|Podcast| Chestnut Street - Simon Landry

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Simon Landry was born in Montreal in 1979. He graduated from Laval University with a bachelor's degree in education in 2003. He has since then been teaching high school mathematics. An avid reader, Simon decided to plunge into creative writing in 2017 during his spare time. Chestnut Street is his first published novel. He currently lives with his wife and two children in Montreal.

JEANBOOKNERD PODCAST 2020: SEASON 2 EPISODE 1

GUEST: SIMON LANDRY

JOURNALIST: ERIK WERLIN
FACEBOOK | GOODREADS

   

YOUR JOURNEY TO PUBLICATION - READ THE INTERVIEW HERE
It all started almost 10 years ago. My wife was living in Philadelphia, working at the Children’s Hospital. I was traveling back and forth between Montreal and Philly as I still had a full time job teaching in Montreal. I fell in love with Philly and its people. There’s an energy there that can’t be found anywhere else. While I was in Philly, as I didn’t have a job to occupy me, so I spent a great amount of time walking around town, taking in the sights and sounds of the city. Ideas for a story taking place in Philly started gathering in my head but the idea of creating a novel wasn’t in my mind just yet. We had our first child shortly after moving back to Montreal and I started putting down in a notebook all the ideas for a story I had gathered over the years. Whenever a new thought would pop into my head, I put it down in writing so I wouldn’t forget it. 

While I was on leave for my first child, I slowly started organizing all these thoughts and ideas and a vague story came out of it. My first-born started day-care when she was a year-old and I resumed teaching full-time, so the project was put on hold. When our second child was born, I took a full year of parental leave. I finally decided to give writing an honest try, so whenever the baby would nap, instead of watching TV or reading a book, I would get on my laptop and write from the general storyline I had wrote in my notebook. 

The first draft I wrote was only 20 000 words, but I showed it to a few friends and to my wife and they all agreed that while there was still a lot of work to do on it, the story had potential. I worked on the second draft whenever I had free time, either once the kids were asleep or if I finished early on a school-day. A few months later, I finally had something worth showing to agents and publishers. I knocked on every possible door and was finally rewarded with a contract offer from Sunbury Press. They have since been invaluable partners in this adventure. And now here we are today, almost a decade later, talking about a book I never thought I would ever be able to write and slowly working on book #2!

TEN FAVORITE READS EVER
American Assassin by Vince Flynn. The Scorpio Illusion by Robert Ludlum. Clear and Present Danger by Tom Clancy. The Camel Club by David Baldacci. The Venetian Betrayal by Steve Berry. America by Stephen Coonts. Christine by Stephen King. The Einstein Enigma by J-R Dos Santos. The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follet. Playing For Pizza by John Grisham.

When Sam Brighton's quiet and peaceful life is ripped apart by false accusations of sexual misconduct, he loses his job, his family and everything he holds dear. Little does he know that he's just been sacrificed by powerful men who will do anything to protect a dangerous secret.
Fighting for his life, Sam navigates through the seedy underworld of Philadelphia in order to find the truth and get his life back.

What he uncovers is a conspiracy spanning almost a half-century that could rock the City of Brotherly Love to its core.

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