biography

From John Franklin to Norman Bethune

Author John Wilson recently sent us an update on his work:

Across Frozen Seas and Ghosts of James Bay are novels set around incidents in the exploration of Canada’s north. Across Frozen Seas follows the adventures of a cabin boy on Sir John Franklin’s doomed expedition to the Northwest Passage in 1845 and Ghosts of James Bay recreates what might have happened to Henry Hudson and his son after the mutiny in Hudson Bay in 1611. Both these books, and all my other fourteen novels for Young Adults, deal with how people react to extreme circumstances. Although fiction, the research is extensive and the history in the books is as accurate as I can make it.

Norman Bethune: A Life of Passionate Conviction and John Franklin: Traveller on Undiscovered Seas are biographies written at an adult level and aimed at a grade 11 market. Both these men appealed to me because they struggled against extraordinary adversity, in Bethune’s case because of his personal conviction and Franklin’s because of circumstances. Traveller on Undiscovered Seas was called “the best life of Franklin yet produced.” (Russell A. Potter)

My background is in Geology although I moved into freelance writing in 1989. This led to story writing and these tales developed into novels, the first of which is a time travel fantasy about dinosaurs called Weet (1995). In every one of my novels, the main character is always someone who becomes caught up in events he cannot understand (geological catastrophe, exploration, war), and learns during the course of the book that life and the world are much more complex than first believed.

My most recent title, The Alchemist’s Dream was a finalist for the Governor General’s Award in 2007 and returns to the story of Henry Hudson’s fateful voyage of 1610/11. My next title releasing in May is Desperate Glory: The Story of WWI, a non-fiction book for grades 5 to 8. I am currently preparing a novel set in A.D. 9 around a Roman military disaster (Germania), and due for publication this fall.

© 2008 Defining Canada.