Anyone who may have read my modest bio would most likely conclude it was a no-brainer for someone who had worked in Canada’s largest museum for more than two decades to write a novel set in a museum. Ironically, it was actually my love of movies, a love which began long before chocolate or museums were on my radar, that led to the writing of Theft By Chocolate, a sassy museum mystery about a woman looking for chocolate, love and an international art thief in all the wrong places.
So just how did I get from Point A to Point B? Well, that happened via what seemed like a lot of wrong turns. But looking back on it, I realize the path I encountered was far more interesting than the direct route.
So just how did I get from Point A to Point B? Well, that happened via what seemed like a lot of wrong turns. But looking back on it, I realize the path I encountered was far more interesting than the direct route.
One of my earliest childhood memories is waking up in my mother’s arms in a movie theatre to a scene of Doris Day screaming at Rock Hudson. My family lived literally steps away from a movie theatre, so it had become a regular haunt for an immigrant family seeking escapism. As soon as my parents deemed my older brother responsible enough to care for me, which back in the day was far younger than it would be in our current culture, we were hitting the Saturday double-header at The Delta Theatre together.
The first time I realized I loved to write was several years after we moved away from that theater (boo!), probably around the age of eight, when a short story I wrote was a big hit with my classmates. I took English studies until I completed high school, but because of my strong dislike of literary analysis, I didn’t pursue literature classes in university. I majored in history instead, with a minor in art history, and although I wrote a Master’s thesis about a ruling family in a tiny principality in Renaissance Italy, it failed to become a bestseller – though it did fulfill the requirements of my program.
The first time I realized I loved to write was several years after we moved away from that theater (boo!), probably around the age of eight, when a short story I wrote was a big hit with my classmates. I took English studies until I completed high school, but because of my strong dislike of literary analysis, I didn’t pursue literature classes in university. I majored in history instead, with a minor in art history, and although I wrote a Master’s thesis about a ruling family in a tiny principality in Renaissance Italy, it failed to become a bestseller – though it did fulfill the requirements of my program.
After graduate studies, I landed in the offices of the Royal Ontario Museum, but writing still tugged at my heartstrings. I completed a magazine journalism program in the evenings, but journalism wasn't my passion. So for years, the only writing outlet I had was drafting copy for the Museum’s Programs Department quarterly brochure.
But then I discovered the Toronto International Film Festival and for the next twenty plus years I took vacation time to attend the Festival full-time viewing up to fifty films per festival. But then the friend who introduced me to the event moved to England and I began writing email reviews and reports of my adventures (this was long before the term “blog” was coined and before the average person could create a web site). It turned out that many more of my friends were interested in the annual journal, and they told their friends, and they told their friends. So my list of recipients grew exponentially and my annual journal amounted to a small book.
I absolutely loved reporting on TIFF to my readers, but it was physically draining as it added a minimum of two additional hours to a 16-hour film festing day. After more than a decade of what was now officially blogging (and one year, I created a beautiful web site, if I do say so myself), I had to give it up to save my sanity. The stamina was simply no longer available to me. But what was a writer to do?
I absolutely loved reporting on TIFF to my readers, but it was physically draining as it added a minimum of two additional hours to a 16-hour film festing day. After more than a decade of what was now officially blogging (and one year, I created a beautiful web site, if I do say so myself), I had to give it up to save my sanity. The stamina was simply no longer available to me. But what was a writer to do?
The first thing I did was enroll in a screen-writing program and I completed a screenplay. And then I started what was to become Theft By Chocolate. But like most beginning writers, I thought I knew it all. Finally an editor from Random House, whom I will never thank enough, suggested as diplomatically as possible I take more writing classes. And I listened to him. I enrolled in a summer writing workshop where I workshopped Theft By Chocolate. And then I enrolled in a creative writing program where I completed the first draft. Getting the book published is another story. But as I wrote Theft, I could not resist introducing film as a motif into the work. The tone of my book is reminiscent of those wonderful 1950s museum heist movies with less emphasis on technology and more on characters.
Film will always be my first love and no matter what the subject matter of future novels, I will always find a way to work movies into my story. I live in a city internationally reputed for having the best and most dedicated movie-going audiences in the world, so there’s no avoiding it. But how lucky was I to be able to intertwine all my loves in one book – film, chocolate, museums and writing. Life doesn’t get much better than that.
Film will always be my first love and no matter what the subject matter of future novels, I will always find a way to work movies into my story. I live in a city internationally reputed for having the best and most dedicated movie-going audiences in the world, so there’s no avoiding it. But how lucky was I to be able to intertwine all my loves in one book – film, chocolate, museums and writing. Life doesn’t get much better than that.