In April of 2022 I travelled to Africa for the first time. It will not be my last trip. It was an eye-opening, mind-blowing experience. I felt that as a Canadian born white man I simply could not write a novel about Africa without travelling there to get a sense for the countries, their peoples and, frankly, whether or not I got it “right”. I was in the final stages of my “developmental edit” of the book with my publisher, Greenleaf, and my lead editor, Erin Brown. The developmental edit is pretty much the last opportunity to make substantial writing changes to a manuscript, so I had to go. I think I had about 85% of the “feel” right. But my accuracy on the socio-economic and political environment in the subject country of my fictional story benefited significantly from my visit. I met with many business and political leaders who were interested to share their perspectives. I am happy to call these people my friends, all of whom are eager to read my book, fictional or otherwise.