Kimberly Hensle Lowrance, a Lexington mom and long-time nonprofit manager, held several roles before publishing her first novel this summer.
Originally from central New Jersey, Hensle Lowrance studied at Boston University and Harvard. She managed education programs for Harvard’s AIDS Institute, directed a nonprofit that promotes ethical standards in scientific research, ran her own nonprofit consulting firm, raised two children in Lexington with her husband, took on being the president of the Cary Library Foundation’s board, and more.
Hensle Lowrance’s professional life took a pivot about ten years ago, a few years after her mother passed, when she started to reevaluate her own life.
“Where do I want to be?,” she asked herself. “What’s the dream I always had that I never gave myself space for or time to pursue?”
The true answer to that question was, she always wanted to be an astronaut.
“But it was kind of hard to become an astronaut in my 40s,” she recalled. “So I thought, ‘well, no, the thing I’ve always wanted to do is write a novel.’”
But Hensle Lowrance didn’t have any training in writing a novel. So, she enrolled in writing classes at GrubStreet, a non-profit creative writing center in Boston. She wrote her first book as she took classes on writing. After about nine years of learning and drafting, Hensle Lowrance published that first novel, “What Remains of You,” in July 2026.
“I didn’t publish my book until I was in my 50s,” she said. “It’s unusual to be mid-life and be a debut author, so I guess my journey is a good story about not giving up on your dream.”
“What Remains of You” is about a woman who finds a letter from her late husband in which he confesses to a crime. She is faced with this question of, ‘do I try to figure out what he did? Or do I let it go?’
Hensle Lowrance got the inspiration for that concept from her daily interactions with her husband after work — albeit loosely. Every day, when she and her husband would return home from work, she would talk his ear off for about 30 minutes, telling him everything that happened during her day. Then she’d ask, “how was your day?” to which he would just say, “fine.”
“We have very different ways of decompressing,” she explained, laughing. “But then later, I’d find out from him that something really important happened. He just doesn’t like to talk about work right when he gets home from work.”
That dynamic made her wonder.
“What if you had a situation where a spouse was keeping something? What if someone actually had a secret? And what if it came out?” she recalled questioning.
Asked whether she thinks uncovering the whole truth is worth the pain, Hensle Lowrance said, “I think it depends on the person and the circumstance and the relationship.”
“I don’t know if I could live in a situation where I knew there was a secret about the person I love the most and I didn’t know what it was and I had the opportunity to figure it out. But I would never tell someone they have to do that, I think it depends on the person and the situation.”
Another small piece of the novel is somewhat inspired by Hensle Lowrance’s time as Lexington Public Schools parent. In the beginning of the book, the main character finds her late husband’s letter in a time capsule.
“My son had an assignment in elementary school at Bridge to do a time capsule,” she recalled. “And then, when they were tearing down and rebuilding Hastings, there was a call out to alumni — because it used to be a tradition of the 5th grade class to bury a time capsule — to come back and identify where their time capsules were.”
Hensle Lowrance will talk more about her debut novel in a conversation with author and Lexington resident Marjan Kamali, who wrote “The Lion Women of Tehran” and “The Stationary Shop,” at Cary Library on Tuesday, Sept. 22, at 7 p.m.
“It’s Marjan Kamali, she’s fabulous, I’m very honored that we can come together,” Hensle Lowrance, who added that she and Kamali had several “writing dates” at Cary Library to work on their respective novels, said. “It’s going to be a conversation about writing the book and what it takes to write a novel.”
“Since I wrote part of ‘What Remains of You’ in this library, it feels special to be able to do an event here,” she added. “I’m very grateful for the library.”
Hensle Lowrance described the experience of finally having her book out after nine years as “wild.” She noted how one of the craziest experiences she’s having is when people write to her and share what they liked about her book.
“The first time I got one, I thought, ‘is this spam?’ And then I realized, this is a real person writing to me to tell me that they enjoyed it,” she said. “I didn’t expect that and I’m super grateful. I’ve saved them all in a folder.”
Hensle Lowrance hopes the fan mail will continue with her next book, which she has been working on during her more recent writing dates with Kamali at Cary Library — who Hensle Lowrance said is also working on her next novel.
Hensle Lowrance’s next book won’t be a sequel to “What Remains of You,” she said. It will be something completely separate.
“That’s all I can say,” she told the Observer.
Hensle Lowrance’s conversation with Kamali will take place in the large meeting room inside Cary Library. To attend the event, register on the library’s website.