The key question from The Witch, the movie most of my friends were seeing in February and March. I go along with the unanimous praise. Even the parts I didn’t think quite worked (I understood what they were getting at but the execution didn’t quite hit the mark) were thought-provoking. One of my coworkers and I came […]

[Read more →]

   Which is not precisely the same as the best books of 2015.  These are the books I read in 2015 that moved me to talk about them, recommend them, think about them, or buy my own copy. H is for Hawk by Helen MacDonald I love good nature writing because the best of it is […]

[Read more →]

It’s been a year since Cold Hillside was released, which seems unbelievable.  (What, you haven’t read it? Go read it. f you have, thanks!) I would like to thank everyone who took the time to post a review on Goodreads or Amazon or reviewed it on their site. It’s been really gratifying that most of the people who enjoyed […]

[Read more →]

  There have been one or two comments about the fact that Cold Hillside appears to be set in a matriarchy.  One person objected to this, on the grounds that reverse oppression is not an improvement over the original brand (a fair opinion). I didn’t set out to create a matriarchical culture for Lushan.  The […]

[Read more →]

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 […]

[Read more →]

    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 […]

[Read more →]

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 […]

[Read more →]

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 […]

[Read more →]

One of those Facebook things is making the rounds and since it’s on the topic of influences, it seemed an eminently suitable thing to repost.  It’s not just that I’m lazy/busy.  No indeed. 1. Fairy Tales 2. The Incredible Journey 3. Andre Norton 4. Peter O’Donnell 5. Tanith Lee 6. C.J. Cherryh 7. Shirley Jackson […]

[Read more →]

Where do writers get our ideas, you ask?  Sometimes, we get them from other writers. There were many inspirations for my first novel, The Night Inside, but one of them was definitely a story by another writer.   I read Suzy McKee Charnas’ wonderful collection The Vampire Tapestry, which features a vampire quite unlike most of the others I had encountered to that point. There’s nothing supernatural about Weyland and […]

[Read more →]