Guest author - Ross McCoubrey

Okay, I have a confession to make. Have known Ross a while on social media but it was only when he did a charming interview for Elin Gregory that I thought, "Oh! I'd like him to be on my blog, too." So here he is, being equally charming.



What inspired you to start writing?
I wasn’t so much inspired to start writing as I was compelled. I imagine it’s much the same feeling a musician or painter gets, the need to create — to make something out of nothing. I’ve always tended to over-analyze/over-think things as they are occurring. For example, at a funeral, I’m sad but I’m also interested in what “sad” looks like. How does it feel? What are other people looking like in their state(s) of bereavement?  Isn’t that all very interesting. Now… what to do with that information? In almost everything that happens to me I am seeing it happen in the first person and in a rather peculiar third-person way, as if I am both participant and voyeur, standing outside my own body and taking notes on how I emote, react, speak. What words do I use? Are my motions natural, flowing? Throughout my life I have gathered all these tidbits. What other choice do I have other than to get these things on the page hoping to convey them accurately.
As for writing One Boy’s Shadow, the initial story came from a dream. The notes I jotted down nagged at me for more than a year before I started to sort them out and begin the writing process. The inspiration to being the actual writing came from a quote of Toni Morrison’s that goes: “If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it”. That message really hit home. As a closeted gay kid living in the Annapolis Valley of Nova Scotia, I searched and searched for something I could relate to (in the days before the Internet and online access to a multitude of resources and information) but never found it. I wanted to write a story for the kid I was, the kid I wish I’d had the courage to be, and all the other kids out there who feel the same way. That’s why I’m giving 100% of the profits I make from the book sales to a non-profit organization that supports Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender/Questioning youth, called The Youth ProjectThe Youth Project in Halifax, Nova Scotia. ( Read more... )

Fifteen-year-old Caleb Mackenzie doesn't put up a fight when his father announces the family is moving to Stapeton, Nova Scotia. In fact, Caleb looks forward to a fresh start in the scenic little area. Their new home, Wakefield House, sports large rooms, a big barn where Caleb can work on cars, and acres of forested land for privacy. But it also has a troubling past. In 1943, a boy who lived in the home vanished.

Caleb hears the stories about what may have occurred so many years ago, but he passes them off as folklore until one day he's alone in the woods and hears the faintest whisper. Did someone in the distance just call his name? And what about his discovery in the hayloft? Could there be something to those old stories after all?

The initial need to dismiss everything as coincidence becomes a soul-searching journey into the past where Caleb is determined to uncover the truth about what really happened to the missing boy. And in the process, he learns even more about himself and what's really important.

Available at Chapters, Amazon and B&N.