About Me — Heather McLeod

Ex-farmer, mom, widow & mystery writer

I’m raising my son in the small mountain town where I grew up.

I wanted to write a novel, but 92,000 words is an intimidating goal. My husband, Brock, did the math and asked if I could write 252 words per day for a year. “Of course I can,” I said. “Easy peasy.”

So I made myself write at least 252 words every day, not allowing myself to go to bed until I’d met my quota. That’s how I finished my first mystery novel, One for the Raven.

Brock was living with stage four (terminal) kidney cancer at the time. Loving and taking care of a man who is dying, who is declining physically and mentally, is not an experience I expected to have at age 36.

We were supposed to be farming. We’d just signed a lease for 65 more acres of land: we were poised to become Whole Foods’ largest supplier of certified organic vegetables on Vancouver Island. We had 24 employees, two tractors, and a year-old son.

Brock and our son, with 65 acres of potential.

But Brock started having afternoon naps and a mysterious gut pain. Within a year, we’d sold the farm and tractors and “retired” to a rented duplex downtown.