I love walking in others’ footsteps, don’t you? Even if it’s just for a few moments, tracing the life of another is an exciting opportunity that can take you into another world; from reading books to writing, I think those moments are what draw me to storytelling. Like many others girls, I first fell in love with Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women through the 1990s movie adaptation with Winona Ryder and Susan Sarandon. Soon after, I read the entire book and the story’s four sisters, modeled after Alcott and her own three sisters, carved their own special place on my brain’s bookshelf of all-time literary favorites.

After visiting Russell Orchards in Ipswich, one Massachusetts Saturday last month, my friend and I drove to Concord to visit the Alcott home and stand in their sted. As we ducked through low doorways, climbed their creaky staircases, saw Amy’s drawings on bedroom walls and the very desk where Louisa wrote Little Women, we fell into the book’s stories. The visit was one of my very favorite moments of the trip and we left feeling like we had just emerged from another’s true life story.