My latest book, The Hippies Who Meant It, is now available on Amazon Kindle. It’s about American and Canadian young people in the 60’s who dropped out and went back to the land armed with pluck and naïveté. It’s also a … Continue reading
My first musical experience was undoubtedly my mother singing to me. At the age of 68, on the ferry to the Isle of Skye, I found myself singing words and music I had never consciously learned. I put that down … Continue reading
Most fiction writers are immeasurably chuffed when people write to us indicating that they have entered our imaginative world and been engaged by the characters they met there. This is the writer’s equivalent of applause, and is just as heady. Continue reading
Write On Ottawa: Dragon fables for all ages Written by Janoah Willsie on Saturday August 1st, 2015 An illustration by Shirley MacKenzie from The Laughing Princess. Seymour Hamilton writes the kind of children’s stories that he would have wanted to read as a child. … Continue reading
Reading (and recording) your novel is the best investment you can make in editing your work. Continue reading
In the bookends of his career, the first and last versions of Gould’s Goldberg Variations, Gould gave us a fresh insight into Bach’s music that is brilliant, analytic, intellectual. But in the end, Gould’s humming is the only live, human element. Continue reading
“Your Majesty. There’s an elopus in the palace fishpond, eating goldfish!”
“Goodness me,” said the Queen. “A chimera with the head of an elephant and the body of an octopus? Well, you know what to do.” Continue reading
I wrote this piece at the request of Jess Wells, who published it first on Jun 19 2014 on her page at Red Room, http://redroom.com/member/jess-wells Elmore Leonard’s 9th rule of writing is, “Don’t go into great detail describing places and things.” … Continue reading
In the 1970s, when I lived in Halifax, Nova Scotia, I sailed as mate on a traditional 50-foot wooden schooner, leaving early one summer day from the Bras d’Or lakes, near where Alexander Graham Bell tested his airplane, the Silver Dart. By evening, the ragged northern end of Cape Breton had disappeared over my starboard shoulder. Alone at the wheel, listening to the creaking, splashing, sighing sounds of sailing, I heard dolphins whistle, and when dawn came, I saw the sun rise on southern Newfoundland’s wall of cliffs that fall hundreds of feet into the sea. My skipper’s navigation was excellent: dead ahead was the flashing light of the navigation buoy we needed to guide us to a gap in the cliffs, less than a quarter mile wide. Continue reading
Today a questionnaire arrived in my email offering services to writers. Here’s how I replied:
Today is my 73rd birthday. The present that arrived from my publisher this morning was a quarterly royalty cheque — for $1.98. Economically speaking, my writing is more than a bust, it’s a major liability. However, in terms of personal satisfaction, writing has done me no end of good. Continue reading