May 27, 2016 I myself could have uttered these famous words attributed to Julia Child, who brought France to the tastebuds of America. Now, Germanic genetics have often been blamed for my own love of high-fat dairy products, but Julia’s quote makes me suspect that untraced Gallic blood might run in my veins. I recently found a local supplier of 52% BF […]
“IF YOU’RE AFRAID OF BUTTER, USE CREAM” Read More »
Last week I held a little giveaway on Facebook, awarding this red leather journal to the third person who signed up for my new quarterly email newsletter (see the first edition of that newsletter here) telling about what’s happening in my writing life. This generated a bit of excitement among my friends—a dozen of them responded by clicking this link and filling in the
Isn’t this a cool book cover? The art issues from the paintbrush of talented Lorenda Harder and is meant to entice readers, of course. But my little, two-story ebook is so cheap (under a buck U.S.) that I wonder if it will just melt into the massive pool of other cool-looking books. I had to put a price on it
It’s said that reading fiction requires willing suspension of disbelief. We writers strive to weave a fictional dream of gossamer threads and avoid anything that might break the spell we cast. And so we choose our genre and build our story idea around specific conventions—checking vocabulary lists for children’s sci-fi, building psychological tension into thrillers,
SLIPPING BY SLEEPING DRAGONS Read More »
This morning I attended my first-ever Hutterite funeral. It moved me. But first things first: GLOSSARY: So, with definitions out of the way, I have a simple observation: Death brings hope. Of course, this is anti-intuitive and I’m not making light of the sorrow experienced by those who will miss the face and voice and wise counsel of their
I spent several hours yesterday in the lovely environs of Annie McGuire, an interior design studio in Medicine Hat. I signed a few books, had lovely chats with several readers, and met another local author. It was an altogether pleasant day. Most of my writerly friends declare themselves to be introverts and, indeed, an extroverted personality like
I just signed my second book contract! The flush of excitement (fear?) isn’t nearly as overwhelming this time, maybe partly because publishing this book isn’t really a “new venture” but a reworking of graduate research I completed back in 2001. This is the brief story behind my upcoming book, ROOTS AND BRANCHES: THE SYMBOL OF THE
PUBLISHING CONTRACT Read More »
I’ve almost completed writing and editing (first round) on my new novel and am looking forward to hearing back from a few publishers considering it. Meanwhile I’m not forgetting my first novel, and lately I had the honour of being featured on The Mighty Pen–an excellent program on HopeStreamRadio. For those of you who’d like to hear me
In celebration of typing “the end” to my second novel, I brewed up a wonderful soup (made to the tastes of Libby, my main character), which I have dubbed Drunken Pepper Beef Pot. Besides the obvious ingredients of roasted bell peppers (the surplus currently drowning in Spanish olive oil and awaiting a salad in my near future) and chunks
One of my favourite writers, G.K. Chesterton, once wrote a whole essay on the profound subject of cheese. Please enjoy this excerpt: The waiter brought me cheese, indeed, but cheese cut up into contemptibly small pieces; and it is the awful fact that, instead of Christian bread, he brought me biscuits. Biscuits—to one who had