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Barbara Emodi
Barbara Emodi has written sewing how-to books and now writes cozy mysteries set in Nova Scotia, Canada. Gasper’s Cove doesn’t really exist but it will seem awfully familiar to anyone who lives where she does. The community is based all she believes matters in life - extended family, companion animals, good food, and more sewing, crafting, quilting, and knitting projects than any reasonable person would take on.
Barbara writes what she likes to read - whimsical, witty, warm books that reflect her belief that there is nothing ordinary about ordinary people. She also likes clever surprises, important in mysteries, and promises one at the end of each book. To visit Gasper’s Cove yourself you can read Barbara’s novels in her Gasper’s Cove Mysteries series or her Gasper’s Cove Quick Cozies novella series.
Barbara Emodi has written sewing how-to books and now writes cozy mysteries set in Nova Scotia, Canada. Gasper’s Cove doesn’t really exist but it will seem awfully familiar to anyone who lives where she does. The community is based all she believes matters in life - extended family, companion animals, good food, and more sewing, crafting, quilting, and knitting projects than any reasonable person would take on.
Nobody warned you about this part. When you were younger, you figured it out as you went. You always did. But this stage — the post-retirement, post-children-at-home, post-being-the-most-relevant-person-in-the-room stage — turns out to require its own entirely separate manual. One that didn’t exist. Barbara Emodi writes about that. How to Be an...
Heidi MacDonald is not qualified for her new job at the Legislature with Official Opposition.
She has never voted, or can’t remember when. Her research experience amounts to one letter published in a sewing magazine. She lives in her parents’ basement with a cat named Gilbert. Her direct supervisor considers her a useful fall guy, her chief of...
It’s winter in Gasper’s Cove, Nova Scotia. All Valerie Rankin wants is a life of her own and for her dream of a sewing school to come true. But when murder steps into the picture, Valerie and the Seaside Sewists have no choice but to stop their stitching and start detecting. It’s clear to them the Royal Canadian Mounted Police needs help, and...
Barbara Emodi, author of Crafting a Cold Case (C&T Publishing, October 2025)
I write cozy mysteries set in Nova Scotia. I try hard to make the characters and setting real and representative. The best compliment any local reader can give me is “Oh your book made me laugh. So true.”
The funny thing though is that most of my readers live outside the country. Europe, the U.S.,...
The first rule of writing is not to try to sound like a writer. Sound like yourself. I learned this from teaching creative non-fiction at a university. The students who dashed off a quick couple of paragraphs to get an assignment done produced far more authentic work than those who tried hard to do "real writing."
What does that look like?
If you don't use a word in your speech, maybe it is not a natural, and therefore the best choice, for your text.
