In keeping with the visual inspiration theme, here is a collage I created at the recent “Hello Dali” surrealism collage night at Spadina Museum.  I used some scrapbook paper, Egon Schiele postcards from a set I bought while working on A Terrible Beauty, images provided at the event, and phrases from the incredibly cool card I […]

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I find visual inspirations very helpful when working on a book (see my earlier posts about the “mood boards” for the novels).  I’m just starting on what might be the new novel, but I already have a couple of touchstones. This girl with the wary eyes is part of the painting The Coronation of the […]

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Spurred by reading Mary Beard’s book about Rome, SPQR, and by memories of our tour of the Colosseum, we decided to rewatch Gladiator the other night.  Not withstanding my affection for men in period armor (with wolfskins),  the film still works.  Oh, parts of the plot don’t make any sense, Rome was apparently to be […]

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   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 […]

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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 […]

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  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 […]

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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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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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