Truths Be Told

Shortly after my debut novel came out in April 2017, the Chapters in Belleville, Ontario, invited me to be part of an event to mark Canada’s 150th birthday. The store’s interest in my book — a fictional diary of the Canadian pioneer Susanna Moodie — seemed understandable. This was the sesquicentennial year, after all, and here was a story about a renowned (and sometimes maligned) settler who spent the latter half of her life in town and who is buried there in a cemetery overlooking Lake Ontario.

Eastern Ontario is a region I know well. In the 1970s, I lived on a small farm north of Grafton, and I later moved to nearby Cobourg, where I began my career in journalism at the Daily Star (Moodie herself had contributed to the Star in the 1830s). It was also in Cobourg that I developed a loose connection to the writer Jane Urquhart, who lived near Colborne, a few miles to the east. Our mid-century modern house was built by a cousin of Urquhart’s mother...