Yvonne Maximchuk is still exploring the Broughton Archipelago in her sixteen-foot speedboat SeaRose from her off-grid home on Gilford Island, still learning the secret world of islands and inlets from which she draws her inspiration. She is a life-long working artist in acrylic, watercolour, drawing media and clay, and author of a memoir; Drawn to Sea – From Paintbrush to Chainsaw, Carving out a Life on BC’s Rugged Raincoast (Caitlin Press 2013) about her life in the Broughton Archipelago wilderness. She is co-author of Full Moon Flood Tide, Bill Proctor’s Raincoast (Harbour Publishing 2003) nominated for the Bill Duthie’s Booksellers Choice award in the BC and Yukon Book Awards. A follow-up, Tide Rips and Back Eddies, Bill Proctor’s Tales of Blackfish Sound was published (Harbour Publishing) in 2015.
Yvonne’s colouring book, Colour the British Columba Coast; was a smash hit up to and during covid. Within its pages are forty drawings, along with a brief description of the scene and artist tips. Released June 2016 (Harbour Publishing) it quickly went to a second edition.
Laurie McLure has a passion for crime fiction and for those who read it, write it, edit it, represent it and publish it. Laurie garnered significant writing experience throughout her career with government and through working and volunteering with not-for-profit organizations. She is a member of the Mystery Writers of America and the Crime Writers of Canada. The great loves of Laurie's life are her family, animals, travel, books and potato chips.
Joanna Vander Vlugt is an author and illustrator. As a teenager, she drew charcoal portraits and wrote mysteries. Now, she uses Copic markers to illustrate motorcycles and scooters. The Unravelling, her debut novel, and Dealer’s Child were Canadian Book Club Awards finalists. The third novel in the Jade & Sage Thyme series, Spy Girls, will be released in March 2024. Joanna draws upon her 13 years’ experience working in the prosecutor’s office and 10 years working in the Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner for inspiration for her novels. Joanna is proud of her podcast SAM Magazine and the many authors she has interviewed.
Joanna’s novels, art and podcast can be found at joannavandervlugt.com.
Learn more about Crime Writers of Canada at: crimewriterscanada.com
Find past video interviews at: youtube.com/@crimewritersofcanada1279
Carolyne Topdjian is a writer, essayist, and novelist with stories published in PRISM International, Dreamers Magazine, and Firewords Quarterly. Her creative endeavors gravitate toward fusions of gothic mystery, noir suspense, and surrealist fantasy. As an Armenian of the diaspora and Lebanese-Canadian who’s been displaced by war, Topdjian often explores themes of belonging and human existence in her work—moments when people are caught in dark states of transition, contradiction, and flux.
Topdjian holds an interdisciplinary PhD from York University, is a three-time Pitch Wars mentor and a professor in the Faculty of Media and Creative Arts at Humber College in Toronto. Fittingly, she’s lived in a hundred-year-old haunted house for over a decade. Her recent novel publications include The Hitman’s Daughter and The Black Moth.
Find her at: www.carolynetopdjian.com
Learn more about Crime Writers of Canada at: crimewriterscanada.com
Find past video interviews at: youtube.com/@crimewritersofcanada1279
Tony Ollivier is known for his gripping high-concept thrillers. He is the author of the David Knight Series, which has garnered multiple awards including, the winner of Best Thriller in 2022 by Canadian Book Club Awards and Bronze Metal in The Suspense, Thriller & Espionage category of the 2023 Reader’s Favorite Awards. The first book in the series, “The Amsterdam Deception”, was followed in August 2023 by the sequel “The Tokyo Diversion”. Tony has travelled the world and currently resides in Vancouver. By day, he works in Competitive Intelligence at a software company based in Portugal. His impressive career has included stints at Xerox, Apple, IBM, and Microsoft. By night, he write snarky action thrillers with an unusual protagonists.
Learn more at tonyollivier.com
Learn more about Crime Writers of Canada at: crimewriterscanada.com
Find past video interviews at: youtube.com/@crimewritersofcanada1279
Joel Nedecky is a teacher and writer from Winnipeg. His short stories have appeared with Punk Noir, Urban Pigs Press and Guilty Crime Story Magazine. His novel, The Broken Detective, was nominated for an Award of Excellence for Best Unpublished Manuscript sponsored by ECW press and will be released 2025.
