Where Do Our Creative Ideas Come From?

The essence of imagination is conjuring up an image or sensory impression from memory and then reconfiguring it to create something new. An example might be taking a memory and then asking “What if...?” But this process, like using a muscle, takes practice. The raw material for this process begins with taking the time to note an experience and your feelings about it.

I created Miriam bat Isaac from my experience in a course on the Historical Development of Concepts in Chemistry. While writing a paper on the development of alchemy as the forerunner of chemistry, I encountered a woman known as Maria Hebrea or Mary the Jewess, whom scholars believe lived in Roman-occupied Alexandria during the first century CE. Years later, when I wanted to write a mystery story, I reached back to her as the model of my sleuth and then played with the “what if?” question. What if I changed her name, invented a different life for her, and engaged her in the high-stakes theft of alchemical documents?

Accordingly, I was free to invent a new life for her. Of course, these elaborations were drawn from researching the history and culture of the time.

And so, my imagination created the first Miriam bat Isaac mystery, The Deadliest Lie. To learn more about story and the recognition it earned for its riveting suspense, just click here.