Nathaniel Sewell is a satirist and storyteller whose vivid, genre-spanning prose explores identity, growth, and cultural intersections with introspective depth and keen societal insight.
Nathaniel Sewell is a satirist and storyteller whose vivid, genre-spanning prose explores identity, growth, and cultural intersections with introspective depth and keen societal insight.
When I was a teenager, my friend Ernie asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. The question appeared during a time in all our lives when we realized someday soon; we would be acting like adults with jobs and doing whatever else those adults did during the day. It was a big mystery.
During a lunch break at Bryan Station Junior High, we sat beside each other, drinking chocolate milk and gnawing on cardboard pizza rectangles. We wondered why the Michelin Man-shaped kitchen ladies wore hairnets and white polyester uniforms. The loud lunchroom permeated with the timeless teenage aroma from realizing hairs formed in parts of our bodies other than our heads. It was a strange time and feeling; things were changing fast, a time we only lived through once. Mercifully.
“I want to be a writer,” I said.
Ernie was the wisest one and has been a high counsel of mine for over forty years.
“Don’t do that,” Ernie said. He smirked. “You’ll only be famous after you’re dead.”
It was a logical response, I thought. I did not want to waste my life writing words that would only be noticed after my end date. It seemed like a silly notion that encouraged me to do something practical with my life. I did.
I never let the muse get my full attention, even though I kept authoring poems and short stories, primarily for my family or wife. I always wrote my own Christmas or Birthday cards, a bespoke practice. It was my rebellious creative outlet in an otherwise normal day-in, day-out life. But it was a safe place to exist.
The funny thing is that God has perfect timing and dangles alternative paths for humans to consider. These are not safe places to exist. I do not know if we have free will or not, but I do know that we are all given unique gifts. If we do not use those gifts, they die off, and we are left to wonder the worst question of all time: ” What if?”
I have spent over thirty years in the medical malpractice insurance business. It was an interesting career journey learning about healthcare and tragedy. And my turn at the “what if?” lottery descended on me without warning on a quiet morning in my office as I punched in words to search for answers on behalf of my psychiatrist client:
The details of the psychiatrist’s tragedy I will let disappear into the clouds. But a result from the internet search came back, a study from McGill University published May 6, 2008, I’ll share the link but read it with caution.
I read this abstract. It hit me hard at my core.
What I have not shared with you was as my friend Ernie was recommending against being a writer near that busy lunch table, I was dealing with a much tougher thought. “Kill yourself,” I thought – daily. Because I was one of the many children that had experienced sexual abuse and trauma. I identified with the young men in the study.
I had no idea my simple internet search would change my life’s path. And I was quite aware it was not a safe place to exist. It was my notice from God that I would not be leaving this ‘what if?’ question behind.
I decided I was going to author a novel; it ended up being entitled, Bobby’s Socks.
After I wrote the novel, I lucked out and a regional print agreed to publish Bobby’s Socks. But I had a career that paid the bills, so, I produced the pen name.
If we had had a boy, we would have named him, Nathaniel. And Sewell was my grandfather’s first name, he was a Christian missionary in Appalachia. The brand started to exist, Nathaniel Sewell.
Bobby’s Socks terrified me, what would my friends and business contacts think. It was an honest but troubling story. The pen name gave me a little cover from questions. But eventually, they found out. And to my surprise, they all told me the same thing, “I love you.”
Those three simple words are the only words that matter.
Now, I write novels about serious subjects. I am not preaching, that was my grandfather’s calling, I am simply writing stories to share about issues bigger than me. I think literature should be about things that lift the human condition, the human spirit, or focus on something troubling.
And you know something, someday after I am gone, someone might read Bobby’s Socks. Then, I will have helped another human not make a permanent decision.
Ernie might be right; I might never be a famous author while alive. But that is okay with me if someday, I helped someone stay alive and keep searching for their own muse, their own purpose. And they too, anonymously leave behind a better world.
If you enjoy my books, I humbly express a thank you.
Whoever you are that read this far, know this, I love you.
