Still Writing

Over the years, I have avoided bookclubs.  "Too many on my list already, without being told what I have to read." But lately I succumbed.  The first book I could not get through. (I can't even remember what it was).  I got to the end of the first chapter of the second before I gave up. (Not my genre). The third -  The Rosie Project -  is at my elbow now,  tempting me to abandon all plans for my day in order to get it finished for tomorrow’s meeting. I am never short of a good read. The pile on the table in the living room is tall enough to tumble at any minute. But what I get out of getting together with these six or seven other readers - all of whom I know to one degree or another - is the discovery that sharing a book, even one I haven't read but hear more about in the meeting, helps me get to know these women better.  Their interests. Their values. There literary expectations and insights. The first thing we do at our meetings it to 'Check in'. This...

Can I be the only person incensed to find a recipe online that I hope to try, then forced to scroll down five screens-worth of background and recipe development information before I get to the list of ingredients or method? Almost puts me off my dinner. Contrarily, give me a book of good narrative food writing, and I am in heaven. Years ago I wrote a weekly column for my local community newspaper, having non too graciously suggested that the previous food 'columnist' - who did not exist in person, but whose column was shared by the local reporters - be quietly consigned to a dark table near the kitchen. (Luckily, I knew the editor, so he took it on the chin, and acceded to my suggestion. And those were the days when community papers paid!) For more than a year I wrote about Boys and Beans (I had recently inherited two stepsons), Greek Food (having never been there), Comfort Food (I am deeply attracted to mashed potato in all its guises), Learning to Bake Bread (from my Italian ...

They crawl out of the shadows everywhere - on Facebook groups for all kinds of writing and writers. In our Messenger inboxes. In emails from unidentified senders. Telling us they will edit our book, make a trailer, design a cover, help us reach thousands of readers, get reviews, get us on best seller lists, help us make millions… Most often unsolicited, unwanted, and unwelcome. And sometimes relentless. Recently a woman Messaged me in response to my upcoming book cover reveal on a BC writers’s Facebook page. Would I hire her to make a trailer?  My response: ‘Thanks, but no thanks.’ Could we at least talk? ‘No. I work with my publisher on promotional material.’ (In fact, it’s on my to-do list to do myself, but she didn’t need to know that.)  Could I share some visuals with her? She can help with trailers, covers, reviews…  ‘No.’  (Are you kidding!) And so it went, until I reported her on the group, told her that her actions were predatory, and blocked her. It was my ...

When my sister and I were clearing out our parents' house after their deaths - me doing the upstairs, Judith down - she called up to me, "I can't find Bleak House." I raced downstairs. My dad was an inveterate reader. And Dickens' work was very dear to him, especially Bleak House . Which I swear he must have read every couple of years and was always close at hand. We found the full set of every other Dickens on the shelves in Dad's study, scoured the stack of books beside his chair in the livingroom and rooted through his bedside table. But it was nowhere to be found. "Maybe," Judith suggested, not all together in jest, "He took it with him!" It was entirely possible. My dad had no interest in money. Or things. But books... If I get to take any books with me when I go, I would like it to be these: The Silver Sword by Ian Serralier - reading this at boarding school at about ten years old, I first realized that books could be about important...

I was checking out an Irish distillery (long story…) when my eyes fell upon the words The Angel’s Share. Which turns out to refer to the 1% of alcohol lost through condensation during whiskey’s distillery process. It may also refer to other forms of alcohol production too, but I was not that interested. But the words somehow resonated for me. As if my cheek had been brushed by a passing angel’s wing,  So I did a bit of research… my friend the author and teacher Loranne Brown exhorts her students to research one thing, even when writing fiction. It turns out that the phrase The Angel’s Share had been used as the title for a novel, at least two poems, a movie, a perfume, and a Japanese bar in Manhattan… Readers often ask me where my ideas come from. I tell kids “In the bathroom”. Which is true in many cases. But sometimes they are like gifts that drop into my hands, my heart, my writing soul. Unsolicited, often inappropriate. But always welcome. So I have done what I do with other su...