Pat McDermott Michener has been writing all her life: newspaper and magazine articles, speeches, video and presentation scripts, press releases, reports, web copy — but until "Emma" she had never written a novel.
And she had absolutely no intention of doing so, until chunks of it assembled in her mind, and then, with greater and greater insistence, Emma and her niece Jasmine demanded that she sit down and tell their story.
Mostly, Pat wanted to get away from the computer she had been tied to for practically all her working life. After her BA, BJ, she was a journalist, then transitioned to public relations and communications work before co-founding a Toronto-based corporate communications firm. Her company was in business for over 25 years before she left to pursue, in retirement, a variety of other interests long delayed.
Old habits die hard, though. As a life-time reader, after a period of dissatisfaction with novels she had picked up, she decided to write one heavy on plot and light on flights of descriptive writing.
How well she achieved it, you be the judge.
Currently Pat has another novel underway, provisionally titled, "The Willows Walk".
Pat has three very accomplished, marvelous adult children, Carl, Greg and Julia. She lives in the countryside on a farm overlooking Georgian Bay, Ontario.