I’ll be reading in Peterborough on April 2nd as part of the ChiZine Peterborough series. Time: 5:00 Place: Sadleir House, 751 George Street North, Peterborough, Ontario   And on April 10th and 11th, I’ll be at Ad Astra.  I’m doing 3 panels and a reading. If you’re in the area, come on out and say hello. […]

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On my way to the “Page to Screen” cocktail party designed to link Canadian writers and publishers with film and TV production companies, I was thinking about the ways in which each of my books might work -or not – as a movie or television show. I love movies and it’s very clear that what makes […]

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    I just finished the rather long process of recording an audio version of Cold Hillside as a gift to a friend. I’m not a bad reader, but it was definitely a challenge.  First of all, I had to actually listen to a few audio books.  I found that interesting but time-consuming – I could have […]

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And now comes the time in a book’s life when the reviews start. I wish I was one of those writers who could grandly proclaim that I never read reviews but that would be a complete lie. I shamelessly admit to googling myself. A good review will make me happy and a bad review will […]

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Discovered somewhat belatedly that I’d made a couple of “to read” lists. The io9.com list is always a good source for my own “to read” list and November’s installment featured 3 ChiZine books, including Cold Hillside.   Also made it onto a list on Buzzfeed. I guess that means this thing is real…   Also, […]

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Thanks to Vincent Haig for the incredible cover art, Sam Beiko for the cover design, Sandra Kasturi for believing in this book, and to everyone at CZP!

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Cold Hillside turned out to be like neither A Terrible Beauty nor Blood & Chrysanthemums when it comes to the music I associated with writing it. While it didn’t have either artists or songs that connected directly to the content, I had an ITunes playlist called “Cold Hillside”, which is certainly more than I would […]

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After the non-soundtrack post last week, we’re back on topic.  A Terrible Beauty most definitely had a soundtrack.  Fumbling Towards Ecstasy, Sarah McLachan’s 1993 album, turned out to be the perfect blend of mood and music for that book. The lines “The night is my companion/and solitude my guide/Would I spend forever here/and not be […]

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Blood and Chrysanthemums was not a music-enhanced writing experience in the same way the other books have been.  I listened to music while writing, of course, but the only specific music that related to the novel was a CD of classical Japanese music that I bought to listen to while writing the Fujiwara sections. B&C […]

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I listen to music a good portion of my day, though it’s probably more accurate to consider it a background soundtrack rather than an activity in which I actively engage.  I wear my Ipod during my walk and subway trip to work,  sometimes while I’m working, and it plays in the sound dock at night.  […]

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