Norah McClintock

Biography 

Born and raised in Montreal, Quebec, Canadian writer Norah McClintock decided from the young age of 12 that she was destined to be a writer. In high school, her favorite subjects were English, History and the Languages (French, German and Latin). Not surprising, Norah never enjoyed Chemistry or Math at all. After graduating from high school, Norah attended McGill University to earn herself a degree in History. However, to this day, the degree remains incomplete.  When faced with the hard decision of being a student or writing, she chose writing, the one she was more passionate about. Before having her first book, Shakespeare and Legs published in 1987 by McClelland and Steward Inc., Norah took a course at Ryerson for children’s writing with Barbara Greenwood, which helped her become a better author. Now she lives in Toronto with her husband and children, working from home as a writer.

 Aside from writing and being a mom, which everyone knows is a full-time job in itself, Norah has many other hobbies. She finds pleasure in going out to the movies with her husband and children as often as they can! Norah adores action adventure movies, such as Die Hard and Executive Director, and oldies like African Queen and White Heat. McClintock also thinks many newer movies are just as delightful as the classics, including Juno, The Lookout, You Can Count on Me, and Wonder Boys. Other activities Norah fancies are cross-country skiing and hiking as well as going for bike rides with the family. To clear her head when working on a novel, Norah McClintock will go for long walks, to not only take a break from writing, but to get some fresh air and get more ideas flowing. A talent her children believe their mother has is her ability to bake delicious fudge brownies, which are "to die for"!

Norah is well known for her crime and mystery novels for young adults. McClintock once declared, “Writing mysteries means I have to do a lot of planning, which, to the outside observer (usually my family) looks like I’m just sitting there, staring out the window (I’m thinking! I’m thinking!). But when it comes together, boy, does it ever feel good!” Before learning how valuable an outline was, she absolutely detested them! Now Norah can end up with a 20 page, very detailed outline, before she even begins to write the novel. Sometimes Norah gets her starting point ideas from real life events she hears about on the news or reads in the paper. If nothing sparks an idea, then her imagination kicks in. Many different things give her ideas for upcoming novels - in fact the setting for a few of her books is in Toronto, specifically in her very own neighborhood!

Her desire to write mystery crime books is driven by her love for reading them! As a child, Norah read every single one of the Nancy Drew books, and even borrowed all of her brother’s Hardy Boy’s novels! As an adolescent reader, McClintock also took great pleasure in reading Brains Benton. The lives of the kid sleuths in all of these different series caught Norah’s attention; she desperately wanted to be one of those kids, with all of the excitement and adventure in their lives. Norah’s writing career ultimately rooted for her childhood, reading these books and developing a passion for mysteries.