Cindy Hart has worn many hats in her lifetime. She’s been an RCMP officer, a country singer, a logger and a tow trucker – but for now the Ridge Meadows Hospital lab assistant has found her calling as an award-winning novelist.
After a string of odd jobs, Hart fell into writing after injuring her Achilles tendon during a tow trucking accident. That twist of fate prompted her to keep a journal.
“I was an extremely active, athletic person. When the accident happened, I couldn’t do anything,” she said.
“I had a really hard time adjusting to it and fell into depression. My doctor said I needed to find a reason to get out of bed every morning.
“So I started writing. I needed to get things off my chest and it really helped,” she added.
Hart started with journal writing and eventually moved to fan fiction. She began winning awards for her writing and asked herself, “Can I do this with my own characters?” The answer was yes.
Her second print novel, From a Distance, is a suspense thriller that took three years to write, edit and publish and just won the 2011 Golden Crown Literary Award for a mystery/thriller.
From a Distance, is the story of a military trained assassin hunting her target in Mexico. While abroad, she ends up crossing paths with a student from a local university and soon discovers they are both being hunted down by the same enemy.
While her novels are fiction based, her unconventional methods to draw inspiration are purely non-fiction. Hart visits all places she writes about to make sure her descriptions are accurate.
In one scene of From a Distance, one of her characters sneaks a handgun in a pinata across the Mexican-U.S. border.
Hart also bought a pinata in Mexico and took it across the border to see if the inside would be searched. It wasn’t.
“It was kind of crazy how easy it was,” she said.
While she finds writing to be therapeutic, she still finds time to dabble with other jobs. She’s currently a lab assistant at the Ridge Meadows Hospital.
“I love working with people. For as long as I can remember I’ve wanted to help people. Whether that’s in health or giving people a place to escape for a while through writing,” Hart said.
• For more information about Hart and her novels visit www.clhart.com.
- with files from Yvonne Robertson