Talking Location With … Cynthia Johnstone: SEDONA, ARIZONA

#TalkingLocationWith … Cynthis Johnstone, author of Nomad, set in SEDONA, ARIZONA.

There are places that impress you. And then there are places that change you. For me, Sedona has always belonged in the second category.

Most people arrive expecting iconic red rocks, sweeping vistas, and famous hiking trails. And yes, those things certainly exist. Cathedral Rock catches the sunrise in a way that feels surreal. Oak Creek offers fresh pockets of stillness beneath towering sycamores. Every hour of the day seems to repaint the mountains in new shades of crimson, copper, and gold. But the Sedona I fell in love with lives somewhere deeper.

Buy Now

I found it in the smell of the juniper trees after an afternoon monsoon. In the quiet that settles across the high desert just before dusk. In the way the breeze moves through the ponderosa pines, carrying with it the sweet scent of citrus.

When I began writing Nomad, I wasn’t looking for a beautiful setting; I was looking for a place capable of healing someone who didn’t think that healing was possible. My protagonist, Corey Collins, retreats to an isolated off-grid ranch outside Sedona after an unimaginable loss. Instead of searching for answers, she tries to disappear. She builds a life measured by routine; hauling water from a well, tending her greenhouse, collecting eggs, canning vegetables, reading beside a wood-burning fire. Her world becomes intentionally small because the larger world outside has hurt her too deeply.

Only Sedona refuses to leave her alone, and the landscape begins to ask something of her. The wildflowers, the silence, even the stray reservation dog who wanders onto her property. Little by little, the life Corey built to keep the world out begins asking her to let it back in.

As I was writing the novel, I realized I wasn’t using the landscape as scenery. The land itself had become another character—a teacher. Sedona challenged Corey in ways no person could. It stripped away distractions until she was left alone with her grief and the idea that healing might still be possible.

One of my favorite places in the novel is a meadow Corey calls “Monet’s Acre,” where wildflowers blur together in ribbons of color, reminding her of the Claude Monet prints in her grandmother’s home. That place grew directly from my own experiences wandering through Northern Arizona and realizing that nature rarely separates beauty into categories. Like an Impressionist painting, everything overlaps: memory, grief, joy, love and landscape are often intertwined.  

The same is true of Oak Creek. If you arrive early enough, before the crowds gather, the water becomes almost meditative. It’s one of those places where time loses meaning. You stop thinking about where you’re headed next and simply exist exactly where you are.

Rather than rushing from one plot point to another, I wanted readers to experience Sedona the way Corey experiences it: slowly, patiently, and unexpectedly. The desert doesn’t rush transformation.

I often think visitors make the mistake of trying to conquer Sedona—to hike every trail, photograph every overlook, squeeze every famous landmark into a weekend itinerary. But I would encourage the opposite. Walk one trail, slowly. Sit beside Oak Creek longer than you planned. Watch the light and shadows move across the mountainsides. Pay attention to the scent of the pines. Those were the moments that found their way into Nomad. By the time I reached the end of the novel, I realized something unexpected. Sedona hadn’t simply provided a setting for my story. It had quietly shaped the story itself.

CYNTHIA JOHNSTONE

Buy Now

Join team TripFiction on Social Media:

Twitter (@TripFiction), Facebook (@TripFiction.Literarywanderlust), YouTube (TripFiction #Literarywanderlust), Instagram (@TripFiction) and Pinterest (@TripFiction) and BlueSky(tripfiction.bsky.social) and Threads (@tripfiction)