SCHMOOZING WITH JANICE MACDONALD

1. Who has influenced you the most in your writing career?

My influences have been myriad. Every mystery I read for my thesis years ago, books I read throughout my time as the Edmonton Journal’s mystery reviewer, and the works of John Cawelti and George Grella. My sense is that popular genre writing has the capacity to include social commentary and act as a beacon two or three steps before mainstream fiction.

2. What are you working on now?

My next Randy Craig mystery, a university reunion story called at present Another Margaret, is in the editing process now. I am putting together the foundation of the next one while also working on a creative non-fiction piece that requires some research. I also have two or three short pieces that have been commissioned and need polishing.

3. In what ways is your main protagonist like you? If at all?

Randy Craig is like me in that she is a graduate from the University of Alberta. She too loves the thought of teaching at the university level and is not able to capture it as a livelihood. She lives in an apartment that I once lived in quite happily.
On the other hand, I am married with grown children, I have moved into a profession where I can achieve a pension and some security. And we own a car, though it spends loads of time in its parking stall.

4. Are you character driven or plot driven?

I think I am situation-driven. As with all series, the character and the locale is what brings readers back; I hope to find new aspects to the university/academic world for Randy to explore.

5. Are you a pantser or a plotter?

Well, aside from the fact that I deplore that term just because of its vulgarity, I do like to write without being sure of the ending. I usually know my way about forty pages ahead of wherever I am in the draft. It makes the getting up early on weekend mornings worth doing. I’m not in a bracket where I am paid enough for the writing not to be the fun part.

6. What do you hope readers will most take away from your writing?

I want them to enjoy themselves, laugh out loud once or twice, and find out elements of Edmonton and the university world. There is usually some social or philosophical argument woven into the plot, as well.


7. Where do you see yourself as a writer in 10 years?

With any luck, I will be able to retire and devote more time to my writing…or vegetable marrows. There are a couple of non-mystery works I have in mind, as well.

8. What is one thing your readers would be most surprised to know about you?

Oh gosh, my life is an open book, it seems. Maybe they might be surprised to know I work for the government now. In the same way that Murakami once said he felt he could write more clearly about Japan when he was living in the USA, perhaps I can write about academe from outside the ivory tower.

9. What do you like to read for pleasure?

I read mystery novels voraciously – Canadian, English and Scottish especially. I also read Canadian fiction, Commonwealth fiction, and I support local and Alberta writers.


10. Give us a summary of your latest book in a Tweet.

The Roar of the Crowd @RandyCraigBooks explores murder amidst Edmonton’s theatrical crowd, experts at prevarication. Can Randy keep the murderer from striking again?

Janice MacDonald is the creator of the Randy Craig Mysteries. She is a dyed-in-the-wool Edmontonian, and makes no apologies for setting her novels in a recognizable Edmonton and celebrating the things that make this northern metropolis so vibrant and unique. Miranda "Randy" Craig finds work in various aspects of academe and walks the not-quite-so-mean streets of Alberta’s capital, finding herself enmeshed in puzzling murders and drinking lots of coffee. Janice herself lives with a lovely husband who is not in law enforcement, works for the government, and drinks copious pots of tea.

SCHMOOZING WITH RICK MOFINA

1. Who has influenced you the most in your writing career?

Sister Mary from St. Michael’s Academy who taught me grammar in the 7th Grade with the intensity of a drill sergeant. We feared her. She numbered our seats, called us by our last names and smacked our desktops with a yardstick to ensure we paid attention to the examples she’d written on the board; demanding we identify subject and predicate. I remember how she once stared at me and said: “Mofina, one day you’ll thank me.”

2.What are you working on now?

Going through edits of my next book, EVERY SECOND, which is due for release later in 2015.


3. In what ways is your main protagonist like you? If at all?

I’m a former reporter and most of my main protagonists are reporters. I draw on my experience to get into their heads.

4. Are you character driven or plot driven?

Both. You need a sympathetic character and you need them to face challenges that will re-define them.

5. Are you a pantser or a plotter?

Plotter.

6. What do you hope readers will most take away from your writing?

That feeling you get when you just step off a mid-way thrill ride.

7. Where do you see yourself as a writer in 10 years?

I really don’t know.

8. What is one thing your readers would be most surprised to know about you?

I’d prefer not to say. I don’t want to spoil the surprise.

9. What do you like to read for pleasure?

The notes of F. Scott Fitzgerald, especially his essays in The Crack-Up.

10. Give us a summary of your latest book in a Tweet

Screams in the Night, a gut-wrenching call and a reporter's life-long search for her missing sister.

Rick Mofina is a former journalist who has worked in newsroom across Canada. He's also reported from the Caribbean, Africa and Kuwait's border with Iraq. His books have been published in nearly 30 countries. The Crime Writers of Canada, The International Thriller Writers and The Private Eye Writers of America have listed his titles among the best in crime fiction. As two-time winner of Canada's Arthur Ellis Award, a three-time Thriller Award nominee and a two-time Shamus Award nominee, the Library Journal calls him, “One of the best thriller writers in the business."

SCHMOOZING WITH EVA GATES

1.Who has influenced you the most in your writing career?

My many friends in the Canadian writing community. It’s one thing to write a book, it’s quite another to perfect it (as near as possible), to get it published, and then to market and publicize it. You can write a book on your own, but you need help and advice to do all that other stuff, and I have found the Canadian mystery community, and now the cozy community, to be very close-knit and friendly. It is all about networking


2. What are you working on now?

The third Lighthouse Library mystery, Reading up a Storm.

3. In what ways is your main protagonist like you, if at all?

Lucy Richardson is her name and she is not like me in the least! She’s young (and I am not), inquisitive, brave, impulsive. She is intensely loyal to her friends, however, and I do hope that if ever I was in her shoes, I could also be counted on to do the right thing by my friends.

4. Are you character driver or plot driven?

Character. I have all these wonderful, eccentric Outer Banks people and I just love tossing them into the mix and seeing what they’ll do next.

5. Are you a pantser or a plotter?

Total plotter. I began my career as a pantser, and now that I am with Penguin, they require a solid outline as part of the contract. And I have found that I love writing from an outline. All the hard work is done ahead of time and I can enjoy weaving it all together. Which isn’t to say that I won’t deviate from the outline if I have a good reason to, but an outline provides the structure in which I can write. I love it.

6. What do you hope readers will most take away from your writing?

Fun. Nothing but a few hours of laughter and entertainment. If you’ve had a hard day at work or your family is giving you grief, there is absolutely nothing better than to settle down with a good cozy novel and be taken away on a fun ride to an interesting place.

7. Where do you see yourself as a writer in 10 years?

Under my real name of Vicki Delany, I have sixteen published books, of different sub-genres. But now, I’ve found my niche and I will be very happy if in ten years I’m still writing cozies. I will mention, if I may, that Vicki Delany is writing the Christmas Town mysteries for Berkely Prime Crime of which the first, Rest Ye Murdered Gentleman, will be out November 2015. Just in time for Christmas.

8. What is one thing your readers would be most surprised to know about you?

That I have sixteen published books?

9. What do you like to read for pleasure?

I read crime novels almost exclusively, with the occasional non-fiction thrown in. I am particularly enjoying the modern gothic format these days by writers like Kate Morton, Carol Goodman, or Simone St. James. My favourite book of 2014 was The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters, followed closely by The Secret Place by Tana French.

10. Tell us about your book in a Tweet:

When a priceless first edition Jane Austen is stolen from the Lighthouse Library, Lucy finds herself ensnared in a real-life mystery—and she’s not so sure there’s going to be a happy ending....

