Friday, April 6, 2018

Friday's Guest featuring Ann Birch #MFRWauthor #BooksWeLoveLTD


1. What were you in your life before you became a writer? Did this influence your writing?

I was a high-school English teacher and associate professor. Perhaps from my habitation in the academic world, I learned how to hold an audience’s attention. For sure I learned how to critique writing and where to put a comma.

2. Are you genre specific or general?

I’ve written memoirs, essays, reviews, and a textbook,  as well as historical fiction and modern fiction. So I guess that means I am NOT genre specific

.3. Did your reading have anything to do with your choice of a genre or genres?

My favourite book when I was ten years old was The Scarlet Pimpernel. But from those long-ago days, I’ve gone on to read thousands of books in every genre possible. So no, my reading merely made me aware of what good writing is all about.

4. What is your latest release?

Books We Love has just published my historical novel, Duelling in a New World. It’s about John White, Upper Canada’s first Attorney-General. He was a crazy man when it came to his love life, but he totally redeemed himself in his legal career by drafting the first anti-slavery bill in the British Empire.

5. What are you working on now?

My novel-in-progress is about Anne Powell, an early Toronto woman who rebels against the narrow roles assigned to women in the early 1800s. The title, Propriety Be Damned, probably sums it up.

6. Where can you find me?

In many places: at home in Toronto, Ontario; and in The Great Empyrean on Facebook, Linkedin, Goodreads, The Writers’ Union of Canada biographical listings, et cetera.


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