Writing can give voice to those who are too often unheard. Carol Van Den Hende MBA’95’s novels do just that, portraying the struggles veterans face with kindness, compassion, and unflinching honesty.
Van Den Hende’s love of literature began in childhood. She was rarely without a book, often wandering the shelves of her local library in search of her next story. Around the same time, she began writing her own. Those early years deepened her appreciation for language and shaped her sense of empathy.
That empathy became central to who she was and, later, to the core themes that define her work. It encouraged her to reach across differences and connect with people others might overlook.
She remembers a neighbor who couldn’t speak. Despite the communication barrier, they formed a meaningful friendship.
“We weren’t able to fully understand each other, but I could invite him to things like kickball,” she says. “Through simple acts of inclusion, those differences fell away. I could see him for who he was. The power of that has stayed with me. I even dedicated my third novel to him.”
As she grew, Van Den Hende found herself drawn to stories — and people — marked by resilience. One news segment in particular stayed with her: a wounded veteran who, despite devastating injuries, remained steadfast. The story struck a chord. As a mother of a child with special needs, she felt compelled to write characters with disabilities as whole, complex individuals not solely defined by their circumstances.
In her research, she connected with Sgt. Bryan Anderson, a soldier injured by an improvised explosive device who lost both legs and his left hand.
“People are always shaken when I share that,” she says. “But what inspires me is that Bryan, and so many others like him, pick themselves up, literally and figuratively, to build a life. He’s become a disability advocate and even had a role in American Sniper. He really inspired me, and stories like his truly move readers.”
Anderson and other soldiers like him inspired one of the main characters in Van Den Hende’s first novel, Goodbye, Orchid. When she shared an early scene with her critique group, the response surprised her.
“I remember moving the group to tears,” she says. “Sadness, of course, needs to be balanced with joy and resilience. Seeing the impact my work had made convinced me to pursue the path to publication.”
Van Den Hende went on to found her own publishing company and continued crafting stories centered on hope and representation.
“These stories can change people’s lives,” she says. “I once spoke to a book club that had read Goodbye, Orchid. One woman shared that after her divorce, she met a man with a prosthetic leg on a dating app. She ended the relationship because she didn’t think she could handle it. After reading the book, she reflected and said she would have made a different decision if she’d had a story like this at the time.”
Balancing a full-time role leading responsible AI initiatives with her writing career requires intention. Still, she makes time for both because each area matters deeply. Her book series earned her Springboard Consulting’s Disability Hero of the Year award in 2021, and she published her latest novel, Dear Orchid, in November 2025.
“For me to carve out time to write, it has to be important work that serves others,” Van Den Hende says. “I want to inspire hope and empathy for people and for our planet. When you paint a positive vision of the future, it gives people something worth working toward. I aim to show the hope in what’s possible.”
