“Homefront Stories” – Victoria Kelly

American Warrior Radio

“Homefront Stories” is a collection of fictional short stories written by Victoria Kelly inspired by her life as a military spouse. Her 2015 work, “When Men Go Off to War” is a collection of poems written while her husband was deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan and captures the hopes, anxieties and intimacies of the military spouse during times of war. “Prayers of an American Wife” is a collection of poems that highlights the displacement women experience when their husbands deploy and the battles fought by those left at home

Victoria graduated Summa Cum Laude from Harvard University and initially planned to attend law school. However, she had always wanted to write and chose that path instead. She met her future husband while attending a conference at the Naval Academy. She says her Ivy League friends expressed some surprise that she became a military spouse, mostly based upon their own misconceptions about the military.

During her husband’s first deployment, Victoria had been working on a novel but became frustrated. She turned to poetry as a way of dealing with the emotions she experienced during that deployment.

Victoria shares her poem “When Men Go off to War” which beautifully captures the lives of military families.

Victoria did not have much exposure to the military growing up. We spend some time discussing her learning curve as a military spouse and some of issues that civilians may not understand. These include learning to read rank and why it is not a good idea to wear high heels on an aircraft carrier. Being the spouse of a Navy officer added extra pressures.

She emphasizes that the all the pieces in “Homefront Stories” are completely fictional and none were inspired by actual events she experienced. You can find Victoria’s works here.

TAKEAWAY: “I loved being a military spouse..all except for the uncertainty about where we might be living.”