What people think of you, that is. This has taken me a very, very long time. I’ve always been extremely self-conscious and aware of every idiotic thing I do or say. Someone once told me that I promptly forgot every good thing that I did yet could remember in excruciating detail an embarrasing moment at […]

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This influences thing has gotten all out of order, but c’est la vie. While walking in the unseasonable sun and warmth day (16 degrees celsius on Jan 12th. Lovely as it is, I think we all need to be afraid now), an Emmylou Harris song turned up on the IPod. It got me thinking about […]

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No, I’m not going to talk about my cats (of which I currently have none). I’m not going to talk about other people’s cats (much as I am fond of them). This is the next installment of “Influences” so I’m going to talk about books about cats and about writing about cats. As a child, […]

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By rights, Modesty Blaise should come much later in the influence sequence, but a friend mentioned this series the other day, which sent me back to reread the first two. I think the second of the series (Sabre-Tooth) made it’s way into our house in one of the boxes of books that my Dad brought […]

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I can’t count the number of times I’ve read Nicolas Stuart Gray’s Mainly in Moonlight. I know that I took it out of the North York Public Library Children’s Section so many times the librarians must have wondered why my parents didn’t just buy me a copy. (Actually, I’m not sure why either. My father […]

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One of my earliest reading obsessions – and on that has a had an ongoing influence on my writing – is fairy tales. My family had two collections that contained the classic stories, along with some more obscure tales, and while I can’t remember the titles, I can still see the illustrations clearly. I’m still […]

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I’ll be doing my first reading in two years on August 8th as part of the ChiZine reading series. If you’re in Toronto, come by and catch Carolyn Clink, Tanya Huff, Kari Maaren and me do our thing at: The Augusta House, 152A Augusta Avenue, Toronto, ON 8:00 start Now I just have to decide […]

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I was thinking about the early influences that have informed my reading and writing choices and shaped the kind of art I love so I’ll be posting on that topic over the next while. My official bio always said “Nancy blames her love of horror on the first horror story she read – “The Tale […]

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