Category Archives: Book Launch

THE STOP – How the Fight For Good Food Transformed A Community and Inspired a Movement – Nick Saul and Andrea Curtis – BLOG TOUR

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The StopIt began as a food bank. It turned into a movement.

In 1998, when Nick Saul became executive director of The Stop, the little urban food bank was like thousands of other cramped, dreary, makeshift spaces, a last-hope refuge where desperate people could stave off hunger for one more day with a hamper full of canned salt, sugar and fat. The produce was wilted, and the packaged foods were food-industry castoffs—mislabelled products and misguided experiments that no one wanted to buy. For users of the food bank, knowing that this was their best bet for a meal was a humiliating experience.

Since that time, The Stop has undergone a radical reinvention. Participation has overcome embarrassment, and the isolation of poverty has been replaced with a vibrant community that uses food to build hope and skills, and to reach out to those who need a meal, a hand and a voice. It is now a thriving, internationally respected Community Food Centre with gardens, kitchens, a greenhouse, farmers’ markets and a mission to revolutionize our food system. Celebrities and benefactors have embraced the vision because they have never seen anything like The Stop. Best of all, fourteen years after his journey started, Nick Saul is introducing this neighbourhood success story to the world.

 In telling the remarkable story of The Stop’s transformation, Saul and Curtis argue that we need a new politics of food, one in which everyone has a dignified, healthy place at the table. By turns funny, sad and raw, The Stop is a timely story about overcoming obstacles, challenging sacred cows and creating lasting change. - Publishers Website When I was asked to be a part of this blog tour, I had a few reasons for doing so – 1.  To see if a community can get together whether it be a low income or even your average middle class neighbourhood and actually make something of it.  2.  To see what I could do in my own community to help or encourage it to become one that it is proud of.  3.  To see if anyone in any community could work at it and become the best it could be.  I was not only inspired, I am in awe.

It is a personal story first, it drew me in as a lowly food bank in one of the low income neighbourhoods in Toronto was struggling.  The work was and is hard, that is one thing that won’t go away.  They needed committed community volunteers, a desire, the need was apparent, and the drive to achieve their dreams.  Did it work?  Of course it did, it is still working since Nick Saul become Executive Director of  The Stop in 1998 – 15 years he poured into a place where even the residents had given up, to make the immigrant community vibrant and flourishing once again.  They took back their neighbourhood, sure it had taken time, effort and probably much more then they dreamed possible.  I am sure that some wanted to give up, but in the end and as of today, it is a thriving part of the community – bringing people together, one person, one ethnicity at a time.  To share in learning something new, making new friends, coming together – even the children, the babies, the elderly, and the not yet born to enjoy a good meal.  Not something that came from a can – REAL FOOD when so many of the people who come to a food bank if you want to call it that to get something that they need in their time of hunger, loneliness, and gave the people to look forward to something, anything to be a part of something huge.

The real issue here is that sure, people nowadays are finding it harder and harder to make ends meet.  It just isn’t people who have low incomes, it is everyone.  I had a conversation the other week in the grocery store with a woman, about how the produce was so much smaller, but it is either the same price or even more then it was a year ago.   The sizes of just about everything in the grocery store are becoming smaller, yet the prices stay the same.  We all deserve to have good food, we live in one of the most bountiful countries in the world.  Even here in the Niagara Region where I live, there are still roadside stands where you can buy fresh fruit and vegetables by just pulling over and dropping money into a jar and taking what you like.  I think that had to be the most favorite parts of living in the area.  Of course, you could also talk to your neighbours while doing so.  Catch up on what was or is going on with them, their families, the community.  I live in the best part of Canada – We produce just about everything from fruits and vegetables to VQA award winning wines.  What isn’t to love about this region?!?

The thing is that in the city where I live, the population is about 55,000, and there is 4-6 food banks where on a given day depending on which one you were at the week before, you can access all of them as far as I understand.  One week you could go to the Salvation Army, the next The Hope Centre which is just down the same street.  Get your fill of canned salt, fat, and carbohydrates and not much else.  We have a good food box program of course, for a family of 2 for $15 or a larger family $20 you receive from what I have heard a really nice array of fruits and vegetables either grown in the region during the growing season, or around the other areas of Southern Ontario.  Most are on social services here or disability, where I’m guessing some people don’t spend it as they should, and need to access these food banks either once in a while or frequently as the mood suits.  I was actually in one a few weeks ago, accessing other services, and I have to say it’s pretty depressing.  The clients were treated with respect, but what I got out of it was that they almost expected it to feed them for the entire month. – It doesn’t.  It doesn’t even come close.

We need to change, we need to gather everyone together, to make a better plan for everyone.  Not just Nick and Andrea who did this in Toronto – EVERYONE IN OUR COMMUNITIES rich or poor, healthy or sick need to come together and work at making it better for everyone.  Making it a community that everyone is proud to be a part of, to have healthy, non-processed, food that everyone can enjoy.  There are community gardens here, but on the other side of town.  What good does that do for the other side?  Nothing if you wanted to travel to garden.  We need to come together and make a plan, a solid plan to make sure our communities most vulnerable aren’t lacking.

I urge everyone to go and get this book.  Not just because you have to, but because you want to make change in your own communities.  The stats in the book are just scary for a country like ours that has our resources.  The “Food Bank” phenomenon was actually started in the USA, now they are starting them in Europe to see if it can work there.  We need to stop these, and have our communities together on a solution and not a stop-gap effort.  We should have started it decades ago, but I guess this is as good a time as any.  Read every morsel that this book has to give and start making dialogue in your own community – and if the nay sayers put up a fuss then work harder.  Get stubborn, get active and make your city or town better not worse.

People whether they are rich or poor have just as much worth.  We all have gifts that we can give to our community.  Lets get involved and make something of our gifts. If this neighbourhood in Toronto can do it, so can anyone else!  What will it take ?!?

