Old is Gold for Local First-Time Novelist Pat Michener

—submitted

There are some novels you just can’t write until you’re old. So says senior Pat Michener, who spent a lifetime writing but only recently launched her first book, “Emma Madison, Master Meddler”. Pat, who coyly admits to being on the sunny side of eighty, says she now has decades of experience to draw on.

“Folks my age can have a perspective on life and fate denied to younger people. Patterns start to emerge; events no longer seem quite so random.” And that explains how Emma Madison, the elderly heroine of Pat’s book, is so well acquainted with fate and its doings that she can nudge it to go in the directions she likes.

As an accomplished “meddler”, Emma’s challenging new project is her niece, Jasmine Holmes. At the request of her dying sister, Emma is bringing Jasmine-sick, broke and divorced-back to the town she fled nine years ago in a towering cloud of scandal. Jasmine returns with a suitcase full of dark secrets that, if they tumble out, will cause havoc among the citizens of her little lakeside community.

Being a senior gave Pat another advantage. Her story is set in the fifties; an era she’s well acquainted with. However, for today’s readers it can seem, “as remote as a foreign country, it’s so very different from today.”

Pat was co-owner of a Toronto corporate communications firm in business for over 25 years. She successfully resisted the urge to write for a long time, “because I was lazy and sick of writing. But then my two main characters, Emma and Jasmine, nagged me until I gave in and set down their story.” Author Joseph Boyden edited her book and urged her to publish it.

“Emma Madison Master Meddler” is currently available through Amazon, your local bookstore ordered through Ingram Spark, or at www.emmamadison.ca where visitors can win a $100 prize in a draw by correctly guessing what town was the inspiration for the small town in the book.