One of the settings in Travelers is Ikaria, Greece. It took only one short magazine article, The Ageless Island in the June 2012 issue of ISLANDS magazine to give me the idea. Why couldn’t the people of Ikaria, who live well into their 90s, be mythical merfolk? Ikaria’s reputation could disguise their identities when they aren’t under the sea. I loved mermaids since I was a child. I also liked the idea of time travel, so putting the two together was a dream come true. All I needed was to decide where their story could take place. The prequel was written after the duology was finished because the merfolks’ backstory wasn’t fully developed inside my mind. They came from a water planet, but where did they live when they arrived on Earth? Why were they forced to live among the humans? All these questions got answered in my books, and today I revisit one of the inspirations to help celebrate Travelers turning six on April 20. It was my first young adult book published and what a journey I’ve had since then. I have learned a lot about writing and marketing since introducing that book to the world. I sometimes wonder if I wrote Travelers today, what I would change, but I don’t go backwards. I can’t. There are too many other stories aching to get out of my head and time isn’t on my side. Ikaria, Greece Ikaria has been labeled the island where people forget to die or the island of long life. There are good reasons for these descriptions of Ikaria. The people there live on average 10 years longer than those in the rest of Europe and America – around one in three Ikarians live into their 90s. Maybe if I lived there, I would have more time to write. There are very few Ikarians with dementia, cancer, heart disease or suffer from depression. The people live simply with low stress, hard work, and they put family first. They have a combination of healthy diets, clean air, and optimism that also helps with their longevity. Despite their history of starvation due to invasions of enemies and war, they managed to come out stronger. The island is actually named after Icarus, the young man in Greek mythology who flew too close to the sun and plunged into the sea. It sounds like a truly beautiful place to visit. If the opportunity arrives, I want to visit Greece someday. Maybe I'll unknowingly meet some mermaids. www.islandsmagazine.net/
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