Enjoy the SplendorEchele Rae HeinbuchAuthor of Leaving the Swamp

Stories worth
getting lost in.

Echele Rae Heinbuch writes character-driven fiction about complicated people, relationships, and the lives they make for themselves.

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Cover of Leaving the Swamp by Echele Rae Heinbuch
Leaving the Swamp book cover

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Leaving the Swamp

After years of simply surviving a life that had grown stagnant, Elise chooses to pursue a dream she has carried for years. In a quiet New England town, she finds a welcoming community, unexpected friendships, and a life that begins to look very different from the one she left behind.

Leaving the Swamp is Echele Rae Heinbuch’s first published novel.

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Coming Next

Frank

Coming next from Echele Rae Heinbuch: Frank, a novel set within the Chesapeake Bay watershed, where a novelist named Emory, an old house with a long history, and an American black vulture named Frank become part of the same story.

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Beyond the Books

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Explore the places, history, characters, research, connections, and personal reflections behind the books.

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Echele Rae Heinbuch

Meet the Author

Echele Rae Heinbuch

Author of Leaving the Swamp

Echele Rae Heinbuch has wanted to write creatively for nearly as long as she can remember. After more than twenty-five years of technical writing and outreach work supporting NASA programs, and years spent teaching in alternative education, she finally learned to stop perfecting the first three pages and keep going. Leaving the Swamp is her first published novel.

A Maryland writer with roots in North Carolina, Echele is drawn to old houses, the Chesapeake Bay, complicated relationships, and the small details that make people and places stay with us.

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“Sometimes the hardest place to leave is the one you’ve outgrown.”

— Leaving the Swamp
Zareen Dean, photographer and digital artist

Meet the Artist

Zareen Dean

Zee is a versatile photographer and digital artist with a keen eye for the haunting beauty of abandoned architecture. Drawn to forgotten spaces, she blends photography and digital artistry to produce images filled with mystery and nostalgia.

Her work has expanded from photography and digital manipulation in game worlds to literary art, bringing fictional characters, settings, and moments from the page into visual form. As the artist for Echele Rae Heinbuch’s novels, Zee translates written descriptions into imagery that extends the worlds of the books beyond the page.