All About Elinor Florence
I live in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia, although I grew up on a prairie grain farm, a former Second World War training airport, and my rural roots run deep. I still own farmland in Saskatchewan and visit the land of the living skies every summer. I also have Indigenous ancestors, and I’m a proud member of the Métis Nation of B.C.
After completing journalism school, I landed my first job as a farm reporter and went on to work for daily papers in all four Western provinces.
Weary of city life, my husband and I moved with our children from Vancouver to the tiny mountain resort of Invermere. I spent the next eight years working from home for Reader’s Digest, writing articles about subjects ranging from lost loggers to liver transplants. I then jumped at the chance to purchase my local newspaper and in six satisfying years I turned The Columbia Valley Pioneer into an award-winning small town staple.
But my greatest challenge remained: to write a novel. Inspired by my mother’s wartime stories, I tackled my first historical novel, Bird’s Eye View, about a prairie farm girl who joins the air force during the Second World War. It became a Canadian bestseller.
My second novel, Wildwood, tells the story of a single mother from the big city who inherits an abandoned farmhouse in northern Canada. It was named by Kobo as “One of the Top 100 Most Popular Canadian Novels of All Time.”
My newest novel, Finding Flora, describes the adventures of a young Scottish woman who leaps from a moving train in 1905 to escape her abusive husband and claims her own homestead on the Alberta prairie.
As well as fiction, I’m deeply invested in my monthly blog called Letters From Windermere. This is an electronic letter that I send every month to my readers describing my love of all things vintage, as reflected in my research, travels and collections. I haven’t missed a letter in eleven years!
As for my personal life, two of our three adult daughters live in our town, along with their five young children. My husband and I are blessed to share our lives with them. Like Miss Marple, I love the unending parade of village life, and can’t imagine living anywhere else.
My Life Story
My Childhood
I was born and raised among the vast grain fields of the Canadian prairies, on a former Second World War airfield.
Read more about that in my very first blog post: Growing Up With Air Force Ghosts.
My Journalism Career
After attending one of Canada’s last one-room country schools, I earned my English degree from the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon and landed my first reporting job at my hometown paper in North Battleford.
It was the tail end of the hot lead era, and from my desk I could see the linotype operator in his green eyeshade and ink-stained apron, raising his arms to shoulder height as he hammered the keys.
I wanted more education, so I drove 3,000 kilometres to Ottawa in my Chevette Scooter, and earned an honours journalism degree from Carleton University. I then returned to my rural roots, working as an Agriculture Reporter for The Western Producer newspaper in Saskatoon.
It was a great job: I wore cowboy boots to work and dated a string of cute farm boys. I even joined the paparazzi on the royal bus, covering the visit of Princes Charles and Edward to the Calgary Stampede.
Still, I was longing for the bright lights. I packed my Chevy Vega and drove another 3,000 kilometres to Los Angeles, where I spent a year freelancing. I had a few small successes. I sold my column “Hollywood Happenings” to three weekly newspapers, including the Yellowknife News of the North in the Northwest Territories.
Eventually I ran out of money and started working at a one-hour photomat across the street from the famous Los Angeles Farmers Market. It was deadly dull, although I met a few minor celebrities. (And I even spotted Doris Day, trying on leather boots in a shoe store.) But I really wanted to be a newspaper reporter, so I came home to Canada.
My first venture into daily newspapers was at The Red Deer Advocate in Alberta. This was a great job. The newsroom staff was young and dedicated, and we put out a great paper.
I started as the Agriculture Reporter, was promoted to Features Editor (the politically correct term for Women’s Editor), and then became the newspaper’s first woman City Editor. I stayed at The Advocate for nine years.
From there, I took my Volkswagen Scirocco for a 1,400-kilometre trek across the prairies to Manitoba, where I worked for an upstart tabloid called the Winnipeg Sun, notorious for its irreverent attitude and scantily-clad Sunshine Girls. The newsroom was full of brilliant but strange characters – like the copy editor who lived in a motel and was paid in cash. I started as News Editor, and wound up as Assistant Managing Editor. (Check out Wayne Gretzky’s wedding photograph!)
