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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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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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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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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The cover of Cold Hillside is done and it’s gorgeous.  It wasn’t at all what I was expecting but it works on many levels with the story.  Thanks to Vince Haig and the team at ChiZine.            

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  Not only can you ask me anything (or almost), if you RSVP now you have the chance to win the e-book collection. RSVP now!  (My old copywriting instincts are coming back…)

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The big news – the entire first draft of Cold Hillside has now been finished and sent to my editor at ChiZine Publications.   Now I’m just waiting for the rewrites to begin.  It’s been a long (18 years long) road to get to this place and it feels a bit strange to think that I’ve […]

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    NOTE FROM NANCY: Because you may have noticed I’m not exactly … prolific … I have inveigled the talented and funny Toveen into writing a guest post for me.   Enjoy! Night Vale is a quaint little town in a quaint not-so-little desert. It can be found, yes, though not without some difficulty; merely […]

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All writers have them.  They’re the words you default to when you’re working on your first draft and you don’t want to slow down to find le mot juste.  They’re the ones you love the sound of or which have particular aesthetic and emotional associations in your subconscious.  They’re the ones you just think are cool […]

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