Welcome Back to Pottersville: Interview with Shoshona Freedman

“FBI agent Josh Metcalf believes he has uncovered a decades-long conspiracy involving missing children. His obsession has led him to compile hundreds of cases. All involve children rumored to have psychic abilities―and all have no witnesses, no leads, and no resolution.

Meanwhile, Rowan Wilson, a meteorite hunter for NASA’s Spaceguard Program, is losing her grip on the past. Memories of the childhood she thought she’d had are vanishing, and dark recollections of kidnappings, mind control, and an isolated mountain ranch are taking their place.

When Rowan’s shadowed past converges with Josh’s research, they uncover a deadly plot to reshape humanity. With the world’s survival dependent on stopping a vast network of conspirators, can they decipher―and expose―the truth in time?” –synopsis for The Faithful.

Once again, we go up to the Great White North as we profile Canadian author, Shoshona Freedman. Shoshona has a fascinating history, which includes New York dramatic training and a stint as a private eye.

15) Netflix has released a special (Keep Sweet: Pray and Obey) and Hulu has a miniseries out (Under the Banner of Heaven), both dealing with the FLDS. Shoshona, I can’t help but ask what would lead a Canadian Jewish woman to research the Mormons?

That’s a great question! I’m fascinated by the harm caused by all aspects of extremism in our society—religious, patriarchal, political—and how that impacts survivors years or even decades later. How do we break free from the ingrained lessons and damage done in childhood? It seems to me that every religion and political ideology can become damaging when taken to the extreme. I’ve witnessed this even within small factions of my own religious community, where those who don’t fit the narrow definition of what’s “acceptable” are ostracized by their own family. I’ve seen parents “sit shiva” (a Jewish mourning practice) for an adult child who is still very much alive, and as a parent I can’t imagine my children doing anything—ANYTHING—that would cause me to turn my back on them. Followers of the Fundamentalist Mormon Church (FLDS) take their beliefs to the knife’s edge of cultlike fanaticism, and I wanted to highlight the damage done to their lost children. I think it translates to many factions of our society, and I hope it serves as a fictionalized example of the real damage done by intolerance and extremism.

14) You have a launch coming up on October 18^th, Blood Atonement, that deals with that religious movement. Were you just in search of a compelling backdrop for this novel or did you try to convey a social message?

The roots of Blood Atonement grew from my fascination with dissociative identity disorder. I spent a long time on research, and when I learned that DID usually develops as a way for a young mind to protect itself from systemic abuse, and that it’s often linked to people who grew up in cults, the wheels started clicking. Most of the FLDS live in the southern U.S., but there’s a group that came north to my home province of British Columbia and settled right near the border in a town called Lister (they call it Bountiful, but you won’t see it marked as such on a map). They’d send young girls north or south in forced marriages, and their “troubled” boys would be sent north to a work camp near Bountiful to repent and get back on the path of “righteousness.”

13) During a recent phone call, you said that you went to New York to study drama with the American Academy of Dramatic Arts then later became a private eye. Did your dramatic training aid you in your later career choice?

It did! I worked for a large PI firm, and most of the investigators were former police officers or men who looked like cops. I was one of the only females in the firm, and as a young twenty-something with theatrical training, I could get away with pretty much anything. I mainly worked surveillance, and I was often sent in when we needed to get close to someone we were investigating. The theatre training coupled with the decade I spent as a PI taught me how to properly research someone I was investigating, and how to understand the psychology behind their actions. It was a real study in human behavior and motivation, and I hope these skills translate into writing deeper and more empathetic characters.

12) When you were a girl growing up in Canada, who were your favorite authors and did any of them go on to influence your work?

One of my favorites was Sue Grafton’s alphabet series. I just adore her tough and funny private eye, Kinsey Milhone. Pretty sure I thought being a PI would be just like that, but other than the opportunity to eat copious amounts of McDonalds, it really wasn’t.

11) Amazon’s Thomas and Mercer picked up the inaugural book in the Faithful series then Soaring Raven took over for the second book, Impact Winter. Why the different publishers?

The Faithful was originally self-published. It made it to the quarterfinals in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award, and perhaps that’s how my acquisitions editor at T&M found it. They made me an offer to re-publish it, which was thrilling! But they weren’t interested in the second in the series, so I went back to self-publishing for Impact Winter. Since then, I’ve been with Dundurn Press, an amazing Canadian publisher.

10) Let’s talk about the Faithful series for a moment. For those who’ve yet to read either book, what’s the throughline?

In The Faithful, Ryanne Jervis’s shadowed past converges with an FBI agent’s investigation into the kidnapping of psychic children, and a deadly plot to reshape humanity is revealed. With the world’s survival dependent on stopping a vast network of conspirators known only as I Fidele, Ryanne must decipher—and expose—the truth in time. In the sequel, Impact Winter, Ryanne is haunted by visions of the second phase of the new world order: the round-up and brutal internment of all survivors. To save humanity, Ryanne must turn I Fidele’s most powerful weapon—their own children—against them.

9) Is the Faithful series going to be a trilogy?

That’s always been the plan. While I am working on the third in the series, I must admit I’m having a harder time writing apocalyptic fiction than I did when I started the series ten years ago. It feels a bit too close to the truth, I guess.

8) Plotter, pantser or plantser?

Plantser for sure, although with each book I write I lean more toward plotter.

7) Last year, you’d published a standalone entitled, The Day She Died. Walk us briefly through that story and tell us what led you to write it.

The Day She Died tells the story of Eve Gold, who is determined to rebuild her life after a near-fatal car accident. But when brain damage leaves her forgetful, confused, and tortured by repressed memories, she must choose between clinging to the lies that helped her survive her childhood and unearthing the secrets she buried long ago. The fluidity and fallacy of memory is something I find both horrifying and fascinating, which is probably why I explore those blurred edges in all my books. Which memories are real? Which are manipulated? Which are outright lies? This is the overriding theme of The Day She Died, as Eve tries to unearth a past that would be safer left buried.

6) Last March, I’d interviewed another Vancouver-based mystery author, Debra Purdy Kong, whom you may have met. Do you find British Columbia’s biggest city to be fertile ground for mysteries?

I love Debra! Her Casey Holland series is fantastic. Vancouver is teeming with brilliant crime writers. I belong to both Crime Writers of Canada and the Canada West chapter of Sisters in Crime, and the community of brilliant and supportive writers is astounding. There is so much talent here, you could read nothing but Vancouver (or Western Canadian) authors and never get bored. Just to name a few, for anyone who’s looking for something great to read: Sam Wiebe, Owen Laukkanen, Amber Cowie, A.J. Devlin, Jeremy Siemens, Tara Moss, Winona Kent, Meredith Hambrock, Karen Dodd … Okay, I’ll stop, because I could go on and on.

5) Describe your typical writing day. Do you draft exclusively in journals, on a laptop, both and do you set daily word goals?

My handwriting is atrocious, so everything is done on my laptop. To become better at plotting my stories, I’ve recently started using an app called Plottr. It’s a visual plotting device where you can put down all kinds of information. It’s brilliant and I highly recommend it for those looking to get more organized. Once I’m done plotting and researching a project, I aim for a thousand words a day. Sometimes I make do with a hard-earned three-hundred, and sometimes it’s an easy three thousand. Once I start writing, I take a “ride or die” attitude until I get to the end of the draft, which for me means working on it every single day, even if it’s only for fifteen minutes. That way, I keep my head in the story.

4) Cults feature prominently in three of your four novels. Are you trying to just tell good stories using them as a backdrop or are you overtly trying to do a public service by writing them?

Hmm. I think I just write about what interests me, and what scares me. Apparently, cults scare the hell out of me.

3) Describe in detail your writing happy space. Where is it?

My backyard in Palm Springs, California. My husband and I bought a foreclosed home during a brief and glorious moment when the Canadian and American dollars were on par, and some of my best writing (and editing!) happens in the shade of our palm trees while the scent of our neighbor’s orange blossoms tickle my nose. And there’s no plot hole I can’t fix while swimming laps.

2) Are there any genres in which you haven’t written yet plan to in the future?

I’m currently taking a run at writing a YA story, and I’m having a blast! There’s so much to learn.

1) What’s next for Shoshona Freedman?

As mentioned, I’m currently working on a YA thriller that’s steeped in Jewish mysticism, and I’m hoping it will be the first in a series. I also have a historical suspense novel about a little boy who remembers past lives. Both are in the rewrite/editing phase and hopefully my agent will be submitting them to publishers sometime soon.

If you’re interested in learning more about Ms. Freedman and her work, please use the handy links below.

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