Peggy Blair is the owner/publisher of ReBound Press. Her debut novel, THE BEGGAR’S OPERA, was turned down 156 times before it was shortlisted for the U.K. Debut Dagger Award. She didn’t win, but after a brief encounter with Scottish writer Ian Rankin in a hotel, he told her 156 rejections “wasn’t too bad” and that she should contact his Canadian publisher and use his name. As a result, she ended up represented by his U.K. agent, hit the Frankfurt Book Fair hotlist, and was published by the Big Five in Canada and the U.S. to wide critical acclaim, as well as internationally.
THE BEGGAR’S OPERA (MIDNIGHT IN HAVANA) won the Giller Prize Reader’s Choice Award and was shortlisted for the Arthur Ellis Best Novel Award among others. HUNGRY GHOSTS and UMBRELLA MAN hit national bestseller lists. However, when she submitted SHADOW PLAY, the first book in the new Detective Jamie Wallace series, her publisher declined to publish because they didn’t think it would be a bestseller.
Peggy created ReBound Press to publish SHADOW PLAY herself and quickly discovered readers were hungry for high-quality Canadian mysteries, particularly those set in Canada. She decided she wanted to help support other Canadian authors who, like her, had won critical acclaim but weren’t able to stay published long enough to build up their readership and develop their craft. The first of these is Calgary writer Chris Forrest, whose earlier crime fiction was shortlisted for the Arthur Ellis Best Novel Award three times, as well as the Shamus Award.