WEYBURN – A former Weyburn resident and Comp grad, Alison Martin, paid a visit to family and friends in Weyburn and held a book-signing event at the Collabartive Studio on Thursday evening.
Currently a resident of Haines Junction, Yukon, Martin has self-published a number of novels and has her own publishing company, A. Martin Books.
Martin describes her style as “genre-mashing”, and noted mainstream publishers don’t generally like this as they can’t categorize her work.
She said one of the genres is women’s fiction/romance stories, and she mixes in suspense and adventure elements to create her works.
Her first attempt to write was when she was nine years old, which she wrote and illustrated, and she also did some writing of horror stories in junior high.
“I stopped writing for a while as a teenager, then I wrote my first full-length book when I was in Scotland,” a fantasy novel, written when she attended arts school, and she quipped, “It will never see the light of day.”
Martin moved to Haines Junction about 11 or 12 years ago, and shortly after wrote her first romance/suspense book, the first in a series.
She self-published the story through Amazon, when self-publishing was more of an unknown method than it is today.
She noted romance stories generally sell very well, as the top-selling genre in publishing, and as a writer, she likes to explore that genre.
“I’m interested in the concept of romance and love in general, and I explore how relationships work, and the choices people make in their love lives,” said Martin.
“My audience tends to be people who do heavy reading, but on vacation they want trashy romance stories,” she added.
Martin has her own publishing company, but at this point she is not taking works from other writers, although she has collaborated with other writers for her stories.
She has a literary agent, whose company is based in New York and Los Angeles.
Martin first moved to Weyburn with her family when she was 12, and noted in her high school years, she played Lady Charity for Communithon along with Preston Roy as Captain United.
She was recently married and came to Weyburn for a reception, and as she went to school with Krystal Glowatski, and has known Malia Brackpool for several years, she decided to hold a book-signing there while visiting in the city.
