By Columbia Valley Pioneer staff 

Once a writer, always a writer. 

Former Pioneer publisher-turned author Elinor Florence may have long since swapped out news reports for novels, but she continues to actively churn out stories just the same. The next few months are shaping up to be very busy for her.

Next spring Florence will launch a new historical novel ‘Finding Flora’, and earlier this year her acclaimed second novel ‘Wildwood’ was optioned for a movie.

‘Finding Flora’ will be published by Simon & Schuster in April and tells the story of Scottish immigrant Flora Craigie, who leaps from a speeding train in 1905 to escape an abusive husband and finds herself alone on the Alberta prairie. Desperate to hide, Flora claims a homestead and makes friends with four neighbouring women — an American couple, a Welsh widow with three children, and a Métis woman — who join forces to battle both the brutal environment and a hostile government.

“The novel is set near Alix, Alberta,” said Florence. “I chose that location because I was inspired by the story behind the naming of the village after Alix Westhead, the first white woman in the area.”

The book also has a local angle. Florence’s Métis character was inspired by Rosalee Kinbasket, daughter of the last hereditary chief of the Shuswap Band, who lived in the Columbia Valley. 

“However, I named my Métis character Jessie McDonald after my own Scottish-Cree great-grandmother, who hailed from the Red River area in Manitoba,” the author explained. Florence is a long-time member of Métis Nation British Columbia (MNBC).

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Florence grew up on a Saskatchewan farm and worked as a journalist in all four Western provinces before she and her husband Heinz Drews and their four children moved from Vancouver to Invermere in 1996. She spent eight years working from home, writing for Reader’s Digest, before purchasing the Columbia Valley Pioneer in 2004.

She sold the newspaper in 2010 in order to tackle her first novel Bird’s Eye View, the story of a Saskatchewan farm girl who joins the air force during the Second World War. It became a Canadian bestseller. Her second novel Wildwood, about a single mother who inherits an abandoned off-the-grid farm, was called by Kobo as “one of the top 100 Canadian novels of all time.”

Last year Florence co-authored a screenplay based on Wildwood, and it was optioned by a movie company. “The movie is still a long shot because it will cost millions of dollars to shoot, but I was delighted to get a call from Kevin DeWalt, the president of Minds Eye Entertainment. He said he teared up when he read the script,” she said.

Another thrill was signing a contract with the prestigious Simon & Schuster publishing firm based in New York. 

“It’s exciting because they are one of the Big Five publishers in the world. My first two novels were published by a smaller Canadian company, but this time around I’ll have plenty of support including my own publicist,” she said.

Florence said the new book will be launched here on April 1, 2025. “I’m planning a big splash at Pynelogs Cultural Centre because that’s where my previous two novels were launched, and I love the atmosphere in that historic old building.” 

Meanwhile, she is asking everyone to preorder Finding Flora by calling or visiting any retail bookstore. You may also preorder online from Amazon, but Florence says she wants readers to support their local bookstore.

She explained that preorders are important for several reasons: they create a buzz among booksellers; the publisher establishes a book’s promotion budget on the number of preorders; and the weekly bestseller list in Canada is based on the number of books sold in one seven-day period. This means Flora has a shot at making the top 10 if enough people order the book in advance.

Four Points Books in Invermere is taking preorders, and has also come up with a “novel” gift idea. “The store is creating a beautiful gift card for Finding Flora to be placed under the Christmas tree, and the recipient can pick up the book the day it is released,” said Florence.

Besides writing novels for the past 11 years, Florence has penned a monthly blog called Letters From Windermere. “I hate the word blog and prefer to call it a newsletter,” Florence said. “I write about my love of history, my writing, and my travels. I also recommend a good book each month.”

You may read more about the author, and subscribe to Letters From Windermere at www.elinorflorence.com.

Florence’s previous novels are temporarily out of print, but copies are still available at Four Points Books, Lambert-Kipp Pharmacy in Invermere, and Coles Books in Cranbrook. 

Email the author at [email protected] if you would like her to sign your copy.