New York Times bestselling author Virginia Kantra is the author of over thirty novels about strong women, messy families, and the search for a place to call home. Her stories have earned numerous awards including two Romance Writers of America’s RITA® Awards, and two National Readers’ Choice Awards.
Her novels, Meg & Jo and Beth & Amy (inspired by the classic Little Women) received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and the American Library Association’s Booklist and praise from People Magazine.
“I was pretty sure the world didn’t need another novel about a confused, entitled Sad Girl trying to figure out her life. But right now, that was all I had.
Maybe, if I went home, I’d find a different story to tell.”
From Anne of a Different Island
In my latest novel, Anne of a Different Island, my main character’s carefully scripted life hits some major roadblocks. Her beloved dad has just died, her doctor boyfriend is making choices without her, and her teaching job is in peril. Unsure of her path forward, Anne returns home to Mackinac Island. I deliberately made her a writer, following in the footsteps of her fictional role model, Anne of Green Gables. What I didn’t expect when I started this book was that writing Anne’s story would teach me important lessons about imagination and resilience and finding your own way—and that her return to Mackinac Island would help me move forward in my own writing journey.
Here’s what I learned from Anne that I plan to carry with me into the New Year.
Imagination is our super power.
The original Anne—the OG of Montgomery’s series—observes the world and transforms it through the power of her imagination: the White Way of Delight, the Haunted Wood, the Lake of Shining Waters. She notices things. Capturing that same quality in my Anne reminded me that that’s what writing does. Good writing forces us to look at the world around us.
It sharpens our sense of observation and awakens our sense of wonder. Paying attention is more than a technical skill; it enriches our lives.
Writers are fanciful by nature. It’s easy to imagine the worse. But we also have the power to be fully present in the moment and to spin those moments into whole worlds.
Perfectionism stifles creativity.
Anne blurts out whatever is on her mind. Her over-the-top tendencies made for some great comic moments in the book. They also made me acknowledge that those impulsive, expressive parts of myself are the things I tend to suppress/edit the minute I sit down at my computer. That kind of self-censuring can leave us staring at a blinking cursor or clicking through social media, paralyzed by the fear of making a mistake. Anne doesn’t care about all that. She never stops talking, and that eventually gets her to what she has to say. Be an Anne, especially when you’re writing the first draft.
Showing up counts.
That doesn’t mean that Anne isn’t riddled with insecurities and self-doubt. She is a writer, after all. There is so much noise in our heads: doubt whispering in our ears, disaster plucking at our sleeves, news clamoring for our attention, family making demands, on-line chatter about crowded markets, shrinking visibility, underperforming sales, pitches that go nowhere. But Anne is resilient. She shows up.
You don’t have to pretend everything is fine. Honestly, the fact that you’re upset is a sign that you’re alive and paying attention. But fiction gives us a safe place to explore what’s troubling us—to work things through on the page, to celebrate what is, and to imagine what could be.
“Be with the work,” a therapist once told me when I’d hit my own creative roadblock. Stop doomscrolling. Set a timer. Don’t check your email. Remember to breathe. Routine can help. Light a candle or play Wordle, make your bed or swaddle under the covers. Whatever works for you.
It’s okay if you’re not on the same path as your friends.
In Anne of a Different Island, part of Anne’s arc is realizing that she grieves differently than her mother. She makes different life choices than her best friend. She can’t be the real-life, modern-day version of Anne of Green Gables. She can only be herself.
What your friends, fellow writers, or that wildly successful person on Instagram are doing doesn’t have to dictate your choices. There will always be someone—maybe lots of someones—with a better advance or ad strategy or daily word count than you. Their success is not your success. Their path is not your path. Some of us are on the way to second homes and appearances on bestseller lists or morning news shows and some of us are looking for that Motel 6 at the edge of town. But that stuff doesn’t define you or the quality of your work. We are all out there on our own roads, carrying our own little backpacks stuffed with talent, opportunities, and emotional baggage. We are all writers, kindred spirits, keeping one another company, pointing out the potholes, helping each other out of the woods. Celebrate your friends. And be kind to yourself.
Going home can be the best way forward.
When Anne returns to Mackinac, she sees everything with new eyes. The island hasn’t changed, but she has. Her return is not a retreat. It’s a chance to stand on familiar ground long enough to find her footing. That shift in the light, in her perspective, gives her the courage to decide what she wants.
For nearly nine years, I’ve been reimagining the stories that made me: Meg and Jo. Beth and Amy. Dorothy Gale. Like Anne coming home, the comfort of beloved stories has given me a safe place to figure out what I have to say and the confidence to move on. So, in 2026, I’m setting off again, working on a new kind of story.
It’s a little scary, traveling without a guidebook. There will be bends in the road. Plot twists happen in life as surely as they do in fiction. Outside the covers of the novels we write, there are no guaranteed happy endings. But Anne teaches all of us to trust the path even when we cannot see the future, to navigate our publishing journeys, and—ultimately—to write our own stories.
See you on the road!
Anne of a Different Island by Virginia Kantra
Inspired by Anne of Green Gables, this heartfelt novel follows Anne Gallagher, a lifelong dreamer whose carefully imagined life begins to unravel after loss, heartbreak, and a forced return to her childhood home on Mackinac Island. Confronting her past—and the people she left behind—Anne must let go of the story she thought she was living and learn how to write a truer, braver ending of her own.
Leave A Comment