Winona Kent
New Westminster, BC
Winona Kent is an award-winning author of mysteries, spy fiction, and time-travel romance. Born in London, England and raised in Regina, Saskatchewan, she has spent most of her adult life in British Columbia — and a good portion of her writing life in the company of one persistently reluctant amateur sleuth named Jason Davey.
Winona completed her BA in English at the University of Regina before moving to Vancouver, where she earned her MFA in Creative Writing from UBC and a diploma in Writing for Screen and TV from Vancouver Film School. Along the way she worked as a temporary secretary, a travel agent, a screenwriter, the Managing Editor of a literary magazine, and a Program Assistant at the University of British Columbia.
After many decades in jobs completely unrelated to writing, she is now happily embracing life as a full-time author.
Early Writing
Winona's first major breakthrough came when she won First Prize in the Flare Magazine Fiction Contest with her short story Tower of Power, about an all-night radio newsman.
More recognition followed. Her story Dietrich's Ash won the Okanagan Short Fiction Award and was published in Canadian Author & Bookman, anthologized in Pure Fiction (Fitzhenry & Whiteside), and broadcast on CBC Radio's Ambience. Her story Creatures from Greek Mythology won Second Prize and the WQ Editors Prize, and was published in Cross-Canada Writers Quarterly.
Her spy novel Skywatcher was a finalist in the Seal Books First Novel Competition and published in 1989, followed by its sequel The Cilla Rose Affair. Then came her first mystery, Cold Play — and with it, the arrival of a character who wouldn't go away.
The Man Behind the Guitar
Jason Davey — professional jazz musician, reluctant amateur sleuth, and the heart of Winona's ongoing mystery series — was born on a cruise ship in Alaska. Or rather, he was inspired by one.
Winona's sister Stella was, many years ago, a Captain's Secretary with Princess Cruises. One of the perks of that position was that family members could travel free with her...and Winona took advantage of that, sailing to the Caribbean and Alaska, staying in Stella's crew cabin and sampling life below decks as well as having free access to the passenger areas upstairs. Jason Davey's character took shape in those formative years, initially imagined as a Purser in a film script called Found at Sea.
Then, in 2009, Winona and her husband, Jim, took a Holland America cruise to Alaska. Every evening, they found themselves in the lounge at the top of the ship, where a solo guitarist was performing. Jim got into long conversations with him and at one point during those evenings, Jason Davey was reborn. He wasn't a Purser at all — he was an entertainer. And he wasn't found at sea in an optioned but unproduced film script...he was the first-person narrator in an intriguing shipboard mystery, Cold Play, published three years later.
The story might have ended there...but a few years after that, Winona and her sister boarded a short Princess Cruises repositioning cruise from Seattle to Vancouver. Sitting in the ship's atrium, they were entertained by a guitarist. Winona did a double-take. It was him.
She went straight up to him, introduced herself, and explained that he'd been the inspiration for her Jason Davey novels. He was delighted. And then — without Winona having mentioned her husband at all — he asked after Jim by name. He remembered.
That guitarist, and his guitar, are why every Jason Davey cover features one.
Jason made his first appearance in Cold Play (2012) as a standalone character. Winona later revisited him in the novella Disturbing the Peace (2017) and the novel Notes on a Missing G-String (2019), and hasn't looked back since. The series now runs to five novels, with the sixth in progress and a Jason Davey anthology, Four Short Sets, due in August 2026.
Figgis Green and the Music Behind the Books
Jason's mother's band, Figgis Green — which features in Lost Time, Ticket to Ride, and the upcoming sixth novel — was actually inspired by two bands Winona has long admired: the Seekers, from Australia, and Steeleye Span, from England. Both are well-known for their folk-influenced pop arrangements, and both left their mark on how Figgis Green sounds in Winona's imagination, even if the band exists only on the page.
Other Books and Short Fiction
Between the spy novels and the Jason Davey series, Winona also wrote three time-travel romances: Persistence of Memory, In Loving Memory, and Marianne's Memory — all featuring accidental time-traveller Charlie Duran and her 19th century companion, Shaun Deeley.
Winona's short fiction has appeared in all three Sisters in Crime - Canada West anthologies: "Salty Dog Blues" in Crime Wave 1: Where Maple Meets Murder (2020), which was shortlisted for the Crime Writers of Canada Awards of Excellence for Best Crime Novella in 2021; "Terminal Lucidity" in Crime Wave 2: Women of a Certain Age (2022); and "On the Internet, Nobody Knows You're a Dog" in Crime Wave 3: Dangerous Games (2024). Her Jason Davey short story "Blue Devil Blues" appeared in the crime fiction anthology Last Shot (2021). A fourth Sisters in Crime - Canada West anthology is forthcoming (Crime Wave 4: Home Sweet Homicide, with another story by Winona ("Cross-Check") included. This summer will bring a further anthology of short crime fiction, Murder on the Menu, featuring six CWC authors. Winona's story is called "Between Stations".
In August 2023, Winona published Ten Stories That Worried My Mother — a collection of ten short stories spanning 1982 to the present, including four prize-winners, three mysteries, two previously unpublished works, and one in which the hero manages to spare-change John Lennon at the premiere of A Hard Day's Night in 1964.
In July 2026, Winona will be publishing Four Short Sets with Jason Davey — a collection featuring "Salty Dog Blues", "Blue Devil Blues", Disturbing the Peace and "On the Internet, Nobody Knows You're a Dog".
In the Mystery Community
Winona is the Past Chair of Crime Writers of Canada and remains an active member of CWC, Sisters in Crime - Canada West, the Royal City Literary Arts Society and the Federation of BC Writers.
She lives in New Westminster, BC with her husband, and a concerning number of disobedient houseplants — many of which were rescued from her apartment building's compost bin after being abandoned by previous owners.