You can search Google Maps, unfold an Alberta road map, or follow the highways north of Edmonton, but you won’t find Coverville. Coverville is the fictional Alberta town I created for my novel, What Remains After. However, its feeling, its atmosphere, is not fictional. It grew out of the Alberta communities I’ve lived in, visited, and loved, particularly Onoway, Spirit River and Rycroft, and Millet.

Every writer has a place that lives in their imagination long before they put words to a page. For me, that place has always been Alberta, especially rural Alberta.