The Lost Colony of Roanoke

I was a middle school History teacher for a few years, way back. One of our textbooks had a blurb, one paragraph, about the Lost Colony. My students were intrigued. And while I had heard about the Lost Colony many times before, I had never investigated it fully. For some reason, it wouldn't leave me and I decided to read, research, and learn all I could about it. A story began to take shape in my mind. I devoured non-fiction books and articles about the topic. Over the years I wrote and rewrote, set aside, tossed, and re-wrote the makings of a story.

The easy and difficult parts about writing this book was that no one knows with 100% certainty what actually happened to the colonists. So basically, I could make things up, add characters, shape events. The hard part was that because this is actual history, I tried to follow events as closely as possible, while also taking a bit of creative license. There are theories aplenty. Some seem more realistic than others. I think ultimately, people choose to believe what seems most plausible to them. I chose to believe that whatever colonists remained were assimilated into native society. Based on that belief, I wrote my book. I don't believe they were "lost" at all. I think they were found.