Patricia D’Arcy Laughlin didn’t sit down at a keyboard until a computer expert walked her into a Best Buy and helped her pick out her first Dell. Before that, she ran a luxury home development business with her husband, raised three children, and somehow still found time to become an award-winning artist known for a technique she invented herself: staining on wood.
Writing came later. But once it came, it came from somewhere deep.
“There existed lots of goddesses, and goddesses together with gods,” Patricia told me, describing what she discovered while touring ancient ruins across the world.
That discovery became the spiritual backbone of her contemporary romance series, The Sacrifices and Kingdoms Series, which follows a Trinidadian-American woman navigating love, faith, and identity across continents.
We talked about her unconventional process (she writes when an idea wakes her at 2 a.m., not on a schedule), her decision to skip the query-and-rejection cycle of traditional publishing entirely, and the “book shepherd” who guides her through the parts of independent publishing she’d rather not handle alone.
Patricia also shared the moment she realized just how much courage it took to write a book in the first place, and why she still believes anyone who finishes one belongs in a very small, very brave club.
In this episode:
• How decades of world travel reshaped Patricia’s understanding of faith and history
• Why she chose independent publishing over chasing literary agents
• The role of a “book shepherd” in the self-publishing process
• Writing on inspiration’s schedule instead of a fixed routine
• Her dream dinner guests: Gandhi, James Michener, and Barbara Taylor Bradford
Find Patricia and her books:
