Interview with Helen Walsh

Helen Walsh is the founder and president of Canada’s top literary mentoring organization, Diaspora Dialogues. Now, she’s gone a step beyond mentoring to write her own novel. Pull Focus is a tense thriller set in the international film festival circuit. The novel dives headfirst into issues foregrounded by the #MeToo movement and crafts delightful characters who illuminate struggles in the film world.

Praise for Pull Focus

“Two thumbs up for action, suspense, and lust.” KIRKUS REVIEW

“Pull Focus is a sexually driven thriller that gets steamier with every turn of the page. Walsh should get this story onto a script so more people can experience this thrill ride.”  The Miramichi Reader

“Perfect for anyone looking for an action-focused mystery/thriller with a strong female lead, [Pull Focus] will satisfy your cravings for a feminist heroine and provide a good mystery to boot!”  eBookNerdReviews

Thank you so much for joining us on WWWB, Helen!

Thank you for having me, Barbara!

Tell us about your beginning, where are you both from?
I was born in Brampton (a suburb of Toronto) to a newly emigrated family. My father was from Ireland (Cork) and my mother’s Scottish, although she grew up in part in Karachi (in pre-partition India) and Hong Kong. My three older sisters were all born in London.

When did you decide you wanted to be a writer?
I wrote stories from a very young age. My mother got called into a school interview when I was around 10; the teacher was worried that my characters all died in the end. What’s with the critics, I complained to my mother. Three years later for my birthday, she gave me Lives of Girls and Women by Alice Munro and Anna Karenina, by Leo Tolstoy. They hooked me on creating worlds out of words, although it would take a few decades before I gave myself fully over to creative pursuits.

How has writing changed you as a person?
I think writing (and reading) makes people more empathetic. It’s not believable for the reader to encounter pure villains or the morally pure, and they’re boring to write. Most people are not psychopaths; both societal structures and individual decisions influence our behaviors and decisions. Fiction that embraces complexity and duality, that allows protagonists to be flawed, and doesn’t offer up pat solutions is what interests me most. I also think it’s important to stretch the imagination and not write from a very narrow perspective of everything you already know.

 Can you tell us a bit about FULL FOCUS? What inspired you to write it?
Jane, the protagonist, steps in as acting CEO of a large, international film festival when her predecessor is caught in a very public sexual harassment scandal that rocks the organization. It’s half opportunity and half poisoned chalice, as factions in the community, including her own board chair, want to see her fail. At the same time her partner Bob disappears amidst allegations of wrong doing. The novel takes place over the ten days of the festival as Jane juggles the balls she’s been handed – censorship from Chinese government sponsors, Russian oligarchs turned movie producers, filmmakers behaving badly – while searching for Bob and dealing with the secrets his disappearance reveal.

I was inspired to write it from my own experiences in the film industry, as well as that of women I know, including sexual harassment and violence. It’s a world of inherent drama where the stakes are high and contradictions stunning – glamorous and seedy, eccentric and charming. Add in the strange beast of celebrity, the unstoppable juggernaut of production (film or festival), the comradery and the backstabbing, the appeasement of funders. . .and a profound love of the moving image.

I’m also intensely interested in geopolitics, including time spent at G7/G20/World Bank/IMF meetings, and in Russia. So much of that found its way into the novel.

What would be your 6 word memoir?
I find human beings endlessly fascinating.

What is the best writing advice you’ve ever had, and the worst?
Write consistently. I didn’t fully understand how important that was that until I left an organization I was running in 2017 to write more fully. You cannot hold a novel in your head, especially a complicated one, unless you write virtually every day of the week.

Do you need a special place to write?
No. I just need quiet. I’ll play music but it’s classical or opera. But no TV or distinguishable voices in the background. And I am much better writing early in the morning. If I start around 6 or 7 when I first wake up, then I can write for a long time. But if I don’t start early morning, then I’m generally too caught up in the news and life to write that day.

Are you part of a writing community or a writing group?
I run a literary mentoring organization, Diaspora Dialogues, that supports emerging writers in creating their first books (fiction, poetry, creative non-fiction) or first plays, then connects them with agents, publishers and/or theatre companies. It’s definitely my writing community, and provided inspiration to finally commit to writing. Previously, I was also publisher of the Literary Review of Canada (Canadian equivalent to the New York Review of Books), a festival director, freelance writer, and producer.

What is your experience with social media as a writer? Do you find it distracts you or does it provide inspiration?
A little of both. I tend to go into intense 7-10 day writing sprints, and in those I won’t engage with social media as it takes my brain out of the story. Otherwise, I check in a few times a day. It’s better for me if I don’t do that at night before I go to sleep or first thing in the morning, but too often I do!

Who are your favorite authors?
Oh, so many. I don’t want to list some because I will invariably leave out people. I believe in reading very widely across genres and styles.

What are you reading currently?
I tend to have more than one book on the go so currently started: Fight Night by Miriam Toews, Indian in the Cabinet by Judy Wilson-Raybould and Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead. Last night I finished the audiobook of The Dark Hours by Michael Connelly. I also recently bought Hamnet by Maggie Farrell which I’d missed when it first came out, and Velvet Was the Night by Silvia Moreno-Gracia, so I’m looking forward to those as well. But looking at my list – and bedside table – I see it’s time for some poetry shopping.

—

Helen Walsh’s debut novel, Pull Focus, published September 7, 2021 by ECW Press in North America and October 7, 2021 in the UK.

Walsh is also the founder and president of Diaspora Dialogues, a charitable organization that supports writers to turn their craft into a career, through mentorship, professional development, and opportunities to present and publish their work.

Previously, Walsh was publisher and president of the Literary Review of Canada, a monthly book review magazine; director of Spur, a festival of politics, arts and ideas; and a film/digital media writer & producer in Canada and the US.

Walsh lives in Toronto.

Find out more about Helen on her website https://helenwalsh.ca/

Follow her on Twitter @HelenWalshBooks

PULL FOCUS, Helen Walsh

When Jane’s partner goes missing she needs to find out if he’s in danger while also contending with the politics of a large international film festival: Hollywood power brokers, Russian oil speculators, Chinese propagandists, and a board chair who seemingly has it out for her.

Jane has been appointed interim director of the Worldwide Toronto Film Festival after her boss has been removed for sexual harassment. Knives are out all around her, as factions within the community want to see her fail. At the same time, her partner, a fund manager, has disappeared, and strange women appear, uttering threats about misused funds. Yet the show must go on. As Jane struggles to juggle all the balls she’s been handed and survive in one piece, she discovers unlikely allies and finds that she’s stronger than she thinks.

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Tags: featured, women writers

Category: Interviews, On Writing