By Julie, SO enjoying this wonderful weather here in New England
This week I went on a wonderful field trip to Duxbury, Massachusetts. I lived in Duxbury until 9th grade, so it is a part of my formative youth. I hadn’t been back in years, but when I was creating Goosebush for the Garden Squad series, I decided to model it on Duxbury. The town was as beautiful as I remembered when I drove through that winter day, and it sparked a dozen ideas for Goosebush.
Now I’ve written the third book in the series, and I decided to take another field trip. I’ve asked by niece to create a map of Goosebush, so I wanted to give she and her sister a tour of the town, but to tell them the story of the series during the tour. “This is where Lilly lives”, “This is where Ernie’s store is”, “This is where Warwick works”, “This is where the Star is”. Those sites interspersed with “that’s where we grew up”, “that’s where your mother had her bike accident”, and “that’s how we got to the beach” made for a wonderful, full day.
The picture above is Hall’s Corner. In my memory there was a Woolworth’s there, on the right. That’s where the Star is in my mind. In the 80’s there was a not great redo of the buildings, but my recent visit shows the charm of the place has been reclaimed, though the building are all one-story now.
Here’s a video I did showing where Goosebush and Duxbury meet:
Now, Goosebush is inspired by, not a replica of, Duxbury. I’ve changed the coastline a bit, added rotaries, changed some of the architecture. But I’m fortunate to be able to visit my inspiration, and will do it more often. Tilling the Truth will be released in August (and is available for pre-order now) so I’ll be showing more pictures of my excellent field trip on social media in the coming weeks.
Readers, what do you think of my map idea? Do you enjoy tours of the places that inspire our series?