Eva Gates is the author of the Lighthouse Library cozy series from Penguin Obsidian, set in a historic lighthouse on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, featuring Boston-transplant librarian, and highly reluctant sleuth, Lucy Richardson. The first in the series, By Book or By Crook, will be released in February 2015. Eva is the pen name of bestselling author Vicki Delany, one of Canada’s most prolific and varied crime writers. Eva can be found at www.lighthouselibrarymysteries.com and Vicki at www.vickidelany.com

SCMOOZING WITH CATHERINE MACDONALD

1. Who has influenced you the most in your writing career?

I read a lot of George Orwell’s essays in my twenties. He was a wonderful non-fiction stylist with prose that was very distilled and economical but also very elegant. I hope that tendency to pare back and refine is in my fiction too. It’s something to work toward.

2. What are you working on now?

I’m working on the sequel to Put on the Armour of Light. It involves much enjoyable research on things Scottish because in this book, my two lead characters, Charles Lauchlan and Maggie Skene, go on a bicycle tour of the Highlands and get enmeshed in another mystery. I’ve had to become familiar with bicycles as they were in 1900 and have read lots of guide books on Scottish travel from that era. The problem has been tearing myself away from all this fascinating research in order to actually write the book.

3. In what ways is your main protagonist like you? If at all?

Charles Lauchlan is a real amalgam. Inevitably, he has some of me in him. He loves books and is basically an introvert like me. But he’s more like my father and my brothers in that he can take and hold the centre of attention and is not uncomfortable there. He’s also a bit of a workaholic, which I have never been.


4. Are you character driven or plot driven?

I’m definitely more comfortable with character than with plot. And I think that if you know your characters, they will show you where the plot should go in many cases. I like to start with characters and then say, “Now, what do they do?”

5. Are you a pantser or a plotter?

I aspire to be a plotter but I’m really more of a plodder. I have to have some idea of where I’m going with a book or I will freeze with fear of that white, bare page looming ahead. But quite often in the writing, something that I have plotted turns out not to work after all and I have to have a considerable think in order to solve the problem and carry on.

6. What do you hope readers will most take away from your writing?

I hope that I’ve created a world in which they can get lost for a while, then close the book at the end and think it’s been a very satisfying reading experience.

7. Where do you see yourself as a writer in 10 years?

I would be happy to have written two or three more books during that time and to still be enjoying the process.

8. What is one thing your readers would be most surprised to know about you?

It’s at this point that I wish I had taken up sky-diving or become well-known as a quantum physicist in my spare time. But really, I’m quite an unsurprising person. I do play the saxophone, though rather badly.


9. What do you like to read for pleasure?

I read a lot of different stuff. Mysteries, of course, but also poetry and biography. Just now I’m reading a lot of Scottish books. I read a lot of local writers from Winnipeg, because I’ve always loved books set in Winnipeg, where I have lived since I was eleven. I talk about them on my blog, “portage and slain”, (www.portageandslain.com). Other than that, my reading has no discipline or rationale and that’s exactly the way I like it.


10. Give us a summary of your latest book in a Tweet

June 1899. Rev. Charles Lauchlan must find evidence hidden behind the doors of Winnipeg’s elite before his friend is convicted of murder.

Catherine Macdonald made a career out of delving into the history of the Canadian Prairies, especially the urban history of Winnipeg, where she lives. Her historical research consulting business combined excellent research with lively and engaging presentation. One morning she woke up with an idea for a mystery novel and life has never been quite the same.
She blogs at www.portageandslain.com and has a website at www.charleslauchlan.com

SCHMOOZING WITH ROB BRUNET

1. Who has influenced you the most in your writing career?

Being purposeful, pursuing passion, and holding oneself accountable are critical traits every author needs. Without them, how could a book ever be completed, never mind revised, edited, and polished until ready to publish?
Thinking about my writing career sends me well beyond the authors I enjoy and admire. The energy I bring to it is rooted in creativity and a love of storytelling, but the discipline and sense of direction leverages things I learned while running a digital media company. I could list a slew of people from that part of my life and most of them would be unknown to readers here. They’re people whose passion for their own businesses, charities, and lives made me want to dig deep and commit myself to the writing I’d always expected to eventually do.
As for authors? Too many for a blog post, but Thomas Hardy, Sinclair Lewis, Carl Hiaasen, Kurt Vonnegut, Gregory Mcdonald, John Irving, and a lot of Margaret Atwood have inspired me to hone my own voice.

2. What are you working on now?

The sequel to Stinking Rich is similarly set in the Kawarthas and there’s a bit of character carry-over. This time out, it’s a bible camp gone bad.
I’m also working on a collection of short stories and some novella-length pieces. The novel takes precedence, but part of my goal is to be releasing new material frequently enough to satisfy readers who find me early on. Coming out with a novel every year or so isn’t likely to accomplish that on its own.

3. In what ways is your main protagonist like you, if at all?

He isn’t. Danny Grant has a couple experiences that are drawn from my life. Thankfully, it’s the stupid mistakes and not the things that could land a guy in jail. But the same could be said of Perko Ratwick, Judy, and even Skeritt. And I’m neither a biker nor a tie-died enviro-barbie, nor a hermit (though it’s tempting some days).

4. Are you character drive or plot driven?

My readers tell me I’ve written a page-turner that kept them up nights needing to know what happened next. I loved hearing from someone this past week that she had consumed Stinking Rich in three sittings. I guess that’s about plot.
But they also tell me the characters—whacko though they may be—are real and to them. And they certainly are to me. I spend a lot of energy on how they act in given situations. I’m as amused by them as I hope my readers are—especially when they go off script and do things I didn’t expect.
The large cast and the twisted plot line make Stinking Rich a complex braided tale. But if I’ve done my job right, at the end of the day, it’s still a beach read.

5. Are you a pantser or a plotter?

I start out at as a pantser, but the plot has to make sense to me, so somewhere along the way, I start working a spreadsheet and winding everything together. Even when I’m going full-speed, in the zone, chasing a scene, I’m constantly taking notes on other parts of the story that need elaboration or fixing as a result of whatever’s net new. I guess that’s pantsing, but it winds up pretty tight.

6. What do you hope readers will most take away from your writing?

Entertainment. A good laugh or two. And maybe a peek into a life that is something they’re curious about, even if they’d never want to be there in a million years.

7. Where do you see yourself as a writer in 10 years?

Ten novels in and several times that many short stories and novellas. There’s a lot of stuff in my head that needs to find its way out. The thing is, the more one writes, the more that seems to stir up more ideas. Can you telling I’m loving it?

8. What is one thing your readers would be most surprised to know about you?

Something printable? How about that I spent a summer as a missionary in northern Ontario? That bible camp gone bad thing? It’s not based on my experience, but I think there’s room for me to explore how some people are able to contort organized religion.

9. What do you like to read for pleasure?

A lot of what I read is crime fiction, but as you can tell from the list above, I read more widely than that. One of my favorite authors today is John Burdett. I’m about three books behind in his series, only because I save his novels and savor them when on vacation in the country. I really don’t want to be distracted at all when I read my favorite authors. And that’s a state I haven’t know much these past two years.

10. Tell us about your book in a Tweet:

What could possibly go wrong if backwoods bikers hire a high school dropout to tend their marijuana grow op? Plenty, it turns out.

Rob Brunet’s 2014 debut, STINKING RICH, asks What could possibly go wrong when bikers hire a high school dropout to tend a barn full of high-grade marijuana? His short crime fiction appears and is forthcoming in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Thuglit, Shotgun Honey, Out of the Gutter, Noir Nation, and numerous anthologies. Before writing noir, Brunet produced award-winning Web presence for film and TV, including LOST, Frank Miller’s Sin City, and the cult series Alias. He loves the bush, beaches, and bonfires and lives in Toronto with his wife, daughter, and son.
Find out more at www.robbrunet.com or on Facebook here.

