When Place Becomes Memory and Memory Becomes Story

Lately my writing desk has felt like a crossroads. Three very different projects are alive at once, yet all of them are pulling me back through the same doorway. The way place lodges itself inside memory, and how those memories quietly shape the stories I tell.

Me from left to right Thailand in the Jungle, with my bike at the end of RideLondon and out in the wilds of Patagonia.

As I work on The Story Behind Thai Die, I’ve been rereading my old Thailand diaries — sun‑creased pages full of details I’d forgotten I’d ever noticed. The smell of street‑side cooking at dusk. The way the heat settles differently in Bangkok than it does on the islands. The small, human moments that later became the emotional spine of Thai Die. Those diary entries aren’t just notes; they’re time capsules. They remind me that the story didn’t begin on the page. It began in the places that changed me.

At the same time, editing Don’t Die for Me, Argentina has stirred up a completely different set of memories. My trip to Argentina last year keeps resurfacing as I work through each chapter: the vastness of the landscape, the rhythm of the culture, and unexpectedly, the dreams of my childhood — horses, freedom and wanting to be a cowgirl. It’s funny how a place you visit as an adult can unlock a place you lived in as a child. Those echoes find their way into the writing fully intentionally to add authenticity and that sense of knowing.

And then there’s the return of The Story Behind My Stories podcast, where I’m recording The Story Behind Lethal Leith Hill. Suddenly I’m back in 2012, remembering the Olympics, the training rides, the Surrey Hills and the exhilaration of completing Ride London 100. Those memories aren’t just nostalgic; they’re physical. My legs remember the climbs. My lungs remember the cold morning air. My mind remembers the determination. All of that energy feeds the storytelling in ways I couldn’t fabricate if I tried.

What I’m realising is this: Place isn’t just a backdrop. It’s a trigger. A catalyst. A keeper of the versions of ourselves we once were.

And when I write, whether it’s crime fiction, travel‑infused adventure, or the behind‑the‑scenes stories that shaped them, those places come back to life. They remind me who I was, what I felt and why the story mattered in the first place.

Right now, my creative world is full of Thailand’s heat, Argentina’s vastness and the rolling green of the Surrey Hills. Three landscapes. Three sets of memories. Three projects that, together, are teaching me the same thing:

The stories we tell are born from the places that stay with us.

Have a great week,

Helen xx