I had always yearned to live on the West Coast, so I packed my Pontiac Grand LeMans and drove 2,300 kilometres west to Vancouver, where I lived in a beautiful seaside neighbourhood called Deep Cove and worked for the Province, another lively tabloid.
My Mexican Adventure
In 1994 I left newspapers behind, or so I thought, when my family moved to Mexico for eighteen months, where my husband was hired as construction manager for a Canadian gold mining company.
We lived in a big northern city named Chihuahua, Chihuahua (I love saying that name), but spent much of our time in the remote Sierra Madre mountains where the mine was located.
Deprived of my beloved newspapers, it was here that I started to think seriously about writing a novel. Based on an old photograph, I already had the concept: a woman who works as an aerial photographic interpreter in the Second World War.
Our Mountain Home
We wanted to raise our kids in a small town, so when we returned to Canada we settled in the mountain resort of Invermere, British Columbia. From my home office, I gaze at Lake Windermere in all the changing seasons.
Writing for Reader’s Digest
I thought my journalism career was finally over. Then I ran across a local guy whose propane truck had gone off a mountain cliff. The words “Drama in Real Life” sprang to mind, and I fired off the story idea to Reader’s Digest. The editors published “Under the Death Cloud” and I became a regular contributor for the next eight years.
My favourite assignments were the “heart” stories, as the Digest called them, like the one called “Bradley’s Last Hope,” about a little boy whose father gave him a liver transplant.
Publishing The Pioneer
In 2004 an opportunity arose to purchase a fledgling weekly newspaper, and I couldn’t resist the challenge. For the next six years I practically lived at the newspaper office, writing articles, selling classifieds over the counter, and sweeping the floor.
I had a winning business model because I know what local folks want to read about: their friends and neighbours. The Columbia Valley Pioneer thrived. We called it “The People Paper.” One man even proposed to his girlfriend on the front page.
My First Novel, Bird’s Eye View
I still hadn’t fulfilled my lifelong dream of writing fiction, so I sold my newspaper in 2010 to complete my unfinished manuscript. I immersed myself in the Second World War period to the point where I went to bed each night braced for an air raid! To my delight, Bird’s Eye View was accepted by Dundurn Press and published in 2014. Two years later, it was named a Canadian bestseller in both The Toronto Star and The Globe & Mail.
My young Canadian heroine works for Allied Intelligence, spying on the enemy from the sky by deciphering aerial photographs, searching out bomb targets through a magnifying device called a stereoscope. You can read more here: Bird’s Eye View.
From 2013 to 2018, I wrote a regular newsletter called Wartime Wednesdays, offering up the fascinating wartime interviews, facts and anecdotes that I uncovered while researching Bird’s Eye View.
My Second Novel, Wildwood
My second novel Wildwood, published in 2018, explores a different aspect of Canadian history. A single mother from the big city inherits an abandoned foursquare farmhouse in northern Alberta, like the one shown below, and must learn the pioneer arts in order to survive. Read about my new book here: Wildwood.
In January 2019, I launched my new blog titled Letters From Windermere, a chatty update of news, notes and nostalgia. Please read more here: Letters From Windermere.
My Personal Life
As for my personal life, it just keeps getting busier. My three gorgeous daughters have now produced three little girls and two little boys whom we love dearly.
My husband has finally retired from his consulting job for a Canadian gold mining construction company, so we are enjoying the opportunity to travel. Along the way, I have done many book signings. You can see some photos of past events by clicking here: Events.
My Love of All Things Vintage
In what little free time I have left, I comb through garage sales and thrift stores, seeking vintage items for my beautiful home overlooking Lake Windermere. Here I am seated in front of my log cabin, which we salvaged and restored as a guest “bunkie” in our yard. I wrote about it here: My Log Cabin.
I also keep up a lively correspondence with all the lovely people who write to tell me they enjoy my books. I would love to hear from you! You can find my contact info here: Contact Elinor.
