Stories of Resilience and Survival

Though her love of reading may have started early with The Baby-Sitters Club, it was the darker works of R.L. Stine and, especially, V.C. Andrews that truly captured the imagination of future novelist and anthologist Jasmine Nguyễn-Sandoval. 

“[Andrews’] Flowers in the Attic hooked me completely,” she tells AQUA Miami. “I was drawn to the psychological suspense woven through layers of generational family drama. In hindsight, I was probably much too young for it. My Má certainly thought so after asking what the book was about and receiving a synopsis that left her visibly concerned! But as the daughter of South Vietnamese refugees who fled their homeland on a small wooden boat, the themes of grief, trauma, betrayal, resilience, and survival resonated deeply.” 

In eighth grade, Nguyễn-Sandoval won a writing contest and realized she had what she describes as a knack for storytelling. “I leaned into it in my own way, writing speeches and representing my classmates as part of the student body throughout middle school, high school, and even college,” she says. “Looking back at my old diary now, I have to laugh—I was truly dramatic. What I didn’t realize then was that all that drama, all that storytelling energy, could one day find its way back onto the page and into a book of my own.” 

Destiny does not always draw in a straight line, however, and at 18, Nguyễn-Sandoval joined the U.S. Army. “It was part rebellion, part patriotism,” she says. “My own way of going against my parents’ wishes to enroll in college and part giving back to the country that accepted my family when we escaped from a war-torn country.” She trained as a combat medic. “That’s where my love for the medical profession took root,” Nguyễn-Sandoval continues. “The Army taught me resilience, grit, and the very useful fact that I can push through just about any mental and physical barrier thrown my way.” 

A few years later, Nguyễn-Sandoval “traded my military uniforms for diaper bags” and became a stay-at-home mom to my two kids while taking classes to become a nurse. “As an Army wife, I knew nursing would give me the flexibility I needed when Uncle Sam decided it was time for my husband to relocate duty stations,” she says. “What I didn’t expect was how much I’d fall in love with nursing itself and how much joy I’d get from making even the smallest impact every single day.” 

Returning to her Roots       

And yet, the storytelling bug never completely went away. Slowly, Nguyễn-Sandoval began to realize there might be a way to weave together the professional and creative strands of her life. “Years as a clinician gave me a deep mental archive of stories from the bedside,” she explains. “There is so much that healthcare workers witness each day that the outside world rarely sees. That realization imbued my writing with a deeper purpose: to pull back the curtain on life inside the sterile walls of the hospital and reveal the resilience, tension, and human connection forged in moments of crisis. I began writing short stories, drawing on my firsthand experience as a registered nurse, hoping to illuminate the high-stakes world of medicine and the raw truths that often go unspoken.” 

Channeling these bedside experiences through the prism of writing proved therapeutic. “Whenever something lingered in my heart, I turned it into a story,” Nguyễn-Sandoval says. “I took the moments that shaped me as a nurse and gave them a second life through fiction, giving voice to the universal experiences of courage, grief, hope, and healing that define the human condition. Looking back, I think I was always drawn to stories about resilience and survival. Nursing simply gave me a front-row seat to those stories every day.” 

And there will be many stories ahead. Under her fantasy pen name Dina Yên, Nguyễn-Sandoval will release Betrayed by the Stars this fall, the first novel in a YA dystopian-romantasy Celestine Court duology. “This project holds a special place in my heart because the protagonist is a healer whose magic system draws heavily from my nursing background,” she explains, “allowing me to blend medical knowledge with fantasy worldbuilding in a way that feels grounded in reality and enchantingly magical.” And then under the name J.C. Sang she has two completed novels—a medical drama and a psychological thriller—currently out seeking agented representation. Under her own name, she has published a guide to authentically writing about medical issues and trauma called The Writer’s Rx: Your Prescription for Visceral Writing that Bites—AKA “a crash cart for dead prose”(!) 

Stories from Care

Nguyễn-Sandoval has also founded Code Blue Publishing to “give voice to the untold stories that unfold beyond the hospital walls and clinic corridors,” which has so far published the acclaimed anthology Tales from the Bedside—which features three fantastic, haunting shorts from Nguyễn-Sandoval: “Withered,” “Battle Cry,” and “The Verb”—and is currently accepting submissions for two others: Shadows from the Frontlines and Echoes from the Other Side.   

“The stories that emerge from healthcare are some of the most profound human stories we have, yet they are often reduced to fear-mongering headlines, statistics, diagnoses, or chart notes,” Nguyễn-Sandoval says. “What gets lost are the deeply personal experiences: the difficult decisions, ethical dilemmas, acts of compassion, moments of humor, and extraordinary resilience that unfold every day…Healthcare is not just about medicine; it is about people navigating some of the most vulnerable, life-changing moments they will ever face. By bringing those experiences into fiction and narrative storytelling, we can help readers better understand the human side of healthcare while creating characters and stories that resonate far beyond the clinical setting. 

“Whether the story is a medical thriller, drama, memoir, fantasy, or literary fiction, the goal is to explore what it means to care for others and find meaning in the moments that shape our lives,” she adds.

“Those themes are universal, which is why these stories can connect with readers whether they’ve ever set foot inside a hospital or not. Great stories have the power to make us feel seen, understood, and a little less alone. We’re simply creating a home for those stories and the voices bold enough to tell them.” 

The approach is resonating. At a recent book event, a woman beelined her way to Nguyễn-Sandoval’s table and told her how excited she was to meet her. “I looked over my shoulder to make sure there wasn’t another author standing behind me,” Nguyễn-Sandoval says. “The interesting thing is, she wasn’t a nurse or healthcare worker. She was simply an avid reader who was fascinated by the idea of stories told from a nurse’s perspective. That was a lightbulb moment for me. Readers don’t have to share our profession to connect with our stories. They just have to recognize the humanity in them. The details of our lives may be different, but the emotions that shape us are remarkably similar. Great stories have a way of reminding us of that.” 

For more information, follow Nguyễn-Sandoval on Instagram at @j.c.sang and @authordinayen.