Journeys: Anabaptist Echoes

There are many types of journeys...

Some are physical, taking you from A to B to C to D. Others take place entirely inside your head. You find a snippet of information, an unexpected link to the past, and before you know it, you have travelled ten years down a historical road, following in other people’s footsteps.

Their journey

In 1711, families were exiled from Switzerland to the Low Countries. Banished. They left behind homes, livelihoods and certainty, carrying little more than belief and resilience. They did not know where the road would take them, only that they could not stay.

But decisions had been made. Lines had been drawn.

As the tree falls, so it lies.

300 years later, my journey began differently. With curiosity, not crisis. But in its own way, it became just as consuming.

Along the way, you learn. Unknown places become familiar, even loved. Old street names turn into landmarks. Market squares fill again with voices. You begin to ask questions. Who rattled that sabre? Who betrayed that Anabaptist family? Who dared to speak out?

The past stops being distant. It becomes lived in.

You begin to imagine it: the way the sun sets across the Alps, families gathered at St. Silvester. You try your hand at spinning, learn to weave, all the while thinking and plotting, until the story lives in your fingertips.

And always, the questions return. They left their homes. Lost everything. For what? For freedom of religion. For the right to live in peace.

But at what cost? To live forever in foreign lands. To never return. To be banished. Exiled.

Choices made. Consequences carried.

But then something shifts.

The distance you have been holding on to disappears. These families are no longer just names in records or stories half-told in archives. You look closer. You follow one line, then another.

And you find them.

Your people.

From those mountains. Those valleys. Those same narrow tracks you have been tracing for years.

They did not just pass through your research. You come from them.

After that, everything changes.

They are no longer subjects. They are no longer even companions. They are part of you. And they are no longer quiet. They sit on your windowsill as you work. Go on, they insist. Write us down.

So another journey begins.

A blank page. A journey to Switzerland. A stay in a mountain hut where the air itself feels like part of the story. Now you can smell it. Almost touch it. And then you are hooked.

You read. You research. You write. You cross out. You begin again.

Time loosens its grip. The journey from A to B no longer matters; you’re heading for C.

Until one day, it is done.

And then comes the question no one warns you about. Now what?

A novel does not belong in a drawer. It wants to live. So you take the plunge.

A submission. Another one. You wait.
A prize.
A longlisting.
A publisher says yes.

Another decision. Another turning.

Is it the universe speaking? Or is it the story?

You take a deep breath. They sit on your shoulder, whisper in your ear:

Say yes.

A crossroads. Another journey.

A website.
A blog.

Because ten years of research cannot fit into one novel. Not even close. There are still stories waiting, perhaps for these pages, perhaps for another book.

A is for Anabaptists, found in my ancestry.
B is for beginning, and for being bewitched by their history.
C is for courage, to write, to submit, to share.
D is for destination, wherever that might be.

So come with me.

Across the Alps.

Into the Low Countries.

Through forests as far as Pennsylvania.

Follow the paths of the exiled. Krahenbuhl, Kratzer, Lötscher, Aschbacher, Kneubuhl and more.

This journey is far from over.

Annemieke