Our guest this week is Nancy Taber (A Sea of Spectres, Acorn Press, May 2024). A former member of the Canadian military and now an academic, Nancy’s debut novel was inspired by her own family history as well as the culture and folklore of Prince Edward Island. A three-person POV covering distinctly different time periods, the story was restructured several times before publishing in its current form. We discuss her process for revision, based not only on peer and editorial feedback but Nancy’s own organic take on the narrative. We delve into how her military training helped her in this new career, how writing a “niche” book can actually be a plus when marketing, and how she found the perfect publishing partner.

Nancy Taber is a university professor and fiction author who writes in the genres of non-fiction, historical fiction, mystery, and speculative fiction. As a former military officer who served as a Sea King helicopter Tactical Coordinator, part of her job once included leaping out of a helicopter into the ocean. Now, most of her job includes sitting at a computer, drinking massive amounts of coffee, and dropping her characters into wild and sometimes weird circumstances. Nancy has published research on the intersection of gender, war, and militarism in academic books and journals. Her short stories have appeared in journals such as The South Shore Review and Atlantis: Critical Studies in Gender, Culture and Social Justice, among others. Nancy is a facilitator with Writers Collective of Canada, was named a Top Woman in Defence 2022 by Esprit de Corps magazine, and is a member of the International Adult and Continuing Education Hall of Fame.