Author FAQs with Jim Stovall

Where did you get the idea for the story?
I got the idea for The King’s Legacy from some historical reading I was doing about the Middle
Ages. I have always been fascinated with this time period and thought it would be a great backdrop for sharing powerful lessons.

How do you write as a blind person?
As a blind person, I write by dictating to a very talented and capable person here in my office
named Dorothy Thompson. Other writers and editors are always shocked that we work this way, but through twelve books and over five hundred syndicated columns, it has come to feel normal for Dorothy and me.


How do you describe things you have never seen?
As a blind person, I am able to describe things I have never seen through the reading I have done. When I could read with my eyes as you are reading this page now, I never read an entire book cover to cover. But over the last twenty years as a totally blind person—thanks to a high-speed tape player and audiobooks—I consume, on average, one book each day. Reading has taken me to times and places that I otherwise would never have known.


Are the characters and lessons patterned after things in your own life?
I think the characters and the lessons in The King’s Legacy do relate to my own life. I think all writers of fiction draw on people and experiences that they have encountered. The King’s Legacy is a work of fiction, but great people and great lessons have presented themselves
to me over the years, and I am pleased to share them in the form of this book.