HNT - Third Anniversary

This week Osbasso, creator of HNT (Half-Nekkid Thursday) celebrates 3 years of leading bloggers around the world in getting nekkid every week. I joined a few months after it all began, offering up my first post in October 2007.

I called it "Naked Eyes" and thought it would be fun to show off my cool dude Halloween spooky eyes boxer shorts -- you can see that post here.

I've made many friends through HNT over the years, and have watched old friends "retire" from HNT and seen new friends join. It's been a fun haul, and at this anniversary date I wonder at how long I'm going to keep up posting half nekkid pictures every single Thursday.

Part of me, of course, enjoys the creativity of having to come up with something along the half-nekkid theme each week (check out the collage of HNT shots from within the first year, for example) . . .


. . . but another part of me, the part that is struggling to find time to work on my writing, and having less and less of that time to spare, wonders if it's time to retire myself from HNT.

There's an addiction element to it, of course, not to mention the fact that forcing myself to post something new and hopefully interesting each week has spawned some fun "storylines" like the death match between myself and Darth Tater that I called Spud Wars.

The first story was a fun adventure that I took 6 months to spin out. The sequel "Terror in Toyland" is one that got a bit out of hand and included my bloggy friend Susie who came out to help me against the toy threat -- as a matter of fact, things have been so busy crazy with my real writing lately that the second Darth Tater HNT storyline hasn't moved on much in a while . . . got to get back to that and find out what happened to poor Susie, after that great train accident . . .

In following Osbasso's theme of THREE for this week's post, I thought it might be nice to offer a retrospective of some multi-shot collages that have been put together over the past 3 years. You've already seen two of them above -- a nice summary of some of the fun stuff I've been up to each Thursday for almost 3 years.

Of course my favourite HNT "story" was one that my dear friend Steve Gaydos created after a visit last summer. He took a whack of pictures and then threw together a cartoon-style story called "Yes, My Dad Can Fly!" that was just too cute.

To make it easier for folks to find my HNT shots, I started creating a single page archive with links to them all. Of course, in that manner of "got busy doing other things" I haven't updated in a long long time - but so far, it's a fun look at the first 50 HNT posts I created. Some day, I'll have to complete it -- but that means adding an additional 100 or so links . . . sigh . . . who has time?

In any case, Happy Third Anniversary Osbasso and all my HNT bloggy friends!

CHML Talk Show Idol - Quiz & Rant

Okay, so on this morning's quiz with Bob and Shiona (yes, a silent "i" like the silent "b" and "v" and "r" in Lefebvre), I proved that I should NEVER host a show about sports. And I'd like to send out my apologies to Sydney Crosby fans everywhere . . .

(You can listen to a recording of the quiz here)

I'm hoping that the 60 second rant I just recorded which is going to be aired a little after the noon news broadcast (you can listen locally at 900 on your AM dial or online at 900chml.com) helps redeem me so I don't like a total idiot.

I mean, I'm okay with looking like a bit of an idiot and completely okay with being seen as a giant nerd -- but gee, I'd hate to go down in local radio history as a complete and total idiot . . .

Talk Show Idol

One of the reasons I started experimenting with podcasting a few years ago was because of a desire I'd had to host a radio program in which I could interview authors, talk about books, music and pop culture and engage guests in lively discussion and debate.

Of course, given that I never acquired the proper equipment to do interviews properly in the podcast world, I ended up doing some podcasts where I've read samples of my own writing followed up with talking about the act of writing, the creative process and the behind the scenes of putting fiction together. (That "behind the scenes" look at my writing is something I still get great feedback from even today, some 4 years after I released ONE HAND SCREAMING, a collection of my previously published fiction and poetry complete with the "behind the screams notes on the stories)

But when I saw the call for contestants for AM900 CHML's Talk Show Idol come out, my first thought was: A real studio, real equipment, real professionals, a cool demographic -- the perfect opportunity for me to give it the old "college try."

And I'm proud to announce that I made it past that first "board room" interview cut and am a contestant with 3 other aspiring and quite talented hopefuls on Week 5 of CHML's Talk Show Idol.

On Wednesday May 14th, I'll be on three spots.

7:50am Bob & Shiona will ask me a series of current events questions over 2 minutes. This will judge how up on the news I am.

12:05pm: I will RANT for 60 seconds on a topic of my choice. (So very hard for me to narrow this down to just 1 rant and to a mere 60 seconds)

4:50pm: Scott Thompson will host ’60 Seconds of Straight Talk’. Scott will give me a random word and I'll have to speak for 60 seconds on that topic without pauses, etc.

And then on Friday May 16th between 2:00 and 2:30 PM, I'll be in the studio with Scott Thompson and a panel of 3 judges who will critique my performance filling 10 minutes of air time with whatever I choose. (I'm thinking I might trying juggling - that makes for great radio, doesn't it?)

Whether you're in Hamilton or not (ie, within broadcast range), you can still listen live to the program (click the LISTEN LIVE button in the top right corner of the CHML website or go to the Idol pages and listen to a recording of the segments.

Da Count - The Box It Came In

Last weekend, Francine and I bought Alexander a ride-on excavator, complete with a controllable scoop shovel on the front end. He's into "diggers" big-time and was absolutely delighted when the two of us started putting it together so he could take it for a spin.



Of course, we had a grand time playing with it. I booked Monday and Tuesday off work to spend as "family days" -- Tuesday was my birthday and it was thus important to me that I spend it playing with the two most important people in my life.

Tuesday morning, we not only had a good time taking the excavator out for a spin, we also had almost as much fun playing with the box it came in. We used Alexander's markers to convert the box into a time machine. Alexander's "Way Back" Time Machine to be precise.


And we had all kinds of great adventures in that time machine, visiting Dinosaurs, Pirates and futuristic alien robots.


This week, I'm counting those simple things that we tend to take for granted, like the endless hours of fun you can have playing with the box that a new toy came in.

In Search Of The Alpha-Getti Gobbler!

For years I've been using a phrase borrowed from a commercial from two decades ago -- one in which three kids are sitting around a table eating Alpha-Getti (alphabet shaped pasta and sauce) and this silly looking monster with spaghetti-like arms comes into the room and warns them that they should be on the lookout for the Alpha-Getti Gobbler, who loves stealing Alpha-Getti (or is it alphagetti?) from them.

The commercial ends with this kid finally putting all the pieces together (well, he actually sees the monster take his bowl of Alpha-Getti, so he's not all that bright until after the fact) and blurts out: "You're the Alpha-Getti gobbler!!!"

The little kid saying: "You're the Alpha-Getti Gobbler!"

