Medicine. And Dinosaurs. And Kissing.

Dr. Maggie North is an anesthesiologist based in Ottawa who has always loved to tell stories. Before she could write, she dictated tales to her grandmother who would write them down. Now, she has three romance novels already bookstores and is touring to promote the third one, called Fossil Feud. Her latest foray involves two paleontologists who team up to stop a fraudulent academic paper from being presented at a key scientific meeting. One is Ripley Adams who was one year short of obtaining her PhD when a scandal broke out, forcing her to earn a living as a private fossil hunter. She’s deep into a dig in Montana with her crew when Oxford professor James Smithson appears, asking for help in discrediting a too-good-to-be true finding. That’s a very staid summary of the plot. The one on the back cover is rich with puns involving bones, extinction and getting dirty. It’s fun, it’s escapist and it doesn’t pretend to be anything else. And yet as Dr. North weaves her flirty tale, she deftly confronts some difficult themes and situations, from phobias to childhood trauma to financial realities, making the novel dig deeper than expected.Dr. North completed two master’s degrees, because she “didn’t learn her lesson the first time.” It only takes a few pages into Fossil Feud to appreciate that Dr. North flexed her research muscles to write this novel. The details about the paleontology world, from the tools used on a dig to the hot scientific debates (insert hot pun here), are many, but referenced in a way that doesn’t impede the flow of the story. She even dug into her personal academic research experience for the storyline of someone taking more credit for work than they deserve. “Academia has some trouble spots, like misogyny and exploitation,” she said in an interview in an Ottawa coffee shop.Dr. North completed two master’s degrees, because she “didn’t learn her lesson the first time.” It only takes a few pages into Fossil Feud to appreciate that Dr. North flexed her research muscles to write this novel. The details about the paleontology world, from the tools used on a dig to the hot scientific debates (insert hot pun here), are many, but referenced in a way that doesn’t impede the flow of the story. She even dug into her personal academic research experience for the storyline of someone taking more credit for work than they deserve. “Academia has some trouble spots, like misogyny and exploitation,” she said.Many of the ideas for the books comes from things she’s reflected on for a long time, she said. All her books address topics other romance writers might gloss over. For example, The Ripple Effect tackles physician burnout. One of the main characters is an emergency physician. The inspiration came from a feeling of a post-pandemic broken social contract and burnout among physicians in the context of a continued love for medicine. Both her and her physician husband witnessed it. The question she wanted to examine in The Ripple Effect was “what would bring a physician back?” She discussed this on a Mayo Clinic podcast called Read. Talk. Grow. focussing on burnout. Dr. North honed her non-academic writing skills blogging about motherhood. It helped her learn how to structure a short piece to provide maximum impact. She also taught a course for medical students at the University of Ottawa that used reflective writing as a way to process learning, going from ‘what happened?’ to ‘how is that going to change what you do going forward?’ The clinical encounter is a lot like writing a piece of fiction, she explained; patients have a problem that needs solving and physicians “must excavate a story and find a way to get to a happy ending.” When her daughter turned 12, she made a conscious switch to writing fiction. It seemed like a good time to try something new.Three published novels in three years is quite an achievement, but the journey to get published was “a series of successes followed by failures.” She wrote what she calls ‘a bad book’ in 2019, wrote another in 2020 that won in #PitchWars, a volunteer-run initiative where authors pitched their work on social media and the prize was mentorship by a publishing professional. That led to an agent, but the book didn’t sell to a publisher. She then got another agent who landed her publishing deals. The success and rejection cycle may be particularly hard for physicians, she said, because many are used to only successes when it comes to studying and career. Still, physicians are persistent, she said.Since her writing life took off, Dr. North moved to a lower intensity level of practice than her previous work in critical care medicine. She now provides sedation in a colonoscopy clinic. Writing sessions can be unpredictable, she said, so being able to pair that with the more stable, ordered and essential practice of providing sedation is a balm. She also enjoys her colleagues. Anesthesiologists have to enjoy working with surgeons, enjoy their humour and interactions, she said, and she still has that. Her writing has impacted her clinical life. As she explores fictional people, she finds herself being more compassionate towards real patients’ and colleague’s ‘backstories.’ She said she also tends to speak up more about ideas she finds challenging, and discusses more social justice issues. Romance is a genre that Dr. North feels is less valued than it should be. Sad art is perceived as more elevated than happy art, but “when we are in crisis in our lives, we love happy,” she said. While she doesn’t rule out moving out of the romance genre, she thinks she will never tire of it. Canadian romance novelists are doing very well right now, from Carley Fortune (Every Summer After), Rachel Reid (Heated Rivalry), Bal Khabra (Embrace), Stephanie Archer (The Fake Out) and Elle Kennedy (Off-Campus series). The day we met, Dr. North had a sold-out event at Evermore Books, an independent bookstore in Ottawa specializing in romance. It’s just metres away from locations used in Christmas-themed Hallmark romance movies. Canadian settings are popular too, although Fossil Feud is set in the U.S. because Canada’s fossil collection laws are strict and would prevent some of the intrigue in Fossil Feud. Dr. North’s first novels are set in Canada’s West, near her own roots. She wrote during the pandemic when her job included intubating patients and visiting her parents would put them at risk for COVID-19. She wrote about her grandparent’s cabin near Whistler, “because I just wanted to go home.”When we meet, Dr. North is wearing a baseball hat with “Clever Girl Fossils” embroidered on the front. It’s a nod to a line in the original Jurassic Park movie and the name of a company in Fossil Feud. For this book, Dr. North has sold the merchandising rights. “Taking over the world, one step of a time,” she said. And since she’s taking it over while advocating for love, who would want to stop her?

Medicine. And Dinosaurs. And Kissing.

Register for free access or login.

Related Topics