Community Food Centers Canada - Twitter - The Learning Network – Facebook

 

The Stop Blog Tour

The Painted Girls – Cathy Marie Buchanan

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painted girls cover cdnParis, 1878. Following their father’s sudden death, the Van Goethem sisters find their lives upended. Without his wages, and with the small amount their laundress mother earns disappearing into the absinthe bottle, eviction from their lodgings seems imminent. With few options for work, Marie is dispatched to the Paris Opera, where for a scant seventeen francs a week, she will be trained to enter the famous Ballet. Her older sister, Antoinette, finds work as an extra in a stage adaptation of Émile Zola’s naturalist masterpiece L’Assommoir. Marie throws herself into dance and is soon modelling in the studio of Edgar Degas, where her image will forever be immortalized as Little Dancer Aged 14. Meanwhile, Antoinette, derailed by her love for the dangerous Émile Abadie, must choose between honest labour and the more profitable avenues open to a young woman of the Parisian demimonde. Set at a moment of profound artistic, cultural and societal change, The Painted Girls is a tale of two remarkable sisters rendered uniquely vulnerable to the darker impulses of “civilized society.” In the end, each will come to realize that her salvation—her survival, even—lies with the other. – Publishers Website

LOVE, LOVE LOVE !!! I guess I can’t just say that, now can I?  Cathy has taken a subject she has just come across and developed a seductive, evocative historical fiction masterpiece in her newest book!!  Even if you haven’t taken ballet as a girl like I Cathy and myself have, you are still drawn into the gruelling training, the blood and sweat that is left in the practice rooms or on the stage during performances.  The attention to detail is impeccable, the emotions stirring your own as you flip or in my case devoured page by page, then realizing that you have read it in one sitting thinking what in the world just happened.  Yes, I have gushed about her earlier book The Day The Falls Stood Still, BUT! (yep, there’s that one again) You will absolutely love this one in a whole new way.  Grab that glass of absinthe, get comfy in your favorite reading place, and prepare to become enraptured in the trials and tribulations of the Van Goethem sisters as they traipse, dance and leap across the Paris Theatre Stage .  As they walk through their poor existence as best they can.  One thing I can’t help thinking about…what has happened to them in the next 20 years of their lives…Cathy does give you a small glimpse into the future at the end of the book, but do they fade into the background at the same speed they came to the foreground?  Is there something else in the background waiting in the wings? Only I can speculate or dream as they did.

This book for sure will have the Giller Judges enthralled if it is nominated this year for Canada’s Literary Prize for sure! Please Giller Gods, Make it Be !!

If you are on the USA side of the Border, it is published by Riverhead Books.  And if it is any sign of the publicity that it is receiving on both sides of the border, it will be a massive best-seller for sure !!

Reading Guide – Facebook - Twitter - Cathy’s Website - Browse Inside The Painted Girls - Q and A with Cathy

 

Guest Author Post – Cathy Marie Buchanan – The Painted Girls: Two Stories Intertwined

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Please welcome Cathy to the blog once again for her second historical fiction book – The Painted Girls which is available both in the USA and Canada right now!  I can tell you if you haven’t read her first book which I fell in love with at the first few sentences, you should.  Cathy is one of those rare talents where writing gets better and better like a fine aged wine…that’s if you drink wine! Here is a guest post she has done for me, enjoy!

 

When Edgar Degas unveiled Little Dancer Aged Fourteen in 1881, he showed the sculpture alongside his portrait of two teenage boys on trial in the criminal court.  The Painted Girls tells the story of the young dancer who modeled for the sculpture and also that of the Emile Abadie and Michel Knobloch, the boys Degas drew in the prisoners’ box.

Art historians contend more than a shared exhibition links the artworks.  They suggest in each Degas sought to imply the depravity of his subjects. What, I wondered, lay laid beneath such a claim?

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Marie van Goethem, I would learn, modeled for Little Dancer.  She was from a poverty-stricken family and was trained to enter the famous Paris Opéra Ballet. It was the dream of many a poor Parisian girl. The ballet offered a chance to find fame and fortune if she had talent and ambition, if she was able to attract the attentions of an admirer with clout enough to advance her career.  Such liaisons were commonplace, and unfair though it was, blame fell squarely on the shoulders of the ballet girls.  It was not surprising, then, that when the sculpture was unveiled, the public at once connected Little Dancer with a life of corruption and young girls for sale.  Her face, they said, was “imprinted with the detestable promise of every vice.”  Degas, it would seem, was successful in suggesting the child’s depravity.

Such an intention was easy enough to swallow when it came to the portrait of Abadie and Knobloch.  “Scientific” findings of the day supported notions of innate criminality and particular facial features—low forehead, forward-thrusting jaw—that marked a person as having a tendency toward crime.  Those features are incorporated into the portrait (and the sculpture, too).  Even more telling, Degas titled the portrait “Criminal Physiognomies.”

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What fascinated me most of all, though, as I researched the stories of Marie and the boys was the possibility the link between the artworks went beyond the shared exhibition and the suggestion of criminality.  All three youths had inhabited the same underbelly of Paris, and I could not stop myself from imagining their paths had crossed, the ways in which such a meeting might have altered destinies.  Yes, I wanted to tell both stories, but I wanted to intertwine their lives, too.  And so on the pages of The Painted Girls, there is a fateful day when Marie’s older sister meets Abadie behind the Paris Opéra.

It certainly does make you think about this, doesn’t it?

Thank you so much Cathy for this, and stay tuned for my review of The Painted Girls.

Forgotten – Catherine McKenzie

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Congratulations to Catherine!!, who just this week had this book published in the USA.   This is a re-posting of the review I had done for it’s Canadian Release. It is available through William Morrow in the USA.

When everyone thinks you’re dead, how do you start your life over again?

Emma Tupper, a young lawyer with a bright future, sets out on a journey after her mother’s death: to Africa, a place her mother always wanted to visit. But her mother’s dying gift has unexpected consequences. Emma falls ill during the trip and is just recovering when a massive earthquake hits, turning her one-month vacation into a six-month ordeal.

