A familiar face is returning to Weyburn this weekend for an author reading at the Weyburn Public Library.
Rachael Clarke, who was formerly a member of the Weyburn Police Service, will be in town on Saturday, July 20th.
“I’m very excited to come out,” she said. “I am going to be popping into the library there with all of my books and I will be doing a reading from my debut sci-fi western novel, Race to Novus. “
Weyburn residents who remember Rachael will remember her as a police officer but, over the years, she has followed her passion and went on a journey that led her to writing.
“It’s a bit of a progression really,” she said. “I’ve always been a creative person. I’ve always drawn and written poems and stories and all kinds of stuff right from when I was a young girl. Creativity is a passion of mine but, you know, it kind of gets put on the back burner since the arts don’t necessarily pay the wages. So sometimes you have to find a career that’s more stable. For me, that was policing. I felt called to policing and I joined the RCMP and eventually joined with the Weyburn City Police. It was very fulfilling, even though challenging, career. Over time, what led me back to creativity is that I did get diagnosed with PTSD just due to workplace trauma, on-duty trauma. That was hard. I had to step back from policing and that takes a bit out of you. It takes some time to work through that and heal and part of my healing process was diving back into my old passions and my old dreams of writing.”
She added that returning to writing really helped her refocus and work on her own mental health.
“It really helped me get myself back where I wanted to be mentally and with wellness and I found it so fulfilling. It was definitely something I felt like I was meant to be doing. I started writing my first children’s book and illustrating that and doing a bunch of short story competitions and then I just knew that I was meant to do more and I started writing novels. Race to Novus was my first full-length novel that I fully completed.”
Sci-fi is widely regarded as one of the hardest genres to write, but Clarke noted that it felt natural to her.
“Fortunately, I have a very broad spectrum of interest. I do write sci-fi, I write fantasy, I write horror short stories often, but sci-fi has always been a love of mine, right from young. I love sci-fi. It’s so out there. You can be creative and envision this future world any way you want it to be and different technologies that you can create. I always knew I wanted to go that direction.”
Clarke will be at the Weyburn Public Library at 2:30 on Saturday and will do a bit of reading before visiting with those in attendance.
“I’ll be there hanging out to talk with everyone,” she said. “If anyone is keen on writing or publishing, I’m there to answer questions and happy to do it.”
You can follow along with Rachael’s writing journey on her website or visit her indie press, Page Turn Press.
