Today we’d like to introduce you to Anne-marie Mawhiney

Hi Anne-Marie, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?

After working as a social worker for a number of years I returned to my hometown, Sudbury, Ontario Canada to work at the local university. In my first years there I was involved in the development of a community-based, nationally accredited Indigenous School of Social Work that was designed by 22 First Nations of the Robinson-Huron Treaty Area. It was the first of two in Canada and is now recognized internationally. This was an experience that transformed the way I looked at the world and my place in it.

Over almost 40 years as an academic, I held various roles as a professor, senior administrator, and director of a research center.

In 2020, during the first Covid lockdown, I started writing creatively for the first time in decades, needing to escape to an imagined world of hope. In 2021 Spindrifts, my debut novel was published, and was shortlisted in 2022 for three awards, including the 8th annual Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writers Prize in Literary Fiction. My second novel, Spelldrifts, was published in 2023.

It was a challenge to transform my decades of academic writing into a writing style suitable for creative writing, but I persevered and have had heartwarming feedback.

In the last three years, through social media and in my face-to-face interactions with readers I have met many incredible people. I am now part of a network of supportive writers , many of whom have become friends even though we have not met yet.

My inspirations for my novels includes the young people all over the world advocating for measures to reverse climate change and the history of land reclamation in my hometown of Sudbury Ontario, where over the last 50 years there has been indefatigable efforts to bring our lands, waters and air back to life from the 100 years of mining pollution and acid rain, with work still ongoing.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?

I have never walked away from a challenge and have faced obstacles throughout my career. Overcoming the cynicism and racism we faced in bringing an Indigenous program to the university meant strong advocacy and support of allies in the university and, more importantly, strong leadership in the 22 participating First Nations. As a white, female settler, I became aware of how engrained racism is within institutions even among those who see themselves as “allies” but do not see the world through any but their own lens of white privilege.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?

In 2018 I retired and approached my new life with the idea that I would take each day as it came. Many of my friends and colleagues developed long-term retirement plans but I just wanted to explore and respond to opportunities to travel and enjoy a quieter life. My partner and I spent six weeks in northern Spain in 2019 and found each day to be a wonder after so many years of long work hours and hectic schedules.

Then Covid arrived in early 2020 and I discovered a resilience that I did not know I possessed. While initially highly anxious and feeling confined (as we all were) I found an inner world of ideas and fantasies of what an ideal world could look like, based on my years of advocating for social change. To my surprise I found my writing to be creative, and I became immersed in a place called Land of Hope.

I am proud of my two books and of my new identity as an author.

So, before we go, how can our readers or others connect or collaborate with you? How can they support you?

Interviews like this one support my writing by spreading the word about my novels and telling new audiences about whom I am. I am very new at promotions and marketing and people can support me and I them by connecting and highlighting each other’s creativity to our own audiences.

If even a few people become curious about the world I imagined in Spindrifts and Spelldrifts to the point where they checked out my books that would be a marvelous thing.

Pricing:

• Spindrifts sells for $25 (CAD) at most on line bookstores
• Spelldrifts sells for $25 (CAD) at most on-line bookstores

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.ammawhiney.ca
• Instagram: @ammawhiney
• Facebook: @ammawhiney
• Twitter: @ammawhiney
• Youtube: Ammawhiney
• Other: Threads @ammawhiney

Image Credits
All photos are by me.