When Emma returns home, she’s shocked to find that her friends and colleagues believed she was dead, that her apartment has been rented to a stranger and that her life has gone on without her. Can Emma pick up where she left off? Should she? As Emma struggles to recreate her old life, everyone around her thinks she should change – her job, her relationships, and even herself. But does she really want to sacrifice everything she’s working so hard to gain? – Publishers Website

I really truly believe that this is Catherine’s best novel yet !  It had a soul that you couldn’t walk away from, that one thing that keeps you reading page after page, until the last one wanting there to be more in the story.  What would you do if this happened to you?!?  Would you scream and cry or pick up where you left off to start your life all over again or would you just throw in the towel and say to hell with it? Myself, since I have started over again when my marriage failed so miserably I didn’t really have a choice to just sit and cry, I had to get up and prove to people I was the person that I was saying I was, and not the one other people were portraying me to be.  So, I can identify with Emma, know what she was going through in a sense.  Your whole world is somewhat turned upside down.  You, yourself are the only one that can turn it back upright; and fight for what you believe in.  Even if that means falling in love with the one person who you didn’t think possible. My reviews of Catherine’s other books can be found here by clicking the links – Arranged – SPIN.  Here are 2 Q and A’s I have also done with Catherine – Q and A #1 – Q and A #2

Catherine’s Website – Browse Inside – Twitter – Facebook – US Publisher – William Morrow

The Deception of Livvy Higgs – Donna Morrissey Blog Tour

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For two traumatic days, Livvy Higgs is besieged by a series of small heart attacks while the ghost of her younger self leads her back through a past devastated by lies and secrets.

The story opens in Halifax in 2009, travels back to the French Shore of Newfoundland during the mid-thirties and the heyday of the Maritime shipping industry, makes its way to wartorn Halifax during the battle of the Atlantic in World War II, then leaps ahead to the bedside of the elder Livvy.

Caught between a troubled past, and her present and worsening living conditions, Livvy is forced to pick apart the lies and secrets told by her greedy, prideful father, Durwin Higgs, who judges her a failure, and her formidable Grandmother Creed, who has mysteriously aligned herself with Livvy’s father, despite their mutual hatred.

Tending to Livvy during her illness is her young next-door neighbour, Gen, a single mother, social-work student, and part-time drug dealer. Overnight, a violent scene embroils the two in each other’s lives in a manner that will entwine them forever. In The Deception of Livvy Higgs, the inimitable Morrissey has written a powerful tale, the Stone Angel of the East Coast. – Publishers Website

What a book !  Not sure what to expect at first when I received the email about this particular book.  I actually had to stop and start a few times, just because of the nature of the book.  I had to get my head right so to speak so that I could delve into Livvy’s mind and her past bringing together past and present into this fantastic piece of literary fiction.

Livvy is having dreams, but in actuality she is having mini heart attacks.  She’s forgetting to go to the grocery store, feeding her cats, among other household chores.  Her younger neighbour who is a student and single mother helps her from time to time, but Livvy doesn’t want to depend on her all the time.  The dreams she is having have to do with her past – as a girl growing up in an upper class family where her father owns the general store – who decides if you are good enough for credit or not through the harsh winter months.  As the past reaches into the present, Livvy and Gen her neighbour come to blows about an incident that happens.  Will Livvy come to terms with her past, deal with it and live a calm existence in her last days? Or will Gen’s drama splinter that fragile relationship they have and drive them both on a path they aren’t meant to be on.

As both women go back and forth, it is almost a mirror image of the two in different times.  Both have made mistakes in their younger years, Both have made sacrifices for the good and bad.  Both have done things they aren’t proud of, but in the moment they did what they had to do to survive.  As we all go through life, I know in my own there are things that I have done that I am not proud of because of circumstances, and things that have happened I didn’t wish on anyone, but I learned from them and the mistakes I have made.  I cannot change any of it, but yet, if I could I don’t think I would.  It gave me things to think about, situations that have made me a better person, and strengthened my reserve to make me a stronger person.  In Livvy’s case, I believe that she needed to make amends for what she did so that she could finally let it go instead of hanging on to it for so long.  In Gen’s case, I think she learns from Livvy and her mistakes in a way that she can avoid them in the future if that makes any sense.  Both women are teaching and learning from one another, in different times if course, but the outcome and the lessons are still the same.  Do you want to be happy or do you want to be right?

Anger, Resentment, and hanging onto feelings for years or even decades isn’t good for you, come clean and be lifted of that weight to be able to be happy and free.  Donna has written a fantastic piece of Literary Fiction that will become a Canadian Classic!

 

Read an Excerpt - Donna on Facebook - Donna’s Website - 49th Shelf - Goodreads

 

For more reviews and commentary, check out the others on tour with Donna’s book!

September 18 Luanne –  http://luanne-abookwormsworld.blogspot.com/
September 19 Marci –  http://serendipitous-readings.com/
September 20 Aislynn –  http://www.stitchreadcook.com/
September 21 Nicole –  http://www.nicoleabouttown.com/
September 24 Allison –  http://bibliomama2.blogspot.com/

Q and A with Author Cassie Stocks of Dance, Gladys, Dance

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Photo Credit: Terry Gasior

I want to welcome Cassie to the blog, and hope you enjoy her answers to the questions I posed to her recently via email, I enjoyed her answers immensely!

What was it that made you want to become a writer after having so many adventures yourself?

When I was about seven, I wrote a couple of sentences on a scrap of paper about two people I was having trouble with. I folded up the piece of paper, put it in my pocket, and carried it around all day.  Somehow, I knew I’d done something both powerful and comforting.  As preteen I wrote poetry illustrated by feminine hygiene advertisements from Reader’s Digests (you know – women in billowy gowns walking on beaches). I wrote a gang novel on the back of my worksheets in elementary school and I kept journals for years.  I wrote throughout my adventures in later life as well but it wasn’t until I settled down a little that I had both the time and the brain space to tackle a larger project.

How much of yourself or have you added parts of yourself  into your book?

