A Visit with Canadian Author Lou Allin

Born in Toronto, Lou Allin's family moved to Cleveland, Ohio, when her film-broker father relocated there. She earned her PhD in English Rennaissance Literature for her study of the murdered spy, Christoper Marlow. She later taught in Ontario's bush country, before moving to Canada's "Caribbean Island" where she continues to write mystery novels.

What was life like in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada's nickel capital?

I taught English courses at Cambrian College. A few Canlit courses, but mostly practical stuff like business writing, tech writing. Finally I got into Report Writing for Criminal Justice students, which was timely because I had finally begun to publish mysteries. Sudbury is 250 miles north of Toronto, smack in the middle of the bush. It's a sizable enough town, with 95,000 at the core and another 50,000 in the environs. In the late 19th century, most of its tall timber went to Chicago to rebuild after the fire.

Then nickel was found, so the next eighty years were spent in ravaging the landscape for wood to smelt the ore. An area the size of New York City was reduced to barren blackrock. It was so bleak that the astronauts went there to train for the moonwalk, or so the legend goes. But just as I arrived in 1977, a superstack had been built to clean the air and prevent acid rain. Over the next thirty yeasr, a reforestation program including business, government, students, and townspeople helped plant over twenty million pine trees and regreen the rocks with soil and rye grass (rye on the rocks). It was one of the most successful environmental initiatives in history. I'm proud to have been a part of it in showcasing the community to the world. Where I lived far north of the city, it was drop-dead gorgeous with boreal forest. From Northern Winters are Murder to Blackflies are Murder to Bush Poodles are Murder to Murder, Eh? to the final book, Memories are Murder, my work is a love story to a place which welcomed and nurtured me for thirty years.

What inspired your Belle Palmer mystery series?

In 1986 I was living in a cottage on a gigantic lake north of the city. With no television, and sixth-month winters, there was little to do but read. I devoured mysteries about eight to the weekend. I'd already started publishing poetry (mostly in small magazines but a few paying slots like National Enquirer as well as short stories, so I took the leap with the wilderness as my inspiration. A snowmobile chase concludes my first book. I'll never forget the rush of flying across that frozen lake and seeing my house's windows lit up like gold by the setting sun's reflection. No way did I want anyone to be identifying my characters, so a college setting was out. A realtor with cottage property as a specialty seemed a good choice. But it took until book four to allow her to find a body in a house she was selling.

Why did you to decide to relocate to the Canadian “Caribbean,” Vancouver, Island?

After decades of -35C winters, I wanted to go to the warmest spot in Canada. What else but the magical island? I didn't know at the time that the summers were so temperate. It rarely gets over 75F on the coast here with the winds across the strait. In the interior it's a bit hotter. They call the Cowichan Lake area the Warmlands.

You’ve been setting your latest novels in the U.S. Why?

I had a couple of standalones that were written after the first two series books. I didn't want to invest more time until I found a publisher. So one book, A Little Learning is a Murderous Thing, is set in a university in Michigan's Upper Peninsula and the other, Man Corn Murders, in the Grand Staircase Escalante wilderness in Utah. I have travelled in both places. They're both from Five Star, which does limited library print runs. Now the rights are mine, and I have them on Kindle. My newest book from Orca Press in Victoria also begins in the California desert when an older woman with a classic Mustang meets a young male drifter. But they head right back over the border to northern Ontario and her hunting lodge.

Tell us about your latest mystery?

I have two submitted and pending, but you know the publishing climate. One is the third in my Vancouver Island series, a police procedural "lite." My RCMP corporal cannot do much detective work on her own. She's with a small detachment of three in Fossil Bay on the coast. I like to be authentic. To make her a detective, she'd have to be posted to a larger city with about fifty officers. So Cpl. Holly Martin has cases where an accidental death turns out to be a murder, or a long-ago murder surfaces, or the law enforcement agencies just plain give up and put the case on a back burner. The other I sent off to Orca Press, who published my Rapid Reads novella for adults with literacy weaknesses, called That Dog Won't Hunt. The second and as yet unaccepted is called Contingency Plan and deals with a young widow and her daughter who run into a very dangerous man on Vancouver Island. I'm also a sixth of the way in on a Young Adult novella called Two by Four, which stars Chloe Cooke, an overweight and spunky twelve-year-old who has to spend the winter with her eccentric aunt in Yukon. On my far back burner is a historical mystery set in 1895 Victoria here on the island.

What’s the most difficult aspect of writing for you and the most pleasurable?

Like most authors, I don't like flogging my books at stores. The only way you can take it is by making it a game. Keep a smile on your face and be happy that one out of fifteen people do buy a book. Or maybe the next one will say, "Hey, I've read your books, and I love them."

As for pros, I cherish fan mail. Notice that I have not mentioned money. That's because there's precious little of it for small-press authors.

Who most influenced your own work?
I feel that my work is closest to the early books of Nevada Barr, US park ranger. Setting is one of her strongest points, that and the fact that the reader learns something about each national park.

Advice to fledgling mystery writers.

You need the Three T's. Tools, talent, and tenacity. Easy to get the tools, like grammar and structure. Harder to have the talent, though you can learn much from reading. and you must always have the "what if?" mentality. But anyone can develop the tenacity to keep going. You'd be surprised how many "overnight success" authors spent years and years building their careers. I know some who have five books "in the closet." They learned something from each one.

Thanks, Lou. It's been great talking to you.

You can visit Lou at her website: www.louallin.com, at Facebook as Lou Allin and Twitter as louallin.