Thank you Susan for sharing with us some of your innermost Cryptid secrets.  Your background is in history and journalism, in other words,  you are very comfortable with the logical and concrete. But your story is about the mythical beast, the Ogopogo. Do you feel your background influenced the direction your story takes?

- Yes, Wendy, for sure. Do you remember the poster in the X Files? The one that said “I want to believe?” Well, that’s me. I want to believe. I’m fascinated by the weird, the unusual and the unexplainable. However, I’m a card-carrying skeptic and Occam’s Razor lover. So, I always go for the most logical, at least to me, answer. Is it a wonder that Mr. Spock was my favourite Star Trek character (LLAP).

Most women have been in some sort of abusive relationship, do you have one in your past which inspired you to write about Carmen?

Not me, personally. But I met a woman while I was on a boat trip that was the basis for Carmen, my character in The Ogopogo Club. It was one night on shore, we were cooking fish after a great day of fishing. My husband and I had met up with some other people, and this was the first time I’d every really spoken with this woman. For some reason, she confided in my that her ex-husband had been an abuser, and she’d taken the brunt of it. I was just chilled and shocked by the things she told me. And angry. Very, very angry. And to process that anger, I wrote the story.

Your first book,  “Lillian Alling, The Journey Home” is about a true survivalist and her trek across the North American Continent. How did you become interested in Lillian? 

In my pursuit of the unusual and bizarre, I was reading a book on Canadian eccentrics and Lillian Alling merited a chapter in that book. I became intrigued, then obsessed. I was curious to know if the legends around her were true, so I started researching the story. Before you know it, I had so much information I decided to write a book. Lillian deserved it!

What are you working on now? 

I’m working on a short story collection that explores the dark and bizarre. And I’m writing another non-fiction book which is about a grand old fellow, famed in British Columbia. He was a mule train packer known as Cataline, whose life experiences span the history of our province from the Gold Rushes of the 1850s and 1860s, to the coming of the railway in the 1880s, and up to the 1910s when technology started to really take hold. He was another eccentric, and a fascinating character. You can see a photo of him here: http://www.susmithjosephy.com/cataline.html.

For more information about Susan and her work:

Susan’s website:  www.susmithjosephy.com

Amazon author page:  http://www.amazon.com/Susan-Smith-Josephy/e/B00B90HY86/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_pop_1

Twitter: @susmithjosephy

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/susmithjosephy

About.me: http://about.me/susmithjosephy

Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/susmithjosephy/

Blog:http://writersglob.blogspot.com

Thanks Susan for your lovely story. All of the stories are fascinating, and support an excellent cause. Why wouldn’t you buy it? It’s available on Amazon right now.