Posts Tagged with Parallel Prairies

Live, from Winnipeg… it’s Manitoba Book Jam

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Thanks to COVID-19, there are new protocols for just about everything, and that includes book readings and other author events. In the before-times, I had a great time attending the launch for Parallel Prairies: Stories of Manitoba Speculative Fiction. Now, however, if we want to do a public event, doing it by video is the safer way to go. Fortunately, that’s exactly what Anita Daher has organized through Manitoba Book Jam. The event will be held this week, on Thursday, Jan. 21 at 7 p.m. CT.

Parallel Prairies
Parallel Prairies

I’m one of six authors for the evening. I’ll be reading from my short story in the anthology, “The Comments Gaze Also Into You.” (It’s an urban fantasy story about holding online trolls accountable. Can’t imagine how that might be relevant these days.) The other authors taking part are Jonathan Ball, S.M. Beiko, Adam Petrash, Darren Ridgley, and Craig Russell. Live music will be provided at the intermission by Alana Levandoski. The anthology was edited by Darren Ridgley and Adam Petrash, and published by Great Plains Books / Enfield and Wizenty. Each author will have about five minutes during the hour-long event.

If you want to watch and listen via Zoom, you can register for the event here. Registration is free, but please consider picking up a copy of the book, or one of the other books by the participating authors! (I should add that Zoom attendees to the event are eligible for a $25 McNally Robinson Booksellers gift certificate draw.) There is more information on the event’s Facebook page, where people can also watch the video of the event.

So: if you’re looking for some book-related diversion this week, tune in on Thursday and listen to a half-dozen prairie authors read from their weird, wonderful work. Hope to see you there!

Farewell to 2019

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For anyone out there interested in what I’ve been up to, writing-wise, I wish I had more publishing news! But that’s the problem with working on novels. They take a long time in development, and a long time to find a publisher.

For a lot of 2019, I continued to send out Bark at the Moon, my 1980s metal/werewolf novel. I also sought feedback on it from beta readers for some aspects I hadn’t given deep enough consideration to, and made revisions to it.

Most of the revising work I was doing, though, was on my other novel-in-progress, A Taste of Home. I often describe it as a Douglas Adams-esque take on Icelandic folklore transplanted to Canada, and if that’s not niche enough for you, it also explores the reasons Icelanders cannot agree on the correct recipe for vínarterta and why family recipes (or at least, one) are guarded jealously.  I was also getting feedback on the MS and some of the history it grapples with from fellow writers and experts, and incorporating their feedback into a massive revision of the entire manuscript.

What else? I also started working on a novel about a haunted theatre, which I will probably blog more about once I can devote more time to both the novel and blogging. I decided to write the first draft of the novel by hand, to see if it had any effect on  the creative process.

Parallel Prairies
Parallel Prairies

One other thing I never did blog about was the publication of Parallel Prairies by Great Plains Publications, an anthology of the weird and bizarre, in which my story, “The Comments Gaze Also Into You,” was included.

So that’s all my writing news for now. I’m not sure much else will happen, publishing wise, before the end of the year, so I’ll just call this my writing-year-in-review post. I’ll blog again! But likely not a lot of news until one of these various projects finds a home.

I’ll ask though — what are y’all up to?  Drop me a line in the comments with any news, writing projects, or things you’re excited about being involved in!

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