Why a Hospital Vision Inspired the Name Sweet Potato
A young woman in a hospital bed. Painkillers. Anti-venom coursing through her veins. And then—an orange and gold silky creature appears, speaking of love, urging her to search. In that moment of chemically-altered vulnerability, she names her birth mother.
This is the origin story of Sweet Potato, the novel I’ve spent the past few years writing. And at its center is a question about what we do with the people we’ve never met: how we idealize them, fill them with longing, remake them in our image.
The Birth of a Name
In my novel, the protagonist is Lorenza. She works at HerpLab, extracting venom from snakes. She handles the venomous with precision and care. But her own life is defined by one search: finding the birth mother she has never known.
It’s in that hospital bed—after her pet rattlesnake bites her—that Lorenza has a vision. The creature that appears is orange and gold, warm and comforting. It speaks to her of love. And in that moment, drugged and vulnerable, Lorenza knows what to call the woman she’s been seeking. Sweet Potato.
To Lorenza, a sweet potato baked golden and topped with butter isn’t just food. It represents something both comforting and rare—a pleasure she seldom allows herself. It’s buttery warmth. It’s abundance. So when an orange and gold vision appears speaking of love, there is only one name she can give it.
The Story We Tell Ourselves About Missing People
Writing a novel about adoption has meant grappling with something I find endlessly human: how we idealize people we’ve never met. The gap between the person you imagine and the person you eventually find can be catastrophic. Or it can be clarifying. Either way, it’s profound.
Lorenza’s search for her birth mother becomes an exploration of that gap. The name Sweet Potato holds so much weight in the novel because it embodies everything she’s longing for: comfort, rarity, the promise of being cared for by someone who loves her. For a while, the name fits.
Until it doesn’t.
If you’re adopted, or searching for your birth family, or simply navigating the complicated terrain of a family that doesn’t look like you imagined—you know this space. The gap between fantasy and reality. The question of who gets to belong. This is what Sweet Potato explores.
Coming October 1st
Sweet Potato launches October 1, 2026. It’s a coming-of-age literary novel about a young woman handling venomous snakes, searching for her birth mother, and discovering that some of the most transformative journeys are the ones we undertake alone.
Pre-order opens soon. But if you want to go deeper into the themes, characters, and ideas behind the novel before launch day, I’d love to have you on my mailing list.
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Sweet Potato will be available for pre-order soon. Follow along on Facebook for reading updates, character insights, and launch news.
Solveig