A Letter to my Readers

Some things you may or may not know about my writing journey

Over the past several months, I’ve been encouraged to see new readers and subscribers taking a peek at “Stories of Vietnam.”

My dad and I and his map of Phu Quoc, the island he used to stage his evacuation on April 30, 1975.

One can always read the welcome and overview on my homepage, but today I felt inspired to retrace my steps a bit by way of introduction.

Let me start by saying:

Greetings! I’m so glad to be meeting you on the page this way, for stories come alive in some magical way between the writer and the reader, between the storyteller and those whose ears are tuned to listening.

The magic happens in the connection, that inexplicable space between us.

The journal where it all began.

I began writing about Vietnam in 2012 when both an outer request and an inner message propelled me into what has become a dozen years of inquiry and reflection that finally resulted in a narrative nonfiction* book, For the Love of Vietnam: a war, a family, a CIA official, and the best evacuation story ever heard.

To write of Vietnam seems a hubris . . . yet I get waves of goosebumps as I write this.
~August 12, 2012

I soon realized that my journalism bachelor’s degree was not going to be enough to get me through the arduous process of working on this as-yet-undefined project. And so in 2013, I enrolled in the Solstice MFA in Creative Writing Program in Boston.

Some of MFA support system.

Going through the rigorous master’s program offered me both lessons in hard skills and much-needed emotional support in tackling the difficult and complex subject.

There I learned about a style of writing that has been key: creative nonfiction.

creativenonfiction.org

I was both encouraged and humbled by this description in Writing Creative Nonfiction by Carolyn Forche and Philip Gerard:

It's a fascinating enterprise, this business of trying to tell the truth about the world through writing that is at once factual and literary. It calls for:

• a reporter's investigative determination,

• a photographer's eye for detail,

• a historian's sense of documentation,

• a poet's passion for language,

• a storyteller's feel for narrative arc,

• a detective's nose for truth,

• a travel agent's ability to organize an itinerary,

• some wise forethought,

• a little courage to put yourself on the line,

• a pencil and paper, and

• a bit of luck.

A bit of luck indeed. I hunkered down and worked hard spending hours reading, researching, and writing draft after draft. I was much encouraged, then, when one of my mentors commentated on an early submission:

What a powerful, moving, informative, engaging, readable project! Full steam ahead, but before then, I hope you . . . take a moment to pat yourself on the back, really acknowledge to yourself that YOU. ARE. DOING. IT. ~David Yoo, 2013

It was exhausting work!

In 2014, another mentor encouraged me:

So much is right in this! I am so intrigued by what’s coming. I want to know about the family, the journey, the narrator’s experience, how you will link family to personal story. And the sense of mystery and vulnerability embodies in this little girl’s story. Go for it – you’re ready! ~Anne Marie Oomen

Though my teachers had faith in me and I was champing at the bit to wave a magic wand and call all my efforts complete, my journey with this material was not going to resolve that quickly. There were many roads to travel yet.

A Saigon skyline and a Phu Quoc sunset, 2015.

In 2015, I made my way back to Vietnam both to revisit the place where I’d spent much of my eighth year and also to retrace my father’s footsteps on his April 1975 evacuation. Click here to see a 21-photo overview.

After I graduated as the class speaker in 2016, I returned to the “real life” reality of full-time employment but continued to work with the material in my spare time.

It wasn’t until the summer of 2023 that something catalyzed in me and I knew it was time to put it all together between two covers. A format for my entire Vietnam story finally came to me. With so many disparate parts of the story, it seemed the only way to put it together.

Part 1: Man on a Mission | Universal third person.

In this section, I write about my father as if I’m reporting for a news periodical; just the facts, ma’am: who, what, when, where, and why.

Part 2: A Family Adventure | First person + historical documentation.

In this section, I blended childhood memories with family history gleaned from my mother’s letters as well as historical information gleaned from a variety of sources. Click here to see my partial annotated bibliography.

Part 3: The Final Days | Creative nonfiction.

This section is written in close third person. This is where the genius of creative nonfiction section really comes into play. As I explain in the introduction to this section:

I was not on my father’s evacuation and never heard a cohesive tale of events. However, I’ve read widely, visited the locations in Vietnam, and conducted numerous interviews . . . With all these resources, I have—in what I hope is the best storytelling fashion—written a creative nonfiction narrative of the evacuation.

As I prepared for the publication of the book in August of 2023, I chose to begin this Substack newsletter as a way to keep the conversation with readers going. A book is a fixed thing; a site like this allows us to revisit and expand upon the stories in the book—and many others:

I have been honored to feature stories by many other writers including Karen Kaiser, David Polomiski, Deb Merion, Maribeth Theisen, David at Postcards from Vietnam, and Kay Merkel Boruff. I hope to share many more!

My father and I. He wrote to me often when he was away.

Thank you for spending this time with me and for considering what the Vietnam Era means to you and to those you love.

The question of Vietnam, the war, is too big for any one of us to tackle, but through our moments of personal contemplation, perhaps something new might transpire.

As Danielle Trussoni wrote in Falling Through the Earth:

. . . although twenty thousand American children were orphaned by the war, it was only when I looked at my own life that I saw the hole that Vietnam created, for all of us.

As we approach the 50th anniversary of the end of the war (April 30, 2025), I see signs that people are sewing up that hole with attention, with kindness, with hope. I’ve been doing my best; I hope you’ll continue on the journey with me.

Until next time,
Kat

The paperback is available through Bookshop.org (which supports local bookstores) or on Amazon, where an ebook purchase is also an option).

Kat-Fitzpatrick.com.