Interview with Jonathan Whitelaw – S. 11, Ep. 2 Podcast By cover art

Interview with Jonathan Whitelaw – S. 11, Ep. 2

Interview with Jonathan Whitelaw – S. 11, Ep. 2

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 My guest for this episode of the Crime Cafe podcast is journalist and crime writer Jonathan Whitelaw. Wherein we discuss important topics like treating your writing career like a business. Along with really great topics, like Doctor Who, James Bond, and Terry Pratchett. Just sayin'. :) You can download a PDF of the transcript here. Debbi (00:54): Hi everyone. My guest today is an award-winning journalist and author. He once worked in Scottish politics, then moved into journalism where he covered a wide variety of topics for major publications. He appears on the Bloody Brothers Podcast and the Bloody Scotland Book Club. His novel, The Concert Hall Killer, was recently shortlisted for the Whodunnit Award for Best Traditional Mystery by the Crime Writers of Canada. Originally from Scotland, from Glasgow, he is now living in Canada in Alberta. It's my pleasure to have with me Jonathan Whitelaw. Hi, Jonathan. How are you doing? Jonathan (01:37): Hi there. I'm very well, thank you, Debbi. Thank you very much for having me. It's a pleasure to be here. Debbi (01:42): Oh, it is a pleasure to have you on, and I love your accent. It is so beautiful and musical. Jonathan (01:49): Thank you very much. It's the only one I have. Debbi (01:51): I love it. I love it. It's great. Jonathan (01:54): Very kind. Debbi (01:55): What was it that took you from Glasgow to Alberta? Jonathan (02:00): My wife. Short and sweet and simple answer, much like her, except the simple part, obviously far from it, she's the brains of the operation and I often say that I always like to try to think that I'm the eye candy of the operation, but I'm not even that, so she's that as well. So yeah, my wife's a doctor, so a few years ago it was pre-pandemic actually. She was at a conference and she got chatting to an expat doctor who's working in a place called North Battleford in Saskatchewan, and he was there promoting Western Canada. And him and my wife got chatting and he effectively offered her a job, but of course, with the pandemic and then my wife completing their training and stuff like that, I was having a baby. Everything got kicked into the very, very long grass for a couple of years, and the job was no longer there when we were ready for it. So by that point, we'd really talked ourselves into it and we'd explored all the options and stuff like that about coming over and visas and permanent residency and things and citizenship beyond that. And we found that there was a job opening in Alberta. A place called Grand Prairie, which is about an hour's flight northwest from Calgary. And that was it. We up sticks and moved wagons west in May 2022, and we haven't looked back since. [W]e found that there was a job opening in Alberta. A place called Grand Prairie, which is about an hour's flight northwest from Calgary. And that was it. We up sticks and moved wagons west in May 2022, and we haven't looked back since. Debbi (03:29): Wow. That's really something. Jonathan (03:31): Yeah Debbi (03:32): You can write from anywhere, so that's cool. Jonathan (03:35): Exactly right. Well, I was a journalist as your very, very kind intro mentioned there. I was a journalist, but I write full-time now. I've been able to go full-time writing since we moved to Canada, so it's over three years that I've been a full-time writer. And it was a mixture of circumstances. It was a mixture of where we were going and what we're going to be doing and stuff like that, and The Bingo Hall Detectives as a series sort of picking up. So yeah, it's been a great adventure. We've been made to feel very, very welcome here in Alberta and Canada in general. Debbi (04:13): It's fantastic. Jonathan (04:14): And I get to go back to the UK all the time for work. I go back for festivals and stuff like that, and it's only one flight from Calgary, which is great. So it's just a red eye there, and then you're back during the day. So it is good fun,
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