I think there is something of myself in all the characters in Dance, Gladys, Dance. The details in the novel are a mixture of pure fantasy and real life. I did have a deaf cat called Beethoven that walked across the piano. I didn’t ever sleep with any of my professors or instructors. Like the main character Frieda, I did have a feeling of displacement in the ‘real world’ from trying to live as and have a career as an artist. I have both painted and made papier-mache projects but I’ve never crocheted. I did travel in a bus with a bar band (for a very short while).  I’ve never been a Goth or a ghost.

You are a fellow Canadian. What would be your most favorite “Canadian” thing to do?

I’m not sure, I’ve never skied, climbed a mountain, or played hockey. I was in a canoe once. I’ve drank a lot of Tim Horton’s coffee and spent my share of Canadian Tire money.

What gave you the idea for this novel?

About fifteen years ago, I saw an ad for a stereo. The ad actually said “Gladys doesn’t dance anymore, she needs the room to bake.” I clipped the ad and kept it for years. It might have been a joke, but I wondered who Gladys was and why she would ever give up dancing for baking. In the novel, I changed the stereo in the ad to a phonograph, but it ultimately led to Gladys’ story.

The stories of Frieda and the other women are a combination of my own sentiments, research I’ve done on women and creativity, composites of people I’ve met, and the results of a caffeine saturated imagination.

Besides writing, what other talents would you like to have?

I’d like to be able to do psychic grocery shopping and cleaning by telekinesis (when I’m in the middle of a project, I buy paper plates and plastic cups and cutlery. Bad for the environment, but if anyone wants to start a Save the World – Get Cassie a Cleaning Woman Fund, I’m up for it).

If you died and were able to come back as anything you wanted, what would it be and why?

If I could come back in the past, I’d come back in the roaring twenties. I want to be at a literary salon, as the woman writer wearing tweed pants, paisley silk scarves, and leather ballet slippers (no matter the weather), sitting cross-legged in an over stuffed armchair with a martini, making bitter pronouncements about poodles and the world economy.

Do you have any favorite writers? Who are they and why?

Off the top of my head, I love Kurt Vonnegut (Bluebeard), Nick Hornby (A Long Way Down), Roddy Doyle (Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha), George Orwell (Keep The Aspidistra Flying), Charles Dicken’s (Oliver Twist), Miriam Toews (A Complicated Kindness), Paul Quarrington (Whale Music), F. Scott Fitzgerald (Cannery Row), Stephen Leacock (Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town), Douglas Adams (The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Universe), John Irving (A Prayer for Owen Meany) and Mark Childress (Crazy in Alabama).  I enjoy a good story simply told, both intelligent and accessible. I like the sense of a story being about itself, but also about something bigger, with a sense of political or social awareness.

Are you working on anything new?  When can we expect it to come out?

I’m working on my second novel called The Amazing Adventures of Mattress Boy. I’m not sure when it might be out. Stay tuned.

Do you have any heroes in real life? Who are they? Why?

My English Spaniel Frieda (named after the main character in Dance, Gladys, Dance to remind myself to write every time I called the dog — sad I know). I got Frieda from the humane society. She was terrified of the world and literally crawled everywhere. With time she overcame her nervousness and decided to befriend the entire world. Two years later she jumped off a second story porch, got tangled in a wrought iron railing on the way down and had to have one of her back legs amputated. Within a week, she was up and around and still runs around now like mad and approaches the world with endless enthusiasm.

What is the one trait that you most deplore in others? Yourself?

Judging others seems to be a recreational sport for some people. I think we need to choose not to evaluate people based on their skin colour, gender, social standing, monetary worth, religious beliefs, shoe size, or whatever the heck people choose to judge others by. Compassion, not criticism should be our beginning point. I work on this myself; it’s easy to get caught up in gossip and nit-picking.

Thank You for Flying Air Zoe – Erik Atwell – REVIEW and Q & A

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Old enough to know better, young enough to do it anyway

Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fasten Seat Belt sign has been turned on, but feel free to ignore it, because sometimes life is best lived on its dizzy edges. Your cruising altitude today will be sky-high, and you will be flying at staggering speeds as you travel alongside Zoe Tisdale, former Valley Girl and rock star turned bored butter saleswoman.

On the heels of a brush with mortality, Zoe concludes that she’s been letting time pass her by. Realizing she needs to awaken her life’s tired refrains, Zoe vows to recapture the one chapter of her life that truly mattered to her – her days as drummer for The Flip-Flops, a spirited, sassy all-girl garage band that almost hit the big time back in 1987. But reuniting the band won’t be easy. The girls who were once the whiz kid guitarist, the prom queen bass player, and the hippie lead singer grew up and became women who are now a reclusive dog trainer, a wealthy socialite, and a sociopathic environmentalist. Will Zoe bring the band back together and give The Flip-Flops a second chance at stardom? Is it possible to fully reclaim the urgent energy of youth?

As you follow this wild flight path, please know that your destination could be anywhere at all, complimentary oxygen is provided upon request, and baggage flies free. We hope you enjoy the ride, and Thank You For Flying Air Zoe. – Publishers Website

I wasn’t really into this book until I got about a third through it for some strange reason.  It is one of those books where at least for me, it has to grow a bit and spread its wings before I devour it like I have been lately.  The even more strange thing about it, is it’s a male, yes, a male writing a female chic lit book!

Sadly the last one that I had read, was a disaster.  Didn’t like it one bit.  This one is a complete 180 in comparison.  Light, funny, exactly what you want in one of those type books.  It was a light airy read, that I found myself chuckling to along the way albeit, a few of the classical themes.  Sometimes predictable, but like I stated before, light airy, I have said a lot about that….

Don’t believe me?  Pick it up for yourself and let me know how you liked it.

Below is the Q and A I recently did with Erik, I hope you enjoy the questions I posed and I really liked his answers back! Engaging and well-informed !

How much of yourself is in your novel?

You mean was I ever in an all-girl garage band? ;-)

Kidding, of course. Despite obvious gender differences, I think Zoe and I have a common core in the importance we place on maintaining a sense of youthful spirit. I am a firm believer that it’s never too late to chase after something you’ve always wanted, even if time is seemingly against such a crusade. Dream large, take chances, and never subject yourself to regret.

