Camosun graduate Ann Eriksson has a history in biology, but she’s always had a passion and love for books and writing. After joining a friend’s writing support group she wrote her first novel, fell in love with doing it, and just kept going.
Eriksson’s fourth and most recent novel, High Clear Bell of Morning, merges her love for biology with her love of writing.
“I write about the things I am passionate about, and biology is certainly one of them,” she says.
Eriksson was inspired by a research project she participated in when she was a student in Victoria and got the idea for her latest novel.
“I volunteered with a marine mammal research group where I participated in an educational study in which I collected data on toxic contaminates in all marine mammal species along the coast,” she says. “I was just really struck by the number of contaminates and by the levels, particularly in the killer whales, and that sort of stayed with me.”
The second event that inspired the novel was when a friend’s daughter began struggling with schizophrenia.
“I just watched from the sidelines as this family kind of imploded,” she says. “It was quite shocking to watch what happened to this family and the difficulties they had in getting help, and when they did get help, how inadequate it was.”
Eriksson decided to merge these two issues in her book as she felt they were “parallel health stories, an environmental and wildlife health story, and also a human health story.”
“I could see there was possibly a link with the same kind of toxins that are in the whales affecting human health as well,” she says.
Eriksson also hopes the book will raise awareness of these two issues and urges readers to write letters to the Ministry of the Environment, provincially and federally, as well as to be aware of mental illness.
“[Know] the stigma that confronts people with mental illness in your own everyday life. When you meet a homeless person, or hear about someone with mental illness, understand that it’s not a behavioural choice. It’s a brain disorder,” says Eriksson, “and they need medical help and counsel.”
Ann Eriksson book reading
7 pm Tuesday May 27
Bolen Books
bolenbooks.com