PHOTO: Stacia Moffett, author of the Lost and Found in Tennessee series, at her sustainable home in the Pacific Northwest.
Exploring Memory History And Resilience
Stacia Moffett reflects on her Tennessee upbringing, weaving memory, history, and social justice into her novels The Missing Girl and Jessa Is Back, offering readers powerful insights into America’s past and present.
Stacia Moffett’s life has been a long weaving of science, teaching, family, and now storytelling. Born in Nashville, Tennessee, she grew up with a love for both the natural world and the written word, carrying forward her mother’s literary legacy in her own way. Her early years in the South, steeped in its beauty and contradictions, became a wellspring of memory and experience that would later find voice in fiction.
Her novels The Missing Girl and Jessa Is Back form the Lost and Found in Tennessee series, stories rooted in the fictional town of Radford but unmistakably shaped by the real cultural tensions of the 1950s South. Through the eyes of Jessa—a stubborn, spirited girl—Moffett explores segregation, friendship across racial lines, and the quiet yet profound ways in which ordinary people confronted injustice. She writes with both the intimacy of memory and the clarity of hindsight, illuminating how the past continues to echo in today’s America.
Beyond her novels, Moffett’s own journey is remarkable: from studying the nervous systems of crabs and snails to designing a sustainable home along the Snake River, from lecturing on physiology to raising three children and tending a vineyard. This depth of living informs her fiction with a rare authenticity—an ability to draw strength, resilience, and grace from both hardship and wonder.
Her work is not only a testament to the endurance of memory but also a reminder that stories are vessels of truth. By revisiting her childhood South through fiction, Moffett allows readers to reflect on history’s shadows and consider what it means to face them with courage and compassion.
How did your background and upbringing in Tennessee influence Jessa’s character and the rural 1950s setting in The Missing Girl?
I drew on my experiences growing up in the Nashville area and visiting my father’s home in Tennessee’s northwest mountains for my description of a beautiful state. As I wrote, I began to live within the experiences described in the book, and the characters of the fictional town of Radford began to show up to make their contribution to the plot. In the end, I had many characters, but each of them has an important role in painting the picture of life in Tennessee in the 1950s. As for Jessa’s character, certain of my relatives recognize my stubbornness in her.
In Jessa Is Back, Jessa challenges segregation—what real historical events inspired her introduction of integrated music lessons?
For historical events, I immediately think of Eleanor Roosevelt’s end-run around the Daughters of the American Revolution, who barred the Black singer Marian Anderson from performing at Constitution Hall – instead, she sang at the Lincoln Memorial and drew an enormous crowd. My own connection to music is deep, and I feel that it is a force that can bring out the best in people. Jessa’s project to get the school board to fund music instruction in the Black school was modest and grew out of a sincere wish to share something she knew was valuable. Music was also the factor that drew women of the town together across racial lines and the factor that led to a link between Jessa and the Black mechanic’s family. Music in America has been greatly enriched by the contributions of our Black communities, and the history of music here parallels the history of overcoming segregation.
Both novels explore racial tensions; how did your childhood memories shape the dynamics between Black and white communities in Radford?
When I was growing up in Nashville, my mother took me and my brother to the back of the bus, breaking the “color line” described in the book. The view of the Black children lined up by the fire escape to get to the balcony of the movie theater came from my own memories, as did many of the social situations in the book. Every child growing up in the South absorbs a sense of “how things are,” and for Black children, reality in the 1950’s was infused with messages of inferiority and caution, whereas for white children, there was the expectation of privilege – that the libraries and swimming pools are for them, and also (sadly) that it is appropriate to regard Blacks as inferiors. Despite having parents who opposed racist policies, I know how difficult it is to buck local tradition, so I gave Jessa a special opportunity to have a Black friend that would help her break out of the mold.
Why did you choose to interweave survival elements, such as Jessa sheltering in a hollow tree, with social justice themes in The Missing Girl?
Running away was what the slaves needed to do, to get to the Underground Railroad, so Jessa’s experience has relevance to the struggle for survival that she shared with runaway slaves. However, in terms of plot development, Jessa’s period of hiding was a time for her to gain the self-reliance that she needed to confront the racism in her town.
Jessa Is Back highlights friendship across racial lines—how did you develop the relationship between Jessa and her Negro school friend?
This relationship was actually modeled after my friendship with a Jewish girl, but what drove me to create this part of the story was an experience I had as an adult scientist attending a convention in what became my first chance to meet and room with a young Black woman who was my peer. Segregation had been so successful in keeping the races apart that it had cheated me as well as my Black colleague, and I was chagrinned when I came to appreciate the extent that society has suffered as a result. Not only must white people acknowledge that they have had all the advantages in social, educational, and financial realms, but they need to recognize that segregation robbed us all of the rich opportunities that inter-racial friendships offer.
What challenges did you face in balancing historical accuracy with fictional narrative, especially regarding Jim Crow practices in both novels?
This view of life in Radford is an historically accurate treatment of Jim Crow as it was practiced in Tennessee during my childhood, as seen through the eyes of a white girl. I wanted to end the story with hope for the future, and devised what may have been a rosier prospect for inter-racial friendship than the times would have allowed.
What advice would you give aspiring authors aiming to blend personal history, social issues, and richly detailed settings in their fiction?
My advice is to know your subject very well, and that is most easily achieved by writing about your own experiences. Writers always rip off their family, and I did that in creating these books – incorporating my mother’s and father’s stories as well as those of my husband’s family. I also benefited greatly from the feed-back provided by the many people who read drafts of the books, so I definitely advise aspiring authors to get help from friends and family willing to read work in progress.
