“I want to extend a huge thank-you to the Trent community. Everyone went out of their way to be welcoming and helpful. Trent is a wonderful University,” said Kelley Armstrong, best-selling Canadian author, after spending a week at Trent as the 2010 writer-in-residence.

As writer-in-residence at Champlain and Gzowski Colleges, Ms. Armstrong spent the week of January 18-22 delivering public readings, book signings, lectures and workshops, and enjoying dinners and one-on-one sessions with student and community writers.

When asked about her impressions of Trent, Ms. Armstrong considered what it would be like to be a student here. “I think Trent would be a comfortable experience. I think it would be easy to feel part of a community here,” she said.

Ms. Armstrong is best known for her paranormal suspense series Women of the Otherworld and her Nadia Stafford crime series both written for adults. The tenth book in her Otherworld series, Frostbitten, came out last fall, only eight years after her first book Bitten was published in 2001 by Random House Canada. She also writes for young adults.

The Awakening, the second book in her Darkest Powers Trilogy written for young adults was published in April 2009 and became a New York Times Best Seller. She is also on The Globe and Mail’s best-selling author list.

In addition to writing, Ms. Armstrong has ten years experience as a speaker and writing workshop leader. She has run workshops for the annual national conference for the Canadian Authors Association, various chapters of the Romance Writers of America and has been a guest speaker for the Surrey International Writers Festival.

On January 21, Ms. Armstrong gave a lecture entitled What is it Like to be a Canadian Author? in the First Peoples Gathering Space in Peter Gzowski College. It was followed by a question and answer session about writing in general. Earlier in the day she spent hours in one-on-one meetings with students to discuss their writing.

“The highlight of the week for me was meeting with the young writers. That's always a thrill for me,” she said. “When I was that age, I desperately wanted to be a novelist, but I'd never met anyone who did it for a living. love being able to do that for young writers, and help them in any way I can.”

Ms. Armstrong hopes that her time at Trent will help to re-launch a regular writer-in-residence program. “I’m sure that other writers will find their time here as fun and fulfilling as mine has been.”

Photo of Kelley Armstrong courtesy of Curtis Lantinga