What is the reason behind you writing chic-lit instead of another genre?

The truth is, I didn’t actively set out to write a chick lit novel. I just wrote what I thought was a fun, heartfelt story, and the chick lit community, much to my delight, completely embraced it. As for why I wrote a novel told from a female P.O.V., that’s the real mystery. Ever since college, I’ve enjoyed the writing process more when I’m focusing on a woman’s story. Not sure why that’s been the case, but so long as it’s yielding positive feedback, I’ll probably run with it! It’s a great challenge to write outside one’s gender, one that I both relish and respect greatly.

What would be your idea of perfect happiness?

Isn’t any sort of happiness perfect in and of itself? As I see it, if I’m in the middle of a happy moment, no matter how long or short its ultimate duration, life right then and there is pure and perfect bliss.

What is the one talent(s) you would like to have besides writing?

Singing, simply because I’ve mangled one too many songs on various Karaoke stages across the country.

To be sure, I am not your next American Idol.

If you died and had the chance to come back as anything you wanted, what would it be and why?

Would it be too narcissistic of me to say that I want to come back as myself? In the past, I might have had a more creative answer, but the thing is, my wife and I welcomed our first child just about a year ago. He is a charming and curious marvel of a little man, and I absolutely don’t want to miss a single second of his growth.

So yeah, I’m coming back as myself. I wanna see what this awesome little guy becomes. :)

Did you or have you borrowed real life things that have happened in your own life to be able to craft the characters in this novel, or other stories?

If I borrow anything for my writing, it’s probably only places and settings. Many say that the best writing comes from experience, but sometimes I feel too close to my experiences to accurately write about them. I wouldn’t be able to bring pure objectivity to the source material. Lately, however, I’ve started toying with a project that would completely toss this notion aside. Maybe I actually can write from a place closer to the source material.

Do you have any new projects that you are doing now? If you are, when can we expect them?

My family and I have recently just completed a cross-country move, so we’re only now starting to make the leap from scattered to settled. I have two projects at the proverbial tip of my pen, but I’m not quite sure which one will get the call. There’s an Air Zoe sequel brewing, but if the sales figures aren’t quite up to justifying such a project when the time comes to write, I will possibly have to shift gears and take on the other project — a super top-secret project I’m too superstitious to discuss.

But I’m pretty sure it’ll be totally fun to write.

Do you have any favorite heroes in fiction? Who are they and why?

Wow, I’m actually surprising myself here, but I actually can’t think of a character who straightaway comes to mind. I’ve certainly been a fan of some literary greats — Mockingbird’s Scout Finch, Jimmy Rabbitte from The Commitments, and now that I’m a new Dad, Seuss’s Cat in the Hat! But these are more characters who’ve entertained me more than characters I see as heroes. I think I tend to be more in awe of the writers who created them — Harper Lee, Roddy Doyle, Dr. Seuss… I’m not sure I can be actively moved by a fictional character as much as by the author who pens their story.

Are there any qualities in other people who you most admire? If so, what are they?

I’m sure I admire far too many virtues to list them all, but one in particular that registers highly in my book — and correlates to the characters in my novel — is loyalty. I come from a town where my childhood friends are still some of my best friends, and in many ways, I believe that an individual is in part defined by the relationships they cultivate.

What phrase(s) do you most overuse?

It’s not actually a phrase, per se, but I think I actually use the word actually too often in my prose, actually.

But I’m actually working hard on that. ;)

Thank you so much for the questions and for giving THANK YOU FOR FLYING AIR ZOE some space on your blog!

Thank you Erik for allowing me to ask you questions and allowing me to read your nice piece of writing !

Other Tour Dates and Blogs

Thursday, June 21st:  Chick Lit is not Dead

Thursday, June 28th:  Girls Just Reading

Monday, July 2nd:  A Musing Reviews

Tuesday, July 3rd:  Luxury Reading

Thursday, July 5th:  Shoe-girl.com

Monday, July 9th:  Chick Lit Central

Tuesday, July 10th:  Seaside Book Nook

Wednesday, July 11th:  Peeking Between the Pages

Wednesday, July 11th:  Life in Review

Thursday, July 12th:  A Chick Who Reads

Monday, July 16th:  girlichef

Monday, July 16th:  From the Heart of a Bookworm

Tuesday, July 17th:  Mom in Love with Fiction

Wednesday, July 18th:  Serendipitous Readings – That’s me !

Thursday, July 19th:  Sara’s Organized Chaos

Friday, July 20th:  The Book Chick

Monday, July 23rd:  Sweet Southern Home

Tuesday, July 24th:  Acting Balanced

Erik’s Twitter – Facebook – Blog/Website

Much thanks to Lisa at TLC Book Tours, even with her broken arm/elbow, she’s still got it and what I like in choices of books…or maybe she just guessing because of the pain meds LOL ;-)

#21 – Stray Bullets – Robert Rotenberg

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In The Guilty Plea and Old City Hall, critically-acclaimed Canadian author Robert Rotenberg created gripping page-turners that captured audiences in Canada and around the world.

Rotenberg’s bestsellers do for Toronto what Ian Rankin has done for Edinburgh and Michael Connolly for Los Angeles.

In Stray Bullets, Rotenberg takes the reader to a snowy November night. Outside a busy downtown doughnut shop, gunshots ring out and a young boy is critically hurt. Soon Detective Ari Greene is on scene. How many shots were fired? How many guns? How many witnesses?

With grieving parents and a city hungry for justice, the pressure is on to convict the man accused of this horrible crime. Against this tidal-wave of indignation, defence counsel Nancy Parish finds herself defending her oldest, and most difficult, client.

But does anyone know the whole story?

Stray Bullets is Robert Rotenberg’s third intricate mystery set on the streets and, in the courtrooms, of Toronto. – Publishers Website

I have to say Robert’s newest novel set in busy Toronto is another winner !!  It doesn’t let up, it keeps amping up, by the time you have finished the book it’s like you have gotten off a runaway train plus or minus a few details.  With Robert’s busy legal practice, I cannot fathom how he can churn out a book every year with all the edits and re-writes !! I was introduced to his work last year when The Guilty Plea came out for a blog tour along with a mini Q and A , he just keeps going and going.  His narrative is set just perfect along the storyline he is creating.  There are no awkward jumps or starts -  it is a smooth sailing as much as a murder case whodunit can be right?

