Episode 17: My conversation with author Frances Peck

I am so pleased to be able to share my first-ever interview with a published author here on Bookmarkable. I was delighted to sit down with local North Vancouver writer Frances Peck to discuss her debut novel, The Broken Places — a Globe and Mail best book of 2022, and finalist for the 2023 Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize. 

We had a lot to talk about and time flew by! We learned a bit about her second novel, Uncontrolled Flight and she gave some insight into the novel she’s working on now and her writing process.

We also dove into all the ways reading has been a key influence, inspiration, object of focused study and pleasure throughout her life. Plus we explored areas of common interest.

Books and authors mentioned on this episode:

The Broken Places and Uncontrolled Flight by Frances Peck

Thomas Hardy (Far from the Madding Crowd, Tess of the D’Ubervilles, Jude the Obscure, The Mayor of Casterbridge). Monty Python sketch: Novel Writing: Thomas Hardy writes Return of the Native George Elliot Charles Dickens February by Lisa Moore Sylvanus Now by Donna Morrisey The Handmaids Tale, Cat’s Eye by Margaret Atwood The Fireman and The Heart-shaped Box by Joe Hill Stephen King (anything by) Raymond Chandler Dashiell Hammett The Princess Bride and others by William Goldman When We Cease to Understand the World and The Maniac by Benjamin Labutut Mandy by Julie Edwards (aka Julie Andrews) Ken Follett Sidney Sheldon Scruples, by Judith Krantz Clarissa: Or the History of a Young Lady and Pamela; or Virtue Rewarded, by Samuel Richardson Charles Dickens Jane Austen Barbara Vine (aka Ruth Rendell) The French Lieutenant’s Woman by John Fowles Elizabeth George Robert Galbraith (aka JK Rowling) A Time to Write in Earnest by PD James The Pilot’s Wife by Anita Shreve Anne Tyler Louise Erdrich Romantic Comedy, Eligible, American Wife and Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld Jodi Picoult Americanah and Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer and The Gene: An Intimate History by Siddhartha Mukherjee A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry  Anosh Irani

Crash Landing by Li Charmaine Anne The Inheritance Games by Jennifer Lynn Barnes On Freedom by Timothy Snyder