The Town That Never Forgot: Creating Willow Creek

 

There’s something about small towns that stays with you — or maybe refuses to let you go.

Willow Creek, the setting of Song of Shadows, isn’t a real place on the map — but in many ways, it feels more real than the towns I’ve lived in. It came to life from a single question:
What if a town could remember everything — and forgive nothing?

I imagined a place where rust creeps over every signpost, where old men sit on the same benches watching everyone who returns, and where secrets grow deeper than tree roots. I chose Maine for its fog, its rivers, its silence. It felt like the kind of place where guilt lingers in the air like woodsmoke — slow, dense, and inescapable.

Willow Creek is not just a backdrop. It’s a character. A witness. And sometimes, a judge. The town knows who you were, what you did, and what you ran from. That’s why when Ben Ellit returns, the streets don’t greet him — they glare.

The town is layered: with history, decay, and memory. I built it from fragments — childhood impressions, photographs of abandoned towns, the sound of rain hitting an old Ford’s windshield. Everything in it is meant to echo what we bury — and what refuses to stay buried.

There’s more of Willow Creek to come. In the next books of The Closed Archive series, we’ll dig deeper into its history, its tragedies, and its ghosts.

Until then...

📖 Song of Shadows is available now — and it’s FREE this week on Amazon.
👉 Click here to download https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DZDCMDCH