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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Or at least the 1970s.  During my early convention-going years, I did do the costume thing a few times, mostly as an excuse to dress up.   I didn’t have nearly the talent for it that today’s crop of cosplayers does but I did enjoy myself.  So here, in honour of FanExpo and for whatever dubious entertainment […]

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    I know that Elmore Leonard’s 10 Rules for writing include “Don’t go into great detail describing places and things” but I love writing those. Part of the pleasure of travelling is watching out the window of the train, finding ways to describe what I see, or discovering the perfect graffiti on a dumpster […]

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Like all writers, I love interesting words. English is rich with expressive, specific, harmonious and sometimes odd words and we tend to use a fraction of them in our daily lives. There’s a Canadian project to not only reclaim these fascinating words but to raise awareness and money for a disease that robs us of […]

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