I so loved this phrase that I regularly use it when accusing people of something. Of course, I get nothing but strange looks from folks when I do -- mostly people who either don't remember or have never seen the commercial. Oh well, I get enough strange looks each day.

I'd posted about it in April 2007. And blogger Toronto Mike blogged about it, too. I even created a Facebook group about it called "I Remember the AlphaGetti Gobbler." Apart from desperately searching the internet and trying to find a picture or ANYTHING to prove that the Alpha-Getti Gobbler existed, Mike and I also joked about trying to beat each other in Google search results on the Alpha-Getti gobbler. I remember the day when he pushed me aside in the google rankings and I graciously took a back seat to his efforts.

Ryan Barnett, 8 years old, in the Alpha-Getti commercial

Interestingly enough, on my 39th birthday, Ryan Barnett, who was eight years old when he played one of the kids in that commercial, stumbled upon my Facebook group. He also contacted Mike Boon, who never gave up on his tireless search to track down the infamous creature, and sent a video of the commercial we all loved so much which Mike posted to YouTube. See Mike's announcement blog post about it here.

I was able to capture some nice pictures from the video, which I've posted here, and I'm delighted to help share this joyous discovery with the world.


Thanks, Mike. Thanks, Ryan. May your bowls ALWAYS be filled with Alpha-Getti no matter where you roam. And do watch your back guys, you never know when this creature might sneak up and steal it from you.

HNT - Birthday Suit

This week was my birthday.

In honour of that, I thought it would be appropriate for Half-Nekkid Thursday to post a picture of me . . .

. . . in my birthday suit:



Cute, huh?

Alexander's "Way Back" Time Machine

I booked a couple of days off for my birthday, making an extra long weekend for myself. Alexander always loves having an extra "family day" or two when all three of us can do fun things together.

I spent most of my birthday doing two of my favourite things:

1) Working on writing stuff (in this case, I spent most of the day printing out a full manuscript that had been requested by a publisher -- yes, 400 pages took me nearly 4 full hours to prepare . . . whew . . .)

2) Playing with Francine and Alexander

During one of our morning outings, Alexander and I worked on his "Way Back" Time Machine, using markers and crayons to draw buttons, lights, screens, dials and panels on a large empty cardboard box that we can both just barely fit into.

Then we used the machine to first go back to the land of Dinosaurs and do some exploring (we turned tail and ran back to the machine, of course, when we heard a T-Rex stomping its way toward us) -- then we went to the future where we saw some really interesting alien creatures. After that we went back in time just a little over a week to watch the building adjacent to the Lister block in downtown Hamilton fall down (Yes, my son is more up on current events than I am, and wanted to go watch the building crumble -- a few days earlier we'd been downtown and saw the aftermath of the side of the still standing building -- he wanted to watch the crumbling of the building)



Of course, now that it's time for me to head back to work, much as I love my job, I just want to crawl right back into Alexander's "Way Back" Time Machine and go back a single day so I can enjoy the fun and enthusiasm all over again. So if you can't find me anywhere, that's where I'll be. Curled up inside the box and making a low humming sound with the back of my throat, trying desperately to go back just one day . . .

The Fee Charging Agent and the Cud Chewing Cow

The fee-charging agent
And the cud-chewing cow
Seem so much alike
Yet are different somehow
After a moment to consider
I think I know now:
It's all the work and the effort
On the part of the cow

(Yes, I took an old poem often written in high school yearbooks and modified it for my own purposes -- I didn't do a bad job if I do say so myself)

I took the time this morning to respond to a first time author who was being interviewed on The Writing Show podcast and thought that the message I sent was one worth repeating here on my blog -- you know, in case first time writers happen to stumble upon it.

What prompted my response (which you'll see below) was the author describing to Paula B, the show's host how an agent had responded to her query with a note that they'd love to see her manuscript. However, due to the fact that they have to pay readers to go through manuscripts which costs time and money, there is a $50 fee charged to read it. So, please send your full manuscript along with a $50 reading fee.

Yadda yadda yadda.

Yes, reading manuscripts takes time -- a heck of a lot of time. It's not easy. It's hard work. Ask any agent or editor out there. It's hours of painful, challenging, frustrating, tiring and often thankless work.

But let me say this: Agents make money selling books to publishers. Publishers, in turn, make money selling books to bookstores and consumers. Any agent that makes money selling "services" or charging fees to authors is NOT a real agent and should be avoided.

Here's the basic script of publishing. Author writes book. Author sends manuscript to agent. Agent finds interested editor from publishing house to accept book. Publisher pays author and agent gets their % cut of that payment. Any diversity from this model (except perhaps where there isn't an agent and the author sells directly to an editor/publisher) should be considered suspect.

Yes, reading unsolicited manuscript submissions can be painful. But good agents, hundreds upon hundreds of good agents do it every day. Because they know their business, they know what they're looking for and they know, like any patient fisherman who sits hour after hour quietly floating in that boat with their rod in the water, that they'll get a bite and it'll be good, and they'll find that author that matches their style, comfort level and area of expertise -- and they'll be able to find that author's manuscript a home. That's what a good agent does. And those good agents make their money by selling their author's manuscripts to publishers.

Simply put -- if an agent can't make money doing what an agent is supposed to do, finding "homes" for manuscripts, then that agent should hang up their pen and pursue another line of work.

However, if you are a first-time writer and are reading this, don't just take my word for it -- go read more on the subject by folks a heck of a lot more experienced than myself. Here are just four examples:

• SFWA's Writer Beware Agent Info
• Preditors & Editors - How an Agent Works
• Robert J. Sawyer's "Landing an Agent" Article

There, I gave my 15% -- er, my 2 cents on the topic . . .

Daily News Profile

I was delighted to learn that the editor of the McMaster Daily News was interested in doing a piece on me.

I suppose since I've been "in the face" of the daily news for so often now, constantly harassing them to ensure they do a story on different authors we've been getting in at Titles, pestering them to cover events, etc, perhaps they figured if they did a profile on me they'd get me to shut my yap.

We all know THAT's not going to happen, now don't we? :)

Photo by Susan Bubak

But in all seriousness, Susan mentioned that since I was still relatively "new" to the university it might be interesting to do an article on me and my role as Book Operations Manager. Of course, when she found out I also wrote horror, she couldn't help talk about that, too.

Posing for the picture, I grabbed one of the really cool mugs we sell manufactured by the Unemployed Philosopher's Guild. They're really cool - when you add hot liquid to them they change their appearance. For example, the Dinosaur mug I bought specifically because I knew my son Alexander would love it features dinosaurs -- when you fill the mug with hot tea or coffee they morph into skeletons.

