The Finding Distance Story

When my son Daniel was ten years old, I took him to a friend's fencing birthday party. Halfway through the afternoon, he turned to me and said, "Mom, I found my sport."

Not only did he find his sport, I found my role as a fencing mom. 

I’ve been a soccer mom, karate mom and baseball mom. Fencing Mom was a new one for me. I took him to his lessons and practices at the club, I took him to local competitions. Then, when he was 14, I took him to his first Nationals. It was exciting, exhilarating, and overwhelming, all at once.

I’d never seen elite athletes in their element, so close up. The power and the beauty of completion were revealed to me. The  determination of the fencers. The victories and heartbreaks. The blood, the sweat, the tears all left on the piste,. 

As a screenwriter I thought, this is a story I want to tell.

I want to tell the story of the power of this sport and how it helps kids, teenagers, and adults, navigate their way through fencing and life. I’ve seen what it does for my son, and by extension, for me.

Every writer has a moment when a story finds them.

For me, that moment happened standing beside a fencing piste, cheering for my son.

That's how I became a fencing mom.

And that's how Finding Distance was born.