Review: the works of Michelle Moran

In which I review Michelle Moran’s work Cleopatra’s Daughter Cleopatra’s Daughter by Michelle Moran My rating: 3 of 5 stars During my recovery from knee replacement surgery, I took to some easy reading, something historical which required nothing of me, no intellectual stimulus, no literary demands, not particularly inspiring but rather something which would simply transport me to another place and time and allow the healing process to occur. So it was I discovered Michelle…

Writer in Residence

Neustadt Library Writer in Residence Program I’m thrilled to announce I’ll be the Writer in Residence at the Neustadt Public Library in July. Whether you’re working on your memoirs, family history, that next great Canadian novel, or are struggling with clarity in your academic or business writing, I’ll be pleased to help and offer insight. Over 30 years of experience In 2008 I established my own publishing house, Five Rivers Publishing, in direct response to…

Tesseracts 22: Alchemy and Artifacts reveal

There is nothing new in the world except the history we do not know. Alchemy and Artifacts (Tesseracts Twenty-Two), edited by Lorina Stephens and Susan MacGregor, is a collection of twenty-three amazing stories based on historical artifacts combined with fantastic historical fiction. The stories meld culture, concept and incident into a rich collection of ‘what if’ speculations that provide warnings yet revel in the cultural celebrations we continue to observe today. They are the touchstones that…

Review: The Lightkeeper’s Daughters, by Jean Pendziwol

I came to Jean Pendziwol’s novel quite by chance, drawn by its setting on Porphyry Island on the north shore of Lake Superior. This is a story of loss, of relationships and discoveries, of isolation and madness, told from the perspective of a delinquent girl who is doing community service at a senior’s residence as her penance, and the old woman she comes to know during that time. There’s a missing diary now found, connections…

Review: The Back of the Turtle, by Thomas King

The Back of the Turtle by Thomas King My rating: 5 of 5 stars As always, Thomas King makes no apologies to his readers. I think he must write entirely for himself, because his stories are so full of imagery and metaphor, allusion and metaphor. He is, quite frankly, brilliant, and to read his work is to be immersed not only in the magic of a supremely good storyteller, but to come away with a…

Eulogy for Mother

[rev_slider alias=”Mother”][/rev_slider] Ring the bells (ring the bells) that still can ring Forget your perfect offering There is a crack in everything (there is a crack in everything) That’s how the light gets in In this quote from Leonard Cohen’s Anthem, he speaks of chiaroscuro. The Oxford Dictionary defines chiaroscuro as the treatment of light and shadow in drawing and painting. I think of chiaroscuro when I think of Mother. Chiaroscuro best sketches the force…

Caliban releasing December 1, 2017

That’s right. I have a new novella coming out. Only took me over 30 years to write and polish this story. I’d let it languish in the bottom drawer, as it were, and then finally three years ago took a look at it again, decided it was worth revisiting, so set to an overhaul, sent it off to my compatriot in literary crime, Robert Runté, and awaited his verdict. Which turned out to be quite…