Fulfilment at the keyboard She lost a daughter in 1984 and her husband last year, now Wilma Derksen is taking on a new persona: romance novelist By: Eva Wasney Posted: 4:30 PM CST Wednesday, Dec. 6, 2023

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This article was published 06/12/2023 (903 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Wilma Derksen is finally writing her own story on her own terms.

Despite having published multiple books about the most painful moments of her life, Derksen’s latest release feels the most vulnerable.

“It’s like seeing myself in the mirror for the first time,” she says of penning her first romance novel, entitled Lavish Mercy. “This is the real me.”

For nearly 40 years, Derksen has been known publicly as the mother of a murdered child. Her 13-year-old daughter Candace was abducted in 1984 while walking home from school. The tragedy and decades-long search to find Candace’s killer pushed Derksen and her husband Cliff into the spotlight, where they became victim advocates and unlikely proponents of forgiveness.

Writing has always been a therapeutic pursuit for Derksen and she authored several true crime memoirs and self-help books in the aftermath of her daughter’s death. Long before that horrific life-defining event, however, she had a much different bibliography in mind.

“All I wanted was to be a romance writer,” she says with a warm laugh.

Derksen fell head over heels for the genre as a girl growing up in a small Mennonite community in British Columbia’s Fraser Valley. She discovered the work of Grace Livingston Hill — an early 20th-century Christian romance writer — in her church library and read the dramatic, idealistic books voraciously at night by flashlight.

‘I couldn’t deny the fascination and the power of a good love story, how it can just rip us out of the reality of life and bring us to a new place,” she says, adding, firmly, that she has no interest in erotica. “I thought, ‘How easy would it be to be a romance writer?’”

Her first teenage attempts offered nothing but frustration. She set up a makeshift office in the barn of her family’s hobby farm and started plunking out drafts on an old typewriter to no avail. Writing a gripping love story without real-life inspiration was harder than expected.

“First of all, I didn’t have any experience in romance,” she says. “And (with) Mennonite living, I had no drama around me, everybody was so peaceful; I just couldn’t get them done.”

Life went on and Derksen shelved her passion, resigned to pick it back up in the future. She met Cliff, had three children, moved to Manitoba and found work as a journalist — a compromise between her love of writing and need for an income.

As regional editor for the Mennonite Reporter, a national faith-based publication, her opinion on cultural drama changed. She went back to university to study Mennonite history and became fascinated by family lore of long lost relatives who lived in Kuban — a settlement near the Caucasus Mountains — during the Russian Revolution.

After visiting the region with her sister, Derksen was inspired to write a historic Mennonite love story set in the locale. She published the novel, titled Mercy, under a pen name in 2003, but was disheartened by reader feedback.

“I’m becoming even more true to myself. That’s the ultimate joy.”–Wilma Derksen

“They all fell in love with the wrong guy,” she says of the book, which follows a young woman named Anna whose search for hidden Imperial jewels leads to complicated relationships with a Russian government agent and a Mennonite church council member.

It felt like another failed attempt. The novel was pulled from the bookstore and left to languish in the bottom of a filing cabinet for 20 years.

Cliff died last year and Dersken again turned to writing as a way to cope. After struggling to craft another memoir about forgiveness, her son suggested she revisit Mercy. Writing a love story while grieving the end of her own was an unexpected balm.

“It helped me escape,” she says. “I had a great time with it and it fulfilled so many things for me.”

Derksen spent four months fixing plotlines and fiddling with characters. She released the revamped version of her novel, renaming it Lavish Mercy, last month.

At 75-years-old, she’s finally achieved her lifelong dream. Still, coming out as a romance novelist has brought up complicated feelings about her public persona, faith and entering a genre of writing often viewed as a frivolous indulgence.

For Derksen, love is far from frivolous.

“Love itself is almost impossible … it’s a miracle every time it happens — and especially if it endures,” she says. “So I’m finding a new purpose in it, to explore love and to discuss it … and just celebrate it.

“It is noble.”

Derksen is already deep into writing the second book in her Kuban Legacy Series and has ideas for at least three more. She wakes up at 6 a.m. every morning to work at a computer desk situated in front of a large ninth-floor window with an expansive view of the city. Anything is possible. All she has to do is write.

“I’m becoming even more true to myself,” she says, smiling. “That’s the ultimate joy.”

Lavish Mercy is available for purchase from Amazon.

eva.wasney@winnipegfreepress.com

X: @evawasney