PHOTO: Cher Gatto, award-winning author and advocate for healing through story, pictured during a moment of reflection in her writing sanctuary.
From Desert Dust To Fictional Grace
Cher Gatto opens up about writing from personal pain, faith in dark places, and the unexpected journey that led her from a horse ranch to publishing powerful redemptive fiction.
Cher Gatto writes from the marrow of memory, the edge of ache, and the quiet hope of redemption. Her fiction pulses with real lives—their rawness, beauty, and unbearable fracture—transformed by grace. In every sentence, there’s an undercurrent of truth that’s been lived, not imagined, and it is this authenticity that gives her work such potent resonance.
Her years in Mexico, working with at-risk youth and vulnerable women, have deeply informed the narratives she crafts. These are not stories created for drama’s sake, but because silence is too heavy a burden. In Something I Am Not, and its poignant sequel Something Else, she gives voice to characters shaped by trauma but not defined by it, drawing readers into the delicate yet urgent journey toward healing.
Gatto does not flinch from darkness; instead, she gently walks her characters—and her readers—through it. Her storytelling is an act of compassion, born not from detachment, but deep proximity to suffering. Yet, her pages are not overwhelmed by sorrow. They are seeded with hope, anchored by faith, and drawn always toward the light.
In her world, stories matter—not as escape, but as evidence. That even in the most shattered places, there is a way home.
What inspired you to begin writing while living off-grid in the desert?
The truth is I never meant to be a writer. It’s something that happened to me when I wasn’t looking. Our family (myhusband, five kids, and I) lived in Mexico for ten years developing a horse ranch for children, at-risk youth, and broken families. Our co-workers also ran a women’s shelter, and we used the horses to bring healing and a sense of belonging and hope to the women. I say women, but most were children (13, 14, 15 years old) trying to raise babies of their own. Some had been drawn out of trafficking, andmany of their own children were a result of abuse, rape, or incest. Their stories tragic and incomprehensible.
About a year after we got on the field, the shelter closed from a dangerous breach in security. All the girls had to be sent back to where they came from. We could do nothing. Nothing at all, but watch them go. A few months later, I saw one of the girls escorted by her “father.” When our eyes met, the vacancy in hers shattered my heart. I will never forget it. Then one day, while I was cleaning a horse corral, I had Billy’s story. Not the whole thing, but a piece of it. Just one distinct scene, actually.
I hid myself away whenever I could for months and wrote furiously. I had no idea how the story would unfold, or even what themes would develop. In truth, I had no idea it connected to my life at all. Three hundred and fifty pages later, I was done. And I guess it was all in there, needing to come out. I realized later that Billy’s journey had given me the key to process and heal from things I saw around me but couldn’t change. Things that broke my heart.
I needed a different ending—a redemption story.
I thought I was done after that. One novel in me and that was it. But one turned into the next and the next, and now I’m hooked.
What challenges did you face while writing about such dark and emotionally intense subject matter?
There were times writing the novel where I walked around my kitchen and cried. I guess that was when I knew the story had gone deeper than me. The hardest part was the day I met “Billy” in real life, only a female version. I had been told by a friend that a reader wanted to meet with me, that she was angry at me for writing the story. I didn’t know what to anticipate when I agreed to meet with her face to face. I invited her to dinner and we sat at the table together. She said to me, “How did you know about all of this? No one is supposed to know.” And that night, she shared her story for the first time, one that had been kept hidden for decades. Somehow, Billy gave her a voice to speak out. To begin the long journey of healing. She is a dear friend now, our hearts are forever entwined, and would she have been the only person to ever read my story, it would have been enough.
Can you share what the transition was like from writing Something I Am Not to crafting its sequel, Something Else?
I had never intended to write a sequel to Something I Am Not. But so many of my readers following its release said, “Please tell us what happens to Billy now.” His journey of healing had really just begun at the end ofthe first story, and I thought a sequel could potentially explore that further. What I didn’t know is that there were many things left unsaid in the first novel, and Billy and I still had a lot to discover together. Slipping into his skin again was like walking arm-and-arm with a best friend.
What role does faith play in your storytelling, especially when exploring themes of trauma and redemption?
Billy’s story, and I think every story I write,is really about never being too far away, too hidden, too broken to be redeemed. Billy’s journey is a spiritual allegory of living under the wrong “father,” the lies that distort and rob us of who we are and where we truly belong. And the freedom in finding the right one.The thread of eternity was in himall along waiting to be birthed. And when he saw it, there was no place else for him to go but home.
How do you emotionally prepare yourself to revisit painful scenes or moments while editing your work?
The story never leaves me. The moments, I suppose, exist outside of time. It’s never about going back because I’ve actually never left it.
What advice would you offer to other authors who feel called to write from a place of deep personal experience or brokenness?
Yes! Write. The world needs our stories. Sometimes we think our past disqualifies us from having an impact on others. But our stories, when surrendered, become sacred ground. And it is exactly here, in the brokenness, that we offer the world the courage to heal.