They have a whole giant rang of cool mugs and we carry several of them including the Descartes mug, the Freudian slips mug, the Global Warming mug, the Henry VIII mug and the Van Gogh mug, among others -- see if you can guess how they change when you add hot liquid. Lots of fun and they make great gifts. Seriously, c'mon into Titles and buy one.

The article opens with the following couple of paragraphs....

Don't judge a book by its cover when you meet Mark Lefebvre. By day, he's the book operations manager at Titles Bookstore. By night, he's the author of such titles as One Hand Screaming and other scary stories about things that go bump in the night.

Lefebvre, who writes under the pen name of Mark Leslie, is a self-proclaimed "book nerd." The only thing he likes more than reading books is talking about them.

Of course Susan neglected to add ("and he really really really likes selling books, too).

You can read the entire article right here.

Da Count - Mention In The Spectator

It's always fun to get a mention in the local newspaper, but even more fun when the mention includes supporting a talented author.



Wade Hemsworth of The Hamilton Spectator wrote an article about McMaster Graduate Terry Fallis and his Leacock Medal win. I'm quoted in the article as one of the two smartest booksellers in the Hamilton area (Okay, Wade doesn't mention the "smart" aspect -- that's my own editorial interpretation. I call Bryan Prince and Titles Bookstore smart because WE picked up Terry's novel before anyone else in our area. We're not jumping on any Award Winner's bandwagon, we've been along for the ride and believed in the author the whole time)


So this week's count is focused on when newspapers support, recognize and cover local literary talent. Something that always makes me happy. Getting myself and my bookstore mentioned in the article is just a cool bonus.

HNT - When Good Things Happen To Great People

First time Canadian novelist Terry Fallis has just won the 2008 Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour.

I met Terry, who is a McMaster Graduate, when he contacted me at the McMaster University bookstore (Titles) wondering if we would be interested in carrying his first novel The Best Laid Plans. I was intrigued to see that he had put a lot of effort into promoting the novel by offering the entire thing for free via a podcast feed, and started listening to it. And despite my initial disinterest with politics, I was immediately hooked.

Terry's characters captured my heart and funny bone and took me on a fantastic ride in what was one of the best books I read in 2007. This tale of a reluctant politician's rise to power is touching, heartfelt and hilarious.

When I learned that Terry had been short-listed for the Leacock award, I was delighted that it received the recognition it so truly deserved. Because of Terry's podcast of the novel, he'd had much success in building an audience not only in Canada, but with listeners all over the world. And because it's not atypical for a Canadian to have to find success outside of our own country, up until the Leacock nod, it looked entirely possible that The Best Laid Plans was celebrated more in foreign countries. For example, his podcast of the novel was picked up by the English-language service of Radioropa, Europe's largest satellite radio network.

But now, very deservingly, Terry has been recognized in a fittingly prestigious way. And I'm delighted for him. But more importantly, I'm delighted for the people who are now likely to discover and savour this truly wonderful humourous novel.

This week's picture (a rehash of an old HNT post), is simply a picture of me reading Terry's novel The Best Laid Plans. With a poke in the side for folks to go check it out now. Either buy the book (it's available through all major online booksellers like Amazon and Chapters/Indigo) or go listen to the podcast. You will thank me for it.

Cap'n My Captain

For some reason, when I mentioned Cap'n Crunch cereal to my son a few weeks ago, he got excited and had it stuck in his mind. When we reached the cereal aisle of the grocery store, he rushed over to the Cap'n Crunch display and insisted we buy some.

No harm done here -- while we mostly eat the healthier varieties of cereal, I was delighted to have one of the sweeter and more "fun" cereals in our home.

And Alexander's pitch to Francine to get fun cereals always go over a heck of a lot better than my own futile attempts.

Of course, speaking of Cap'n Crunch, I've always called it Captain Crunch -- but looking at the box recently made me wonder: How many kids out there never learned the proper spelling of "captain" because of this popular kids cereal box? And why did they call it Cap'n Crunch rather than Captain Crunch?

The cereal in the US apparently has all kinds of variations on it. Here in Canada there's the basic simple Cap'n Crunch flavour -- but in the US there are berry, chocolate and peanut butter versions of it, and even a really cool Halloween flavour -- yes, Halloween. According to the capncrunch website it contains crunchy biscuits and fruit flavored ghost shapes that turn the milk GREEN. How cool is that? I'm going to have to do a bit of cross-border shopping in the fall to get some of those for Alexander and I.

Here are a few bits of trivia on Cap'n Crunch for those curious minds:

• The captain's full name as revealed in 2007: Captian Horatio Magellan Crunch
• What flavor is Capn' Crunch? A combination of sweetened corn and oat.
• Spider-Man and Capn' Crunch teamed up once in a cross-promotion campaign to fight The Soggies (a fictional race of blob creatures that dampened breakfast cereals.
• Ally Sheedy's character in The Breakfast Club makes a Cap'n Crunch sandwich.
• Here in Canada, our bilingual English/French cereal boxes include the French "Capitaine Crounche" (see, no silly abbreviated Cap'n there)
  

Douglas Smith Interview

I had the pleasure of recently interviewing author Douglas Smith for the "Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy" Facebook group as part of a series of "live" discussion threads being conducted with various Aurora Award nominees.

Douglas is an award winning Canadian author of speculative fiction whose stories have appeared in over seventy professional magazines and anthologies in twenty-eight countries and twenty-two languages. I had the pleasure of publishing a reprint of Doug's story "State of Disorder" when I edited NORTH OF INFINITY II back in 2006.

The interview, which appears below took a bit over 7 days to conduct and the original can be found here.

Douglas Smith is the author of "The Dancer at the Red Door" (http://www.smithwriter.com/the_dancer_at_the_red_door) which is on the final ballot for the 2008 Aurora Award in the category of Best Short Form Work in English. The story first appeared in the DAW anthology UNDER COVER OF DARKNESS (Czerneda & Paniccia) in 2007. First of all, Doug, congratulations on the nomination. I'd like to begin by asking you these two things: "Who is Douglas Smith the writer?" and "How did you first get into writing?"

DOUGLAS SMITH: Start with the existential stuff, eh? Who am I? A happily married father of two grown sons, living in Toronto and with a secret daytime identity of an IT exec with one of the big accounting & consulting firms. I write on the GO train, subway, planes, coffee shops, libraries, in my spare time. I've been strictly a short fiction writer to date, but am finishing up my first novel. I write a pretty broad range of stuff, all more or less "speculative," with a preference for contemporary fantasy, which is what I'd call "The Dancer at the Red Door."