SCHMOOZING WITH RICK BLECHTA

1. Who has influenced you the most in your writing career?

Boy, that’s a tough one. There are a lot of people who influenced me. Most are not even writers. All the musicians from whom I’ve taken lessons showed me so much that I use every day in my writing: perseverance, how to break down problems to make solving them more easy, how a small amount of progress every day will still get you where you want to be, how to believe in your ability even when things aren’t going well, and above all, patience! Writers who influenced me would have to start with Rex Stout. He had such fine control of his writing and characters. I love the way he packed in telling details so effortlessly and, in most cases, invisibly. For getting me started down this path, it was Dick Francis. It was his revealing writing about the horse racing world that led me to believe that I could do the same sort of thing using music. It’s sort of worked out pretty well.

2. What are you working on now?

My agent has convinced me to do a series. Having spoken to many authors about how they went about this the wrong way, I have taken my time to lay things out thoroughly. I normally fly by the seat of my pants and let characters develop naturally as I work on a book, and then fix things during the revision process. With this project I’ve written pages and pages of character descriptions, situations from the past which will allow me to write further books in the series, some of the most inconsequential-sounding details which will allow me to expand on each of the regularly appearing characters in the series in subsequent books (should I be so lucky), just tons of details I may or may not wind up using. Most of all, I have spent hours simply thinking about these people to the point where I now dream about them. As for writing the actual novel, that’s going slower than I would like, but that’s the fault of having to make a living more than anything. I also will be working on another Rapid Reads book over the winter. And I’m really excited about the story line. You heard it here first, folks: it does not involve music!

3. In what ways is your main protagonist like you? If at all?

The protagonist in the novel that’s about to be released by Dundurn (Roses for a Diva) is nothing like me. First of all, Marta is a female (last time I checked) and she’s also an opera singer. I’m a brass player (French horn and trumpet) and singers are only needed to fill up a stage while we’re in the orchestra pit playing all that lovely music! However, Marta does share my sensibilities in many ways. Most of my protagonists do. Not all though, and I won’t reveal which ones those are! The two protagonists in my new series will be pretty different from the sorts I’ve used in the past. You’ll just have to remain patient to find out in what ways they differ.

4. Are you character driven or plot driven?

I think in the current publishing climate, one has to be a bit of both, don’t you? You can get away with being more plot driven in the thriller genre where I tend to write, but somehow, I could never quite manage that. I find people intensely interesting, so it’s no wonder I want my characters to be interesting, as well. Another thing is that characters who aren’t particularly sympathetic can be as interesting as ones with whom you’d want to be friends, so I occasionally write those kind of people. However, if you don’t have an engrossing and plausible plot, you’re going to compound the problems of writing a publishable novel. I have read examples where the story was crap but you just loved the characters so much, you enjoyed it despite its shortcomings but you’ve got to have damn fine characters to pull that one off. So to when a plot is just so fantastic you have to find out what happens even though the world created by the author is completely populated by cardboard cutouts of real people. That is really difficult, too. So I guess you could say my books are both — or at least I try to make them that way.

5. What do you hope readers will most take away from your writing?

That no question or issue is ever black or white. Real life exists in the gray space in between. Things might not happen the way you want them to, and you can start down the wrong road and never be able to return. What you do have to accomplish is to make the best out of what you’ve been handed. If you remain honest and forthright, you just might find something that makes you a better person. Boy, does that sound heavy, but it is the way my novels are constructed. There are also some funny bits, though. Honest!

6. What is one thing your readers would be most surprised to know about you?

Obviously, music is also very important to my life. I’ve been a musician far longer than I’ve been a writer. But if tomorrow someone said I’d have to make a choice, I would choose writing — as long as I could listen to as much music as I want. Unless you know about my food blog, readers might well be surprised to know that I am a very good cook (I’m going by what others have said.) I know what a “really good cook” is and I fall far short of that, although I do have talent. My current huge interest is in crafting home charcuterie. Lonzino anyone?

7. Give us a summary of your latest book in a Tweet

A stalker is determined to possess Marta Hendriks completely. How can she possibly survive when he seems to be everywhere – and nowhere?


Rick Blechta is a Toronto-based writer and musician. His thrillers have been praised for their originality, finely drawn and convincing characters, and of course, for their realistic descriptions of the world of music and musicians. This October, his tenth novel, Roses for a Diva, the sequel to his very popular The Fallen One will be released by Dundurn Press. Opera diva Marta Hendriks is back and someone is stalking her throughout the great opera houses of the world. He seems to be everywhere – and nowhere. How can she possibly survive when he is determined to possess her, body and soul?

SCHMOOZING WITH MELODIE CAMPBELL

1. Who has influenced you the most in your writing career?

Believe it or not, a producer from HBO. In 1993, he saw my play “Burglar for Coffee” in Toronto and offered me a job writing pilots (which I turned down. This has to be the worst mistake every made by a person not legally insane. But who had ever heard of HBO in 1993?) This man called me “completely nuts” and assured me that my standup/humour column comedy translated well to plays and fiction. I needed a professional to tell me that, and I always remember him gratefully, when I need a boost.

2. What are you working on now?

Book 4 in The Goddaughter series, A BODY FOR THE GODDAUGHTER. More mob comedy, only this time Gina Gallo is the sleuth, not the perpetrator. Okay, well not totally. After all, this is her inept mob family we are talking about .

3. In what ways is your main protagonist like you? If at all?

Oh YEAH. Similar (but not exact) family backgrounds. Gina Gallo is the reluctant goddaughter of the mob king in Hamilton. I come from a Sicilian background. Gina reacts as I would to a lot of these situations. She has a rep as a smart-ass. She shares my background angst. And she is…how do I put this…more interested in justice, than the law.

4. Are you character driven or plot driven?

Chicken and egg. Yes, I start with character. A character with a problem or goal, and obstacles to that goal, which are resolved by the end. My books have a lot of plot in them. But the plot is driven by the protagonist and what she wants.

5. Are you a pantser or a plotter?

Plotter. I teach ‘Crafting a Novel’ at Sheridan College, so I am immersed in ‘craft.’ I don’t start writing until I know the ending and at least two crisis points. And usually I follow a 3-act structure, to avoid ‘saggy middle syndrome.’

6. What do you hope readers will most take away from your writing?

A few hours of smiles and laughter! I write to entertain and to lighten a readers’ day.

7. Where do you see yourself as a writer in 10 years?

Oh wow. Hopefully, with another humorous crime book series, and perhaps double the fans. Okay, make that quadruple the fans! And money. More money would be nice ;)

8. What is one thing your readers would be most surprised to know about you?

I trained for Opera. I used to sing ‘torch’ when I was younger. My dad was in a big band, so you can guess why I was called ‘Melodie.’ Oh. And I am lamentably addicted to fast cars. I blew my advances and royalties this year on a 2006 sapphire blue Corvette. One day I may regret this, but not today.

9. What do you like to read for pleasure?

Books like mine. Wish I could find more. I like Andrea Camilleri from Sicily, Lisa Lutz, and yes, Janet Evanovich, who Library Digest compared me to. Other favourite books include The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (you may be noticing a humour trend at this point…)

10. Give us a summary of your latest book in a Tweet

The Artful Goddaughter (Orca Books, just released)
Mob Goddaughter Gina Gallo stands to inherit two million bucks! All she has to do is plan a heist...but when the wrong painting is taken, hilarity ensues.


Billed as Canada’s “Queen of Comedy" by the Toronto Sun (Jan. 5, 2014,) Melodie Campbell has had a decidedly checkered past. Don’t dig too deep. You might find cement shoes.
Her crime series, The Goddaughter, is about a wacky mob family in Hamilton aka The Hammer. This has no resemblance whatsoever to the wacky Sicilian family she grew up in. Okay, that’s a lie. She had to wait for certain members of the family to die before writing The Goddaughter.
Her other series is racy rollicking time travel, totally scandalous, hardly mentionable in mixed company. But we’ll mention it anyway. Rowena Through the Wall. Hold on to your knickers. Or don’t, and have more fun.
The Goddaughter’s Revenge won the 2014 Derringer (US) and the 2014 Arthur Ellis Award in Canada. She has won seven more awards for noir stories which have appeared in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, Over My Dead Body, Flash Fiction Online, and more. Publications total over 200 and include 7 novels. By day, she is the Executive Director of Crime Writers of Canada.

