Jaima Fixsen
Author Interview - Jaima Fixsen
Author of Don't Look Close
If you look closely, you just may catch a killer.
Rear Window meets William Kent Krueger - with a hint of Erin Brokovich - in Jaima Fixsen's latest gripping crime novel. When a disabled photographer moves to a small mining town he expects a quiet life. But soon it becomes clear that something in the local clinic is wrong - very wrong - and, armed with his camera, he's determined to suss out a serial killer: one who targets those who won't step in line.
Author Interview - Jaima Fixsen
Author I draw inspiration from:
I love reading so it’s hard to choose—there are so many authors and books that I love. Don’t laugh, but one of my starting points for Don’t Look Close was the retro Nancy Drew books I read as a kid. You know the old hardback ones with yellow spines? Those ones. I love the visual suspense in the mid-century commercial illustration covers, and years ago, when Chronicle Books launched stationary featuring the designs, I bought ALL OF IT. (The notebook, the puzzle, the postcards, and my particular favorite, the fold and mail letter paper). And because Nancy got kidnapped, like every time, I had to have someone get kidnapped in this book.
I love reading Shari Lapena, Antony Horowitz, Benjamin Stevenson, and Catherine Ryan Howard.
Books:
The Couple Next Door, Magpie Murders, Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone, and Run Time are excellent reads.
Author Interview - Jaima Fixsen | Author I Draw Inspiration From
Favorite place to read a book:
I’m not picky. But I love to read inside, under a blanket, with snow falling outside my window.
Book character I’d like to be stuck in an elevator with:
Sherlock Holmes. I love the Arthur Conan Doyle originals, but also the brilliant extrapolations (particularly those by Laurie R. King and Antony Horowitz). Holmes would get us out of the elevator of course (which is good, because I think I’d be on the brink of a panic attack). He’d tell me all about myself with incisive deductions and then invite me along to dinner with Mary Russell. Ideally, I’d then tag along as a Watson type in their next case.
Author Interview - Jaima Fixsen | Book Character I’d Like to be Stuck in an Elevator With
The moment I knew I wanted to become an author:
For me, it’s been a gradual process. I wasn’t fueled by childhood dreams of being a writer and I never had an artistic epiphany. I just loved books and imagining. For a long time, I didn’t write because it wasn’t practical. I chose occupational therapy as a career. Then, after the birth of my third child, I gave myself permission to have something that was just for me. I needed something like that. I tried a few things, but writing fit me best. I was terrible at the others!
What I like about writing books is the excitement of creating something from nothing, of provoking another person into transforming a series of words into an experience they can see, feel and imagine in an authentic way.
If I’m completely honest, it surprises me that I get to do that. But sharing an imagination with a reader always strikes me as incredible and miraculous, and I enjoy it so much.
Hardback, paperback, ebook or audiobook:
I like ebooks for convenience and portability and paperbacks for reading ease, speed, (I read much faster than I can listen), and enjoyment (I love making margin notes). I like audiobooks both for enjoyment (the performance can add so much) and multitasking potential.
The last book I read:
Well, I lucked out this time because my recent reads make me look kind of clever—but I read widely, driven by mood, and the truth is that my reading list includes plenty of shojo manga, kid lit, and immensely satisfying genre fiction.
I just finished listening to Emma Donoghue’s The Pull of the Stars. It’s an incredible book, scoring in every category: character, pacing, style, story. I cried while I was listening—and I was so into the story, I ended up driving right past the last gas station before my turn off. I had to turn around and drive back 15 minutes or I’d have run out of gas on a rainy day on a mountain highway with intermittent cell service. Saved by the low fuel alert.
I’m also nearly finished reading A Midwife’s Tale by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich. This close analysis of a historical diary spanning almost 30 years is fascinating reading, and I’m enjoying the book so much.
Author Interview - Jaima Fixsen | The Last Book I Read
Pen & paper or computer:
I create a project notebook for every novel to hold maps, random jottings, photographs, name lists, travel plans related to research etc. For Don’t Look Close, I found lots of images (hospital ward photos, mines and miners, etc) in the provincial archives, and I created my book ‘name list’ by pulling (mixing up first and surnames of course) from a 1950s Alberta telephone directory. I found advertisements for contemporary wheelchairs and car modifications, and I got ideas of what my characters might have eaten from the CBC show Back In Time for Dinner.
