The launch of Rona Altrows’ new book, Key in Lock, was a great time and a huge success. Glad I could be there to help Rona celebrate!

This Saturday the fun continues as Rona and I read at the grand opening celebration for Shelf Life Books at 1302 – 4 St. SW. There will be refreshments, prizes and hourly author readings Thursday evening, Friday and Saturday. Rona and I will be on between 3 and 4PM Saturday if you want to come and cheer us on. Should be a blast.

Here’s a public service announcement I wrote for Cow Town / Punk Town:

COWTOWN / PUNKTOWN: Calgary’s Punk Rock History

Sat. Nov. 6, 4:15 – 5:00 PM 2nd floor John Dutton Theatre

Calgary’s live music scene in the late ‘70s / early 80s would have been made up of country rock, top 40 bar bands and disco — right? Would you be surprised to learn that conservative Calgary was actually home to a thriving underground music scene in those days? That a host of punk bands played shows every weekend at community halls and venues like The Calgarian Hotel, The National Hotel, The Long Bar and Ten Foot Henry’s? Join author Lori Hahnel of The Virgins and musician Dan Hayes of The Golden Calgarians as they reminisce about Calgary’s nearly forgotten early alternative music scene.

If you’re interested in registering for this informative local history program (ahem!), go to http://calgarypubliclibrary.com/programs.aspx (Enter “Heritage Weekend” for the entire list ) or phone 403-260-2620. 

Unfortunately had to miss the launch of Maureen Bush’s new YA novel Cursed! on Saturday, as I was at my Uncle Rick’s funeral. Sigh — sad indeed. My mother’s family is being hit hard right now. But I understand the launch was a blast, even without me. Congratulations again, Maureen — looking forward to getting my own signed copy soon.

Can’t wait for the launch of my good friend Rona Altrows’ new book, Key in Lock, at Memorial Park Library, 1221-2 St SW, next Saturday, Oct. 23rd at 2 PM. Congratulations to Rona and her publisher, Calgary’s own Recliner Books.

I’ve been invited to read at the grand opening celebration for Shelf Life Books at 1302- 4 St SW. They’ll be featuring readings by local authors Thursday, October 28 – Saturday, October 30. I will be reading sometime on the Saturday; details to follow. In the meantime, come on down and check out Calgary’s newest independent bookstore! Not only is the staff friendly and knowledgeable, they also reminded me that as well as being the former home of Interfaith Thrift Stores, the very spot in which I worked many years ago, the store was once the site of the infamous Parkside Contintental. Ah, yes, I’d forgotten about the Parkside. We used to go on Sunday nights sometimes to catch the drag queen shows and to drink. This was in the days before you could go to a bar on Sundays in Alberta — imagine. Seems kind of quaint and old-fashioned now.

Anyway. Speaking of long-ago things, as is my wont, a reminder about Cow Town / Punk Town, the program that Dan Hayes of the Golden Calgarians and myself are doing as part of Calgary Public Library’s One Book, One Calgary event on November 6th. I will read from Love Minus Zero and Dan has set up a rockin’ multimedia show. Punk out!

Speaking of Love Minus Zero, I’m doing a book club meeting Tuesday night for a lovely woman I know, wife of a colleague of my husband’s, and a very cool librarian. Looking forward to it!

Finally, tomorrow’s civic election day in Alberta. I look forward to exercising my right to vote, and hope we get a good voter turnout this time around.

Like many writers, I get a charge out of seeing where references to my books crop up. That’s the kind of thing we get excited about. Lately I came across Love Minus Zero’s listing in NoveList, a library reference tool that I used to use a lot in my days at Calgary Public Library. Someone can come up and say, “I want to read a first novel about a conflicted female old school punk rocker” and, voila, there will be my book. Nice stuff.

So here we are first week of October and the weather is absolutely gorgeous. Typical — freezing, dark summer followed by warm, sunny fall. Oh, well. I’m thankful it’s nice now. Thankful for a lot of things actually, and of course, Thanksgiving weekend approaches. Tofurky is already in the freezer.

Working away on the novel. Sometimes. It hasn’t always been easy these days, with my mom’s ALS and all, to stay focused. On the other hand, sometimes writing is kind of a refuge. Then again, there’s always ‘research’ which I’ve been doing a fair bit of these last couple of weeks. This has entailed reading books, listening to CDs and watching movies. Work, work, work. But hey — it’s got to be done, right?