The Story Behind the Silence: How “The Space Between Us” Was Born

In 2023, I sat alone with a blank page and a heart full of questions. I didn’t know I was writing a book. I only knew I was trying to survive something invisible: something that lived between words, between people, between the promises we make and the silences we keep.

I had just come out of a season marked by emotional distance. Not dramatic heartbreak, but the quiet kind—the kind that leaves you wondering if love can survive without language. I watched people I cared about drift, not because they stopped loving, but because they stopped speaking. And I realized: silence is not the absence of love. It’s the space where love either grows or dies.

So I began to write.

Not with a plot in mind, but with a pulse. Every night, I poured fragments of Linda’s longing, Benjie’s devotion, and Derrick’s temptation onto the page. They weren’t characters yet; they were echoes of real emotions I had lived, witnessed, and wrestled with. I wrote through confusion, through exhaustion, through moments when I questioned whether anyone would ever read these words.

2024 came, and the manuscript was complete. But the journey was far from over.

Publishing in Uganda is not for the faint of heart. I knew I wanted to do it right: not just print a book, but launch a legacy. So I waited. I studied. I built. I registered Dez Publishing Group Ltd® and refined Desha Publishing House™ into a home for emotionally resonant literature. I didn’t just want to release The Space Between Us; I wanted it to arrive with dignity.

2025 became the year of becoming. Contracts. ISBNs. Cover designs. Edits. Delays. Doubts. But I kept going. Because this story wasn’t just mine; it belonged to every reader who had ever felt unseen, unheard, or unloved in the quiet spaces of their relationships.

And then, three months before the start of 2026, we launched.

The premiere was more than an event. It was a declaration: that African stories matter, that emotional truth is worth publishing, that silence can be turned into poetry, and pain into purpose.

Today, The Space Between Us lives in the hands of readers. And I live in the knowledge that I didn’t give up. That the hardest parts of the journey became the most beautiful. That every delay was a lesson; every silence, a seed.

If you’re reading this, and you’re in your own quiet season, keep writing. Keep building. Keep believing. The space between where you are and where you dream to be is not empty. It’s sacred.

And it’s yours to cross.

©Kibirige Desire Edward