Statement by author, K. Molder, about the story The Historian’s Daughter:
Though my job requires me to create scholarly content, I often write fiction. I do so for mental health. The story that follows is one such work, drawn from actual encounters but a work of the imagination.
Archivists encounter hundreds of people a year to promote our repositories, teach archival literacy, and meet donors interested in giving materials to the archives. Many of our donors are older, in declining health, or transitioning to assisted living facilities. These encounters are always highly emotional for the individual and their family members. Many of these folks have suddenly found themselves making decisions for a parent or loved one, not knowing that person’s wishes. Others simply have a deadline to empty a house and feel compelled to find a home for every scrap of paper. Highly charged emotions and deadlines never mix.
I have learned in my twenty-plus years in this profession how to interact with donors where they are. But I never learned how to let go of those emotional encounters, and I unknowingly stored those raw emotions and energies. My journey has taught me how to live in those donor moments and to let those energies go afterward. A coping strategy is to write fictional pieces.
I give here one further caveat, for those thinking of the archival profession: I use in my fiction a pen name. This is part of my own privacy and that of the people on whom I base my stories.
Keeping (and Telling) the Past 