Tuesday 24 January 2017

January '17 update





A lovely honour! My novel All-Day Breakfast has been shortlisted for the 2017 Re-Lit Award, given to best new work from independent Canadian publishers. Many other terrific shortlistees!

My dear pal Alix Hawley has published a timely, heartbreaking piece in Macleans; so worth your time.

I will be at the Penticton Sci-Fi/Comicon (more specific name still to come) at the Penticton Lakeside Hotel, 10 am-5 pm on July 8. Yes, here in Penticton and first of its kind.

I'll finish the first draft of a new novel sometime this spring! I wrote it down so now it has to happen.


(Top: Penticton Farmers Market, summer 2016 thereabouts.)

Monday 1 August 2016

August update



I'm working on a new book, thanks largely to the hammering intensity of my novel-workshopping colleagues Corinna Chong and Alix Hawley. If a first draft's finished by the end of summer I'll put up a flashy, celebratory post; if not my face is still pressed to the keyboard.

My first work for comic books! Though not writing a comic. A raucous text story will appear in the next volume of Ed Brisson's The Violent.

Most important right here right now: The Spoke Literary Festival. Start writing wheels rolling or get a leg up on current work, through four intensive workshops over the August 20/21 weekend in Vernon BC. Any reason not to write dispelled over two unforgettable days! The July 31 deadline is extended until the final seats have bums in them.


(Top: Tsawwassen BC, July 2017.)

Thursday 28 April 2016

Spring 2016 update


On Saturday, April 30, I'll be at Otter Books, in Nelson BC, from 9:30 to 11:30 am in support of international Authors for Indies Day. I will dance for you, sing for you, advise which books to buy from Otter Books' lively selection. Plus just now I took a bath and tidied my beard, and though the event's two days away and their effect may wear off that's better than nothing.

May through July will bring straight-up writing, followed by Vernon BC's wildly-rumoured Spokes Festival over the third weekend in August. Life is solid & awesome.

Jaw-Dropping Recommendation #1: The Memento by Christy Ann Conlin of the Annapolis Valley, Nova Scotia. I was fortunate enough to go to school with Christy Ann twenty years ago and I flat-out pity anyway who has not met her; cracking her stellar second novel will be a good start at including Ms. Conlin in your life.

(Washington DC, February 2016. Mike Schroeder photo. I was out east signing books! That's not my truck.)

Wednesday 7 October 2015

October update


As of September, All-Day Breakfast is for sale in the US at many fine independent stores as well as at all fine Barnes & Noble stores, where as of December the book will feature prominently in their affiliated Foreword Reviews magazine.


Upcoming events, none very near to the other:

Singapore Writers Festival. Outside Looking In: Overcoming the Risk of Exoticising, with Madeleine Thien, 1 Nov, Sun 2:30 PM - 3:30 PM; and The Appeal of the Undead, with Lefty and Nicholas Yong, 1 Nov, Sun 7:00 PM - 8:00 PM.

San Diego. Mysterious Galaxy Books, Saturday, January 2, 2 PM.

Kelowna Fan Xpo, Saturday, March 19. Time & venue TBA.

I'd planned to read at Bookmark Shoppe in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn on October 11 but have had to cancel due to a dumb sick-cough-chest infection. I will reschedule because Brooklyn.

(Photo by Anne Fleming, in Toronto.)

Sunday 16 August 2015

August update


 
Here's a review from Trek, the UBC alumnus magazine; ADB is second-to-last on the page below:
http://trekmagazine.alumni.ubc.ca/2015/june-2015/departments/books-june2015/
No previous review mentioned Congo even once.

And here's a quick but incisive interview with me from Alix Hawley's wonderful Storybrain series:
http://www.alixhawley.com/blog/archives/07-2015

(Hooked on Books, Penticton BC.)

Saturday 18 July 2015

July '15 updates


-All-Day Breakfast has been chosen by Amazon.ca as one of the 25 best books of the year so far -- books in any genre, from anywhere in the world -- and one of the 8 best books from Canada.

-I'll be reading on September 25 & 26 at the Thin Air Festival in Winnipeg; on October 31 & November 1 (a week earlier than previously posted) at the Singapore Writers Festival.

-The first draft of my next book is coming along at top speed. I'm part of a very small writing group this time around and there's nothing like monthly deadlines to increase page-count and decrease hours slept.


(Calgary, AB. Jimmy Schroeder photo.)