Author Interview – Suzanne de Montigny

Pet Peeves? Gossips and bullies.

Skittles or M&Ms? Depends on what kind of mood I’m in. I really like sour food, but I like chocolate too. It’s the sort of thing I only eat around Halloween.

Please tell us in one sentence only, why we should read your book. You should read it because it’s powerful and because unicorns have to endure terrible things, yet they win in the end. Besides, you’ll love Darius. I love Darius. I cry every time I read that darn book because of Darius. There is no greater creature in the world than Darius. He’s like a Mahatma Ghandi or a Mother Theresa. His name means ‘doer of good’, and that’s exactly what he does. Sigh.

Any other books in the works? Goals for future projects? I finished a YA Paranormal a couple of months ago and am waiting for a reply to my submission. It’s a great story about a fourteen-year-old child prodigy in classical violin growing up in the small town of Hope, B.C. Her best friend is a Chinese girl adopted into a white family. They both struggle to fit in. Then this fiddler comes to town and bewitches everyone. And only Kira has it figured out it’s her who’s been vandalizing the town, leaving dead and gutted birds as a calling card.

I’m also working feverishly to rewrite the second Shadow of the Unicorn novel.

What inspired you to want to become a writer? I thought it would be neat to publish a book when I was a teenager, but I also loved music and medicine. Music won out for a long time. After a master’s degree in music, I free-lanced, playing piano in restaurants and composing music. Eventually, I drifted into teaching and taught classroom music in Vancouver for over twenty years. That’s where I learned I was a good storyteller. The kids really behaved just so they could hear some tale I made up on the spot at the end of class. Then after my kids were born, I decided to take a couple of years off of teaching until they were in school. And that’s when I began to write, and I’ve never looked back. And, BTW, I quit teaching to stay home and write two days after receiving my first publishing contract.

Tell us your most rewarding experience since being published. I don’t know yet. I’m still waiting for it to happen. Well, when they sent me my finished book, that was pretty amazing.