I am looking forward to much more from this Canadian who continues to get my read on !! I hope you will discover him and say yes, you are a new and excited fan!!  It doesn’t hurt either that he is being compared to Ian Rankin from Scotland and Michael Connelly from California!!

Robert’s Website – Facebook – Twitter – Goodreads – Read an Excerpt

 

The Beggar’s Opera – Peggy Blair – Q and A

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I would like to welcome Peggy to my blog,  and thank her for taking the time out of her very busy schedule to answer some questions about The Beggar’s Opera.

SR – In The Beggar’s Opera, the book is situated in Havana, Cuba.  What is about Havana that mesmerized you so much to write a book based on this location?

PB -  I’ve traveled to quite a few countries that were once communist dictatorships. I was an election observer during the “Orange Revolution” elections in Ukraine; I monitored elections in Kiev and also in towns very close to the Russian border.  I did human rights work in Serbia with the UN Development Program, training judges and mediators in dealing with human rights violations, and I have visited the Czech Republic several times as well.

Cuba is different from anywhere I’ve ever been. It has a dictatorship with a charismatic leader who is larger than life, and the subject of over six hundred assassination attempts by the American CIA, who even poisoned his cigars. It’s a country that is desperately poor, thanks to the American trade embargo, but has one of the most educated, literate, and healthy populations in the world.

I watched the police in Havana closely when I was there – I was a criminal defense lawyer and Crown prosecutor for decades – and I wondered how on earth they could investigate crimes with such limited resources. You can’t even find pencils or batteries, and there are constant fuel and food shortages. Meanwhile, thousands of tourists wander around, completely oblivious to the harsh reality of the daily lives of most Cubans. I thought that was something worth writing about.

I also visited the Callejón de Hamel  (the inspiration for my fictional Blind Alley) with a pair of hustlers, or jineteros, as they’re called, who were quite happy to rip me off. It was incredible– the centre of Havana’s Afro-Cuban community, bursting with music, art, and Santería, the religion brought by slaves from Africa. (As in the book, there really was a plastic bucket with these poor turtles trapped in it so that people could collect and drink their urine in the hope of living a long life.)

Put all of that together with gorgeous, crumbling architecture; feral dogs and cats, crazy anti-American billboards, and music everywhere, and setting a story in Havana was irresistible.

SR – On the back of the galley I received as part of the Blog Tour for your book; it states that you have been a lawyer for many years, as well as selling houses in the Ottawa area.  I have noticed in the few years that many lawyers who have made the transition to writing books.  What was it for you that you wanted to hang up your robes for more of a literary pursuit?  What is it about selling houses that you like about it?

I was a lawyer for thirty years. For the first ten or fifteen of those, I was in criminal law, and then after winning an important case that involved a treaty rights defense,  I kind of fell into the highly specialized area of Aboriginal and human rights law. ( I actually have a PhD, or LLD, as they call a doctorate in law in this area. Most of these are awarded honorarily to retired politicians at university convocations: I’m one of the twits who actually earned one.)

I ended up involved in long-term negotiations over fisheries and when we finally resolved those issues,  I moved into the Indian residential school claims process. I heard claims of serious sexual and physical assault involving children  as a senior adjudicator, and then as a Deputy Chief Adjudicator. I finally hit a point where I knew I had to stop – I was starting to feel the effects that they warned us about going into it.

After that, I got back into land claims business and quickly realized I could end up sitting around the same negotiating table for the next twenty years, discussing the same files with the same government negotiators,  and not have anything resolved. At that point, I realized the time had come to do something else.

The Beggar’s Opera was actually written while I was working on my realtor exams.

I’ve always loved renovating houses, and I knew  my background in law and negotiations would be  an asset to me as a realtor. It’s one of those things that, looking back, I wish I had done ten years earlier. I love my office and my colleagues and I really like  working with clients. Unlike law, or writing, which can be quite isolating, the real estate community is surprisingly supportive. I’ve enjoyed every file I’ve worked on.

SR - Do you think Cuba in the future would be better off staying as it is, or becoming a democratic community like Russia and other countries have?

I don’t think the current status quo is sustainable, frankly. I think most Cubans are willing to wait to see what happens when Fidel Castro dies. But they are a highly educated, bilingual population (English second-language training is required in the schools) watching economic development take off in South America while they struggle to get enough to eat and live in atrocious conditions.

I think they are apprehensive about what the future will look like without Castro, particularly given their proximity to the U.S., but they are ready for change. That said, there is a real fear that American money will flood into the country and turn it back into the kind of place it was under Fulgencio Batista – a sort of Las Vegas of the south — with a government even more corrupt than the current dictatorship

SR – Who is your favorite character in the book and why?  Mine would have to be Ramirez – the detective who is suffering from dementia, who still believes that the truth is out there and strives to find the truth before time runs out.

PB – It’s funny how many readers have that take on Ramirez. I always think of him as balancing on the knife-edge of corruption, not quite sure which way to go.  I’m glad you like him. I’m quite small and therefore   I probably identify the most with Apiro, who may be short but is much larger than he appears.

SR - Can you give us a hint of what to expect in book two, or am I being a bit too anxious?

The King’s Indian is the name of the second book and it picks up the story right where The Beggar’s Opera leaves off. Inspector Ramirez goes to Canada and while he’s away, women start dying in Havana, prompting the Canadian government to consider issuing a travel advisory warning tourists against going to Cuba. Needless to say, there are ghosts.  I  have a big crush on Charlie Pike, a new character. He’s the Aboriginal detective who escorts Ramirez around Ottawa. (Charlie Pike appears in Book Three, Hungry Ghosts, as well.)

So thank you Peggy so much for doing this.  Below, is a list of the other blogs that are on the blog tour for Peggy’s book, so make sure that you check out what they had to say, what they asked Peggy, or if she just wrote something.  It is bound to be interesting regardless the topic!

