Storied Charlotte
Storied Charlotte
  • Home
  • Storied Charlotte
  • Monday Missive

Contact Me

Office: Fretwell 290D
Phone: 704-687-0618
Email: miwest@uncc.edu

Links

  • A Reader’s Guide to Fiction and Nonfiction books by Charlotte area authors
  • Charlotte book art
  • Charlotte Lit
  • Charlotte Readers Podcast
  • Charlotte Writers Club
  • Column on Reading Aloud
  • Department of English
  • JFK/Harry Golden column
  • Park Road Books
  • Storied Charlotte YouTube channel
  • The Charlotte History Tool Kit
  • The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Story

Archives

  • May 2025
  • April 2025
  • March 2025
  • February 2025
  • January 2025
  • December 2024
  • November 2024
  • October 2024
  • September 2024
  • August 2024
  • July 2024
  • June 2024
  • May 2024
  • April 2024
  • March 2024
  • February 2024
  • January 2024
  • December 2023
  • November 2023
  • October 2023
  • September 2023
  • August 2023
  • July 2023
  • June 2023
  • May 2023
  • April 2023
  • March 2023
  • February 2023
  • January 2023
  • December 2022
  • November 2022
  • October 2022
  • September 2022
  • August 2022
  • July 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013

Tags

American West anthology Black History Charlotte Charlotte Lit Charlotte Readers Podcast Charlotte writers Civil Rights Movement cookbooks fantasy adventure novels fantasy stories fiction foodways genre fiction graphic novel historical fiction historical novels Judy Goldman Legal Thriller lesbian characters lesbian writers Levine Museum Main Street Rag memoir middle-grade novel mystery novel mystery novels mystery series nonfiction novel novels Oz pandemic picture book picture books poetry poetry collection President Jimmy Carter Promising Pages Reading Aloud The Independent Picture House urban fantasy Verse & Vino Writers young adult fantasy novel

Jonathan Heaslet and the Story of How a Whispered Secret Turned into a Novel 

April 05, 2025 by Mark West
Categories: Storied Charlotte

Hannah Larrew, one of the co-hosts of the now defunct but deeply missed Charlotte Readers Podcast, recently sent me an email with a tip for my Storied Charlotte blog.  She wrote, “I wanted to touch base with you about a Charlotte author I’m working with, Jonathan Heaslet, whose debut novel, East of Apple Glen, may make for an interesting piece on Storied Charlotte. It deals with several relevant topics, including the role of the church in our culture, LGBTQ inclusion, and sexual assault. He has an interesting background in that he served as a minister for many years, which gave him a unique outlook on organized religion and some of the major issues that can be found within the system.” 

Intrigued, I did a little research on Jonathan (Jon) Heaslet and his soon-to-be released novel. Jon has lived in Charlotte since his retirement from the ministry in 2014, but his novel is set in a small town in Ohio in the heart of Amish country. Jon served as a minister in this part of Ohio. One day a member of the congregation whispered a secret to him involving sexual exploitation in the local community. This secret haunted him for years, and he eventually decided to use it as the starting point for his novel. 

In writing East of Apple Glen, Jon drew heavily on his experiences as a minister. I contacted Jon and asked him for more information about his background and how he came to write East of Apple Glen.  Here is what he sent to me:

I grew up in what is now Silicon Valley. My grandfather once owned a farm that’s now headquarters for Google. My parents sold their house in the 1960s after I left for college. It’s now worth 10-figures. I should be writing you from a Caribbean island instead of a modest home in Charlotte.

My undergraduate degree is from the University of Iowa, mathematics. My wife and I left Iowa City the day we graduated and came to North Carolina, Linda to teach in the Durham City Schools the first year they desegregated and me to earn a master’s in economics at Chapel Hill. 

After a stint in the Army, stationed in Kansas, Indiana, and Fort Bragg I (not Fort Bragg II), I began work with the North Carolina Medicaid Program. An offer from the organization that now goes by Premier Healthcare brought Linda, our son, and me to Charlotte in 1981. 

After ten years at a computer terminal, I longed for a vocation that involved engaging with people. I went on a yearlong sojourn that ended with my answering a call to Eden Theological Seminary in St. Louis. After being ordained in the United Church of Christ, there followed a call to serve a small church in Amish country Ohio. It was a Swiss-German congregation where historically (as in 125 years), they had alternated between French speaking and German speaking pastors. 

I did a lot of listening, eating a lot of sponge cake, drinking a lot of lemonade, learning that an Amish haystack was both a conical pile of hay and an open-faced sandwich topped with meat, mashed potatoes, all awashed in gravy. I learned to be alert to whispers. In a town of 279 residents, it’s nobody’s business means that it’s everybody’s business.

Amish bonnets do a good job of focusing whispers while hiding faces and lips. A mother approached me regarding an Amish bishop who had sanctioned incest in his district as a means of preventing teenage boys from “going English” (leaving the Amish sect). This mother, who had taken me aside, steadfastly refused any outside intervention by police or social services or any government entity. “We take care of our own” was her pronouncement. She was seeking a different — the proper, can I say? — Biblical exegesis to take to her bishop. 

I never saw her again, but her whispers are etched in my mind. 

Following retirement and return to Charlotte in 2014, I took up writing. Write what you know is the cliche. Write what you have heard is what I began to do. The whispers. The anguish. The losses. The regrets. They eclipsed the weddings and baptisms. For over twenty years, I had been like the Receiver of Memory in Lois Lowry’s The Giver.

But the whispers of that Amish mother never left me.

Maureen Ryan Griffin finally sat me down and focused my efforts in her class titled Under Construction. With her help and the perspicuity provided by women in the group, there emerged a novel of abuse, rape, and incest, all shrouded in secrecy: East of Apple Glen.

I wrote the story through the eyes of a young man, Nathan, fatherless and bullied as a child, who escaped his small hometown after college, but is forced to return when his mother and grandmother die unexpectedly. Added to the mix was a childhood friend, herself with a history of abuse, to accompany him on his journey through grief. I intentionally avoided the words “victim” and “survivor” to reinforce that recovery is not a noun, but a verb, as in “surviving.” A day-to-day effort to get beyond trauma.

As with the biblical Nathan, the question was would he have the courage to reveal the truth.

After discussions with Hannah Larrew, we intentionally decided to launch East of Apple Glen in April during Sexual Assault Awareness Month. We are hopeful that a novel, my novel, can be a positive supplement to the nonfiction resources for those “surviving” sexual assault.

I am excited to have Nancy Stancill interview me at my book launch at Park Road Books, Saturday, April 26, 2025, at 2 PM.

For readers who want to know more about Jon and his writing career, please click on the following link: https://www.jonathanheaslet.com/

I congratulate Jon on his new novel, and I commend him for shining a light on the often-hidden issue of sexual assault.  East of Apple Glen is not a light-hearted story, but it is a novel that is likely to make a difference in Storied Charlotte and beyond. 

Tags: Jonathan Heaslet
Skip to toolbar
  • Log In