B.C. author Eden Robinson having a productive year despite pandemic disruptions

While 2020 has been unkind to many, it's been an eventful year forHaisla and Heiltsuk novelist Eden Robinson.

The COVID-19 pandemic hasn't preventedthe motion pictureadaptationsofher novels from hittingthe silver screen, and it hasn't kept her from writing completing herTrickstertrilogy in the process.

Monkey Beach, adapted from Robinson's 2000novel, will be screening at the Vancouver International Film Festival from Sept. 24. And the CBC TV series based on her 2017book,Son of a Trickster, was featured at the Toronto International Film Festival last week.

More exciting to Robinsonfans is that she's finished the final draft of Return of the Trickster, withadvanced reading copiesexpectedin November.

The pandemic hasn't slowed the progress of her new book going to print, but she says it has drastically changed the mood of her writing.

"The first draft of Return of the Trickster was so sweet, and everyone had a happy ending," RobinsontoldCarolina De Ryk, host of CBC's Daybreak North.

But then Robinsonhad toself-quarantinefor 14 days, following a Prince Rupert class visit where a student had been to a clinic operated by a dentist who attended a Vancouver COVID-19 exposure event in early March.

"In the second draft, everyone died. And my editor asked me if I could go back and not kill everybody," she said.

Robinson is glad that theMonkey Beachfilm adaptation is being released at a time when viewers are craving online entertainment, but she gave up screenwriting the film, which director Loretta Todd had invited her to do.

"I discovered quite quickly that it's not a form I enjoy, in that the processis completely alien. And I think that novels are my huge passions and it really suits my personality," she said.

Robinson is one of five finalists for this year's Canada Reads, which was postponed due to the pandemic,as were the premieres of her books'filmadaptations.

But the novelist said she hasbeen very busy this year, and she's planning a new project after the Trickster trilogy.

"I'm just going to take a few months and keep reading, keep going and crossing my fingers," said Robinson.

Tap the link below to listen to Eden Robinson's interview on Daybreak North:

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