To start off 2024, I’m excited to announce Heretics of Piedmont: A Novel of the Waldensians as part of a unique giveaway! The organizer of this giveaway, Jayna Baas, had such a creative idea to promote an amazing collection of books that literally spans centuries of faith. As a side note, one of the books in this giveaway, Whose Waves These Are by Amanda Dykes, was one my wife and I read together.

Continued from Part 1 I sat on a church pew one Saturday morning watching my children practice their Christmas program. It was going to last almost two hours, and I didn’t have anything except a notebook to occupy my mind. Three days earlier, I had finished planning my first novel, but other than about thirty pages of notes, I hadn’t yet written anything. I wanted to write it, but I needed something to propel me into the actual first draft.

How did I find myself writing a story about Renaissance-era religious dissenters? Since I can remember, I’ve had a love of geography. Some of my first memories were from watching the 1990 animated movie, The Rescuers Down Under. There’s a short scene where the heroes relay an important message from New York City to Australia. The camera zooms out to show a map and how a telegraph message went from point to point, halfway around the globe.

“A trailer for a book? Really?” Trailers for movies have been around for a long time, but it wasn’t until video distribution became simple in the mid-2000’s (especially in the advent of YouTube) that book trailers came into existence. For Heretics of Piedmont, I read from multiple sources that a trailer is helpful, but not totally necessary. I didn’t pursue it until just before that book’s release in September 2021. Video production is not at all something I was comfortable with, so I scoured Fiverr for a seller who could develop in a style I liked.

Did you know the Waldensians had their own translation of the Bible? It was probably translated from an Old Latin version (often called the Vetus Latina, not to be confused with Jerome’s Latin Vulgate) into Old Occitan (also called Romaunt or Provençal over 1,000 years ago. In Heretics of Piedmont and its sequel (whose name is yet to be revealed), I wanted to add a couple places where the Waldensians quoted or read from the Bible in their native tongue.

Part way into writing Heretics of Piedmont I found myself typing the phrase: “after a few minutes.” I paused, shut my eyes, and doubts entered my mind. That wasn’t the first time I had used a phrase like that, but it felt like I should check into it. Heretics of Piedmont is set in the 15th century—1458 to be precise. Did people even think in minutes and seconds then? Did numerical time-of-day exist in the common person’s mind?

No … but I imagine that answer lacks sufficient explanation. This article is my opinion based on my education and recent research, yet it’s far from scholarly. I do, however, want to explain my conclusion as one who has thoroughly enjoyed studying about the Waldensians: a historic, dissenting branch of Christianity predating the Protestant Reformation by at least 400 years. They are also the subject of my novel, Heretics of Piedmont, the first part in a series I have titled Witnesses of the Light.

Have you ever read a story—whether a novel or a children’s book—where you rolled your eyes at the unbelievable? In fantasy and fairy tales, we expect to encounter extraordinary or even absurd characters, people, and settings. That expectation allows you to continue on and enjoy the story despite the fiction. But if we experience a contrived plot or unfactual statement, no matter the genre, we feel cheated and deflated. I would say the genre of Heretics of Piedmont, historical fiction, has a similar but deeper challenge.

We are in an age of endless information—one might even argue too much information. Not only can we find a diagram illustrating the Pythagorean theorem in seconds by reaching into our pocket and tapping a glass pane a few times, but we also know minute life details of our friends, acquaintances, and strangers around the earth. For most of us, information is both easy to access and readily available. I decided to write Heretics of Piedmont in the fall of 2020.