Episode Details

What if it isn’t too late to write another chapter of your life?

In this episode of Thought Atlas, I sit down with Faye Roots, an Australian author and storyteller whose writing has spanned fiction, memoir, poetry, children’s literature, and spiritual reflections.

Faye tells us that she has lived for 41 years on a remote property and now lives in a retirement village near the beach, where she continues to write short reflections for her blog. She says she promised God many years ago that she would continue writing for as long as she was able.

Our conversation begins with a question that has followed Faye since childhood: What is truth, and what is imagination?

Faye reflects on growing up with different influences around faith and spirituality, including a grandmother who read teacups. As a child, she began wrestling with questions about God, the Bible, belief, and the difference between what we perceive and what is real.

That search for truth eventually became intertwined with her identity as a writer.

Faye explains why she believes creativity is a gift from God and why she has always wanted her writing to point toward hope rather than despair. She talks about writing fictional characters while drawing on historical accuracy, allowing her to explore ideas without directly representing the lives of people she knew.

The conversation becomes deeply personal when Faye discusses Shafts of Gold, the memoir she says contains the absolute truth of her own life. She wrote it after her daughter, before her death, asked Faye to write the truth of her life. Faye also reflects on her experience with breast cancer and how that journey became part of the memoir.

We explore the difference between writing fiction and writing your own story, and Faye shares how imagination became a way of navigating difficult experiences. She describes imagining herself walking along a beach while undergoing treatment and explains why that beach became symbolic to her.

Faye also recounts an imaginative journey involving Antarctica and a later discovery that she says closely resembled an image she had imagined. She uses the experience to reflect again on the difficult boundary between imagination and what she considers truth.

Faith remains central throughout the conversation. Faye talks about questioning her spiritual direction, an experience in which she says she heard an audible voice telling her to leave Scientology, and the prayer that followed: “Follow the light. Live in the light.” These are Faye’s personal experiences and beliefs, shared as part of her story.

But perhaps the most universal part of our conversation comes at the end.

Faye argues that age does not determine whether you can still create something meaningful. Whether you’re 20, 80, 90, or older, she believes you may still have a story that can bless the next generation.

Her advice is wonderfully simple: if something you see or experience impacts you, write it down. If you can’t write it yourself, tell someone who can record it for you.

Because every life has something worth remembering.

And sometimes the next chapter begins with nothing more than a sentence written in a little book.

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