Full-time marketing manager in Oakville has successful side hustle writing thrillers

Maggie Giles is more familiar with double lives than the average person.

Her own double life isn’t quite as thrilling as the characters in her novels, but it’s still pretty exciting. She’s made her dream of writing successful novels come true, all while working full-time at her job as a marketing manager.

Her novel The Things We Lost was placed on the Top 10 Women’s Fiction for 2022 by Booklist, and was an Independent Press Award Distinguished Favourite for 2023. The novel intertwines a suspicious death, an unhappy marriage, exes and even time travel for a twisty take on the main character’s experiences of guilt and fulfillment.

She’s also the author of The Art of Murder, a small town thriller where people keep winding up dead in sleepy farm country, and Twisted, which really digs into the murder mystery genre with a Toronto detective discovering a previously unknown new drug leading to a trail of killings that may be more connected than they seem.

While she now has several novels under her belt that have come out within the last few years, Giles’ journey with writing started as long ago as she can remember. She started working on novels in her 20s, inspired by a backpacking trip.

“I’ve written or told stories in one way or another since I was very young,” Giles tells YourCityWithIN.com. “My sister even has a copy of one of these stories I wrote for her while she was away at camp. Whether they were original stories or fanfictions using beloved characters, I always loved entertaining my friends and family with the written word.”

This week, she’s following up Twisted with Wicked, which sees the detective from Twisted traveling to Ottawa to tie up loose ends, or perhaps uncover a conspiracy that’s even greater than anyone thought.

“I fell into thriller writing because it was easier to kill characters than make them fall in love. It usually gets a laugh or a few side-eyes,” says Giles.

“The reality is that I have been drawn to suspense and thriller novels since I was a teenager. And I found this was the genre I devoured the most. It felt natural for my writing to explore that side of fiction and I love when my readers tell me that my stories kept them guessing.”

While she would love for her passion for keeping readers guessing to be her full-time work, she says one thing people may not know about writing full time is that “so few get that luxury.”

“Most authors make under a liveable wage and rely on second incomes or full-time jobs,” says Giles. “While that may be a distant dream, for now I am happy to continue exercising my marketing muscles at my full-time position.”

She acknowledges that she’s privileged to have landed in a specific set of circumstances that’s her secret formula for being able to pull off working full time while also writing her novels, but also relies on tools for self-discipline that keep her accountable.

“I am very lucky to have a full time remote position, which means no commuting. It gives me additional time in the morning and evenings to delve into my writing. I am also childfree so I have the weekends to myself. I don’t know how some parents balance family, work, and writing,” says Giles.

“I consider myself very blessed to work with a couple different groups of authors who will plan time to connect on Zoom or Teams to spend writing. It helps with the accountability.”

Despite the discipline it take to maintain a delicate balance between career and writing, Giles wouldn’t necessarily quit her job if she had the opportunity.

“I’m not sure I would leave the career entirely, but I may look at scaling back my responsibilities or move from full to part time,” says Giles. “I don’t see that happening anytime soon, however!”

For now, she’s still hustling hard, working on a future thriller of her own as well as a fantasy series she’s co-writing with a friend.