During the fraught year of 2021 I published two books: 1. Angel’s Share, a novella that tells the backstory of the community of Matris where Astreya ended up in The Astreya Trilogy. The story is told by Angel, the very … Continue reading
I always knew I was going to be all right, no matter what. Continue reading
Hellfire Corner by Alaric Bond My rating: 5 of 5 stars Hellfire Corner, Alaric Bond’s latest nautical adventure, departs the Age of Fighting Sail where his other 13 novels are set and instead goes aboard MTBs (Motor Torpedo Boats) and … Continue reading
Now you can decide if it’s a fantasy, a post-apocalypse mystery, an adventure, a family saga, or just about schooners. But you have to buy it first at: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/0994949960/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=Seymour+Hamilton&qid=1581550079&s=books&sr=1-1
Here is one of the illustrations Shirley Mackenzie drew for River of Stones, which will be launched in the next few days. When I looked at her first draft, a host of objections swarmed into my mind. Where were the … Continue reading
My new book, River of Stones, is in the final stages of the production process. It will be a book and an ebook in February 2020, and an audiobook later in the year. Meanwhile, you can read the first chapter … Continue reading
My nine days in England were time-warped. 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
I asked Seymour Hamilton, author of The Laughing Princess, how it came about that he met Shirley MacKenzie, who did the lovely new cover and many other drawings for that book. This is how he explains it:
I met Shirley MacKenzie at a reading soiree at a now defunct indie bookseller which had our books on consignment. Shirley had written and illustrated a moving account of her search for her birth mother and father. The emotional impact of Shirley’s story was in her drawings, which are at the intersection between personal and universal. She does not tell her reader what to think or feel: she presents evocative images of loss, longing and fulfillment that haunt me still. Continue reading
Books (and poems) I have inhabited, in the order in which I read them. As I compiled this list, I realised that the common element is that most of these stories are set in richly imagined alternate realities that … Continue reading