Laurie asked Carley Fortune:

Did you spend time on a lake as a child growing up? Your descriptions of the lake and the magical summer feelings we experience as younger people were so clear and beautiful in your book! I loved every second of it.

Carley Fortune I did! And thank you so much. When I was in fourth grade, my family moved from Australia back to Canada. Instead of settling in Toronto, where I was born, my parents decided to make our cottage in Barry's Bay our home. Readers of EVERY SUMMER AFTER will know that Barry's Bay serves as the setting for the book. I grew up much like Sam does in the book. We lived down a dirt road, in the middle of the bush, on Kamaniskeg Lake. Most of the homes on the road were cottages, but we were year-round residents. I spent my summers swimming and reading on the dock, and when I was older, working at my parents' restaurant in the evenings. In a lot of ways, ESA is a love letter to the Barry's Bay and Kamaniskeg Lake. (There really is a jumping rock!)

My parents sold the house ten or so years ago, but every summer, I rent a cottage in the area. In 2020, I stayed there for all of July and August and I was feeling very nostalgic for the summers of my youth — that's when I started writing ESA.

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