I love my notebooks, but most of my writing is done on my laptop. I write in Scrivener, and I type in the Dvorak keyboard layout (better ergonomics). Dvorak typing for me began as an experiment—I switched keyboards in my computer preferences and stuck a printed page showing where the letters are (only ‘a’ and ‘m’ are in the same space as a standard keyboard) in my document holder. (Back then, I worked at a desktop computer). After a week of keyboarding hell, I was ready to give up, but by then I’d lost the ability to type fast on QWERTY. Persevering was the only option. It worked out I think, because many manuscripts and many books later, I haven’t wrecked my hands. I will write just about anywhere, at the kitchen table, in my car, at cafés, on the couch, in bed, and at my standing desk.
Book character I think I’d be best friends with:
Jane Eyre. From the Charlotte Bronte classic, and the many other iterations since.
Honestly, Jane has just been my friend for so long. There are lovely and haunting and troubling things in this story, and it’s a book that has grown with me most of my life. I first tried reading it when I was ten for a school novel study. I gave up when Jane fled Thornfield because I couldn’t handle how sad it was. But I tried it again when I was twelve and made it past the flight and starving on the moor and St John Rivers. And I loved it. I loved it at uni when I read it as a proto feminist work, and later in a book club when we evaluated it as a text laden with Freudian unconscious conflict. And I squirmed and got new insight into social patterns and expectations, then and now, when I read it in the context of #metoo.
I love the riffs as well (Wide Sargasso Sea, Mary Stewart’s enchanting Nine Coaches Waiting, The Eyre Affair, and most recently, a modern retelling set in Toronto called Jane and Edward by a fellow Canadian, Melodie Edwards).
And my daughter’s middle name is Jane. So I must, I’m afraid, submit that into evidence.
Author Interview - Jaima Fixsen | Book Character I’d be Best Friends With
If I weren’t an author, I’d be a:
An occupational therapist! Because that’s what I am. I truly value my other career, and I think it’s best for my mental health to do both. I like having real, concrete work with actual people to balance the drama (and isolation) of the time spent with my imaginary friends. Working as an occupational therapist is emotionally rewarding, and I feel that both pursuits encourage me to be creative.
Favorite decade in fashion history:
I don’t have a favorite era, but I love historical fashion, especially Karolina Żebrowska’s youtube channel.
Place I’d most like to travel:
My favorite place to be is in the mountains, and writing a story in them is one of the things I love most about this new book, Don’t Look Close. I have been to all the places mentioned in the book (even Hong Kong, which only makes a passing reference, but my grandparents lived there when I was young). The trails, town and even the hot springs in the story are well-loved and familiar (and some of my favorite places to be). My description of the hospital where Peter is a patient came from my experiences volunteering at an old hospital in Calgary before it was decommissioned. Every floor was done in a different color of terrazzo (pink, aqua, a particularly hideous purple) and the elevators were the kind you’d imagine in a horror movie.
My signature drink:
At the risk of exposing how boring I am, I will admit that I have cocoa (unsweetened, one tablespoon of cocoa powder to one cup of milk, flavored with freshly ground cardamon) every morning for breakfast. And I mean *every morning*. If I’m feeling fancy, I’ll froth the milk.
Favorite artist:
Again, this is really hard. What media? What genre? Each project I write has its own soundtrack. I’ve shared The Specimen playlist (https://jaimafixsen.substack.com/p/the-soundtrack-of-the-specimen) and will post the Don’t Look Close inspiration music on my substack (https://jaimafixsen.substack.com/) after the book launches in September.
Number one on my bucket list:
I’ve been learning to downhill mountain bike the last several years, which is adrenaline-rich for me, but fun. Downhill biking scares me so much more than anything I do skiing, and every summer, I feel like I’m starting over again, but one of these years, I am going to send it off that big jump.
Find more from the author:
https://jaimafixsen.substack.com/
https://www.instagram.com/byjaimafixsen/
About Jaima Fixsen:
Jaima Fixsen
Hello and welcome! I’m Jaima, a USA Today bestselling author writing about strong-minded women in times past. I love heart-stopping tension, stacked odds and impossible truths. My latest thriller, The Specimen, about a mother searching for answers after the disappearance of her invalid son, was a finalist for the 2025 Crime Writers of Canada Best Novel Award.
I also co-write STEMinist historical fiction with my friend Regina Sirois, under the pen name Audrey Blake. We met in an online writing contest, and now we have published four books together, with translations published or forthcoming in nine languages.
In 2026 I’m launching two new novels: a retro Nancy Drew style thriller called Don’t Look Close, and a historical novel, All In Her Hands, about an aspiring female surgeon in Victorian London. For updates, check back here (okay), follow me on instagram (better) or subscribe to my newsletter (best!)