I'd always wanted to be a writer, and realized in 1995 that my dream wasn't going to happen by itself. I started with short fiction because I've always loved reading the form, with a lot of my influences being short fiction masters like Bradbury and Zelazny, so I figured that I'd enjoy writing short stories. I also planned to try to build up my creds with short fiction sales and hopefully awards to make it easier if/when I would be marketing a novel. Finally and frankly, back then I also needed to see if I could actually sell anything that I wrote, and trying my hand with short fiction seemed less daunting than starting with a novel. I sold the first story I wrote, "Spirit Dance," to Rob Sawyer and Carolyn Clink, who were editing Tesseracts6, on the last day of 1996. A good way to end and start a year. I've since sold over 100 stories (including reprints) in 28 languages and 21 countries (I think). More bio stuff, if anyone is interested, on my web site at http://www.smithwriter.com/about_doug.

Thanks for that background, Doug. I'm going to want to ask about your novel a bit later in the interview. But for now I'd like to talk a little bit about DATRD (hope it's okay that I'm abbreviating "The Dancer at the Red Door" in this fashion)

This story contains some phenomenal illustrations of the "rut" of commuter working class routines. And I just have to quote from one of them here:

"People shuffled by like the undead, blinking at the sun finally rising over the towers, newspapers clutched like amulets, briefcases hanging like manacles, coffee sucked from cups as if it were their life blood."

That's absolutely brilliant. The way you describe this here and in other parts of the story magnificently foreshadows King's ultimate fate. Can you talk about the manner in which that idea developed when you were creating the story?

DOUGLAS SMITH: Thanks, Mark. This story developed in layers, which a lot of mine do, it seems. Roger Zelazny once said that his story ideas tended to come to him in one of three ways: an intriguing character, an unusual idea, or a striking image--and that the best stories combined all three.

This story started for me with the image of the Dancer--the scene where she first appears in the story, spinning into view around a corner on a downtown Toronto street, and is completely ignored by everyone except the protagonist. At the time, I was working at the same corner of King and University, and wishing I could focus more on my writing than the day job, so I'm sure that's where the description of the commuter trance came from. I wrote the description of the Dancer's appearance right away, before I even knew what the story was going to be about: "He knew she was mad the moment he saw her. She spun into view around the nearest corner, then froze for a second, au pointe as in ballet, arms raised in two graceful arcs. Then she leapt, landing to waltz through the crowd as if the sidewalk were a ballroom and each scurrying commuter her partner. And with each pirouette, madness whirled around her like dead leaves caught in a forgotten winter wind." And there it remained in my notebook for probably a year or more.

I eventually wrote an earlier and much different version of the story around the Dancer, but it just didn't work. I didn't really have the right character to encounter the Dancer, and I didn't have the right idea to drive the plot--I didn't have the right problem for the character to wrestle with. So I shelved that story until Julie and Jana invited me to submit a story for their anthology, UNDER COVER OF DARKNESS, with its theme of secret societies. Once I had that theme, I remembered the Dancer, and the character of King showed up to audition pretty much right away. With King, the idea of a mysterious and exclusive club followed, so I had my character with a problem and the idea, like a pair of bookends around the image of the Dancer. And then it was just a matter of writing the story. I generally jump around when I write, often writing the ending first, but I wrote "The Dancer at the Red Door" pretty much linearly from start to finish.

It's funny, I'd been planning on asking you what your inspiration for this story was and whether or not you write your stories in a linear fashion or jump around -- I think it's fascinating that you normally jump around but wrote this particular story straight from beginning to end after finding the appropriate details from that first inspirational scene of the dancer.

Which leads me to ask: How many other notebook "scenes" have been part of your short fiction in this manner?

DOUGLAS SMITH: Quite a few. I'll mention a couple. I remember taking my youngest son to the circus one summer, and we managed to get ringside seats this time. Great view of the performers--so close that I noticed something I might not have from further back. The same people who would come out in spiffy spangly uniforms and do the trapeze or high-wire acts would show up again later in coveralls pushing a broom behind the elephants and horses. That gave me an idea for a down-and-out circus of aliens, barely scraping by, moving from planet to planet. The idea went into the journal, but it was a while before I added other elements around it to make a story, and even then it took me about six attempts before that idea finally became "Scream Angel," the story that won the 2004 Aurora (I have "Scream Angel" up on my web site for the rest of April, btw, if anyone would like to read it: www.smithwriter.com under "Free Stuff for Readers"). One more example. I used to train in karate with my oldest son, and we were at a karate camp at Wasaga Beach one summer weekend. In a strange coincidence, I'd spent my summers as a child at the very same place where we were staying for the camp. It brought back memories of getting up early and having the entire beach to myself as a kid, sharing it only with the waves and the seagulls. That led to a single strong image, that of a strange bird and a warrior on an empty beach, an image that eventually turned into a 14th century Japan martial arts / romance story called "The Red Bird," which was an Aurora finalist in 2002. Anyway, there're probably at least another dozen stories that started with a journal entry around a single image or sometime a single line, but which didn't turn into a story until quite some time later.

In "DATRD" you touch upon all the senses quite wonderfully. Can you discuss how you use these sensual touchpoints to draw the reader into your fiction?

DOUGLAS SMITH: I've often been described as a very visual writer, which always make me chuckle because I *hate* writing description. In first drafts, if I need to provide the physical layout of a place or the visual description of a thing, I'll sometimes just put "[insert description here]" and then add it in a later draft. I find describing the mundane surroundings in a story to be astoundingly boring as a writer. The funny thing is that many of my story ideas come from an initial strong visual image. But telling the reader what a typical downtown Toronto street commuter looks like bores me to death, which is probably why I tend to use metaphor and simile, such as in the passage you referenced earlier. That makes it more fun to write, and ultimately (I hope), more interesting for the reader. Visual description of the fantastic or the bizarre is a lot more fun, like the first appearance of the Dancer in this story, or the phantom subway stop, or the black pyramid rising from the strange jungle that King finds on his quest for the Red Door.

I consciously try to include other senses in my description of any scene--sounds obviously, but also smell, as it's one of our strongest memory cues. All the writer should be trying to do with a descriptive passage is to pull the reader into that scene as fully and as quickly as possible. A few cues from multiple senses works, to me anyway, better than a long passage of visual description painted in excruciating detail.

