Frances Peck

Hi, and thanks for visiting my website. You may know me as a Vancouver-based editor, ghostwriter, and instructor. This website is about me as a creative writer.

My first novel, The Broken Places, came out in April 2022. To my delight (and relief), the book was well received. Readers and reviewers praised it, book clubs enjoyed it, the Globe and Mail named it a best book of 2022, and it was a finalist for the 2023 Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize.

My second novel, Uncontrolled Flight, hit the shelves September 1, 2023. Readers are calling it another literary page-turner, reviewers are enthusiastic, and 49th Shelf named it a best book of 2023. I hope that if you pick up a copy, the story will grab you too.

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A red and white typewriter with a piece of paper coming out of the top

About

I’ve always been a writer. I was nine when I got my first typewriter. A red-and-white model designed for kids, it was cheap and lightweight, mostly a toy. But it made my stories and poems look official. They looked like writing.

When the realities (and bills) of adulthood set in, I gave up my own stories and went to work on other people’s instead. As an editor, ghostwriter, and instructor, I helped thousands of writers, subject-matter experts, and students produce better material. I wrote a little under my own name, co-authoring the HyperGrammar website and writing Peck’s English Pointers, but mostly I stayed behind the scenes.

Much as I enjoyed helping other people with their words, my own were clamouring to get out. After a decades-long hiatus, I tried writing fiction again to see what would happen. Like that, time folded back on itself, and I was caught in the magic of making things up.

Now I have two novels, The Broken Places and Uncontrolled Flight, that are all mine: my characters, my ideas, my name on the cover. Going public still feels scary; it’s a lot more comfortable to stay in the background. But sometimes you need to do what scares you—to rush straight at it to feel alive. That’s one of the things my fiction is about.

Books

Uncontrolled Flight

A pilot crashes and dies while fighting wildfires in the BC Interior, leaving behind a traumatized colleague, a grieving widow, and an accident investigator with questionable motivations. In this “taut tale,” “at turns tense, sexy, and heartbreaking,” tragedy and mystery blend to produce a literary page-turner that is “totally impossible to put down.”

The cover of Uncontrolled Flight.

The Broken Places

A devastating earthquake tests the inner fault lines and strained relationships of a group of wildly different Vancouverites thrown together by the disaster. This “beautifully layered and compelling” novel with “nuanced, stunning characters” asks: when things fall apart, who will you become?

The cover of The Broken Places, with a bluish-green "finalist" seal from the Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize in the upper right-hand corner, across from the black-and-white Globe and Mail Best Books seal in the upper left-hand corner.

Scrapbook

Photos of the authors Tara McGuire and Frances Peck, overlapped by covers of their books, "Holden After and Before" and "Uncontrolled Flight" respectively.

The fusion of fact and fiction

On March 13, 7:00–8:00pm, acclaimed author Tara McGuire and I will be at North Vancouver’s Lynn Valley Library to talk about the fusion of fact and fiction in our books.

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Covers of 12 books: The Broken Places by Frances Peck, The Crow Valley Karaoke Championships by Ali Bryan, Girlfriend on Mars by Deborah Willis, Rose Addams by Margie Taylor, Junie by Chelene Knight, We All Want Impossible Things by Catherine Newman, In the Upper Country by Kai Thomas, We Should Not Be Afraid of the Sky by Emma Hooper, Uncontrolled Flight by Frances Peck, The Future by Catherine Leroux, The List of Last Chances by Christina Myers, and We Were Dreamers by Simu Liu

Standouts of 2023

What a treat this week to learn that not one but both of my novels are on Consumed by Ink’s list of standout reads for 2023!

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A pile of books, with one spread open on the top, along with an insert that says North Shore Authors Collection

North Shore Authors Collection + book fair

Uncontrolled Flight deals with universal themes (loss, love, grief, passion) but in its details it’s local. With luck, more local readers will discover the novel now that it’s part of the 2023–24 North Shore Authors Collection.

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Contact

Frances Peck stands outside wearing a sweater and a scarf

To drop me a line, or to invite me to your book club, writing group, or other event, email [email protected] or use the contact form. Or connect with me on Twitter (@FrancesLPeck) or Instagram (@franceslpeck).

For media and festival inquiries, please contact Carolina Ortiz: [email protected].

For information on rights, please contact CookeMcDermid: [email protected].

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