Laurie Wood Interview

Q: Let me start with asking you to tell us a little bit about yourself.
A. Thank you for having me today, Susan! I’m the wife of an active service officer in the Royal Canadian Air Force and the mom of two adults with Down Syndrome. We’ve lived all over Canada. Before I stayed home with our children, I was a police officer and also ran an overnight youth crisis shelter in our hometown.

Q: When did you first realize you wanted to be a writer?
A. I knew in high school and college that I wanted to be a writer, but life circumstances meant I needed to get a job to pay the bills early on. Once I was home full time with our children, the dream resurrected itself and I buckled down and worked hard at trying to write novel length fiction.

Q: Could you give us the highlights of your professional writing career including how you got your first writing break?
A. I wrote three novels before the one that sold and was published last December. Those books were great practice, and I loved writing them. I was lucky to meet Tina Russo Radcliffe online and joined her mentoring group in 2017. My fourth novel was picked up by Anaiah Press during a Twitter pitch fest in early 2018.

Q: Would you tell us about your current book release NORTHERN DECEPTION?
A: NORTHERN DECEPTION is a romantic suspense set in the real-life town of Churchill, Manitoba which sits on the 59th parallel in Canada. It’s the gateway to the arctic and called “The Polar Bear Capitol of the World”. The heroine is a polar bear scientist. Her brother is murdered, and she returns to Churchill with evidence she doesn’t realize she has, so there are killers are after her. The hero owns a tour company up there and even though she ran out on his marriage proposal five years ago, he teams up with her to save her from the killers and find out what they’re doing to sabotage the town.

Q: Where did you get your inspiration for NORTHERN DECEPTION?
A: I wanted to write a story set in Canada and I couldn’t think of anything more iconic than our far north and our polar bears. This has morphed into a series called “Heroes of the Tundra” and I’m writing a Christmas novella right now due out this December, set in the same “world”.

Q: What is the main thing you hope readers remember from this story?
A: The theme of NORTHERN DECEPTION is that no matter how painful your past, you can heal from it and have a second change at life. The heroine is running from trauma and she cut off the hero before he even helped her with it. So, I hope readers will remember that no matter what trauma or baggage we’re carrying, we can face it, and work it through if we give ourselves the chance and trust God for the healing.

Q: What inspires you to write?
A. I’d say my life experience. When I was younger, I had the desire but not the depth of experience to bring authenticity to my stories. I hope I can inspire readers to deal with tough issues in their lives, knowing there’s hope and healing when they deal with them.

Q: Would you share with us what you are working on now?
A. I’m writing a Christmas novella set in Churchill, in the “Heroes of the Tundra” world. The title is still TBA but it’ll be released December 6, 2019. And NORTHERN PROTECTOR, Book 2 in the “Heroes of the Tundra” series will be out June 2020, so I’m quite busy! I hope readers enjoy the novella as it takes place the same Christmas as NORTHERN DECEPTION.

Q: When you’re not writing what do you like to do?
A: I’m an avid spinner, and by that, I mean, I spin on a spinning wheel. I have a modern Lendrum spinning wheel which was made in 1987 and I own an antique Icelandic wheel from the mid-1850’s which still works and spins beautiful lace weight yarn. I also dye my own wool and silk fibres to spin and that’s the kind of creativity that fills up my soul when I need a break from writing. And I use all this spun yarn to knit scarves and shawls. Sock knitting is another addiction–you can’t just knit one pair of socks! These hobbies are very “zen” for your mind and help to relax your brain in a way that writing doesn’t, so I find they complement each other.