My Yesteryear
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Attending an eclectic writing group Jo noticed the memoirists’ unending quest to frame their personal narratives.
In a discussion with a screenwriter, Jo remarked, “If I ever write a memoir, it’ll be a screenplay, or a novel.”
The screenwriter asked, “Which genre?”
Jo thought for a moment, and answered, “All of them.”
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A member of several online forums for neurodivergent people, Jo was moved by younger people’s accounts of the same struggles he endured.
Once, someone asked him, “Does it ever get better?”
Jo answered, “It can.”
Many people told Jo that he was a solid example of someone finding satisfaction later in life.
He decided a book series documenting the entire life course of a neurodivergent individual could offer both realism and hope.
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Jo’s motivation for writing the series required him to be a real character in his stories.
As a social services provider, employers sent Jo to intervene in clients’ lives after a threshold incident occurred. Jo noticed that:
The incident came to define that era of a client’s life.
Clients routinely lamented over alternative choices they believed would have spared them their current trauma.
An incident from Jo’s late teens inspired this same curiosity over what might have been. But how could he blend memoir, alternative history and autobiographical fiction?
He developed a new genre, the Imaginoir.
Imaginoir
im·ag·in·oir
/iˈmajən/wär/
noun
A counterfactual exploration of an actual event from the author’s life, featuring the author as a principal character.
The narrative combines alternative history, autobiographical fiction and memoir. It is narrated in the style of a commercial or literary genre.
Jo’s first imaginoir, Heat 1973, involved a choice he faced driving a friend’s brother to pick up cocaine. In the alternative history, Jo accepted the thirty-eight that was offered him, framing the consequent narrative as a Crime novel.
His forthcoming Mzungu 1989 is an Adventure novel exploring his work in Kenya. Future imaginoirs include Harbinger 1998, a Techno-Thriller, and Internecine 2007, Horror.
Available Now
Will he pull the trigger if he needs to?
—a fast, immersive story about risks, loyalty, and reinvention.
“Packed with sharp humor, aching loneliness, and unexpected tenderness, Heat 1973 probes family, identity, and the lure of danger.”
2026
An extraordinary life now, or a prestigious future?
—an intimate story of choices that change everything.
“In taut, observant prose, Mzungu 1989 follows a neurodivergent expatriate’s attempt to balance vocation and ambition across two continents. ”