Hi Kim! I’m thrilled to be here.
This morning, I’m in my favourite coffee shop just outside Ottawa, Canada, with a latte, a friend, and my laptop. It’s chilly! I’m working on the first draft of a novel set in the 16th century. (I’ll have two other books out before that one – Mercutio, coming next year from Harper Voyager, and The Swordmaster, coming at the end of 2026 from Solaris.)
I gravitate toward historical settings, especially in my long work, and there’s usually some fantastical element as well. In The Tapestry of Time, as you know, it was clairvoyance; in The Embroidered Book, Marie Antoinette and her sister were able to enchant objects (at a cost).
As you said in my introduction, I used to be a newspaper journalist. These days, I do some freelance work for non-profits in addition to my fiction work, and I teach arts and culture reporting at a university (I have some marking to do this weekend). In my spare time, I study medieval swordplay, and I have a very sweet little black cat named Minerva.
I’m looking forward to the conversation!