By: Clara Whitmore

Becky Bronson’s fiction doesn’t just tell stories—it interrogates the fragile places where personal struggle, social change, and human connection meet. Her latest novel, Ghosts, marks a bold turn in her career. While her first two books, When North Becomes South and Trapped in Pairadice, drew directly from lived experiences, Ghosts arrived in a way Bronson still calls “a little crazy”: the character demanded to be written.

What began as an afterthought in her second book grew into a voice that wouldn’t let her rest. “That character began talking to me after I completed the book and told me I had to write her story and it was to be about gun violence,” Bronson says. At first, she resisted, but the scenes kept coming. Six months later, she realized she was holding the bones of a new novel—one that would take her into uncharted territory.

Writing From Inspiration and Resistance

Bronson is no stranger to using fiction as a response to the world around her. Her debut, When North Becomes South, emerged from her son’s Peace Corps experience in an off-the-grid African village, where she and her husband saw firsthand how people lived without conveniences most Westerners take for granted. That trip planted the seed for a novel about society’s dependence on technology.

Her second novel, Trapped in Pairadice, came from witnessing a close friend’s destructive struggle with online gambling. “I wanted to write some kind of exposé as to how online gambling corporations were exploiting vulnerable people,” she explains.

But Ghosts was different. It wasn’t planned—it insisted. Though the book deals with gun violence, Bronson emphasizes that its true core is about human connection, friendship, and finding one’s voice.

Protecting Creative Space

Balancing creativity with daily responsibilities is a challenge many women face, and Bronson is candid about how she manages it. Her writing unfolds in stages she calls “create mode” and “writing mode.”

“When I get an idea, I’m on call 24/7,” she says. Ideas may strike in the middle of the night or while walking her dog, and she keeps tools nearby to capture them. Once she’s committed to drafting, mornings become sacred. From 9 a.m. to noon, she sets aside uninterrupted hours to focus. Protecting this routine requires discipline and boundaries, but Bronson has learned that honoring her schedule is the only way to sustain momentum.

Becoming a “Real Author”

Having published multiple novels, Bronson admits her identity as a writer has evolved. “I’m starting to feel like a ‘real author’ now, but I’ve had many other identities in my life, and this is simply one more,” she reflects. Writing, for her, is not about permanence but about embracing yet another chapter in a multifaceted life.

While she has several projects in early stages, she hasn’t yet found the idea compelling enough to commit fully. Still, she describes herself as someone who writes what keeps her awake at night—a promise that ensures future stories will remain timely and urgent.

Staying Honest in Vulnerability

Ghosts doesn’t shy away from grief or vulnerability. For Bronson, that honesty was essential. “I really wanted it to be about finding one’s voice. That was the over-arching theme for me,” she says. Staying emotionally honest meant confronting her own biases, especially around firearms. Researching guns forced her to walk a careful line: she didn’t want to be perceived as fully anti-gun, yet she needed to tell the story truthfully.

The process was both demanding and liberating. It required Bronson to refine her voice alongside her character’s, shaping a narrative that reflected complexity rather than a single perspective.

Advice for Women Writers

For women who feel a story stirring inside them but doubt whether anyone wants to hear it, Bronson’s advice is direct: write anyway. “If you have the inclination to write, then just do it!” she urges. She admits that vulnerability creeps in when the decision to publish arrives, but stresses that the act of writing itself should be free from fear of reception.

Support is key, she adds. “The thing that helped me most was joining a writer’s support group. If you can find a group of other writers who are non-judgmental and willing to share their experiences, that can be super helpful.”

What Comes Next

Looking ahead, Bronson is drawn to questions of truth and storytelling in the modern era. She’s particularly interested in the decline of local news, the fragility of journalism, and the increasing dominance of artificial intelligence. “Sometimes, when I read a news report, I feel like truth is stranger than fiction in our world today,” she notes. “If I were to write about current events as they are happening, no one would believe it to be true.”

Her next novel, she hints, will likely grapple with these concerns—continuing her pattern of weaving fiction from the threads of what unsettles her most.

Writing What Matters

Through three books, Becky Bronson has charted a course defined not by genre conventions but by courage. Whether drawing from family experiences, social crises, or voices that seem to rise unbidden from her imagination, she writes what presses most urgently on her heart.

With Ghosts, she not only tells the story of a journalist haunted by loss but also models the very journey she hopes readers will take: finding one’s voice, even when it trembles, and using it to speak truth into a complicated world.