We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Manon Rinsma a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Manon, thanks for joining us today. Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?
In 2015, I took what felt like the biggest risk of my life—I left everything behind to travel the world with no set plan, just the certainty that I had to go. Everything in my life was ending. I was at a crossroads—anything was possible. I had no strings, no home, nowhere I truly belonged. Grief and anger still clung to me, heavy and unresolved. I knew that if I stayed, I would suffocate under the weight of it all.
Leaving wasn’t about adventure or chasing some romanticized version of travel—I wasn’t going on vacation. I needed distance, not just from a place, but from a past that refused to loosen its grip on my present. I hoped that distance might lead me to a new tomorrow. I had to step outside the framework of everything I had built because, deep down, I knew that if I didn’t do this now, I would forever regret it—and perhaps never find the kind of closure or change I so desperately needed.
That decision changed everything. What began as an escape became something else entirely—a process of unraveling and rebuilding. The world cracked me open in ways I had hoped it would, yet I hadn’t anticipated the depth of its impact. I stood in places so vast that they forced me to reflect and confront emotions I had long avoided. I met people who held up a mirror and made me see myself clearly for the first time in years. And I kept moving, chasing a horizon that always stayed just out of reach, until one day, I realized I wasn’t running anymore.
That journey is now eternalized in A Far Cry from Yesterday: Finding Tomorrow in Distant Lands. It’s not just a travel memoir—it’s a story of leaving and losing, of searching and finding. It’s about what happens when you step away from the life you thought you’d have and walk straight into the unknown. Looking back, it wasn’t just a risk. It was a necessity. And it was the best decision I ever made.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
I’m Manon, and I love to write. I think I was around seven when I first became captivated by the power of storytelling. It happened during a class assignment when a classmate stood up and shared her experience with such vivid detail and emotion that she held the entire room in silence. In that moment, I realized stories weren’t just words—they had the ability to pull people in, make them feel, and bring experiences to life.
My journey into writing began as a way to make sense of loss. Losing my mother at twelve shaped not only my perspective but also my need to capture life’s fleeting moments with honesty and depth. Words became a refuge—a place to process what felt impossible to say out loud. Over time, writing evolved into something more: a way to explore, document, and understand not just grief but life in all its complexity.
That early experience led me to write 13 Diamonds: Life Before Death from a Child’s Perspective—a raw, unfiltered account of a child navigating love and loss in the face of terminal illness. It became the foundation for embracing storytelling as both a personal and professional passion, eventually helping me find my voice.
Most recently, I published A Far Cry from Yesterday, a memoir that weaves together themes of grief, resilience, self-discovery, romance, and the complex ways our past shapes us. In it, I take the reader on a journey across four continents, laying bare my heart and vulnerabilities. It’s a glimpse into the human psyche—the longing for love, community, and belonging, the drive to want more, do more, be more. At its core, it’s about rekindling a light that had been dimmed.
My work, I like to think, blends vivid, immersive descriptions with raw emotional truth. Whether I’m writing about travel, loss, cancer, navigating relationships, or finding one’s place in the world, I strive to bring readers into the experience—not just to observe it but to feel it. I believe in the strength of sharing stories, in finding beauty amid struggle, and in the way words can bridge gaps between people, places, and emotions.
What sets my work apart? I write with honesty. I don’t shy away from the hard parts, the in-between moments, or the things we often try to suppress. I write for those who have ever felt stuck, lost, or on the edge of something new. My stories aren’t just mine—they reflect universal experiences, told in a way that makes people feel seen.
What I’m most proud of in my writing is bringing these two memoirs to completion, hoping they would help others, even though it took me many years. Writing them was an intensely emotional journey—full of highs and lows, moments of pause and bursts of momentum, silent nights and noisy thoughts. At times, it was nearly impossible to separate my real life from the experiences I was putting into words. But in the end, that’s what makes them real.
What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?
At the heart of my creative journey is the belief that stories—honest, raw, and unfiltered—have the power to connect us, heal us, and remind us that we’re never truly alone. My writing is driven by a deep need to explore the complexities of grief, resilience, transformation, and the search for belonging. I want to create work that speaks to people who have felt lost, who have stood at their own crossroads, who have questioned whether they have the strength to keep going.
With A Far Cry from Yesterday, my goal was never just to document travels—it was to capture what it feels like to walk away from everything familiar and step into the unknown. It’s about grief, love, and the quiet, unexpected ways we find our way back to ourselves.
More than anything, I want my work to serve as a reminder that reinvention is always possible. That no matter how much we lose, there is always something on the other side. That leaving, as painful as it can be, is sometimes the only way to truly find home.
What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?
For me, the most rewarding aspect of being a writer is the connection it creates—with myself, with my past, and with readers who see their own stories reflected in my words. Writing isn’t just about telling a story; it’s about making sense of experiences that once felt impossible to untangle, about finding clarity in the chaos of emotions, and about offering something that might resonate with someone else in their own moment of uncertainty.
When a reader reaches out and says, “This made me feel seen,” or “I’ve been there too,” that’s everything. That’s why I write. Because stories have a way of bridging the gaps between us, of putting words to emotions we didn’t know how to express.
With both 13 Diamonds and A Far Cry from Yesterday, it’s especially meaningful to know that what began as my own deeply personal journey has become something others can find pieces of themselves in. That, to me, is the greatest reward—knowing that through my writing, someone out there feels less alone.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/17714199.Manon_Rinsma
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/manonrinsma/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/manonrinsma/
- Other: Buy book on Amazon: https://shorturl.at/NJfxG
Image Credits
Dustin Sheffield