SCHMOOZING WITH ROSEMARY MCCRACKEN

1. Who has influenced you the most in your writing career?

Gail Bowen, Canadian author of the Joanne Kilbourne mysteries series.
Early in 2009, I entered an early draft of Safe Harbor, my first Pat Tierney mystery, in Britain’s Crime Writers’ Association’s Debut Dagger competition. The contest is open to English-language writers around the world who haven’t had a novel published. The CWA didn’t get back to me, which meant, in a competition that attracts hundreds of entries, that the manuscript hadn’t made its shortlist.
A few months later, Gail Bowen was in Toronto, doing a stint as writer-in-residence at the Toronto Reference Library. I submitted the first 20 pages of Safe Harbor for a manuscript evaluation. I met with Gail, when she’d read my pages, and that meeting had a big impact on the novel—and my writing career.
“This book needs to written in the first person,” she said. “We need to know what Pat Tierney is thinking and feeling every step of the way.”
I felt like a light had been switched on in my head. Safe Harbor is a murder mystery, but it’s also the story of Pat’s personal journey. She learns about her late husband Michael’s infidelity and starts to get on with her life. I realized I needed to get deeper into Pat’s head. And the best way to do that was to let her tell the story.
I rewrote the book in the first person. And right from the start, I knew I’d made the right decision. I felt energy emanating from the story that hadn’t been there before. I showed several chapters to members of my writers’ group, and they agreed.
The following year, I entered the rewrite in the 2010 Debut Dagger competition. Same title and same storyline as my previous submission, but this time told in the first person. That year Safe Harbor emerged as one of 11 novels—out of about 1,100 submissions—that were shortlisted for the award. I was astonished and thrilled. Being on that shortlist has been one of the highlights of my writing life.
Gail has been extremely supportive of my writing. She wrote a fabulous endorsement for Safe Harbor, and another one for its sequel, Black Water. When she was reading the Black Water manuscript, I still hadn’t come up with a title for the novel and I asked her to see if a title came to mind in the course of her reading. Her husband, Ted Bowen, came up with Black Water, which is a perfect title for the novel.

2. What are you working on now?

I’m writing the third Pat Tierney mystery, which opens about three months after the end of Black Water. It is the beginning of summer in Ontario cottage country. Pat has another family problem on her hands when she learns that a frail, elderly woman is missing in the community. The book’s working title is Red Kayak, in keeping with my other “watery” titles, Safe Harbor and Black Water. But it may change by the time the manuscript is completed.
I’m also working on a Pat Tierney short story for the Mesdames of Mayhem’s second crime fiction anthology, a sequel to the Mesdames’ Thirteen. “The Sweetheart Scamster,” my Pat Tierney story in Thirteen, was a finalist for a 2014 Derringer Award.

3. In what ways is your main protagonist like you? If at all?

Pat Tierney is a financial advisor, while I’m a journalist. She’s a mother who spends a lot of time worrying about her family; I don’t have children. She’s also a much nicer person than I am: kind, compassionate, always tries to do the right thing although she doesn’t always succeed. No, I have to say this character is not based on personal experience. But maybe, just maybe, she’s the person I’d like to be.

4. Are you character-driven or plot-driven?

I’m a character-driven writer and I find it impossible to come up with a detailed outline for the entire book—with plot turns and twists, and themes all mapped out—before I start writing. I’ll start with an external conflict that my characters can react to, but how they do react has to ring true their personalities and how they see the world around them. I also know that the conflict will be resolved by the end of the book, but I’m usually unclear exactly how it will be resolved.
This makes the going slow. I have to get to know all the characters in the story and understand how they view the world around them. After the first draft is written, I need to do a lot of cutting and rewriting to ensure that the story moves along and makes readers want to turn the pages.
But there’s an element of discovery in this process that I enjoy. Sometimes a subplot emerges that I hadn’t envisioned, and because it came about organically, it dovetails nicely with the rest of the story.


5. What do you hope readers will most take away from your writing?

I hope they will have an enjoyable read. In my opinion, the primary role of a storyteller is to entertain.

6. Where do you see yourself ten years from now?

I see myself writing in 10 years, because writing is what I do. I’ve earned my living writing and editing articles as a journalist for the past 35 years, and in recent years, I have moved into fiction writing. I find that I prefer to create my own stories than to report facts, so I will be focusing more on fiction in the coming years. But exactly what kind of fiction, I don’t know. I need to write stories that resonate with me, and I’ve found that stories have a way of finding me. The trick is to keep my mind open to them.

7. What is one thing your readers would be most surprised to know about you?

I’m pretty open about who I am, what I do and what opinions I hold, so I think that readers who follow my blog and my posts on Facebook have a good idea of kind of person I am. The one thing that might surprise them—and I’ve discussed this in my answer to Question 3 above—is that I am not Pat Tierney.

8. What do you like to read for pleasure?

I can’t read enough crime fiction, especially Canadian crime fiction. We have a wealth of great mystery and suspense writers here in Canada, and I enjoy reading their stories, especially those that are set in parts of the country where I have lived or visited.

9. Give us a summary of your latest book in a Tweet

Here it is, using my working title, Red Kayak:
A woman’s murder shatters Pat Tierney’s plans for a quiet summer in cottage country. Red Kayak takes Pat into dangerous waters.

Rosemary McCracken is a Toronto-based fiction writer and journalist. Safe Harbor, the first novel in her Pat Tierney mystery series, was shortlisted for Britain's Debut Dagger Award in 2010. It was published by Imajin Books in 2012, followed by Black Water in 2013. “The Sweetheart Scamster,” a Pat Tierney short story in the crime fiction anthology, Thirteen, was a finalist for a 2014 Derringer Award.
Jack Batten, The Toronto Star’s crime fiction reviewer, calls Pat “a hugely attractive sleuth figure.”
Visit Rosemary’s website http://www.rosemarymccracken.com/ and her blog http://rosemarymccracken.wordpress.com/

SCHMOOZING WITH JANET KELLOUGH

Who has influenced you most in your writing career?

When I was about ten, I started reading a series of great historical potboilers by Thomas Costain. He jumped all over the place in terms of era – Biblical, medieval England, the time of Marco Polo – but they were rattling good reads. They haven’t really held up for me as an adult reader, but through them I got hooked not only on historical fiction, but history itself. As a writer, I figured it would be a fine thing if I could that for someone else.

What are you working on now?

I’ve just started the fifth book in The Thaddeus Lewis Mystery series. It doesn’t have a title yet because I’m not far enough in, and I’ll have to put it aside in a few weeks to work on the edits for the fourth book The Burying Ground, which will be released in July 2015.

In what ways is your main protagonist like you?

As a Methodist saddlebag preacher, Thaddeus Lewis constantly analyses and evaluates his actions and attitudes within the framework of his religious beliefs. Although my core moral base is not religious in nature, I too question everything in the light of my personal code of ethics. It sometimes makes me very unpopular. Especially at dinner parties and on Facebook.

Are you character driven or plot driven?

The Thaddeus Lewis Mysteries are very much character-driven, but the historical background is the real engine for the series. Rather than leave Thaddeus rooted in one particular time and place, he and his family are moving through the years between Canada’s 1837 rebellions and Confederation. Both the plot and their reactions to events bend to the historical record.

Are you a panster or a plotter?

Oh, I am such a panster. Usually I find fascinating, but unrelated bits of information and then I have to turn them inside out and upside down until I figure out how they fit together. Sometimes that doesn’t happen until the very last moments of the first draft. Sometimes I panic.

What do you hope readers will most take away from your writing?

