Stacey Madden is the author of Poison Shy, a novel which Quill & Quire described as “a thoroughly enjoyable treat for fans of seedy urban squalor, eccentric characters, and stories as tightly coiled as mattress springs.” He lives in Toronto, where he is at work on his second book. Tell us about yourself: I grew […]
Somebody on Facebook said that there are robins in Toronto. Really? This is the time of year that totally screws me up. Edging s.l.ow.l.y out of winter down south when up here, the snow has yet to start slumping and this morning it was forty below with the windchill. Should I stop? But the weather […]
A couple weeks ago, several of you answered my request for blog feedback, and I’m so glad you did! Not only was I the recipient of lots of praise (blush!), I also had a few answers that gave me a good laugh (Q: How did you find my blog? A: I dug several thousand metres underground […]
J. and I are animal lovers. Combined we’ve had five dogs, eleven cats, four parakeets, four geckos, two iguanas and a robin with a broken leg that J. spent a summer helping heal before teaching it to catch its own worms and finally, fly off. Our cat came to us two years ago outside the […]
Let’s face it, we writers spend a lot of time staring at our own navels. And while that’s great for doing the introspective work of fiction, it’s not so hot for engaging with one’s readership. After all, I don’t want to just be talking about my dog all the time when it turns out you’d […]
Nancy Jo Cullen is the author of Canary (Biblioasis, 2013), which won the 2011–12 Metcalf-Rooke Award (“this book is intoxicating,” said judges Leon Rooke and John Metcalfe). She’s also published three collections of poetry, and was the winner of the Dayne Ogilvie Prize for Emerging LGBT Writers in 2010. Where do you come from and […]
Me! This morning the phone rang and a wonderful woman from down south in Winnipeg told me I’d won, actually won, and FIRST PRIZE at that, the Prairie Fire Fiction contest! Holy crap, I think I said! Not very genteel but, you know, as a writer you send off a lot of stuff. Submit, submit, […]
The following is a guest post by writer Aaron Shepard. Being a country-born lad, the odds are good I’ll never write a “New York” novel. Even a Toronto or Vancouver novel might be a stretch. Instead, I wrote a “West Kootenay” novel, even though I’ve been warned about the perils of doing so. Never heard […]
This week, the Firelight Interview Series launches with Diana Davidson, an Edmonton writer who released her first novel, Pilgrimage, in September 2013. Read about her desire to get back to Paris, the unusual name of the hero in her next novel, and her pride in “nailing the horse’s ears” at the end of Pilgrimage. How […]
It’s been one year plus two days since J. and I arrived in the cold winter of The Pas. To mark the occasion, we made a calendar of our photos to give away to a few people at Christmas. Thought I’d share the images, and details of where they were taken. And, by the way: […]