Blog Tour Hosts and Dates

#8 – The Beggar’s Opera – Peggy Blair

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In beautiful, crumbling Old Havana, Canadian detective Mike Ellis hopes the sun and sand will help save his troubled marriage.

He doesn’t yet know that it’s dead in the water—much like the little Cuban boy last seen begging the Canadian couple for a few pesos on the world famous Malecon.

For Inspector Ricardo Ramirez, head of the Major Crimes Unit of the Cuban National Revolutionary Police, finding his prime suspect isn’t a problem—Cuban law is.

He has only seventy-two hours to secure an indictment and prevent a vicious killer from leaving the island. But Ramirez also has his own troubles to worry about. He’s dying of the same dementia that killed his grandmother, an incurable disease that makes him see the ghosts of victims of unsolved murders. As he races against time, the dead haunt his every step … – Publishers Website

What a breath of fresh air ! I loved Peggy’s tale of Cuba, intrigue, suspense, action and adventure.  She kept me guessing all through the novel, just when I thought I knew who the bad guy was, I was so totally wrong!   She had woven a tale that I am almost sad that I got to read the first book of three, because now I want to read them all at once ! Oh well, we will just have to wait until Peggy is finished writing those book don’t we?  Peggy, I just hope that I am one of the first on that list to be able to get a sneak peek before everyone else (I love my job reviewing) I think just because of that, I get a sneak peek at books that I loved and gush about before any of the public does! Too bad the pay isn’t better ! ha ha !!

So, if you are a fan of the thriller, action, adventure genre, then this new to you and me author will have you glued to wherever you’re reading this and will have you there until you have read the last word on the page.  Then you will think to yourself, Peggy!! Hurry Up!! I want more please !!

Stay tuned, I have a Q and A with Peggy that I have done recently with her, as well as a list of other blogs that are on her Blog Tour so you can see what they had to say about Peggy’s first book of three.  It will be posted immediately here after I am done this post.

Beggars Opera Site – Peggy on Twitter – Goodreads – Peggy’s Website – Facebook – Peggy’s Blog – Read an Excerpt

 

#6 – The Placebo Effect – David Rotenberg

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Decker Roberts has the dangerous gift of detecting the truth. For years this talent proved to be a lucrative sideline to his acting teaching. Only his closest friends know, and he keeps his identity secret from the companies that pay him to tell them if the people they are planning to hire are lying.

But Decker’s carefully compartmentalized life starts to fall apart. His house burns down, his credit cards are cancelled, his bank loan is called and his studio is condemned.

He realizes that he must have heard something in one of his truth telling sessions that someone didn’t want him to know.

Decker has to go on the run and figure out why he’s been targeted. There’s also a government agent hunting him who seems to know absolutely everything about Decker Roberts’ identities, real and false—and other people of “his kind.” How will Decker find out which truth is endangering his life?

Who betrayed him and revealed all his secrets? Decker needs to find answers quickly, before knowing the truth turns from a gift into a deadly curse.- Publishers Website

I really enjoyed the angle of this book.  Synesthesia is an actual phenomenon if you will, it does exist, if you happen to do a google search as I did.  My main question would be would you want to have this sort of magical super-power?  I guess it would have to be said I would love to have one, but not one that would get me into trouble for one, after all I am an angel…tee hee!  David’s writing was engrossing, informative, entertaining, and a terrific waste of time.  Just remember that this is the first in a series I believe of three books, with David giving me a bit of a scoop on the next one in a Q and A I did with him over email recently.   He just so happens to be a fellow Canadian, this isn’t his first book either.  He’s written 5 mysteries set in Modern China, as well as a best-selling historical fiction novel.  I don’t think I will have any resistance in grabbing his next novel, regardless of the setting, he sure can write !

Facebook – David’s Website – Excerpt – Reading Group Questions

Stay tuned, as I have done a Q and A with David, it will be posted right after I am done posting this review !!

Mini Q and A With Author Robert Rotenberg

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I have to say this man is so busy, I cannot see where he finds the time for everything he does! I am even tired reading about it !

Without further interruption, please welcome Robert Rotenberg who has published his 2nd book entitled The Guilty Plea.  It has been released in Canada today, so go out and get it, trust me, you will love it !

With such a busy schedule, what or where, when were you hit with the writing bug? – It is hard for me to remember a time when I didn’t want to write. Tell stories. But the reality of my chaotic life, is that it wasn’t until I was finished being a magazine editor and radio producer that I really sat down to write. Logical time. I’d just started practicing law, was broke so was working about 100 hours a week, we were just having our first of three kids, and of course I was still playing hockey every Monday night. Hey, you need energy to do this job.

Have you taken some or many details from your real life cases and incorporated them into this novel or your previous one? – As you know I’m a criminal lawyer and client confidentiality is paramount. (Unfortunate sometimes, you wouldn’t believe the stories I hear. The other day a new client came in and told me…). In fact it’s not a joking matter, I would never betray a confidence.  So the stories are not from my own cases, or any others. But I truly believe the adage, that the great advantage that fiction writers have over non-fiction writers is that we can tell the truth.

Does life imitate art in some circumstances? – Well, in Old City Hall when Nancy Parish, exhausted, flops into the chair in her office and is overwhelmed by the volume of voice mails, emails, letters, demands on her time. Ask any criminal lawyer.

As the lawyer in the book, do you follow the same principles in your real life practice – not letting yourself believe or disbelieve your clients? – The best chess players always try to see the board from their opponent’s point of view.

If you could choose between being a lawyer for the rest of your life or being a writer, what would you choose? – Simon & Schuster want to sign me for two million dollars a book for the next ten years. Brad Pitt wants to star in Old City Hall, and Angelina (I call her Angie now) is dying to play Sam in The Guilty Plea. John Grisham and Scott Turow want to spend the winter with me in Hawaii working on the screenplay.  I think I’ll go back to bail court (where I was on Monday) for a few more clients.