The sense that Canadian history is not boring. It’s just different. Unlike other countries it’s not all about wars and armed conflict, but a very unique set of circumstances that led very directly to the kind of country we are today. If you understand the history, it’s easier to evaluate the headlines you see in the newspaper.

Where you do see yourself as a writer in 10 years?

My initial hope was to complete the Thaddeus Lewis series at Confederation, but I can see that it may well carry on from there. I have also been dabbling in speculative fiction and we’ll have to see what happens with it. But I’ll still be writing. I’m not happy if I’m not writing. Ask my family.

What is one thing your readers would be most surprised to know about you?

A lot of my readers also know me as a performer, and even at readings and book-signings I tend to come across as very out-going. They might be surprised to know that I’m really a high-functioning introvert. I need a huge amount of alone time and I’ve never been afraid of long stretches of silence.

What do you like to read for pleasure?

I read a lot of non-fiction, about everything from quantum mechanics to Antarctic exploration. I just like to know stuff. I want to live forever, so I can find out everything about everything. And then I’ll tell you about it.

Give us a summary of your latest book in a Tweet.

47 Sorrows - Kingston 1847: Lewis & kid Luke find murdered bodies amongst dying Irish emigrants. WTF?

Janet Kellough is an author and performance storyteller who lives in the unfashionable part of Prince Edward County, Ontario, near the cusp of The Marysburgh Vortex. She has written and performed in many stage productions featuring a fusion of music and spoken word and published two contemporary novels before launching into her popular Thaddeus Lewis mystery series with Dundurn Press.

SCHMOOZING WITH SUZANNE KINGSMILL

1. Who has influenced you the most in your writing career?

My mother made sure I was never without a good book, when, from an early age, she started giving me some of the classics. I was a voracious reader but she always had a book for me. If I didn’t like a book she would invoke the 50 page rule: I had to read at least the first 50 pages and if I still didn’t like the book I could abandon it. I remember when I abandoned Dr. Zhivago at page 50 and she looked at me and said, “Ah, but Dr. Zhivago is worth 100 pages.” She was right. She gave me a love of reading and the English language that laid the groundwork for my writing career.


2. What are you working on now?

I am working on a fourth Cordi O’Callaghan mystery and playing around with a thriller and a novel about the relationship between a 17 year old mentally challenged boy and a famous octogenarian who befriends him.

3. In what ways is your main protagonist like you? If at all?

Cordi has the same moral values as I do and we are both zoologists, although I’m a lapsed one. Other than that, she is fictional and I am real!

4. Are you character driven or plot driven?

Depends on the book. My Cordi books are predominantly plot driven but I like to think that my main characters stand out.

5. Are you a pantser or a plotter?

I do not write to a plot. I have a basic idea of whom the killer is and how the murder will take place and the motive, but after that it’s just sitting down to write and letting my characters lead the way. However, for it all to work, the main plot has to be good enough to really grip my attention, and the attention of my characters, right to the very last polished word.

6. What do you hope readers will most take away from your writing?

A sense of having been transported to another place, at least for a while.

7. Where do you see yourself as a writer in 10 years?

Still writing! More mysteries. A thriller. At least two non-mystery novels. Maybe another non-fiction book. Editing some fiction and non-fiction books, because that is such a challenge and really keeps you on your toes as a writer.

8. What is one thing your readers would be most surprised to know about you?

The scene in Dying for Murder, where Cordi gets cut off from land by a shark, actually happened to me. That and the fact that I make furniture for a hobby. I know that’s two things, but….

9. What do you like to read for pleasure?

Thrillers, literary fiction. I just finished reading The Bear by Claire Cameron and The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. Both about young girls and both powerful, haunting and disturbing. I also enjoy reading murder mysteries, but there is definitely an involuntary work element to it, so it is not entirely carefree reading.

10. Give us a summary of your latest book in a Tweet:

In Suzanne Kingsmill’s Dying for Murder, Zoologist Cordi O’Callaghan, solves a murder at a biology station on a remote U.S. barrier Island during a hurricane.

Suzanne Kingsmill has a B.A. in English literature from the University of Toronto, a B.Sc. in biology from McGill University and a M.Sc. in zoology from the University of Toronto. She has written three Cordi O’Callaghan murder mysteries, Forever Dead, Innocent Murderer and the latest, published in May, Dying for Murder. Search Suzanne Kingsmill on Youtube for an 80 second book trailer on Dying for Murder. Kingsmill has also written four non-fiction books, including The Family Squeeze: Surviving the Sandwich Generation and Beyond the Call of Duty – a biography of a war vet who won the V.C. She has written for numerous Canadian and international magazines on eclectic topics and is the Managing Editor of the peer-reviewed Canadian Journal of Rural Medicine. She has two sons and now lives in Toronto, after spending 25 years in rural Quebec.

SCHMOOZING WITH JILL DOWNIE

1. Who has influenced you the most in your writing career?

There has been a multiplicity of influences, rather than one writer or person above all. I was taught by some wonderfully talented and dedicated women, who influenced me with both their encouragement and constructive criticism. I was raised in a home full of books of all genres, from literary to popular fiction, including all the great writers of the Golden Age of mystery writing in Britain, and that master of setting and atmosphere, the French mystery writer, Georges Simenon. And here I am now, writing mysteries myself!

2. What are you working on now?

I am somewhere around the middle of the fourth book in the Moretti and Falla mystery series, set on the Channel Island of Guernsey, where I used to live. Its working title is Death Under Glass. I have the idea for the fifth tucked away in the back pocket of my mind, not to be thought about yet. The third in the series, Blood Will Out, comes out in September 2014.

3. In what ways is your main protagonist like you? If at all?

I have two main protagonists, one male, Detective Inspector Ed Moretti; and one female, his partner, Detective Sergeant Liz Falla, and I like to think both characters have something of me in them. I suspect, actually, that my taste in music, movies and books is closer to Ed’s than to Liz’s! But Liz is the kind of young woman I admire very much and hope I would have been, if I had been born into her generation.

4. Are you character or plot driven?

Character, character, character. Although I usually have an idea in my mind for the book, it floats around in there until the characters nail it down for me.

5. Are you a pantser or a plotter?

The answer to this is very much linked to the fourth question. I had written in many genres before starting to write mysteries, and it is quite fascinating to me how the characters in the mystery genre often provide twists and turns I never thought of when I started – almost as if they had minds of their own. Which, of course, they have! So, yes, I am a pantser.

6. What do you hope readers will take away from your writing?

That they had a good time – such a strange thing to say about murder! – and that they were taken into the world of my characters with all its complications. Also, that they feel the attraction of my island setting: atmosphere in my mysteries is important to me.

7. Where do you see yourself as a writer in ten years?

Ah, the tempting fate question! Still writing about my beautiful island, perhaps writing another series, perhaps writing a historical mystery. I’d love to do that. But always writing.

8. What is the one thing your readers would be most surprised to know about you?

This is a tough question to answer. I have given it some thought, and this is what I came up with, which surprised me also: I was an actress, I’m married to an actor, I love performing, I love reading from my books to an audience – but essentially, I am a loner. Which is why, I guess, writing is a good career choice!

9. What do you like to read for pleasure?

Mysteries of all kinds, from cozies to noir. Over the past few years I have been rereading some of the classics I read as a child and teenager – Dickens, Trollope and so on – and, to keep my little grey cells working and active, I have a subscription to the Times Literary Supplement. Oh how I enjoy all that academic infighting on the letters page!

10. Give us a summary of your latest book in a Tweet.

Witches, theatrical vampires, family secrets impede Moretti’s investigation into a hermit’s suicide. Or is it murder? And if murder - why?

