The Tears of a Painter

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A little introduction to The Tears of a Painter and how it came about: there’s a quote by Toni Morrison that says

If there’s a book you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.

That’s The Tears of a Painter in a nutshell— a story I would love to read. It’s a coming of age story about a tender but tormented friendship always balancing on the edge of something more.

Imagine, perhaps, One Day with a little more adventure.

I wanted to take the reader to a place they may have never been— somewhere not in North America, so I chose East Africa, where I was born and raised. I wanted to set the story against the backdrop of a historical event which perhaps needed a little more attention, so I chose the 1994 Rwandan Genocide. I traveled to Kigali just as the civil war had come to an end. At the time, my father was working on reconstructing the grounds of the SOS Children’s village there, and I got a chance to visit. A couple of the later chapters are violent, but I will preface them with trigger warnings. There’s tragedy, but there’s also beauty and love. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

You can take a peak at Chapter One here:

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Now a little bit about me: my name is Ingrid.

I’m a service dog puppy raiser. In the picture with me is Morley. She went on to be a wonderful hearing dog.

I’m a mixed baby. My father is Austrian, my mother is Indian and I was born and raised in East Africa. That was where my parents met and fell in love and raised me and my brother until I was 16 and we moved to Austria, giving me a big, whopping culture shock.

Three-year-old me with my family at a hot springs near Naivasha in Kenya

Now, I live in Canada, and I’m a wife to the most extroverted man on the planet. (I’m a clear introvert. It’s why you’re meeting me on Substack instead of in real life.) I have two boys, a 23-year-old extrovert (not as intensely extrovert as my husband) and a 17-year-old introvert (far more intensely introvert than me; he also has a Substack haha).

Me with my family at a recent escape room expedition

I write fiction— mostly. But I also write a non-fiction newsletter about my culinary adventures.

I’m a tea drinker. God, I love a good cup of tea. Although I’ve had to cut down on the number of them I drink a day because of quality of sleep and such.

I’m on a perpetual journey to try and break-up with my phone (it’s not going well).

I started learning the piano a year-and-a-half ago, and I love it almost as much as I love my children (I hope they aren’t reading this. If they are: I promise Mummy loves you more than any musical instrument or hobby in the world). In his book Four Thousand Weeks, Oliver Burkeman talks about how hobbies have started achieving the status of the radical.

In an age of instrumentalization, the hobbyist is a subversive: he insists that some things are worth doing for themselves alone, despite offering no payoffs in terms of productivity or profit.

This is how I feel about my new found love - the piano. It brings me such joy, despite depleting my bank account (piano lessons are expensive!).

I hope you enjoy reading The Tears of a Painter as much as I enjoyed writing it. And also– don’t believe what they say about introverts. Deep in our hearts we long to meet you. All is to say: Please introduce yourself, I would love to meet you.