Breadcrumb Trail Links
Local Arts Entertainment Books
The historian took a leap of faith to pursue her dream of being an author and is celebrating the release of her first title, Badass(ish)
Article content
Jaymie Heilman is taking a risk and chasing a lifelong dream of becoming a full-time writer. She recently left a career in academia and is celebrating the launch of her first novel this week.
Badass(ish), released Sept. 25 by Ronsdale Press, is a young adult story that follows three Edmonton teenagers as they wrestle with social justice, peer groups and their place in the world.
Advertisement 2
Article content
Article content
Davis is the daughter of oil company employees who recently moved to Edmonton after leaving Fort McMurray, where controversy surrounded her after she blamed the oil industry for a devastating wildfire. Now, she makes a return to climate activism to impress her friends and win back her ex-boyfriend.
Heilman is making the plunge into fiction with young adults in mind, her writing aimed at teenagers and pre-teens. It’s an audience she plans to continue to focus on with her fiction writing.
“It’s really a moment in time in people’s lives when so many paths are opening up, so many questions are in front of folks. I think it’s a really rich moment for thinking about possibilities in one’s life,” Heilman says.
And of course, the adage ‘write what you know’ holds true for Heilman’s choice of genres — she admits she’s most often reading young adult fiction herself. It makes sense to stick to what she loves.
Before becoming a full-time author, Heilman was a professor of history at the University of Alberta. Her research focused on political activism in 20th-century Peru, as well as the history of the drug trade in Latin America and the Caribbean. She left her job at the university over the summer to pursue writing full-time.
Headline News
Article content
Advertisement 3
Article content
Heilman has written two academic books, one about the Shining Path party in Peru and the other a co-authored book about the life of Peruvian political activist Manuel Llamojha Mitma.
As a historian, she focused on storytelling and having her work be accessible to multiple audiences. She wanted to tell deeply human stories, to make connections to the past.
While her academic work often focused on social justice, her fiction is going to take a similar path. She plans to continue to write stories about social justice, overlapping with her interest in young adult novels.
“Teenagers today are at the forefront of asking these super hard questions and demanding the biggest changes. What we are seeing in the literature is a reflection of reality,” says Heilman.
While she was gaining success as an academic, her love of fiction never faded and she’s been slowly working on fiction writing since 2015. Her work has been published in places such as the Capital City Press Anthology, the Edmonton Public Library’s collection of local authors, as well as other anthologies.
“I enjoy academic writing, but there’s a pulling-teeth aspect to it that could be a bit of a struggle,” says Heilman. “The joy of sitting down at my computer and coming up with stories, having a community of other fiction writers and sharing those ideas has been a ridiculous amount of fun. I feel so privileged to be able to do this full-time. I know how lucky I am.”
Advertisement 4
Article content
The world of fiction writing has brought different challenges, from agents to publishers big and small and an entirely different path to getting a piece of writing out into the world. But she’s jumping in with both feet.
With her first book finished and heading to shelves, her next project has already taken shape. Tentatively titled Sea Monsters Academy, it features sea monsters fighting pollution happening in the ocean. But it’s not the only project she has on the go.
“I’m someone who typically has three or four projects on the go at once because inevitably I will get so stuck on one. If I only had that one I would be banging my head against the wall,” she says.
Heilman will be having a book celebration event for Badass(ish) at the Whitemud Crossing location of the Edmonton Public Library on Oct. 14 at 3:30 p.m.
Find more information about the author at jaymieheilman.com.
Related Stories
The List: Play the Fool Festival brings outrageous clown and physical comedy to Backstage Theatre
Bookmarks: Padma Viswanathan’s tale of a friend, his family and their troubling mysteries
Article content
Share this article in your social network
Comments
Postmedia is committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion and encourage all readers to share their views on our articles. Comments may take up to an hour for moderation before appearing on the site. We ask you to keep your comments relevant and respectful. We have enabled email notifications—you will now receive an email if you receive a reply to your comment, there is an update to a comment thread you follow or if a user you follow comments. Visit our Community Guidelines for more information and details on how to adjust your email settings.