Featured Interview With W. L Hawkin
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I grew up in rural Ontario but drove West twenty years ago seeking a milder climate. I now live in an ecovillage in a small rural community east of Vancouver with my beautiful yellow lab. I raised and trained Skaha as a therapy dog knowing I’d have to give her up. But when she was in advanced training to become a hearing dog, the trainer released her and asked if I’d like to adopt her. They couldn’t get her to stop scavenging—food is both her blessing and curse. Skaha is now my therapy dog. I love animals and nature and she keeps me joyfully engaged with both.
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
I could read before I went to school and have always been fascinated by fairy stories, myths, and adventures. As a teenager I wrote poetry and later songs. I wrote my first novel when I was going through a divorce; ironically it was a romance I recently revised. At university, in my mid-thirties, I published poetry and Native Rights articles, and of course, many essays. A string of novels followed. Reading and writing novels is how I learn about life.
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
I love reading mystery and adventure whether they have fantastical elements or not. Two of my favourite authors are Elly Griffiths (the Ruth Galloway archaeological mysteries) and Kelley Armstrong (the Rockton series and Cainsville). I also enjoy Historical Fiction — I love Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series — and also Westerns! These writers all inspire me in varying ways.
I’ve been a regular reviewed for the Ottawa Review of Books for the past three years, so read and review Canadian fiction. I’ve discovered some incredible Canadian authors such as Dietrich Kalteis, Joel Scott, Owen Laukkanen, Cathy Ace, Eden Robinson, and Cherie Dimaline.
Tell us a little about your latest book?
I just released To Kill a King—book four in the Hollystone Mysteries series—in March 2021. The books are standalones that follow in sequence. The series revolves around a Vancouver Wicca coven who solve murders using ritual magic and a little help from the gods. The main protagonist, Estrada, is a free-spirited polyamorous magician and also high priest of the coven. I realized after writing the fourth book that in each tale, Estrada grows as a person and travels somewhere to save someone he cares about.
In To Charm a Killer, a serial killer is abducting witches and the coven spins a charm to catch him before he can do anymore harm. But spells create ripples. A teenage girl gets caught up in the charm and everyone starts misbehaving. Estrada travels to Ireland to save the girl and makes a startling discovery.
In To Sleep with Stones, Dylan McBride, another coven member is arrested for murder while working on an archaeological dig in Scotland with Sorcha O’Hallorhan. Dylan calls on Estrada to find the real killer and get him out of prison. But, while Estrada’s in Scotland helping Dylan, his lover, Michael Stryker, gets targeted by a vampire and makes a mistake that propels us into book three, To Render a Raven. When the vampire steals Estrada’s baby on the eve of her first birthday, the coven travel up the BC coast by yacht to rescue her.
To Kill a King spins off To Sleep with Stones. Sorcha, who headed the archaeological dig in Scotland is given a gift by a god—she can go anywhere to any time and place she desires. Well, when she was fourteen, Sorcha saw Old Croghan Man’s remains in the National Museum in Ireland. His torso had been dug from a bog in the Irish Midlands. Sorcha has the gift of psychometry and when she touched the metal on his leather armband she saw his face, fell in love, and decided to become an archaeologist. So, the god takes her to Iron Age Ireland to meet the man she once envisioned. Knowing he will be ritually murdered and thrown in the bog to cure for two thousand years, Sorcha determines to save the bog man from his fate. When Estrada discovers that Sorcha is stranded in Iron Age Ireland with Celtic Druids, he and Dylan demand that the god send them there so they can rescue her. It’s a romantic, prehistoric, time-travel thriller.
I saw photographs of Old Croghan Man in a National Geographic and was immediately struck by the artifact—he was 6’6″, in his mid-twenties, had manicured nails, and was nobility. Since he’d been ritually murdered, I wanted to make his life and death meaningful. I traveled alone to Ireland in 2017, stayed in Trinity College, and spent days sitting with his remains in the National Museum in Ireland. I also spent time researching Iron Age Ireland at a downtown Dublin Library, then went to sacred prehistoric sites, and eventually climbed Croghan Hill which is the hill where he would have been inaugurated as king and then ritually murdered and cast in the bog.
I let all that research simmer for a couple of years and then sat down to write the story by asking “what happens next.” I don’t outline; I just draft the whole story by connecting with my muses (spirits and characters) and asking them questions. They speak to me and send me visions which I then write down. I wrote the first draft quickly in around nine months. I’m always surprised when I read the whole book at the end!
There is a journey in each book, and I’ve travelled to research all locations in this series. I love to soak up the energy of the landscape, get inspired, and add sensory details that I uncover along the way. Ireland is one of my favourite places and I’d love to live there!
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