With "The Dancer at the Red Door," the key senses I tried to play on were the same ones we employ when enjoying a dance performance: visual for the movement, hearing for the music, and touch, in the way that the rhythms of the music, especially the bass beats, are felt in our bodies as much as heard. Sound and rhythm are key sensory elements of the story, since the song--*the* song--that the Dancer hears, and that King learns to hear, becomes a main character and, without giving too much away, a critical driver of the action and the climax. I worked music and sound and the song into the story throughout--the beat King feels rising up from the sidewalk, the song he hears before he first sees the Dancer, the movements of the Dancer merging with the rhythm of the subway train, the song returning to stop King's pursuit of the Dancer, the sinister gong of the phantom subway stop, etc. As the Dancer says to King, "The city has a song…," and the trick to this story was to make the reader be able to hear it too.

It's interesting that you mention this, because I could feel the pulse and beat of the city's song while reading this story. And I would imagine it's your admitted impatience with building tedious description that leads to your strength in writing descriptions that capture the reader.

Can you talk a bit about how you decided to use the lyrical interludes of the "city song" between scenes in the story.

DOUGLAS SMITH: It's another layer that I like to add to stories if it fits. I wrote an SF story called "Symphony" a few years back, which I structured into four acts, to mimic a four-movement symphony, and introduced each act with the type of instructions a composer includes in a score for each movement: Accelerando, Staccato, Largo, etc., to indicate the tone of the scene. With that story, the scenes were told out of order, so the intro also included the numbering of the movement, plus instructions like FAST FORWARD or REWIND depending on whether the scene was jumping ahead or was a flashback. The reader didn't have to pick up on that to understand or appreciate the story, but if they did, then it would add that much more to the story for them.

I had another story, "By Her Hand, She Draws You Down" (still my all-time favourite title), which starts with a four-line poem (probably the only way I'll get my poetry published), and then uses each line to introduce each of the four scenes, where the line foreshadows the coming scene, but in a way that isn't apparent until after you read the scene.

In "The Dancer...," I wanted to do something similar, since a story about a strange dancer just seemed to call out for a strange song. I wanted the "song of the city" lines to set the tone of the story immediately, and to foreshadow the events of the story. I knew the story was going to follow the classic three-act structure, so I introduced the three scenes with lines that referenced three components of the song:

For scene 1, where King meets (and loses) the Dancer, the rhythm:

"The city has a song.
Its rhythm, a million broken hearts..."

For scene 2, where he searches for her, the lyrics:

"The city has a song.
Its lyrics, whispered lies and unheeded cries,
Their meaning lost in the babble,
In the magnitude of the choir."

And finally, for Scene 3, in which he finds her, I used the notes of the song, specifically the key and melody.

"The city has a song.
Its melody-- No. There is no melody.
And in a minor key. Definitely, a minor key."

Basically, I'm just trying to add another layer to the story and the way the story is told.

These are some fantastic "Easter eggs" you've added into your tales. And it's interesting you should bring up "Symphony" because I wanted to mention that story and "Spirit Dance" and what seems to be a recurring theme of lyrics, dance and music in your writing. Does this mean there's not just a hidden poet inside of you but perhaps a musician?

DOUGLAS SMITH: Well, if there's a musician inside me, he's not just hiding--he's in a witness protection program. Nope, can't play a note on any known instrument, but I make up for that by not being able to sing and having no rhythm either. I enjoy music and generally have something playing--hard rock in the car, or instrumental classical when I'm writing, usually Vivaldi or something Baroque. But no, I'm no musician. I'd love to be, so maybe that's why I work these aspects into my stories. It's probably more that I find all creative artists interesting. I've done several stories about some form of creativity -- dance, music, sculpture. My most recent is a story about a search for undiscovered paintings by Vincent van Gogh using remote viewing. That story will be included in an upcoming short story collection (my first) called IMPOSSIBILIA, coming out from PS Publishing in the UK mid-2008.

Can you please tell us a bit more about IMPOSSIBILIA, such as where the title comes from, how it came to be and the process of putting the book together.

DOUGLAS SMITH: Early in 2007, I was discussing the possibility of a short fiction collection with PS Publishing, a small UK press that specializes in SF, fantasy, horror and crime. Their philosophy is "to produce top quality (in terms of both the stories themselves and the production values of the actual books) collectable but affordable signed limited editions -- both fiction and non-fiction -- within the field of science fiction, fantasy and horror." They put out their first titles in 1999, and have since won six British Fantasy Awards for the Best Small Press, a Bram Stoker from the Horror Writers Association, a World Fantasy Award, and the International Horror Guild Award.

They offered me one of the first slots in a new line they are starting, PS Showcase, which will be "short, chapbook-style collections by notable emerging writers of short SF, fantasy, and horror." (So I guess I'm emerging. Not sure from where, but perhaps it's better not to know.) The collections are all 20,000-30,000 words, and mine will be at the high end of that range.

IMPOSSIBILIA will contain three novelettes, two of which are brand new, plus one reprint of an award winning story. "Bouquet of Flowers in a Vase, by van Gogh" is a science fantasy, time-travel, love story revolving around an attempt to use remote viewing to search for undiscovered paintings by Vincent van Gogh.

"Going Down to Lucky Town" (Springsteen fans may recognize the title) is a contemporary fantasy about an itinerant gambler and con man, chasing a strange pattern of extraordinary good luck across Ontario, while trying to reconcile with the daughter he'd abandoned years ago.

The third novelette will be my Aurora-winning story, "Spirit Dance," which I've always called a love story with a high body count. It involves my race of shape shifters, the Herok'a, a covert CSIS agency that hunts them, and a tragic love story, all wrapped up in environmental themes and Cree legends. My first novel which I'm finishing up now, picks up a couple of years after the end of "Spirit Dance" and involves the same protagonist, Gwyn Blaidd, a Herok'a of the wolf totem. My interest in putting out a collection was to help promote the novel when I'm marketing it to agents and publishers, so it was important to have "Spirit Dance" included.

Why IMPOSSIBILIA as the title? I wanted something short and punchy, and I hadn't been able to come up with something that encompassed what are three very different stories. It was actually suggested to me by a friend and fellow writer, Mici Gold, and I decided that I liked it. Plus all my other title ideas really sucked.

Wow, sounds great -- I've already got it on my "to buy" list -- something tells me this limited edition won't last long and I should be placing my pre-order with PS Publishing soon.

Apart from multiple award wins and countless nominations, you've also had a lot of success with reprints of your fiction in foreign languages. Can you tell us a little bit about that -- perhaps what it has done for you as a writer?

