I’m writing this post in advance of my knee surgery, which I’m hoping has gone swimmingly well, and that I’m now home and deep into physiotherapy. I am determined to be fully mobile and up to mischief by August. I’m even dreaming of attending Can-Con this fall. But perhaps I get ahead of myself. What would really help is for you to encourage me in this journey by sending me a get-well message in the…
Great new feature available My printer now offers a great new feature which allows personalization of any individual print book. So excited about this. When you order any of my books through this website, you can opt to have your book personalized. All you have to do upon checkout is fill in the message you want to appear, whether you wish me to digitally sign the book, and that information then will appear in your…
It’s one thing for me to review a novel or book. It’s quite another to receive a review of one of my own works. I’m always trying to decode them. Sure, it would be easy to default to the assumption I’m tetchy when it comes to reviews of my novels. But what I’m honestly trying to do is figure out if a negative review is the result of my own failing, or of a lazy,…
The Rose Guardian is done. It’s taken me nine years to write this novel. During that time so much has happened, life events which have changed my perspective, given me new insight, which then required another shift in the story because, after all, we bring to our writing our own life experiences. However, The Rose Guardian is not autobiography. It is fiction, fitting into the category of magic realism, and is a story about three females, maiden, mother,…
It’s an old song, written in 1891 by Charles K. Harris, After the Ball. I couldn’t help but think of that deliciously saccharine song a few days after the launch of my speculative fiction novel, Caliban. Why I thought of that, I have no idea. Perhaps it’s the sentimentality of the ballad, perhaps the voices that once trilled through its notes. It’s a sad song, for all of its sentimentality. Perhaps my remembrance of it had more…
That’s what it feels like with my upcoming book signing and reading at Monigram in Cambridge: a date with my fans. I have to admit I both love and loathe doing these things. I loathe these events because I’m basically an introvert, a recluse by nature, someone who enjoys solitude and my own company. (Thank goodness I married a man who understands that!) But I also really like being part of a gathering of like-minded…
So Family Day, 2018. A relatively new holiday in our Canadian calendar, one likely created to break up the long winters, but one also designed, one would like to think, to bring us closer to the people who matter in our lives. Here at the Old Stone House we’re pursing various activities. My dearest husband has spent the morning sanding drywall mud in the main bathroom, part of the 17 year (so far) renovation project…
So it would appear I’m having a book launch for my new novel, Caliban. The great people at Monigram Coffee Roasters are hosting the reading and signing, and some delicious delectables will be available for guests. Would love to meet some of my fans, old and new. I’ll be doing a short reading. I’ll also have books for sale which I’m happy to sign for you. Suppose it might be a good idea to let you…
While working on the revision of The Rose Guardian, I’ve been mucking around with a new painting. I think I will call this one finished. (One never knows about these things. I’ve looked at paintings years later and thought: Oh, I could have done that differently. But yes, for now it’s done. The painting is watercolour on an eighth sheet of d’Arches 300lb cold pressed paper, depicting a stormy dawn on the Isle of Skye. I’ve always been drawn…
To tempt you a bit, I’m giving you a preview of my new novella, Caliban. There can be an inherent bias in anthropological study. Perspective is everything. Report from the Commissioner on Dreamweavers. The problem with what Jabod McCullough asked was it didn’t make any sense. Why choose a permanent assignment Active on a quarantined planet? Tine asked that question. “Because I think you’re incorruptible,” Jabod answered, his holo standing in one of the rocks Tine…