Former magazine editor and freelancer writes filmable novels

Rob Hough, who got his start at an associate editor and fact-checker at the long-gone Quest magazine and later was quite successful as a freelance writer for such titles a Saturday Night and Toronto Life, then turned to books. His first novel was The Final Confession of Mabel Stark (2002), based loosely on the life of a lion tamer in th 1920s for Ringling Brothers Circus. Now, according to a posting on Bookcatcher.com, Hough's second novel,The Stowaway, a modern day tale of mutiny on the high seas, has been optioned for film by First Generation Films.

The Stowaway, published in 2004, tells the true-life story of the Maersk Dubai, a container ship in which three Romanian stowaways are found, and then put overboard by the ship's officers and how the crew find a fourth stowaway, and try to keep him alive until they can somehow get help.
The book was Boston Globe Top Ten Book of 2004 and a 2006 IMPAC Dublin Literary Award Finalist, is published in Canada by Random House Canada and in the US by Arcade. The Culprits, his latest book, also published by Random House Canada, was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best Book and nominated for The Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize.

[Photo by Colin Faulkner]