 2026. Caribbean women pirates—Black women pirates join French and Indigenous women to sail the seas in disguise. Imagine what their true is. Help me get folks talking about this novel.
Consider purchasing Fire Sword and Sea from M. Judson Booksellers or one of my partners in the fight, bookstore’s large and small who are in this with me.
Come on my readers, my listeners. Let’s get everyone excited for January reads.
Show notes include a list of the books mentioned in this broadcast.
You can find my notes on Substack or on my website, VanessaRiley.com under the podcast link in the About tab.
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