How would you describe your family or your childhood? Detached and lonely.   What was your greatest talent? Pleasing others.   Important people in your life? My children and grandchildren.   Biggest challenge in relationships? Being assertive.   Where to you live? At the lake.   Do you have any enemies? Not that I know of.   How do you feel about the place you are now? I love the place I’m at now. Both physically – the lake and the peace and quiet outside, and emotionally – the peace and quiet inside me.   Do you have children, pets, both, or neither? I have a dog, three children, one daughter-in-law and two grandsons.   What do you do for a living? I was a homemaker now retired.   Greatest disappointment? Not being courageous with my life.   Greatest source of joy? My children and grandchildren.   What do you do to entertain yourself or have fun? I sit outside and enjoy nature. I have my family here for wiener roasts.   What is your greatest personal failing in your view? Same as question #10. Not being courageous with my life.   What keeps you awake at night? The only…

What made you choose 1971 as the setting for A Snake in the Raspberry Patch? I chose 1971 because I didn’t want technology such as cell phones or computers to be in the story. Also, since true crime events in rural communities were part of the inspiration for this book, I didn’t want the date to conflict with other mass murders that have occurred in Canada. And in 1971, I was a teenager so could relate quite easily to what it would be like to live in that decade.   Is the story told through one character’s perspective? Liz is the protagonist, so the story is told through her eyes, but Rose, whose personality seemed to jump out early in the writing, took over many of the scenes. She almost came alive as I wrote. I could even hear her voice in my head.   Do you try to maintain the tension throughout the story? The murders, and/or a killer on the loose, so a potential threat to the girls, are mentioned throughout, creating tension. But I also wanted some normalcy – i.e., depiction of life on the prairie in the 70’s.   Families seem to be the heart of…