Loraine Fowlow Writer

It starts with this: put your desk in the corner, and every time you sit down there to write, remind yourself why it isn’t in the middle of the room. Life isn’t a support system for art.

It’s the other way around.

― Stephen King

about

I’m a Calgary-based former professor of architecture now starting my Second Act with the rediscovery of a love of writing through creative nonfiction and an architectural mystery series. My degrees include an MFA in Creative Nonfiction, a Master’s in Architecture and a Bachelor’s in Engineering.

The first two instalments in my architectural mystery series (unpublished) have been long listed for the Crime Writers Association’s Debut Dagger, the Crime Writers of Canada’s Best Unpublished Manuscript Award, and shortlisted for the international Impress Prize.

I’m a survivor of narcissistic abuse and feel that it’s time to share what I’ve learned with others who have complicated relationships with their parents and don’t know why, and to help them through the passing of that parent.

Bio

current work

REPLACED BY A PEKINGESE:

A Memoir of Surviving a Narcissist Mother

I finally got married after having been engaged for four years and postponing the wedding twice because my mother couldn’t cope with me leaving home. But she floated through that day on Valium and had a friend staying with her for two weeks to survive the ordeal. Then I was replaced by a Pekingese puppy that my mother fed to death. Out of love. For years, my mother often called the dog by my name. She was a covert narcissist and I was her golden child, co-dependent, and unwilling enabler.

Replaced by a Pekingese revisits growing up with a single-mother narcissist, within a framework of her time in hospice and the immediate aftermath of her death.

The book will appeal to readers who benefited from Molly Jong-Fast’s How to Lose Your Mother: a Daughter’s Memoir, and Jenette McCurdy’s I’m Glad My Mom Died.

OVERLOAD

An Architectural Mystery

Engineer and architect Ruby Foster’s first experience teaching architecture studio is a disaster – literally. A campus walkway collapses during its unveiling, killing and injuring dozens, including six of her students. When she accidentally discovers a telling clue, Ruby sets out to solve the mystery of the collapse. But an accusation of sexual abuse threatens to end her academic career – and possibly take her freedom. With a little help from an unexpected source, Ruby ends up uncovering a revenge plot risen from the ashes of a tragic past.

2025 Longlist - Best Unpublished Crime Manuscript, Crime Writers of Canada