Goodreads asked Shelley Mickle:

Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?

Shelley Mickle I wrote BORROWING LIFE because my husband trained under the Nobel Prize awarded surgeon who performed the first successful organ transplant. The main "players" in the history wrote memoirs, but they were medical rather than narrative for the lay public to readily understand the complex science as well as the complications of WWII. When I realized no one had written this extraordinary story that touches almost everyone's lives at some time in their life's journey, I was committed but terrified. How to do it? How not to mess up such an important, glorious story? I decided to apply to Yale which has the most successful creative nonfiction dept. in the nation. When I did, the professor said I could not join the class because I would intimidate the other students. I thought he meant my age and was insulted. Then he added, "I've heard you on NPR." Then I was flattered. After three N.Y. publishers turned BORROWING LIFE down, I realized I'd have to teach myself to write good narrative nonfiction using the work of the writers I admire.

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