We’ve interviewed Joel before and chatted about his upcoming novel. You can watch the interview here: https://youtu.be/HYbbkbaJpkc.
In this podcast we discuss three recently published short stories. You can read the stories at these links:
Million Miles of Fun: https://punknoirmagazine.wordpress.com/2023/09/23/the-mixtape-side-a/
One Cold Moment: https://www.guiltycrimemag.com/flash/one-cold-moment-by-joel-nedecky
Go with God: https://urbanpigspress.co.uk/2023/12/13/go-with-god-joel-nedecky/
To learn more about Joel, please visit: https://jnedecky.com/
Learn more about Crime Writers of Canada at: crimewriterscanada.com
Find past video interviews at: youtube.com/@crimewritersofcanada1279
Ardelle Holden, along with her husband Patrick, raised two children while adventuring in aviation, mining exploration, and the wild rice lakes of Northern Manitoba. She’s worked as a medical office assistant, a videographer of family albums, and a seamstress for well-coordinated square dancers.
Now, she summers on Vancouver Island and winters in Mexico. This ideal tranquility, somehow inspires Ardelle write about brutal murders, kidnappings, missing children, a fatal car crash, and general mayhem.
Ardelle is the author of the Samantha Bowers trilogy and at the end of the third book, Murder by Pins and Needles she left Sam with a “all live happily ever after” ending, and Samatha deserves it. We’ll have to wait to see if Ardelle ever picks up that series again, but in the meantime, she’s started a new one. Killing Imaginary Friends, the debut novel in the Oliver Frampton Series, begins one stormy night with a young Olly being taken away along a treacherous highway.
https://ardelleholden.com
Find past video interviews at: youtube.com/@crimewritersofcanada1279
David W. Barber is a journalist and musician and the author of more than a dozen books of music (including Accidentals on Purpose; Bach, Beethoven and the Boys; When the Fat Lady Sings; and Getting a Handel on Messiah) and literature (including Quotable Sherlock, Quotable Alice and Atonement and other stories). Formerly a writer and entertainment editor of The Kingston Whig-Standard, editor of Broadcast Week magazine at the Toronto Globe and Mail and the assistant editor of arts and life for Postmedia newspapers, he is currently a freelance writer, editor, musician and composer. As a composer, his works include two symphonies, a jazz mass based on the music of Dave Brubeck, a Requiem, several short choral and chamber works and various vocaljazz songs and arrangements. He sings with the Toronto Chamber Choir and various other choirs on occasion. In a varied career, among his more interesting jobs have been short stints as a roadie for Pope John Paul II, a publicist for Prince Rainier of Monaco and a backup singer for Avril Lavigne.
Learn about his other books at IndentPublishing.com
See his author website at DavidWBarber.com
Learn more about Crime Writers of Canada at: crimewriterscanada.com
Find past video interviews at: youtube.com/@crimewritersofcanada1279
M.M. (Marjorie) DeLuca spent her childhood in Durham City, England. After studying at the University of London, Goldsmiths College, she moved to Winnipeg, Canada, where she worked as a teacher, then a freelance writer. She studied Advanced Creative Writing with Pulitzer Prizewinner Dr. Carol Shields and is the author of four other gripping suspense novels as well as a Young Adult sci-fi trilogy, an historical saga a Young Adult suspense and a collection of short fiction. She is currently represented by Mark Gottlieb at Trident Media Associates (https://www.tridentmediagroup.com).
Her newest novel, THE NIGHT SIDE, was published by Severn House, a division of Canongate Books.
Her author website is at: https://www.marjoriedeluca.com
Learn more about Crime Writers of Canada at: crimewriterscanada.com
Find past video interviews at: youtube.com/@crimewritersofcanada1279
Alie and Hejsa Christensen are a mother-daughter writing duo based in Ontario, Canada. They discovered their affinity for working together when they were in-house writers for a film production company. They have now made the leap from silver screen to printed page. Stealing John Hancock, is their first novel.
Learn more about Alie and Hejsa Christensen at hachristensen.com
Learn more about Crime Writers of Canada at: crimewriterscanada.com
Find past video interviews at: youtube.com/@crimewritersofcanada1279