My friends. And I have so many friends. When I decided to take up the life of a writer, about the last reason was to meet interesting people and make new friends. And that's turned out to be the very best part of it. The Canadian crime-writing community is close, and I cherish the support and friendship it gives me very much.
2.What are you working on now?
The second book in the Lighthouse Library series for NAL-Penguin. The first book is titled By Book or By Crook and will be released in Feb 2015. I am using a pen name this time out - Eva Gates.
3. In what ways is your main protagonist like you? If at all?
I am always a bit stumped by this question, because I have so many protagonists. Constable Molly Smith of the series of that name is a young policewoman. She is nothing at all like me. Fiona MacGillivray of the Klondike Gold Rush series is smart, ruthless, determined, and totally without scruples. She is also the most beautiful woman in the Yukon. She is not the least bit like me. Perhaps the protagonists of my standalones are more like me. Just ordinarym women, caught up in events beyond their control, trying to do the right thing.
4. Are you character driven or plot driven?
Again, depends on the series. I'd say usually character driven, certainly in the standalone novels and the Klondike books; the Molly Smith ones are more plot driven. The Klondike books are probably more setting driven. Everything that happens and all the characters are determined by being in Dawson City, Yukon in the summer of 1898.
5. Are you a pantser or a plotter?
In the past I would have said a pantser with a bit of an idea for what I wanted the plot to do. But with the Lighthouse Library books I have to submit a detailed outline first, and I've found that I really like working like that. So from now on, I intend to be a plotter.
6. What do you hope readers will most take away from your writing?
The love of reading and the tremendous variety to be found between the pages of a book. My books are not intended to provide biting social commentary, and they have entertainment value first and foremost. But I hope they have something to say about the world we live in. In the standalone novels I try to say something about the present, through giving the reader a glimpse of the past.
7. Where do you see yourself as a writer in 10 years?
I really can't say. On April 1st, I will have sixteen published books. I have a three book contact for the Lighthouse Library series, I hope to do another cozy series. I'll write as long as I enjoy it and then I won't any longer.
8. What is one thing your readers would be most surprised to know about you?
I am one of the world's great introverts.
9. What do you like to read for pleasure?
Crime novels almost exclusively. I love the modern gothics by the likes of Kate Morton, and I love the British police procedurals by people like Susan Hill or Peter Robinson. I read a lot of Canadian mysteries, often for the setting. Our people, telling our stories.
10. Give us a summary of your latest book in a Tweet.
Under Cold Stone: A Constable Molly Smith Novel Banff National Park. A hotel inspired by a Scottish castle.A romantic weekend. An unlikely couple. An estranged son, and a call for help.
Vicki is one of Canada’s most prolific and varied crime writers. She is the author of the Constable Molly Smith series and standalone Gothic thrillers from Poisoned Pen Press, as well as the light-hearted Klondike Gold Rush books from Dundurn. Her first Rapid Reads book, A Winter Kill, was shortlisted for the 2012 Arthur Ellis Award for best novella. In April she will see two books published, Under Cold Stone, the seventh book in the Smith & Winters police procedural series and Juba Good, a Rapid Reads Novella from Orca Books set in South Sudan. Visit Vicki at www.vickidelany.com, on Twitter @vickidelany and Facebook at www.facebook.com/Vicki.Delany. She blogs about the writing life at One Woman Crime Wave klondikeandtrafalgar.blogspot.com.
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