Gwen Florio & Silent Hearts May 09, 2018

Writer of the Year finalist Gwen Florio, interviewed by Natasha Watts, talks about her writing influences, the differences and similarities between journalism and writing fiction, her most recent mystery releases and her novel Silent Hearts, set to release in July. Gwen Florio grew up in 250-year-old brick farmhouse on a wildlife refuge in Delaware, with a sweeping view across a mile of tidemarsh to the waters of the Delaware Bay. She majored in English at the University of Delaware, largely as an excuse to read as many books as possible, until her father urged her to take a journalism course. A thirty-plus year career followed, taking her around the country and to more than a dozen countries, including several conflict zones. Florio has received prose grants from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, and writing residencies in Wyoming, Washington state, and Mexico. Her first novel, Montana, won the inaugural Pinckley Prize for Crime Fiction, and a High Plains Book Award, both in the debut category. The fifth in the series, Under the Shadows, was released in March 2018. Florio lives in Montana with her partner, Scott, and an exuberant bird dog named Nell. She works a day job as city editor for the Missoulian newspaper.