white asparagus

Imagine this. You are nine or ten or eleven years old. In your “tweens” as the hip kids call it. Or is that “cool”? You have moved to a foreign country “overseas” because your father was stationed there and you are experiencing non-American food for the first time. Belgium. A little country partially notable by the fact that NATO exists within it. (And so much more…)

First, it is all hotel food because there are no quarters available for you and your military family in SHAPE, Belgium (Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe). And the food is good. I mean, really good. We’re talking fresh fruit, chocolate croissants, and Belgian waffles. My mom complained that she gained a pound for every day we were required to stay in that hotel. I don’t remember how long. It was too long for nine-year-old me. I just wanted a home and my things around me.

Then we were there. Living in a 300-year-old manor house in Brugelette, Belgium in 1979 because “the franc was so good.” The backyard was bigger than any school playground I’d ever played in before. The house had history. Real history. This is where “Dear Penpal, Belgium 1980” was born. “Dear Penpal, Belgium 1980” is a unique, middle grade-appropriate ghost story told through 24 physical letters that I am kickstarting from March 26th to April 26th.