Jill Downie was born in Guyana, lived in England, Guernsey in the Channel Islands, studied in Paris, before settling in Canada. She is the author of plays, short stories, historical fiction, biographies, and currently writes the Guernsey-based mystery series, published by Dundurn, starring Detective Inspector Ed Moretti and his partner, Detective Sergeant Liz Falla. The first, Daggers and Men’s Smiles appeared in 2011, the second, A Grave Waiting, in 2012, and the third, Blood Will Out, appears in September, 2014. She lives in Ancaster, with her actor husband Ian.

SCHMOOZING WITH CATHY SPENCER

1. Who has influenced you the most in your writing career?

Three authors come to mind: Agatha Christie, Robert B. Parker, and Fannie Flagg. Christie because her plot structures are exquisite, Parker because I like his spare writing style and humour, and Flagg because she’s such a good storyteller. There are elements of their writing common to mine, and others to which I aspire.

2. What are you working on now?

I’m writing a contemporary romance for the first time. It’s set in Toronto, and is called The Dating Do-Over. It’s about Viv Nowack, a thirty-one-year-old woman who’s been dumped by her boyfriend of six years on Valentine’s Day. She’s had the worst streak of luck with men ‒ all her life, actually ‒ and her two best friends decide they’re going to vet her boyfriends from now on. I’m considering turning it into a trilogy.

3. In what ways is your main protagonist like you? If at all?

Viv is nothing like me, but Anna Nolan, the heroine of my mystery series, does have certain similarities. Like Anna, I was an administrative assistant working for an academic department in a Calgary university while commuting to work from a small town. Unlike Anna, my actor-husband is still alive.

4. Are you character driven or plot driven?

Both, I’d say. I start with a plot idea, but the characters often take me in directions I didn’t expect. You can get by without a whole lot happening in your story, but if the characters aren’t well-developed, forget it.

5. Are you a pantser or a plotter?

Definitely a pantser. I know how the story starts and how it’s going to end, but that huge, gaping section in the middle scares me.

6. What do you hope readers will most take away from your writing?

I read for entertainment and I write for entertainment. If my readers have a laugh along the way and maybe a look at life from a different point of view, that’s great.

7. Where do you see yourself as a writer in 10 years?

I started, briefly, as a self-published author before I signed with a vanity e-publisher. I created my own publishing company and went back to self-publishing in 2014. I would like to be a hybrid author ten years from now, meaning that some of my books would be published by a traditional publisher, while others would be self-published. Print books are still outselling e-books and audio books, and it’s very difficult to get paperbacks into brick and mortar bookstores, libraries, and big box stores without going through traditional publishers. On the other hand, I don’t like relinquishing control of things like cover design and promotion, and the ability to track sales on a daily basis is habit-forming. But ten years from now, the publishing business is going to look a whole lot different, so we’ll see.

8. What is one thing your readers would be most surprised to know about you?

I’m not driven to write. As a matter of fact, I didn’t begin writing until six years ago. Never even kept a journal. However, I’ve never found another profession that I enjoy half so much.

9. What do you like to read for pleasure?

Mysteries are my go-to choice, although I also enjoy autobiographies, chick lit, some romances, and the classics. Nancy Drew was the first series I remember reading as a child, with Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie not far behind.

10. Give us a summary of your latest book in a Tweet

Anna’s ex-husband just showed up again‒dead! Was he murdered by 1 of the 3 women he was romancing on a movie set? Anna may die finding out.

Cathy Spencer's first mystery novel, Framed for Murder, just won the Bloody Words Light Mystery Award, the Bony Blithe at the Bloody Words Mystery Conference held in Toronto, on June 7th.

SCHMOOZING WITH JANET BOLIN

1. Who has influenced you the most in your writing career? \

JB- My parents. They both loved to read and they read aloud to us. They were also very creative—if they wanted something, they made it. So if I wanted new stories, I made them.

2. What are you working on now?

JB-I’m finishing the fifth manuscript in the Threadville Mystery series. It’s due June 1.

3. In what ways is your main protagonist like you? If at all?

JB-Willow and I share a love of sewing, machine embroidery, and textile arts, but that’s about where the likeness ends. Willow is much better at handcrafts than I am. And she’s more impulsive and also braver about wandering around late at night, investigating. She’s younger, thinner, taller... And she’s not interested in writing books. But if I owned a store full of the newest sewing and embroidery machines, I might not write as much, either.

4. Are you character driven or plot driven?

JB-Character, within the framework of a murder and the resulting investigation. I throw my characters into a situation, and they take it from there.

5. Are you a pantser or a plotter?

JB-I used to be a pantser, but I ended up rewriting and rearranging scenes about a million times, so now, I plot first. I start with a very brief outline, because the fun is in the writing, not in the plotting. By the end of each writing day, I like to know what comes next, so I create a more detailed outline as I go along.

6. What do you hope readers will most take away from your writing?

JB-Entertainment. I want them to laugh, understand Willow’s emotions, and feel like they’re actually in Threadville while they’re reading the books and for awhile after they finish them.

7. Where do you see yourself as a writer in 10 years?

JB-As long as people want to read cozy mysteries, I’ll be happy writing them.

8. What is one thing your readers would be most surprised to know about you?

JB-I once had to be lifted down from a ski lift. Then again, they might not be surprised at all.


9. What do you like to read for pleasure?

JB-Fiction, especially mysteries and suspense.


10. Give us a summary of your latest book in a Tweet

JB-NIGHT OF THE LIVING THREAD - Something stitched this way comes...



Discouraged by the lack of sewing, and yarn shops near her rural home, Janet Bolin invented Threadville, a village of textile arts shops. Three Threadville Mysteries have been published so far—DIRE THREADS, THREADED FOR TROUBLE, and THREAD AND BURIED. The fourth Threadville mystery, NIGHT OF THE LIVING THREAD comes out on June 3, and features, among other things, a wedding, a craft fair, ancient Egyptian curses, an undulating trail of glow-in-the-dark thread, and people dressed up like zombies. And there’s a murder...

In addition to reading, writing, and walking dogs, Janet’s hobbies include sewing, knitting, and machine embroidery, including using software and killer (!) sewing machines to create original embroidery designs. http://www.ThreadvilleMysteries.com

SCHMOOZING WITH LINDA HALL

Who has influenced you the most in your writing career?

I’ve had so very many influences through the years that it’s hard to come up with just one. If you had asked me this when I was a teenager I had one name- Edgar Allan Poe. Later on it was Ruth Rendell. I especially adored her Barbara Vine books. I read Sue Grafton devoured her books and loved the idea of the series character.

What are you working on now?

I have a number of projects in the works. As we speak, my full length mystery, Night Watch is in with my agent. It features my new series character, Captain Emmeline Ridge, a female boat delivery captain who, of course, ends up being right in the middle of all sorts of murders and mystery and mayhem.

A second thing I’m working on is a short story collection. I’ve written a number through the years and I’m currently planning on self-publishing an ebook collection. I love short stories, love reading them and love writing them, but for a long time the publishing industry decided that “they didn't sell”. Well, no body asked me! This collection of mine will include a few stories reprinted from anthologies and some new ones. Currently I don’t even have a title for the collection - so stay tuned - writerhall.com or Facebook.com/writerhall

The final thing I’m doing is re-editing some of my out-of print works and getting them up as eBooks. That has been rewarding and great fun.

In what ways is your main protagonist like you? If at all?

Writing a series featuring a sailor has long been something I’ve wanted to do. I love the water and boats and happily am married to someone who shares this passion. My husband and I have a sailboat, aptly named ‘Mystery’ that we move aboard once summer comes. We consider it our summer cottage. Em Ridge is sort of my alter ego, the braver version of me. She’s the kind of sailor I want to be, not the kind I really am - the one who cowers down below in the cabin during storms while my husband mans the sails. She is strong and brave and takes control. I’m not that way so much on boats during storms.

Are you character driven or plot driven?

