When we look back on our earliest memories, chances are we will find them heavily infused with “setting.” For it is “setting” that inspires fondness, stirs the senses, captures wonder and ignites fears. How did you, and how will your characters, interact with “setting?” For it is that connection between character and setting that brings a story to life.

Remember how it felt the first time you hiked a creek barefoot and felt the warm slosh of water between your toes? The first time you caught sight of a blazing saffron sunset? Or felt as small as a grain of sand when you gazed out at the ocean, or into the velvet depths of the night sky? Perhaps you found yourself surrounded by the terrifying splendor of mountain peaks and felt a breathless rush of awe. Perhaps you sat gazing into the orange crackle of a campfire as an older sibling shared spooky tales; or explored the cold musty depths of an old house, adventuring into its cracked corners and cupboards, hoping to discover a secret passageway.

Our memories of setting are particularly strong throughout our middle-grade and teen years; and are inextricably tied to an awakening sense of the wonder and turbulence of our rapidly expanding worlds. We remember every detail of the places we played, the settings that defined home and comfort; as well as remembering our surroundings when we first tasted danger and unease. We remember the sights, sounds, smells, taste and feel of “setting” during those wildly exciting, yet anxious and unsettled years. And because those settings and how we interacted with them are so emblazoned on the pages of our memories, immersion in them is essential to the middle-grade stories we write. Setting helps to forge the bond between a middle-grade reader and “story.”

Boy On Bench

My middle-grade grandson, connecting with “setting.”

A year and a half ago, I found myself far from home in an incredibly beautiful, but physically challenging environment where I had gone to help out a family member following a difficult surgery. In this setting, “home,” and the need to find my way back, took over my writer’s soul and became the inspiration for my middle-grade novel-in-verse, The Midas Trees (West 44 Books 2025). In The Midas Trees, setting creates both tension and longing for my main character, Pearl. It defines “home,” and fuels hope, taking the reader directly to the heart of her story. And I have come to realize that this is often true for me and other writers as well; setting inspires story.

Because of that, writer’s workshops are often held in soul-soothing, setting-rich locations. Over the years I have attended multiple workshops at the Highlights Foundation Retreat Center, in Milanville, Pennsylvania. There, nestled among the rolling hills and wooded creek-side trails; nurtured and cozy in my very own writing cabin, I was able to drift back to my middle-grade years and unleash the writer-within.

Most recently, I attended a setting-driven retreat, offered by Whale Rock Workshops, on Prince Edward Island, Canada (the childhood home of both L.M. Montgomery and her middle-grade heroine, Anne of Green Gables.) For an entire week, along with fellow author and dear friend, Edie Hemingway, (whom I met at a Highlights workshop), I soaked up “everything Anne,” from the beloved pathways, fields and ocean, to the “haunted forest” and much-loved house that served as the model for Green Gables. During the course of the week, under the spell of Prince Edward Island and the tutelage of middle-grade author, Gary D. Schmidt, and editor, Shelley Tanaka, I produced an entirely new first page for my middle-grade novel-in-progress.

Small Cabin

My cozy writer’s cabin at Highlights Retreat Center in 2021

DJ Brandon - Statue

Soaking up “setting” with L.M. Montgomery on Prince Edward Island in 2024

One page?” you might ask. But it was monumental. It changed for the better an opening that I had been immovable on, and offered opportunities moving forward for my use of “setting-as-a-character” that I had been struggling to achieve since I began the story more than four years ago. (Mind you, the manuscript had been put aside multiple times, for projects like The Midas Trees and Tell Me Why the Jack Pine Grows.) But I digress. The point is “setting,” and my main character’s interaction with it, is once again leading me forward, forging a bond between reader and story. One day, I hope to actually finish this project. And when I do, you can be certain that setting will play a key role!