(Clearly she understood the value of reading!) I chose reading, and became a voracious reader. When I was growing up, my mother told her children we could either help with the chores or read. I am in three book clubs and love the variety of books that are chosen by the members.ĭid you like to read when you were a child? What was your favourite book then? I also gobbled up My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult. My favourite book is 84 Charing Cross Rd. I like to read stories with moral dilemmas, books that explore that grey area between right and wrong, and books that deal with relationships, not necessarily romantic relationships, but those are nice too. What kind of adult books do you like to read? What is your favourite book/author?

(Actually I know exactly what my daughters would say about that!) I decided to explore this theme by setting a story in a town very similar to Bountiful. I also wondered how one of my own teenaged daughters would feel if I told her she was being assigned to marry a man three times her age and who already had numerous wives. Polygamy is illegal in Canada so I was fascinated by the stories coming out of that town, and how these people were able to practice there religious beliefs. In BC there is a town called Bountiful that is home to a religious community that practices polygamy. My nominated book, Sister Wife, was one of those stories that was inspired by what I was reading in the newspaper. Usually the story becomes completely different from the incident that inspired it, but the incident was a good springboard. I have also found ideas for stories in the news. I get my inspiration from events that actually happened to me, my children, or people I know. The most difficult thing about writing my first book was getting it published. What was the most difficult thing about writing your first? Has it gotten any easier?

Everything else in the story is fiction, though. I have such good memories of that game that I used it in the book. My first published book, Beans on Toast, was based on a game I played at camp one summer when I was a teenager. What was your first book about? How many have you written? I now have eight published novels, all for teens. I started with picture books, with no success, and then moved into juvenile novels, still with no success.Īfter 10 years of struggling I tried writing for teens and found my voice there. While I was on a parenting leave, I decided to try writing my own books for children. I discovered my love of children’s literature when I was teaching school in the 80s. When did you begin writing, and why? What did you do before you became a writer? How does that inform your writing? Shelley Hrdlitschka, author of Sister Wife (White Pine nominee).

Sister wife by shelley hrdlitschka