Growing up in a small, historic Swiss town where everyone knew each other’s business, R.K. Marfurt let the stories of its inhabitants, their joys, heartbreaks, quarrels, discontent and dreams fill her heart. They echo in her to this day. However removed her writing might seem from its origin — transformed through new experiences and locations, through education in different countries, through family and work life — early impressions rarely fade, and much living and writing is done in reaction to them. Her stories have appeared in American and Canadian literary journals.
Calling the Dead, the story of medium Eusapia Palladino, is R.K. Marfurt’s first novel. She has always been fascinated by psychics and fortune tellers, their motivations, self-perceptions and views of reality. That her main character is intricately connected to the academic milieu is no accident either, as R.K. Marfurt has a longstanding interest in academic research, her husband is an academic, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada where she worked as an administrator dealt with academics and their research.
R.K. Marfurt lives with her husband in Ottawa, Canada. She has four children and six grandchildren.
