A Blast from the Past

All the great posts this month about settings have inspired me to write one of my own. My first two books—The Man for Maggie and With This Ring—were set in a fictional small town on the east coast. For the next two books—titles TBA—I zipped across the country to the amazing and very real city of San Francisco.

Using this well-known city as a backdrop for a story has been a lot of fun, partly because its interesting neighborhoods have a lot of small-town characteristics, and also because so many aspects of the city have become cultural icons.

My favorite neighborhood is Haight-Ashbury, named after two of the most famous streets in the county.

What comes to mind when you hear the name Haight-Ashbury?

The ‘60s? Hippies? Flowers in your hair? Rock and roll?

Even if you weren’t part of that culture (I certainly wasn’t) or if you are too young to remember it (I'm definitely old enough), the name of that neighborhood probably represents something.

I first visited a couple of years ago and one thing jumped out at me right away. William R. DeAvila School—formerly an elementary school—is one block from that oh-so-famous intersection.

My imagination immediately kicked into overdrive. What would it have been like to raise a family or go to school in that neighborhood in the ‘60s and ‘70s? Right away those questions led me to a story about two people whose parents were members of that generation, and residents of that neighborhood.

The hero and heroine of this story moved away from Haight-Ashbury, and now both are back, albeit for very different reasons. I’ve had a lot of fun writing their story and I’ll soon be working on the sequel, which is set in another intriguing San Francisco neighborhood. Stay tuned.

Peace!

Lee