I like to say character driven, and probably for the most part that’s true, but sometimes stories come to me by a snippet of plot or a bit of a setting. Setting is a big one for me. Recently I watched a documentary about groups of young dumpster divers. They are very regimented - as in they have certain dumpsters they go to on certain nights of the week. But oh, the stashes they come up with - full loaves of bread, tons of barely bad produce, boxes of cereal and more. I kept thinking about these kids, and kept thinking about them, until an idea came to me. It’s the short story I’m currently working on. So, is that character or plot? Yes. And no.

Are you a pantser or a plotter?

Again, I would like to say Pantzer, but recently I’ve begun using Scrivener and LOVE it for writing and organizing my mystery clues and ideas. So, maybe that makes me a plotter? Don’t know.

What do you hope readers will most take away from your writing?

Entertainment, and entertainment alone. I hope I can provide a moment away from my reader’s real life. I want them to finish my book and quickly ask, “Where’s Linda’s next book?”


Where do you see yourself as a writer in 10 years?

I am chuckling as I read this question. This is the sort of question you ask someone in their 30s and 40s, maybe even someone in their early 50s. People in these age categories spend a lot of time at the beginning of every year writing down goals. They come up with 5-year plans and 10-year plans, carefully kept in notebooks which they check from time to time to make sure they’re on track.

But where do I want to be in ten years? I want to be ten years older, but still writing and still healthy and enjoying my grandchildren who will be ten years older. I cannot envision myself ‘retiring’ from writing.

What is one thing your readers would be most surprised to know about you?

In the mid-2000s I studied Celestial Navigation - it nearly killed me. It was a difficult, difficult course, and took this non-Math person a year to complete, but I can theoretically use a sextant to find my way around the planet’s oceans using nothing but the math this planet provides.

What do you like to read for pleasure?

My favorite reading is mysteries, of course, but I enjoy a lot of genres. One of the funnest things I’ve done lately is to join a book club. We read a wide variety of books, including Canada Reads selections and Gov. General Award finalists. It has really broadened my reading. and I love it. I feel I’m learning a lot.

Give us a summary of your latest book in a Tweet

Everything is not as it seems aboard sailboat Blue Peace and when one crew member is found dead and another goes missing, Captain Em Ridge finds herself right in the middle of mayhem on the high seas.

Award-winning author Linda Hall has written eighteen mystery novels plus many short stories. She has written for Multnomah Publishing, WaterBrook Press, Random House and most recently for Harlequin’s Love Inspired line. Most of her novels have something to do with the sea. When she's not writing, Linda and her husband Rik enjoy sailing the coast of Maine aboard their 34' sailboat aptly named - MYSTERY.

SCHMOOZING WITH R.J. HARLICK

1. Who has influenced you the most in your writing career?

It is hard to pinpoint any one influence. There have been so many over the years from the time when I was a young avid reader and wanted to write a mystery story just like Agatha Christie and Nancy Drew to today when a lengthy power outage I endured last winter is similar to the one Meg is putting up with in the book I am currently writing. Well written books, people I’ve met, places I’ve visited, my own experiences, newspaper stories, Canada’s great outdoors, my log cabin in the wilds of Quebec, family stories, other people’s stories and the list goes on. All have combined to influence my writing one way or the other. Of course I mustn’t forget my husband who has been my constant companion on this writing adventure.

2. What are you working on now?

For the 7th book in the Meg Harris series, I thought I would try something different, so Meg finds herself at the centre of a thriller. After her travels to BC, Meg is back at Three Deer Point. It is a week before Christmas and a major blizzard is blocking off her world. Eric is away and she’s alone in her rambling Victorian cottage with Adjidamo, the young boy Sergei rescued several winters ago, when a knock on the front door rings through the house…. And so it goes. I am having great fun writing it.

3. In what ways is your main protagonist like you? If at all?

When you write in the first person, you can’t help but have some similarities with your protagonist. Although I have endeavoured to make Meg as much unlike me as possible, some of me does come through. We both have a love for nature and wild places and enjoy spending many hours exploring the hidden delights of a forest or paddling the many lakes and rivers that wend through the land.

I’m probably as big a chicken as she is, but she invariably overcomes her fears to do what she needs to do, like walking into a situation she knows is threatening. I don’t think I could. Mind you, like Meg I feel far more at ease on a particularly dark moonless night at my cottage when I have my big standard poodles by my side. Meg is more impulsive than I am and has a tendency to jump into situations without thinking them completely through, which can get her into trouble. I tend to sit back and wait to see what happens.

One of the aspects I have enjoyed in writing the series, is creating Meg and watching her grow and evolve from book to book. For me and hopefully for my readers, Meg has become a real person with her own unique quirks.

4. Are you character driven or plot driven?

I am not sure I could separate the two in my writing. While I usually start with a vague idea on a plot, often what drives the plot is Meg herself and her reaction to situations. Many times the story has taken a completely different turn from what I had envisioned because of Meg’s actions. So I would have to say I am both.

5. Are you a pantser or a plotter

I guess I should hide my head in shame and admit I fly by the seat of my pants. As mentioned, I start with a vague idea of a story theme and plot, its setting and a couple of characters besides Meg and Eric. I tried outlining with my early books, but the end story bore no relationship to the outline, so I don’t bother anymore. I call it writing by juggling. As I progress through the story I throw many balls into the air and hope, more like pray, they land successfully. I’m always amazed when they do.

6. What do you hope readers will most take away from your writing?

I strive for nothing more than my readers turn the last page of one of my books with the feeling of satisfaction of having finished a good read. I also hope that they leave knowing a little more about the wild place in Canada that I am writing about and the people that live there.

7. Where do you see yourself as a writer in 10 years?

Ten years seems so far away. I can only look as far as the next book. I have thoroughly enjoyed the time I have spent with Meg thus far, a good 15 years or more. As long as I continue to enjoy her company, I will keep writing about her. Thoughts of doing another series have crossed my mind, but I will only do that once I tire of Meg.

8. What is one thing your readers would be most surprised to know about you?

Gosh, I’ve no idea. I feel my life is like an open book and not very exciting. I like to start my mornings with a bracing cup of English Breakfast tea instead of the Canadian hot drink of choice, coffee. I love floating silently over the land in a hot air balloon or drifting over the mirror calm water of a lake in a canoe. My favourite writing spot is the screened-in porch at my cottage, where Meg’s world is only a millimetre thick screen away.

9. What do you like to read for pleasure?

I love to read, have done so since a child. Needless to say mysteries are and have always been my preferred read, but I enjoy good literary novels and have read most of the greats. My key requirement for a good book is a well constructed story with engaging characters and a setting that transports me to another place. I do have my favourite authors and the one that immediately comes to mind is Dorothy Dunnett. Though she wrote a mystery series, it is her historical series, The Lymond Chronicles, that have enthralled me. I think I have read the six hefty volumes of the chronicles a good 4 or more times and each time gain more insight into the complex character of Francis Lymond and his fascinating 16th century world.


10. Give us a summary of your latest book in a Tweet

In Silver Totem of Shame, the murder of a young carver sends Meg Harris to Haida Gwaii, where she unravels a tangle of betrayal that reaches back to the 1880s

Described by the Ottawa Citizen as “one of the brightest new voices in the mystery business”, RJ Harlick, writes the acclaimed Meg Harris mystery series set in the wilds of Quebec. Like her heroine Meg Harris, RJ loves nothing better than to roam the forests surrounding her own wilderness cabin or paddle the endless lakes and rivers. The 4th book, Arctic Blue Death was a finalist in the 2010 Arthur Ellis Award for Best Novel. In the 6th book in the series, Silver Totem of Shame, to be released in June, Meg travels to Haida Gwaii, the mystical islands of the Haida situated on the edge of the Canada’s west coast. RJ is the current President of Crime Writers of Canada.

