Vancouver Crime Fiction’s Sense of Place and a May 21 Event

Several years ago, as I was starting a Creative Writing program at U of T, I took a crime fiction course with Vancouver writer Sam Wiebe; I’d taken a previous course on mystery writing with Gail Bowen.

The two courses were completely different in delivery mode and approach, but both were terrific–and transformative. They made me think I could write a mystery novel. And I’m so grateful for the kindness and care they took in providing comments to students’ work. As I madly revise my mystery manuscript to hand it over to a developmental editor (who kindly gave me a grace period that will enable submission on Monday), I’m thinking about how much craft I learned from Wiebe, whose work has a tremendous sense of place.

Wiebe’s also on my mind today because of an upcoming Vancouver event that I wish I could attend. Daniel Kalla and Robyn Harding will be at the Dunbar branch of the Vancouver Public Library on May 21 to talk about “Thrilling Vancouver.” Here’s the blurb:

“Join Vancouver authors Daniel Kalla and Robyn Harding for a lively conversation about their latest psychological thrillers—The Deepest Fake and Strangers in the Villa—and how our city’s landscapes and neighbourhoods inspire suspense, connection, and storytelling rooted in the real world.”

Kalla and Harding are very different writers, in some ways. Kalla is an ER doctor who incorporates extensive medical knowledge into his books while Harding writes books that hue more closely to Domestic Noir conventions, with female characters in interesting setting as the protagonists.

But I love that they have found common ground in talking about how Vancouver inflects their crime fiction.

Their predecessor writers, including Sam Wiebe, who writes gritty neo-noir private eye fiction, deserve thanks, too, for incorporating Vancouver and other west coast Canadian locales into their work.

L.R. Wright, of course, wrote suspense fiction set in B.C. at a much earlier date; so did the prolific William Deverell, whose books set on a small island between Vancouver Island and the mainland are both engrossing mysteries and a lot of fun, with their casts of eccentric islanders.

But contemporary writers continue to be encouraged to use American settings if they want to break out, internationally. I so appreciate the authors who resist this pressure.