Why I Wrote The Despair of Kréchellia

Sometimes stories begin in the most unexpected places.

For me, The Despair of Kréchellia began in 2006 while I was a graduate student at Millersville University. I was taking a course on Middle English poetry with Professor Steve Miller, and for our final project he gave us an unusual amount of freedom.

Instead of writing a traditional research paper, I asked him a question.

"What if I wrote an original epic poem using several different Middle English verse forms?"

To my surprise, he smiled and simply said, "Yes."

That one word changed far more than either of us realized.

The story itself wasn't entirely new. A few years earlier I had written an undeveloped short story about an elven princess, a watchman of men, and a kingdom on the brink of tragedy. The assignment gave me the opportunity to revisit those ideas, but this time through the lens of the medieval poets I had been studying.

As I immersed myself in works like Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, The Canterbury Tales, and other medieval literature, I became fascinated by the musicality of formal verse. Every poetic structure carried its own rhythm, its own emotional weight, and its own way of telling a story.

Rather than write the entire poem in a single style, I divided The Despair of Kréchellia into four sections, each employing a different traditional verse form. As the story grows darker and more tragic, the poetry itself evolves alongside it.

Of course, there was another influence that had been shaping my imagination since childhood.

J.R.R. Tolkien.

Like so many fantasy writers, I was captivated not simply by his stories, but by the sense that Middle-earth had existed long before The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings. There were ancient wars, forgotten kingdoms, songs, poems, and legends that hinted at a much larger history.

I wanted to create that same feeling.

At the time, however, I had no intention of writing a novel.

The Despair of Kréchellia was simply a standalone epic poem.

Or so I thought.

Years later, as I continued developing the world, I realized the events of the poem were only one chapter in a much larger history. Questions began to emerge. How did the kingdoms of Darthnor and the elves become divided? Who was King Thagnor, whose bridge is mentioned in the poem? What ancient catastrophe reshaped the world? Why did so many characters speak of a sorrow that seemed to echo across centuries?

Those questions eventually became The Last King of Äncalë.

Ironically, although The Despair of Kréchellia was written first, it actually takes place roughly four hundred years after the events of The Last King of Äncalë. The poem became a glimpse into the world's future, while the novel explores the tragedy that set so much of that future in motion.

Looking back now, I'm grateful Professor Miller said yes to that unusual final project. What began as an experiment in Middle English verse eventually became one of the foundational pieces of the world I've spent the last two decades building.

It's a reminder that sometimes the smallest opportunities—a classroom assignment, an undeveloped short story, a single encouraging professor—can become the first stones in a road you never expected to travel.

And for me, that road eventually led to Kréchellia.

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Have you read The Last King of Äncalë? If so, you'll discover familiar names, places, and legends woven throughout The Despair of Kréchellia. And if you're beginning with the poem, you'll be catching a glimpse of Krechellia's future long before you witness the events that shaped it.