Joy Fielding has far too much personality to be a writer! Authors are commonly known as recluses with bad cases of stage fright however, Fielding appears to be debunking such ideas!

International bestselling author Joy Fielding

By: Kindah Mardam Bey

Joy Fielding has far too much personality to be a writer. Authors are commonly known as recluses with bad cases of stage fright however, Fielding appears to be debunking such ideas! On a beautiful summers day in Canada, Joy Fielding, author of over twenty books to date (Heartstopper is her most recent release), tells to a captive audience, of how she was eight years old and decided to become a writer by submitting a story about a girl dying into a contest. So was Fielding’s path forged at the age of eight, she was meant to be a writer and meant to write about death and suspicious circumstances surrounding those deaths. The story was rejected because it was ‘too mature’ as her Mother explained and now with copious amounts of wit Fielding declares to the crowd gathered outside The Village Bookshop in Bayfield sipping wine, that her Mother invested too much self-esteem in Fielding as when someone declares they reject one of her novels for one reason or another Fielding still thinks ‘it’s not my novel that’s wrong, it’s that you aren’t mature enough to get it!’ Of course the half-truth, half-joke is a crowd pleaser and I’m beginning to reassess my perception of authors and a podium.

Then of course, Fielding, a Canadian author who spends half her time in Canada and half her time in the United States tells of how she used to play with little ‘Jack and Jill’ paper dolls when she was young; creating stories, she exclaims ‘I’m still doing that today…telling stories with my paper dolls.’ At the ripe old age of twelve, Fielding wrote a script for CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) that was also rejected; that story was about a twelve year old girl who kills her parents. You would think that would haunt a parent for years to come, but it appears that Fielding’s naturally macabre plotlines are not a side-affect of a deeply rooted childhood trauma, but more the flip side of a bubbly, entertaining and interesting personality. Still waters don’t have to run deep for Fielding, as she appears to get all her frustrations down on the page.

Listening to Fielding, one gets the sense that she isn’t speaking to an audience at all, but rather has seen all of us on the street and hasn’t seen us for ages, and is now catching us up on all her escapades. Fielding is the first to admit that it would not be wise to divulge your own experiences in front of her unless you intend to have your life captured on pages. She explains ‘I rely on my friends to be a crisis so that I have something to write about.’

Fielding always had a penchant for stories, but dabbled in a few different styles before committing full time to writing her own novels. Fielding received a degree in English but decided she wanted to try acting, she recollects two instances, one in which she was in a film called Winter Kept Us Warm which had GLAAD sensibilities in the 1960s, and a specific episode of Gunsmoke called ‘Waco.’ Fielding played a mute….we all laughed uproariously. I had visions of the film Scrooged where Bill Murray as Scrooge, tells the stage hand to staple reindeer antlers to the mouse if glue won’t work. How did the crew of Gunsmoke get this firecracker quiet? Let’s hope it was something less painful than the poor mouse garnered. Fielding tells the whole storyline of the Gunsmoke episode with gusto, exuberance, and with all the twists and turns and climactic moments of her ‘mystery author’ classification.

After a brief synopsis of her life to date Fielding talks a little about her writing ‘I couldn’t find a lot of female fictional characters that were well depicted. One thing I make sure I do in all my books is make the women someone you could identify with.’ Fielding also expresses an interest towards mother and daughter relationships in her novels and also has a particular type that she writes about often ‘I seem to be always writing about women who are trying to find themselves. In real life I have no patience for women who are trying to find themselves!’ Fielding also speaks about criticism with candour ‘people criticize as if a reward was offered for it!’

As The Village Bookshop of Bayfield event with Fielding winds down, she reads a little from her newest book Heartstopper, which is about a small town with mysteriously disappearing young girls. The writing is disturbing and to the point. Fielding’s voice rolls over the crowd and talks about a young girl being coveted by a predator, but the air is filled with a sweetness to it, and people leisurely sip their bubbly under the magnolia tree that was full in bloom for the Wayson Choy author visit in May at The Village Bookshop but has been replaced with lush green leaves that we all now sit under. Fielding has a contentedness to her persona that would often have a boiling underbelly of malice that seldom few would see; thank goodness she puts that darker side to paper and we can all enjoy her pleasant oration this evening.

To learn more about Joy Fielding, go to her official website www.joyfielding.com or visit the Random House website at www.randomhouse.ca.