Robert Wiersema
His mother likes to claim that she found him under a rock, but Robert J. Wiersema was actually born in a small town 20 minutes outside the middle of nowhere. He spent his childhood in the circus, at times on the highwire, at others inside the machine that has the answers to all of your questions. After a long voyage by sea and a lengthy apprenticeship at the merciful hands of his wife and, later, son, he now lives in a castle by the sea, the yard of which needs mowing. He remains, however, a ghost in the machine, more comfortable in words on the page and the screen than in the real world.
By day, Wiersema is the mild-mannered Events Coordinator at Bolen Books in Victoria, in charge of one of the most significant author events series in the country. Somehow he also manages to write on books and publishing for anyone who will grant him column inches; his writing can be seen in the Globe and Mail, the National Post, Edmonton Journal, Vancouver Sun and most other Canadian daily newspapers. In the weary pre-dawn, however, when he is most truly himself, he is a writer of fiction. His debut novel, Before I Wake (Random House Canada/Vintage Canada) was a national bestseller, and was named a Book of the Year by both the Globe and Mail and the National Post. It has been or will be published in ten other countries (and counting). Wiersema is currently at work on his new novel (as yet untitled), and a collection of short fiction entitled Seven Crow Stories. He blogs at www.robertjwiersema.com when he feels he has something worthwhile to say (and when he remembers).