DOUGLAS SMITH: Well, it started out just as a fun thing to do. After I'd been writing for a couple of years and had a few short fiction sales, I came across a reference somewhere to a German anthology that accepted previously published stories in English and translated them for free. Plus they paid. So it was found money, and I thought it would be cool to be published in another language. They took two stories from me, and I started looking for other foreign language markets and submitting to them, mostly just to see how many languages and countries I could "collect," and it kind of grew from there. I've now sold stories in 28 countries and 22 languages. Some of the markets pay pro rates, some pay less, and some only provide contributor copies. When I started my web site, I included the FML (foreign market list) on it. The FML is now the most popular page on my site, and draws visitors from around the world. In recent days, I've had visitors from as far away as the Ivory Coast, Russia, and Senegal

Quite frankly, I'm not sure what it's done for my writing, beyond making my name known to a lot of other short fiction writers, and I've made friends with lots of short fiction editors around the world. Maybe it will help me sell foreign rights to any novel I sell. I really don't know. Okay, I can think of one definitely positive impact. Solaris, the fine Quebec magazine, doesn't take submissions in English. However, one of my early foreign sales was to a great little dark fantasy mag in France called Ténébres (now defunct, sadly). They printed "Spirit Dance" and sent me their translated version. I subbed the French version (albeit Parisian French not Quebecois) to Solaris, and they printed it, as "La Danse des Esprits." It went on to win the Aurora for best short story in French. If it hadn't been for the original foreign sale, that never would have happened. I've also found that the foreign language mags are more likely to include cool artwork with the stories than even the big pro English language mags. If anyone wants to check these mags out, I have some of the illos and all of the covers for my foreign sales up on my site at http://www.smithwriter.com/image. I have a mailing list associated with the FML for any interested writers. You can check out the FML at http://www.smithwriter.com/foreign_market_list.htm.

Thanks for sharing the link, Doug. I've sent several writers to it in the past few years as the best foreign language market reference I've seen on the web.

When I was reading DATRD I wondered if the Society of the Red Door might have been inspired by some sort of real-life entity, or if it was symbolic in nature. I'm curious about this but also about your views on how fiction, particularly science fiction can be used to make comments on our society and history.

DOUGLAS SMITH: My exposure to Toronto's various downtown business clubs from my non-writing corporate career certainly inspired the idea of the Society, but no one club served as the model. I mean, most of them stopped doing the sacrifices and the blood drinking thing a couple of years back, once they knew for sure that the millennium hadn't brought the end of the world. I think my Society captures some of the exclusivity and inherent snobbery of those clubs. I'm proud to say that my Society never had a gender barrier--women have been able to join the Red Door for centuries.

Regarding speculative fiction's role as a tool for social commentary, I think that SF and fantasy are at their strongest when they hold a distorting mirror up to our reality (to use an analogy by the great anthologist, Damon Knight, I believe). The best spec fic can shine that mirror on an aspect of our society and reflect it back to the reader, magnifying its evils and dangers--or at least the evils and dangers as perceived by the writer. The key thing for the writer to remember is that they are a storyteller, not a preacher. Any time a writer gets up on a soapbox, they turn me off. To keep a reader in the story, speculative fiction needs to convey that sense of wonder at the same time, a goal which is often in conflict with trying to make a serious point. My fiction tend to be written because I thought they were cool ideas, as opposed to being driven by any society-needs-to-change agenda. That being said, some of my stories certainly reflect my concerns with our world. "Scream Angel" (and its companion story, "Enlightenment") deals with corporate imperialism and militarism as its tool, which a reader might, if they were so inclined, map onto recent foreign policy by our neighbour to the south. You know, if you wanted to make that link. But I didn't write it with the goal of delivering a message. I just extrapolated current conditions into a distorted future, then put my characters in that situation, and made them struggle to escape it--with some cool images, inter-species sex, a mind-bending drug, and kick-ass action climax. You've still got to entertain and tell a story. My Herok'a stories all include an environmental destruction theme, with a racism sub-text, both in terms of society's fear of the shape shifters, and what white society has done to our indigenous peoples and their cultures. One of the things I'm enjoying about writing my first Herok'a novel (almost done!!) is that I have more room to weave those themes into a longer and more complex plot.

Glad you mentioned it, because I wanted to ask (if it's okay for you to share) for more details about the Herok'a novel. What drove you to want to explore a novel length work from that "universe" and how has that experience been different than your short fiction work?

DOUGLAS SMITH: "Spirit Dance" was the very first story that I ever wrote (and sold), and I always knew that I wanted to return to that world in novel length. Shape shifter legends have always fascinated me, probably a result of all those anthropomorphic Disney movies. And wolves have always been an interest, likely from reading too much Jack London as a kid. The Herok'a are my own race of shape shifters, each tied to a particular animal species, or class of species, such as canids, felines, rodents, birds, etc. These stories let me explore issues that are important to me, such as the destruction of animal habitat by the exploitation of our natural resources. The Herok'a derive their vitality from the strength of their totem species, so when their totem animals are threatened, the Herok'a themselves are threatened. The novel has given me a chance to explore these issues to a depth not possible in a short story.

Writing "Spirit Dreams" (working title) has been an interesting experience, compared to short fiction. I knew how I was starting the novel--a gruesome killing that seems to imply a Herok'a involvement. And I knew the general plot line, including how and where it would all end. Plus I knew most of the main characters. But compared to a short story, a novel is, uh, longer. And, um, bigger. More characters with longer arcs. More plot lines and complications for characters, resulting in more possible character decisions and plot turns. The net effect was that I needed to do a scene outline, plus full character outlines with their history, motivation, and arcs. When I write a short story, I can generally keep all this in my head. But with the novel, especially my first, that wasn't going to work for me.

I have multiple character arcs, and I firmly believe that "character drives plot." I really needed to understand my characters, their motivation in the story and how they would meet each other and how those interactions would drive character problems and decisions, which drives plot. Plus it's a murder mystery so I had to plot out what discoveries would happen when.

I also found that I needed to write scenes more sequentially than I usually do for a short story, where I often write the final scene first. In the novel, I could still jump around to some extent in an act, but I had to pretty well finish the act before writing scenes in the next act, because I found that as I wrote the scenes, I'd get better plot ideas than I'd originally put in the outline. That meant if I jumped too far ahead to write a scene, I'd likely end up having to throw it out.

Another discovery was how important theme was. The novel's theme is one of hunger and emptiness--the hunger of our modern society for natural resources--water, trees, minerals, land--and the emptiness that leaves behind, for the people and the creatures who were here before us--the native people and the animals. Knowing this up front let me use the theme to drive the choice of symbolism that acts as a linking element throughout a longer work like a novel.

