Last Thursday evening, I
was treated by Dody to a book talk by Louise Penny at the Peace United Church
in Santa Cruz. Also joined us was Gail. I was amazed by the massive crowd turned up in an endless queue waiting
for the church door to open. By the time we found out seats, I looked around
at the packed hall. There were at least 700-800 retirees, according to our Leslie
A’s estimate of the hall capacity.
Penny is a very lively and personable author. After
photographing her audience, she dived right into her personal and professional
life. Candidly she recalled her childhood. She was a girl with vivid imaginations, visualizing
her mother as a queen. Her dream pastime is read alone with feet up in her bed, since eight
years of age. She suffered from a mild symptom of Arachnophobia, which morphed
later into a fear of failure. She wanted to
be a writer, but did not dare to announce it. Penny
worked as a journalist for nearly two decades with Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and learned to listen to people. Tired and
unhappy about politics in Quebec, she became a full-time writer in her forties,
at the wholehearted support of her husband Michael.
Still Life was her first book. It took her three years to complete. Once the book was finished, she went to a local independent publisher, and was advised to contact crime fiction agents worldwide. In the next two years, she received only one reply, with word NO. At the suggestion of a friend, she entered British Debut Dagger by The Crime Writers' Association. She received an answer that her book was on the shortlist among 800 contestants. The real reward for her was sit with a roomful of people she had wanted to meet. Three names were given, but she neither saw any of them nor win the award.
Discouraged back home, she was asked by Michael to a private fundraising party
for Afghanistan refugees. It was there she met Teresa Chris, one of the third
names she failed to meet at the award ceremony. Teresa has become her agent
ever since. As a journalist, Penny firmly believes that she realized small or
worst possible things can lead to opportunities.
For her political viewpoints, Penny and her late husband lived
in Toronto for nearly three decades. She preferred to live there, because it was
her home. Despite the conflict between
French and English cultures, she has no strong view toward Franco or Anglo, but has sympathy for both sides.
For her literary devices, Penny has drawn her poetic
sources from her friend’s
posthumous poetry, and Margaret Atwood who provides the poetry for Ruth, a character in her books. She described her writing process similar to a squirrel’s lifestyle, hiding, burying, and planning.
Penny had a writer’s
block lasting for more than 5 years. Eventually her husband stopped asking her how
her day went. As it happened, she met a group of artists,
and was allowed to join in. In them, she saw the strength: when things that did
not work at the end of the day, they still got up and continued the creation the next day. Finally she came to two
realization: 1) Not trying is the real
failure; and 2) Her real writer’s block is a fear of failure and need to be the
best which includes her childhood dream of her mother as a queen.
Through the experience
of the group, she also got her idea of village and characters. She realized
that she needed to write for herself, and enjoy the process of writing. Thus
she populated with people in such a village. As for the creation of Chief Inspector Armand
Gamache, the main character in her mystery
series, Penny has created him as a man she will enjoy the company with, and a
man she will marry … perhaps based on her late husband Michael Whitehead?
