A Prince George born author kicked off her book tour with a signing at Books and Company.
Jae Waller is the writer of a young adult fantasy series called Call of The Rift, based on an alternate history of colonial-era pacific Northwest Canada, focusing on a 17-year-old girl who wonders into the world of parallel universes.
“When I studied at UNBC I took a class in Canadian literature. One of the books we had to read was Monkey Beach by Eden Robinson, who is out of Kitimat. It was the first time I ever wrote a book by a BC author and it really resonated with me. I realized what I had been doing so far didn’t feel right, I need to write closer to home to make it authentic, so, I built a fantasy here.”
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Waller graduated from Emily Carr/UNBC with a literary arts degree and attended UBC while working towards her masters, which helped her write the book.
“A lot of it I did through my degree because I studied at UNBC and Emily Carr university, so, I did a lot of local art history, design history, literature, etc. And I pieced everything around that.”
Tons of research was put into writing this book that is half history and half fantasy, Waller stressed the importance of doing your homework if you plan to write a novel based on this genre.
“If you’re doing anything with history do a lot of research. Any group you’re writing about, talk to them, listen before you say anything, take creative writing courses if it helps, take other courses of you think that will be better.”
The book is the first of five series, with Waller saying she is finished the second and starting to work on the third.
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