If you had died and had the chance to come back as anyone or anything you wanted what would it be? Why? – See answer to question 5

What is the one talent besides writing would you want to have? – A better slap shot. Thirty years of playing hockey and it still sucks. But hey, I’m an excellent passer.

If you could live in one place in the whole world where would it be? Why? – Paris me manque. With money this time.

I see on your website that you volunteer for a Rehab Clinic in Toronto.  What was the main reason you decided to go this route?  Have you seen  the worst case scenario ever, and the person has turned around to make a full recovery and a good representation of being clean and sober? – I am the least addictive person you will ever meet. But for 20 years I’ve seen people and families torn apart and destroyed by addiction. And yes, I am extremely proud to say that I’ve seen so many of my clients totally turn their lives around. It is the greatest part of my job.

Do you have any pet-peeves? What would they be? – Those tiny tea pots you get in restaurants that always spill no matter what you do. The way we treat poor people in this rich city.

#44 – The Guilty Plea – Robert Rotenberg

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On the morning that his headline-grabbing divorce trial is set to begin, Terrance Wyler, youngest son of the Wyler Food dynasty, is found stabbed to death in the kitchen of his million-dollar home.

Detective Ari Greene arrives minutes before the press and finds Wyler’s four-year-old son asleep upstairs. When Wyler’s ex-wife, a strange beauty named Samantha, shows up at her lawyer’s office with a bloody knife, it looks as if the case is over.

But Greene soon discovers the Wyler family has secrets they’d like to keep hidden, and they’re not the only ones. If there’s one thing Greene knows, it’s that the truth is never simple. - Publishers Website

I really enjoyed this thriller. This is Robert’s 2nd book, I haven’t had the opportunity to read his first.  If it is anything like this novel I am in for a treat.  Well written, deeply plotted to have you thinking about who really did it, will have you turning the pages as fast as you can read, so that you can learn who did it, why, and the secrets that are hidden inside the Wyler family.  Brilliant from the first page.

Stay tuned after this review of Robert’s newest book, as I got to do a Q and A with him recently during his ultra busy full-time law practice, his writing this book, the publicity for it, and the many other activities that he does.  I swear I don’t honestly know where he finds the time!

Today, just happens to be release day !! So go out and get the book !

Robert’s Website – Robert on Twitter - Robert on Facebook -Read the First Chapter - Follow Simon and Schuster on Foursquare

#33 – Inkblot – Drip, Splat, and Squish Your Way To Creativity – Margaret Peot

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Leonardo da Vinci saw landscapes and battles in the swirls of a marble wall.  The novelist Victor Hugo splashed coffee and wine on paper and found castles and monsters in the splatters.

Now Margaret Peot shows how anyone can use inkblots as keys to creativity.

For Decades, the author has been using inkblots she makes to spark her own creativity.  Now she shares her insights and techniques in this beautiful treatment of the subject.  From basic tips on paper and ink to advanced approaches for transforming splatters and ink blobs into works of art, she sets readers on a path to creating their own inkblots.

Her enthusiastic text and step-by-step approach will encourage even the most reluctant artist, and her stunning artworks will inspire readers to create inkblots that are uniquely their own. – Inside Flap Hardcover Edition

My son and I LOVE this book.  You can create just about anything your heart desires, sometimes without even noticing you are even creating something so rich and alive.  Most of you have maybe seen these before as being used in Psychiatrists or Psychologists offices as a tool.  Now, you can make them yourself and have an original to me art on your walls.  Margaret gives you the tools and tips to make your very own.  What can I say, My son and I have already used up a whole ream of paper making our own designs.  You should see the ink on our fingers !

This book is absolutely perfect for one of those rainy day afternoons when the kids come to you saying I’m Bored ! or as a camping activity.  Even as an art activity to do at school.  It does not matter if you are already an artist, or are one of those who don’t think that you are not so great at art, you will be astounded at the images you can see through the images.

Stay tuned, Margaret has done a Q and A with me. I also have ONE copy to giveaway to a lucky reader! TOMORROW!!

Here are a few of the inkblots Nick and I have done the last few days, can you not imagine what these can become !?! I’m excited.

Even The Dogs – Jon McGregor

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Wow is all I can say right now.

Even the Dogs chronicles the details of what happens after a man’s body is found in an abandoned flat between Christmas and New Year’s.

The friends he had before his demise, who look on as ghosts from the shadows, keeping vigil with him as he is discovered, moved, autopsied, then cremated.

Some may not like the style of Jon’s writing in this novel.  Told in a fragmented stream of consciousness style, even for me it was awkward, but once I became accustomed to it, I was immediately engrossed in the tale of drug addiction, the story lines of the others interwoven into this stylish, dark, accurate novel.

Through their thoughts, the addicts point of view, getting their next fix to homelessness face them on a daily basis.  Their circumstances are preventable yes, but this is where they are, why they are there – their stories as shocking as the narration itself, leaves nothing to the imagination.

Not only intense, thrilling, and eye-opening, there is this small ray of hope that they all carry with them hoping, wondering.

I found interesting that living they are treated worse alive than when they are found dead.  The people take more time and emphasis on them while on a gurney in the morgue then they are on the streets.

I did attend the Canadian Launch of the book last night in Toronto at a wonderful independent bookstore – Ben McNally Books.  On had were two publicists that I work with on a steady basis.  It was a really wonderful time to finally meet face to face, talk about books, talk to the author and others who attended the event.  When I had a chance to talk to Jon, I asked him what kind of research he made while writing the book and he replied that he talked to people who are addicts that are now clean, talked to counsellors, pathologist, as well as others to be able to give the book a undoubtly authentic feel.  I agree on this point, breathtakingly accurate.

Jon was most gracious to sign my book, and my son Nick received a t-shirt that showcases the UK cover.  Here are a few pictures from the event last night.

Jon’s Website

Penguin / Bloomsbury Books

An interview with Jon from the Torontoist

So, a heartfelt thank you to Jon for coming to Toronto, the publicists – Barbara and Bronwyn  that organized the launch.  It was really great to finally meet you face to face, I look forward to doing it again.