Victor Malarek

Have you found it difficult to adapt your writing from non fiction to fiction?

Moving from nonfiction to fiction was not as dramatic as I thought it might be. In fact, I found writing fiction more liberating. The story/plot/characters could move and change to whatever situation your creative mind can imagine. Nonfiction is rigid. You have to stick to the facts!

What story has influenced your life?

Reading Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment, followed by his Brothers Karamazov had a profound effect on my psyche. I suffered through the books. The characters and the situations have stayed with me for years.

Do you have any advice to aspiring writers?

MAKE SURE you have an outline/road map of where you see your novel heading. Otherwise you’ll quickly find yourself trapped in a confusing, mind numbing maze wondering how you got there and how to get out. Keep in mind that a road map is not set in cement. It will offer up twists and turns into side streets that will only make the book better and more creatively satisfying.

What are the ingredients for a blockbuster story to you?

I love mystery, trying to figure out what is going to happen next, and then being totally surprised when something I absolutely did not expect, happens. Mystery writer Michael Connelly is the ultimate master! As is Ian Rankin. I hate reading a novel knowing from chapter one how the book will end.

What story do you enjoy reading over and over again?

The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov. It is such a bizarre and intriguing tale. You just can’t read it once, or twice ….

How would you increase literacy?

I love talking to people about books I’ve read and through my enthusiasm, inspire them to read the book. I find enthusiasm is infectious, and more often than not, spurs others to get reading.

What’s on the horizon for Victor Malarek?

I am writing my second fiction called Wheat$haft. A mystery thriller with an investigative journalist as the protagonist who sets out on a mundane assignment in New York City only to find himself caught up in a dangerous web on international intrigue involving the United Nations world food program, a massive famine in the Horn of Africa, political corruption, a prominent evangelical preacher man and the Russian mafia. And murder!

What is your favorite drink while writing and/or reading?

Ukrainian vodka (Slava or Zirkova) and tonic.

What is your favorite tech brand? App?

Apple. MacBook Air.

What is your favorite genre of music, artist?

I love R&B. My absolute favorite band is The Eagles. Favorite artist is Bob Seger

What is your favorite movie, tv show, superhero?

I love all the Indiana Jones movies.

TV show: Big Bang Theory

Superhero: THOR

What is your must have snack?

Raw almonds

If heaven exists, what is the first thing you would like to hear from God when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?

How the heck did you manage to sneak through the gates? I specifically told St. Peter you’re toast!

What ice cream flavor would you invent?

Dark chocolate, raspberry espresso!

Victor Malarek is a reporter on CTV’s award winning investigative current affairs show W5. From 2000 to June 2003, he was the investigations editor for The Globe and Mail, Canada’s national newspaper, and from 1990 to 2000, Malarek was a co-host of the CBC’s current affairs show: the fifth estate where he won a Gemini Award in 1996 as Canada’s top broadcast journalist.

Malarek has written one fiction novel – Orphanage 41 published July 2014 by FriesenPress, and six non-fiction books. The Johns – Sex for Sale and the Men who buy it – was released in the U.S. and Canada in the spring of 2009.