Then there was the amount of research required, but I think I picked too ambitious a book to start with. I tell parts of the story via traditional Cree and Ojibwa stories and legends, and I spent a lot of time researching these aspects of the book, but I am very concerned that I am portraying this culture with accuracy and respect. On top of that, I needed to research hydroelectric dam operations, history of impact of white society and religious structures on native culture (such as residential schools), the impact of hydro projects on hunting territories and traditional way of life, and lots of physical site research, which involved time in a "typical" Ontario northern town to research First Nations reserves, flora, fauna, characteristics of the bush. Not to mention DNA research, reproductive rules of the Herok'a (what happens if they mate with a human), police procedures in a small Ontario town and on a First Nations reserve. I'm happy with the result, so maybe it's just as well, because if I'd known how much I'd bitten off, I might have started with something less ambitious.

Well I'm certainly looking forward to seeing the result of all the research and effort you're putting into this novel.

Now one last question.

As I understand it, there's a short independent film that was recently shot and due out this spring or early summer which was based upon your short story "By Her Hand She Draws You Down" (another art-themed story I might add) - can you tell us a little more about how that came to be?

DOUGLAS SMITH: Sure. It's just an indie film, but it's kind of exciting. In 2002, Stephen Jones selected my supernatural horror story “By Her Hand, She Draws You Down” for the thirteenth edition of his award winning annual horror anthology, The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror. The Review Journal of the American Library Association described “By Her Hand…” as “delightfully creepy” and “about a young woman who is driven by a mysterious hunger to sketch people and steal their life force as her horrified lover looks on.” You can read more reviews on my web site at http://www.smithwriter.com/reviews#by_her_hand.

Shortly after, director Anthony Sumner of TinyCore Pictures (http://www.tinycorepictures.com/home.html) approached me. TinyCore does work in commercials, promotional videos, music videos, and documentaries, with a client list that includes JP Morgan Bank, Jesse Jackson, and Hootie and the Blowfish. However, they also do short independent horror films, and Anthony was interested in shooting a film based on "By Her Hand..." to show at indie film festivals.

I agreed, and Anthony added the project to his production schedule. Alan Rowe Kelly joined the project as co-Executive Producer. Anthony cast Zoe Chlanda (http://www.zoedchland.com/contents.html) and Jerry Murdock in the lead roles of the artist Cath and her boyfriend Joe. Drew Willis, art director for Time Life Children's Books and an award winning SF illustrator, was commissioned to do the sketches that are such a key part of the story. They filmed on location around Ocean Grove and Asbury Park, New Jersey, during which Fangoria magazine came to the set for an interview.

Check out the image gallery on my web site at http://www.smithwriter.com/image/tid/12 for some photos from the filming. Anthony has shared the storyboard script with me, and they've stayed incredibly faithful to the story, including the original dialog. I've posted the storyboard script on my web site at http://www.smithwriter.com/node/296.

Shooting finished in November, and they are currently working on the edit and score, and then will do the sound mix and DVD finishing for the festivals. That should be finished in about a month, at which point I'll have first viewing and approval of the final piece. Then they'll be submitting it to indie film festivals, hoping to garner some awards. There are also plans for including it in an anthology of three movies, all starring Jerry Murdock, and distributing the antho on DVD through major retailers. Hope that works out--it would be cool to be able to walk into a store and buy a DVD movie based on one of my stories.

I’m looking forward to seeing the final result.

So am I, Doug. "By Her Hand, She Draws You Down" is one of my favourite of your stories.

Well that concludes this interview with Aurora nominee Douglas Smith. Doug, I'd like to thank you for taking to time to "sit down" in this virtual setting with me and answer my questions about your writing.

DOUGLAS SMITH: And thank you, Mark, for your time and an interesting set of questions. It's been fun.

Well there you have it. A fascinating and revealing interview with Canadian author Douglas Smith. Check out more about Doug on his website http://www.smithwriter.com.

And good luck on this year's Aurora's, Doug. You're in some mighty fine company. This year's short-list for Best Short-Form Work in English are:

“Falling” by David Clink (On Spec)
“Saturn in G Minor” by Stephen Kotowych (Writers of the Future XXIII)
“Metamorphoses in Amber” by Tony Pi (Abyss & Apex)
“The Dancer at the Red Door” by Douglas Smith (Under Cover of Darkness)
“Like Water in the Desert” by Hayden Trenholm (Challenging Destiny)

HNT - Getting Away With Murder

This past weekend, one of the panels I sat on at EerieCon was entitled: "Getting Away With Murder" - I sat on the panel with Sephera Giron, Nancy Kress and Caro Soles. We had a fun topic, the details of which were outlined as: "How and why would you kill of a major character? Is it a good idea? What was your readers' reaction?"

The panel begins
Nancy Kress, Mark Leslie, Sephera Giron, Caro Soles - Photo by Derek Sullivan

'Twas a fun discussion, indeed as we shared examples from our own writing and kind of came up with, under Nancy's direction, a list of four main reasons why a writer might kill off a major character.

Me talking with my hands - Photo by Derek Sullivan

1) Hook -- to draw the reader in (concept of killing a character at the beginning of the story then backtracking through what happened to lead to that point)
2) To underline the seriousness of what's at stake (if it Bob just got killed, then none of us are safe)
3) The plot development requires it (you need x to happen before y can occur, and the only way to do that is to kill off a certain major character)
4) Because you can't stand the character (what can I say? Even writers can be affected by the characters they create)

A great shot of one of my favourite t-shirts - Port Dover Friday the 13th
Photo by Derek Sullivan

Of course, the setting for this discussion was in one of the basement meeting rooms which was, fittingly, as cold as a morgue. Nancy was quite chilled so I loaned her my blue flaming skull shirt for the panel.

Nancy Kress, Mark Leslie - Photo by Derek Sullivan

Sephera's fiance, Derek Sullivan took tons of great pictures at the convention -- I particularly like the "candid" aspect of most of the shots he took -- I liberated a couple of them here for this week's Half-Nekkid Thursday post. Isn't it wonderfully appropriate how we all had black tops on for this topic? Honestly, we didn't plan that ahead.

Nancy Kress, Mark Leslie, Sephera Giron, Caro Soles - Photo by Derek Sullivan

Writing Show Contest - Great Cash Prizes

The Writing Show podcast is hosting their annual "First Chapter of a Novel Contest" with some fantastic cash prizes . . .

Like the very cool first prize of $1000.

Or the neatoman second prize of $400, third prize of $300, fourth prize of $200 and fifth prize of $100. How cool is that?

And for 10 lucky winners (chosen completely at random) they'll get 750 words of detailed feedback on their submission -- priceless advice for writers, IMHO.