SCHMOOZING WITH MIKE MARTIN

1. Who has influenced you the most in your writing career?

There are many people who have been a part of shaping me as a writer. I think I have always admired great writers, like Dickens or Hemingway but that has been more adoration than trying to model myself after them. I am inspired by all writers who manage to actually finish and publish a book. In mystery writing I also like the classics but my series started as trying to capture the same sense of food, culture and scenery as Donna Leon’s Inspector Brunetti’s series. Newfoundland is not Venice but we’re trying!

2. What are you working on now?

I am completed Book 3 of the Sgt. Windflower Mystery Series, Beneath the Surface. and it should be on the shelves this spring. So I will enjoy that book’s journey into the world. I am also thinking about Book 4 but I like those ideas to percolate, so I probably will not do any more major writing on that until later in the year. I think I may even write another book, not a Windflower, and maybe not even a mystery. But that too is still brewing on the back burner.

3. In what ways is your main protagonist like you? If at all?

I think that consciously or not we all put pieces of ourselves into our protagonists. It is really hard not to. So the parts I will acknowledge are that Windflower hates WalMart. That’s not him, that’s me. But on the other characteristics I think that Sgt. Windflower is more like the man I would like to be, rather than the one I am. He is much better than me in many, many ways right now.

4. Are you character driven or plot driven?

My first book, The Walker on the Cape, was all about the plot. I wanted the story to be so good so that’s what I focused on. The second book, The Body on the T, was almost completely character driven. My third book, Beneath the Surface, is hopefully a combination of the two. It felt like a natural progression, and I hope my readers agree.

5. Are you a pantser or a plotter?

I am a true-blue pantser. I cannot imagine sitting in front of the computer and trying to plot out the whole story from beginning to end. To me, that sounds like too much work. The fun of writing, IMHO, is in watching the story unfold from your imagination, just like the reader does. The characters come. They tell the story. I write it down. I get to say where the story begins, and where it ends. At least for now.

6. What do you hope readers will most take away from your writing?

I hope that people have fun when they read my books. If they learn a little more about Newfoundland or Windflower’s culture background, that’s a bonus. I want them to feel like they have visited my home island province, tasting the food, felt the strong wind in their hair. Maybe even imagined what it was like to just sit by the ocean and watch the waves.

7. Where do you see yourself as a writer in 10 years

I hope I’m still writing. That would be enough for me. And of course being famous and as rich as possible, lol.

8. What is one thing your readers would be most surprised to know about you?

This is often the toughest question for me to answer. Most of the people that know me well would be and are very surprised to know that I am a writer, and that I write mystery novels. I have always been a social policy, serious, save the world type of writer. I’m still trying to figure out how I got here.


9. What do you like to read for pleasure?

I read everything from the back of the cereal box to the latest fiction. Some mysteries, always some Canadian, and whatever anyone gives me as a gift.
Usually I have two or three books happening at once. Every year I make a book list, a trick somebody showed me years ago. On the list you have to put 4 new books, 4 books by authors you have read before, 4 biographies, 4 science books, and 4 ‘classics’. That at least ensures I get a range of books throughout the year.

10. Give us a summary of your latest book in a Tweet (140 characters or less)

Beneath the Surface is about honour and betrayal. It's about crime and corruption. About fish, fog and freedom. A taste of life in Nfld.

Mike Martin is the author of the Windflower Mystery Series, set in small communities on the east coast of Canada. His latest book, The Body on the T, is now available as an e-book on Amazon.com and Chapters.ca
www.bodyonthet.com

SCHMOOZING WITH CATHY ACE

1. Who has influenced you the most in your writing career?

This has to be a combination of Agatha Christie and Ngaio Marsh, with a bit of Sue Grafton thrown in for good measure.

2. What are you working on now?

I’m currently plotting and researching Cait Morgan Mystery #5, which I am due to send to my publisher mid-February 2014, for publication (I hope) in the spring of 2015. Her third mystery, The Corpse with the Emerald Thumb will be published in the spring of 2014, and her fourth, The Corpse with the Platinum Hair, in the fall of 2014.

3. In what ways is your main protagonist like you? If at all?

Oh heck – I have to be careful here! Cait Morgan is very much like me in some ways, but very different in others. She was born a few years later than I was, but I’ve given her my general upbringing and career – up to a point. She’s also similar to me in terms of likes and dislikes when it comes to food and drink, so we share a body type and similar issues with weight and will-power! But I’ve given Cait talents and traits I do not possess, which help her to solve the complex puzzles she encounters. I’m delighted to say that I tend not to trip over corpses when I travel, but I think it’s essential that Cait continues to do so. One thing I decided to make a big difference for Cait is that she lost her parents in a motor vehicle accident – she keeps their ashes in matching urns on her mantelpiece. Because my Mum is the first person to read anything I write, I wanted her to be very clear that anything I write about Cait’s feelings toward her parents is not what I feel about mine!

4. Are you character driven or plot driven?

The plot is paramount, but my characters have to act within the parameters of what they would, or wouldn’t “really” do, in the circumstances I set up for them. As such, while the plot might kick-start the problems, the way that characters react to the situations in which they find themselves can sometimes compound the initial problems, on the way to discovering the final solution, of course.

5. Are you a pantser or a plotter?

Plotter! I’m a very detailed plotter, note-maker and planner. I enjoy plots where there are twists and turns, and that sort of thing really doesn’t work well if you don’t plan ahead. I also make copious notes about the entire life stories of all my characters – the main ones who live from book to book, of course, but also those who appear in only one book. For me, these are living, breathing people, so knowing where they went to school, what sort of a home they live in, how they live their lives, is vital for me, before I start to put them onto the page. These back-stories don’t often end up on the page, in their entirety, but it helps me, as a writer, to really know them. I often find myself telling myself “so-and-so wouldn’t say or do that” so I feel this insight helps me keep characters true to themselves.

6. What do you hope readers will most take away from your writing?

A feeling that they’ve enjoyed spending time with Cait Morgan. That maybe they’ve learned a little something about a certain bit of history, or art, or geography, and had fun doing it. That they found the characters they met, and the places they visited, to be interesting. That the total, ultimate solution to the puzzle/s are satisfying. Overall, I hope they have fun…and I hope they see my books as an absorbing, gratifying entertainment.

7. Where do you see yourself as a writer in 10 years?

The real answer is that I hope I sell enough books that I still AM a writer in ten years’ time, and that, if I keep writing for that period, I keep getting better and better. There’s always room for improvement and as I write I learn…I hope to have the chance to keep learning. If people are still enjoying spending time with Cait Morgan in ten years’ time, I would hope that by then my husband would have retired and we’d be able to spend more time together. If that means we can travel as a couple while I research books, and meet readers, that would be the perfect life!

8. What is one thing your readers would be most surprised to know about you?

I always eat and drink everything Cait Morgan does just so I can be sure I describe it properly. It’s fun, and sometimes a challenge!

9. What do you like to read for pleasure?

I still return to my Agatha Christie collection, like an old pair of slippers, when I want some comfort reading. PD James is the perfect companion on holiday, because of the pace of her work, as is anything by Colin Dexter. Louise Penny, Linwood Barclay, Erika Chase, Alan Bradley and Peter Robinson are five fabulous Canadian authors, writing today, whose work, between them, meets any mood that I’m in. Ian Rankin, Tamar Myers, Sue Grafton, Katherine Hall Page, Rhys Bowen, Andrew Pyper, Lynda La Plante – all are on my bookshelves, along with works by the late Reginald Hill, Tony Hillerman, Robert B Parker and Elmore Leonard. Tolkien, Goethe, Mann, Zola, Austen, Camus, Sartre, Pinter, Shakespeare, Milton, Chaucer – these are some of the authors whose works are on my shelves, and who I think of as old friends I am happy to visit when I can.

10. Give us a summary of your latest book in a Tweet

THE CORPSE WITH THE GOLDEN NOSE (published March 2013):

Eccentric Welsh Canadian foodie criminologist Cait Morgan tackles a complex, closed circle mystery at a gourmet event in BC’s wine country.