One of the advantages of living in a city that Guillermo Del Toro likes to shoot movies in AND that possesses a major art gallery is that you get to see the incredible exhibit “At Home With Monsters” (currently running at the AGO). In fact, in our case, we got to see it twice. I’d go […]

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We had a gorgeous week in September at a cottage in Haliburton, Ontario (essentially the best week of the entire summer). One of the rituals of the cottage holiday and our more extensive travels is the acquisition of the latest Lapham’s Quarterly.  It’s the perfect thing for reading that’s broken by swimming, hiking, and looking up […]

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As the venerable Canadian poet says “You don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone”.  It’s not gone yet but the Chiaroscuro Reading Series (fondly referred to as ChiSeries) needs a bit of help to continue its mission of supporting all that is dark and weird in Canada. If you’re not familiar with this series, here’s what […]

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For a book, of course. My first two novels (The Night Inside and Blood and Chrysanthemums) were set in Toronto, so finding locations wasn’t that difficult.  I just shamelessly stole from the places that I lived and worked.  Other bits I hand-waved as required (mostly deserted industrial lands … yeah, I think there are some […]

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I am not an art critic. These days, I feel barely able to throw together a coherent thought about anything. But I had a lot of thoughts, coherent or otherwise, while viewing the huge show by Damien Hirst (or Damien Fucking Hirst, as one of my friends calls him) in Venice. It spans two locations and includes […]

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We spent two lovely weeks in Italy in May.  This time it was one week in Venice for the Biennale plus a few days in Lucca and in Florence.  Because we’d hit all the big sights last time, we were able to take things at a more leisurely pace, which involved a lot of long […]

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My “to do” list says “Blog post this week”.  It says that every two weeks (or three, if I push it off).  But I’ve got nothing. So here’s a song, by the wonderful Barry Andrews of Shriekback, from his solo piano album Haunted Box of Switches, Vol 1 & 2.   Sue me.

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SPEAK, DON’T SPEAK V.  Hereafter follows the first-person version of IV. A sharp-edged gust of wind threatened to snatch my hat from my hand and send it cartwheeling down the beach. I was out of practice at this, it seemed. My skirts were too long, my coat too thin, my hat nothing more than a […]

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Suzy McKee Charnas’ novel The Vampire Tapestry was a formative influence on The Night Inside, though I could certainly never equal the cool, elegant, and fine-honed prose she brought to bear on this brilliant depiction of the vampire as alien creature making its way among humans that were both its prey and an irresistible source […]

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  Continuing the variations on a theme exercises I did from Wonderbook.  I’m sparing you the “dialogue only” version, which did not really work, and the combined “description only/dialogue only” version, which was not much better. Today’s version is third person and ended up being past tense vs. present. I think I might need to […]

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