The EARLY DEADLINE is May 20th with an entry fee of $25.00
The Late Deadline date is June 20th with an entry fee of $35.00

I was an honourable mention in TWS's first annual contest with the first chapter of my novel Morning Son, and quite enjoyed the experience. Of course, the whole Writing Show experience has been a lot of fun for me as apart from being a fan who gets lots of fantastic writing-related advice and tips with each new weekly episode, I am also a regularly returning reality show guest in the "Getting Published With Mark Leslie" series.

For this year's Writing Contest, not only am I honoured to be a judge in the contest, but I'm in some really fine company with Mick Halpin, John Marco, Tom Occhipinti, Ann Paden, and Paula Paul as the other judges. The final round of the contest will be judged by the celebrity judges who are: Wendy Barnard, Candace Lake, Simon Moore, Joe Nassise and Laura Wright.

You can read all about this fine panel of judges here.

And they're all so darned good looking if I might add.

(If you follow the link you'll get to see the giant photo that my blogger profile picture, Facebook picture, MySpace picture, etc was taken from)

Not only are the prizes great, but look at the opportunity to get your writing in front of so many pros in the business.

I mean, what's NOT to love about this?

Finding Balance

I had a fun weekend at EerieCon 10 in Niagara Falls, NY. As usual, I met some great people, participated in fun discussions and enjoyed listening to several different speakers on panels. (That, and meeting Joe Haldeman and getting him to sign my first edition mass market paperback version of The Forever War was pretty darn thrilling) I had a fun time sitting on panels with Sephera Giron, Caro Soles, Nancy Kress, David Stephenson, John-Allen Price and Darrell Schweitzer.

One of the things that made the weekend so satisfying, I think, was the fact that my wife and son came along with me for the trip. I travel quite a bit for work, so it's always a bit hard to pull myself away from the family for my "other work" -- yes, I do consider any activity I conduct related to my writing (attending conventions is part of the networking and self-promotion activities of being a writer) to be work, regardless of whether or not it directly ties in to being paid.

But since this convention was in Niagara Falls, pretty close to home and not all that far from a great outlet mall across the border, Francine and Alexander came along. We ended up balancing my desire to attend panels and sessions with Francine's desire to get some shopping done. I was able to go to the panels I really wanted to see or participate in and we were able to have lunch and breakfast and dinner together as a family. It was the best of all possible worlds.

Sure, if I'd attended alone, I likely would have gone to more events and stayed longer on Sunday. But this was a great opportunity for me to do my writing thing AND be close to my family. And we all had an enjoyable time. And I'm hoping we can work out something similar for future convention weekends.

Heading To EerieCon 10

This evening I'll be heading off to Eeriecon, a convention in Niagara Falls, New York.

Guests of Honor this year are Joe Haldeman and Sephera Giron. I've met Sephera and she's very cool, and I'm quite delighted to meet Joe Haldeman - I'll be bringing my 1974 well-read and re-read paperback of THE FOREVER WAR for him to sign. Woo hoo!

I'm quite looking forward to tonight's 10 PM "Late Night Talk Show" hosted by Robert J. Sawyer - looks like it, and the whole weekend will be a lot of fun. I'm only sitting on a few panels Saturday morning and afternoon so should be able to sit in on lots of great discussions and readings.

Details about the convention can be found here.

HNT - Da Count - Getting Wilde

Given that it's so late on Thursday and that it's been yet another crazy busy week I thought it might be appropriate to merge my weekly HNT and Da Count posts into one. It's particularly fitting this week too.

This past week I took a quick trip to Edmonton, Alberta to the University of Alberta bookstore to visit my colleagues and friends from that store, Todd, Wayne and Paul. I met these fine gentlemen through such great organizations as the CCRA (Canadian Campus Retail Association) and CSC (Campus Stores Canada).

The U of A bookstore guys are a pretty fine bunch of dudes, hospitable, professional and progressive in their approach to academic bookselling -- yet despite all their hard work and dedication to the job, they're lively, energetic and a heck of a lot of fun.

And while it has felt as if I've known them for years, we haven't worked together for all that long. Paul Wilde, Textbook Manager/Buyer/Renaissance Man and I were talking about the first time we'd met, which was no more than one year ago. We quickly developed a relationship quite like Spike and Chester from the Looney Tunes cartoons. ("Hey Spike, we're pals, huh Spike? Whattaya wanna do today, Spike? Wanna chase cars? Huh, Spike?") Along along those lines, I've learned a ton about the academic book world from Paul and Todd and Wayne.

These are the brilliant gents behind the only Espresso Book Machine in Canada (one of only 7 in the world), for instance (which was the reason of my visit) -- with this machine in their bookstore, they've not only been able to help create cheaper textbook solutions for their students, but also boosted their general book business with their ability to print one of hundreds of thousands of out of print and public domain books right in their store within about 5 minutes. I was visiting the store because we're looking at getting one of these machines for the bookstore at McMaster.

So, in a nutshell my HNT pictures this week are from my trip to visit the cool dudes at U of A bookstore which also happens to be what I'm counting this week -- the great friends and colleagues I've made since moving to the academic side of bookselling less than 2 years ago.

Paul Wilde and I posing in front of the Espresso Book Machine

Check out the hilarious looks on our faces as we suck in our guts for this shot

Da Count - Listen For Free & Share The Love

This morning the McMaster Daily News posted an article I wrote about McMaster alumnus Terry Fallis whose satirical novel of Canadian politics The Best Laid Plans was just short-listed for The Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour.

I'm counting the fact that as a bookseller I'm privileged not only with being able to deal with books all day, but that I often have a chance to help share the love and passion of reading with book lovers and book buyers.

But one of the truly best ways of being able to let a potential reader sample an author's style is via the awesome trend of podcast novels. I mentioned it here last week, but it's worth bringing up again. Podcast novels are a great way for readers to discover fantastic writers whom they normally might not have heard of. Check out Podiobooks.com for some great free reads by authors such as Terry Fallis, Scott Sigler, Tee Morris, J.C Hutchins, Seth Harwood, Matt Wallace, Mathew Wayne Selznick, Mur Lafferty and countless others.

I know the effect it has had on me, self-admitted book nerd. Once I start listening to a great podcast novel that has been given to me completely free and with no strings attached, I usually want to buy a copy of the book to own and also tell all my friends about them.

I suppose I'm also counting the fact that there are authors willing to take the risk and put their work out there for free -- so I'd like to also count their generosity and their talent as well as the good folks behind Podiobooks.com who make these titles easily available for free.