Looking forward to taking part in The Indie YYC’s Storytellers event, along with poet Kyle Flemmer and singer-songwriter Mercy Lamola. The event will be hosted by Lisa Murphy Lamb and will present a central story-theme performed as an organic collaboration of artists from each community, telling the story in three dimensions.

It’s all happening on Wednesday, April 3 at 7 PM at Koi, # 100 1011 1ST St SW. Come on out and support your local indie storytellers!

Calgary’s literary culture has its roots in the early days of the city’s history; earlier, even, than the the olden days of the local punk scene, believe it or not. To find out more, read Shaun Hunter’s blog post, “Seeds of Calgary’s Early Literary Culture” on the Chinook Country Historical Society’s website, here.

Shaun’s new book, Calgary Through the Eyes of Writers, launches at 2 PM on December 9th at our fabulous new Central Library. I am very much looking forward to celebrating with her!

Looking for a blue-pencil session? Some writerly chat? NaNoWriMo’ed yourself into a corner? Not to worry! The Alexandra Writers’ Centre Society offers a Mentor-in-the-Loop program, where you can book time with an experienced writer to talk about your manuscript or just talk about the often-crazy process of writing. I’m November’s Mentor-in-the-Loop, and I’d love to read your work, or just have a coffee and a chat at Barrow in CSpace. Sign up for a session here.

I look forward to chatting with you.

I’m very happy to be acting as the one of the defenders at this year’s ninth annual Calgary Giller Light Bash! I’ll be defending finalist Thea Lim’s novel An Ocean of Minutes, which I am looking forward to delving into. Join me and co-defenders Sheri-D Wilson, Karen Hines, Fred Stenson and Marcello Di Cintio, along with host Russell Bowers, at Wurst (at 2437 – 4 St. SW) on Monday, November 19th, 5:00 – 9:00 PM.

Funds raised at the Giller Light Bash support Frontier College, Canada’s original (and oldest) literacy organization. So come and join us in supporting an excellent cause! Hope to see you there.

My literary comrade Steve Passey and I are happy to announce the publication of the first issue of our new e-zine The Black Dog Review. Issue one features fine work by contributors across Canada and the US, including Sarah L. Johnson, Barbara Biles, Erin Emily Ann Vance, John Grey and many more.

Issue One has been a blast! We hope you enjoy it.

It’s been a busy summer so far (even though this is actually the first official day of summer). And besides being busy, it’s been hard to tear myself away from the bizarre and hideous news the last little while. So I think this is kind of old news by now, but I haven’t really had a chance yet to say how lucky I feel and how thrilled I am to be serving as a mentor along with my friend Lee Kvern at this year’s Banff Centre Summer Writers Retreat! We’re going to be working with an excellent group of writers from near and far, and staying at the beautiful Banff Centre for two weeks, August 27 – September 9th.

2018 is the Banff Centre’s 85th anniversary, and while the Summer Writers Retreat is now closed to applications, there is another retreat in late fall. Check the Banff Centre website for details, here.

Can’t wait!

Counting down the days until the Writers’ Guild of Alberta’s annual conference, taking place in Calgary (yay!) this year. Refining Our Narratives runs June 1 – 3, with sessions at Memorial Park Library, as well as Literary Trivia with Shaun Hunter at The Beltliner Diner and the Alberta Literary Awards Gala at the Hyatt Regency *Imperial Ballroom*! I’ll be moderating a panel on Creative Writing Pedagogy on Saturday morning featuring John Vigna, Angie Abdou, Patrick Finn and Suzette Mayr. Check the schedule for all the fine programming and fun on offer here.

Another highlight will be the Silent Auction in support of WGA’s programs and services. We’ve had many fine donations from our sponsors this year, including a lovely basket of goodies from our dear friends at Owl’s Nest Books. Thank you, Owl’s Nest, for your ongoing support of Alberta writers!

This all sounds great, you say. Absolutely! And the best part is, there’s still time to register. Hope to see you there!

Hey, how cool is this? All Lit Up has put together a list of Badass Women Protagonists which includes the dual protagonists Lita and Elsa from my novel After You’ve Gone. Plus they even gave it this cool gif:

I see fellow Alberta authors Pam Clark and Caterina Edwards have written some badassery as well. Time to add more titles to my reading list!

Last fall, Historical Feathers, a historical fiction journal out of the UK, invited me to submit a story for their December issue. I didn’t have anything suitable on hand at the time, but I was inspired to finally write about something that I’ve wanted to explore for a long time: the life of jazz cornetist Bix Beiderbecke. My story “In a Mist” starts on page 42 of the January 2018 issue.

Unfortunately, Historical Feathers has now had to go on hiatus for the time being. Many thanks to editors Amy Ford and Peter Turner, and hopefully we’ll see new issues again at some time.