HOME BASE: Toronto 

CLAIM TO FAME: Award-winning Canadian television producer decides to stop dreaming about writing a book and sits down to actually do it. 

GOOD TIMING: My boys are 29, 30 and 31 and have been moving out, on and off, for about 15 years. I admire anyone who can write with kids around them, but I couldn’t. I dreamed the whole time of writing a novel, but I was working the early-morning shift at Canada AM and CBC’s The Goods and was tired the rest of the time. But, in 2020, the house was empty and I found myself with a gap between contracts. I suddenly had six free weeks in the summer and I thought, “If not now, when?” I opened up a Word document and started writing. 

IF AT FIRST YOU DON’T SUCCEED: My original inspiration was Bridget Jones’s Diary, because I just love that book. I thought diary entries would be manageable, structure-wise, so I tried that with a “mom life” approach. Ninety-eight agents passed on the idea until I finally admitted it wasn’t good. I then turned to creative writing courses and podcasts about writing. I joined a few writer’s groups to get honest feedback. I realized the mistakes I’d made and where I could do better, and I decided I could broaden my horizons to try a real novel rather than diaries. My second book was about mom schoolyard drama. I thought it was pretty good so I was surprised when nobody wanted that one, either. It was a real hit to my confidence. 

TRY, TRY AGAIN: I started to wonder if I should be spending – wasting? – this much time on something that might not turn into anything. But the only thing I knew for sure was that if I didn’t try, then nothing would happen. I enjoyed doing it, and it wasn’t a bad thing to be doing with my time, and hey, I don’t like all the books in the library either. I decided to try again and just write something that I would enjoy reading. 

WRITE WHAT YOU KNOW: Somewhere in there, someone asked me when I planned to retire. I was floored! How old did they think I was? But I am that old, even if I didn’t notice. I hadn’t planned anything. I looked at my assets and my husband’s pension [and] when I saw, I thought, “Wow, he’s very well insured! I could retire tomorrow if, well, you know.” I was joking about it with my girlfriends, who laughed and suggested we knock [all the husbands] off at once. That was the genesis of The Retirement Plan.  

THE PREMISE: After their husbands lose their life savings, four best friends – based loosely on my own friends – hire a hitman to get their husbands’ life insurance policies. I really leaned into the humour, which I wasn’t sure I could do at first, and I went where the story took me. They say writers are either “plotters” or “pantsers” – people who write by the seat of their pants. I had a few signposts in mind, but I didn’t know the ending, or who would die, or if anyone would die. 

SUCCESS AT LAST: This time, when I sent the idea to agents, I got four immediate replies. One requested the manuscript within 20 minutes. The agent I ended up signing with was my 198th try. She submitted the book after the Frankfurt Book Fair and it sold to three major publishers in Canada, the U.S. and the U.K. I signed the deal within a week and I’m now working away on my next one. 

IGNORANCE IS BLISS: My husband, who, by the way, is alive and well, actually never read the book until it was sold. We talked about plot points as I wrote, and I often asked for his input, so he knew generally what it’s about. When he finally sat down to read it, I could hear him in the other room, laughing and saying, “Oh, c’mon!” Maybe it cut a little too close to the bone. Novels usually do.