Guest post on the Wolsak & Wynn blog

So I've got a guest blog post on the Wolsak & Wynn website today, in which I pair some books and cocktails to help you unwind during this festive season. My choices include books from Gerald Arthur Moore, Shashi Bhatt, Daniel Tysdal and others, and the cocktails include the Irish Maid, the Boulevardier, and the Chelsea Sidecar. Don't forget to add a comment and share some picks of your own. Enjoy!

Another Guest Post for My Wife's Newsletter

So apparently there's some demand for "more Mark content" over on my wife's newsletter. Who knew! If you've read Rebecca's 2023 pandemic memoir, These Days Are Numbered, you know that recreated dialogues with me featured prominently in the Facebook posts that comprised that book, and these tend to be what readers have reacted to the most. (Not bragging, just a fact.) Now that love has followed Rebecca to her recently launched newsletter as she tries to wean herself off the algorithmic hellscape that Facebook has become. But recreated dialogues are, it seems, not enough (man, I wish I were this popular IRL), so Rebecca asked me to pull together another essay instead.

This one is called Why 4:30? and discusses a subject near and dear to my heart: my relatively insane writing process whereby I rise at 4:30 am five days a week to write for two and a half to three hours before toddling off to my day job. This has been a topic of fascination, bafflement and annoyance among friends, family, acquaintances, former roommates, and ex-girlfriends across the 30+ years I've been doing it. So Rebecca suggested I talk about why this is part of my process, what are the creative benefits of writing that early, and whether it's a routine I think I can maintain forever. Anyway - enjoy!

And ICYMI, here is the previous essay I wrote for her, called In Praise of Writing Manuals.  

My Review of National Animal, by Derek Webster, for Canadian Writers Abroad

 

I've done another review for the lovely and eclectic Canadian Writers Abroad magazine, this time of Derek Webster's new poetry collection, National Animal. This is a wise and warm book of verse, and I'm not surprised that it's also gotten some recent love from the Quebec Writers Federation Awards. 

Here's an excerpt from my review:

The nation in National Animal is, for the most part, Canada, with riffs on everything from Joni Mitchell to the surprisingly evocative line “palm tree in a Lotto Max sky” in the piece "The Writing on the Wall.” But Webster, despite his book’s title, does not limit these poems to our nation’s boundaries or the project of nationalism, as CanLit has defined it in the past. His reliquary is more inclusive than that. This is verse that travels widely and blurs borders wherever it likes. 

Anyway, check it out!

Guest Post on My Wife's Recently Launched Newsletter

If you're Facebook friends with my wife Rebecca Rosenblum, you know she's launched a newsletter. If you haven't subscribed to it yet, you should - it's loads of fun! At her behest, I have written a guest post for it, called In Praise of Writing Manuals, adapted and updated from a (much longer) essay I wrote 10 years ago for an anthology about creative writing, which was initially accepted into the book but then cut, along with a number of other essays, from the final line up due to length. Anyway, I'm very passionate about writing manuals - enjoy!

ANNOUNCEMENT: Forthcoming New Novel - Lowfield!

 

Well, I've got some VERY exciting news to share. I have a brand new novel coming out next year!

The book is called Lowfield, and it's a tale of horror and suspense set on my native Prince Edward Island. It is forthcoming in the spring of 2025 from Vancouver's Now or Never Publishing, the same press that released my short story collection The Secrets Men Keep. 

Here is Lowfield's official blurb:

"Riley Fuller, a police officer sidelined by the devastating loss of three colleagues in a tragic shooting, seeks solace in rural Prince Edward Island as he lays claim to his family's ancestral property - an ancient, dilapidated house known locally as Applegarth. Eager for a fresh start and relief from his traumatic past, Riley's hopes are soon dashed as he uncovers the dark secrets hidden within the very walls of the Victorian-era mansion. Soon, he realizes that Applegarth is merely a harbinger of something far more sinister - a malevolent force lurking within the nearby abandoned village of Lowfield, its ominous presence intricately entwined with the rich history of PEI itself."

I read and wrote a lot of horror and dark fantasy as a teen and have always wanted to return to the genre as an adult. I began this Lovecraftian tale waaaay back in 2019 and finally secured a publishing contract for it last year. I remain grateful to Chris Needham and his team at NoN for taking this book on.

While the novel isn't out for another eight months or so, it's already available for pre-order from the usual suspects, including:

• Amazon.ca
• Amazon.com
• Chapters-Indigo
• Barns & Noble

Pre-orders really help me and the publisher out, so if you're interested please put one in today!

I'll be posting more news about Lowfield in the coming months as we inch toward its publication date, so stay tuned. In the meantime, drop me a comment below if you're so inclined - these are always good for morale!

M.

The Fiddlehead #300 Is Here!

... and I have a short story in it! My piece, "Fall Back," appears in the pages of this long-standing, illustrious journal, alongside works by Grant Buday, Jennifer Houle, and my pal Glenn Clifton. 

As mentioned, I've been reading and submitting to The Fiddlehead for many years, and have had a few book reviews published, but this marks the first time I've had some creative work accepted by the magazine. I'm incredibly proud of "Fall Back" - it's one of those stories that just seemed to come very naturally during its composition - and I hope others like it too!

Anyway, very excited to see this story out in the world. You can find The Fiddlehead's summer issue wherever better magazines are sold.

M.

ACCEPTANCE: short story in The Fiddlehead

I am jacked to announce that I will have a NEW SHORT STORY in an upcoming issue of The Fiddlehead, one of Canada's longest running and most august literary journals. My piece, called "Fall Back," is slated to appear in the magazine's Summer Fiction issue, which, I've been told, will also be The Fiddlehead's 300th issue.

While I've published a couple of book reviews in this journal over the years, this will mark the first time I've had my own creative work appear in its pages. I've been a long-time reader of and submitter to The Fiddlehead - off and on probably since the late 1990s - so I can't tell you how tickled pink I am having received this acceptance. This also marks my second short story acceptance so far this year, and it's beginning to feel like I'm finally getting my short fiction mojo back.

Anyway, I'll post more news when I have it, including when the issue hits the news stands.

M.

My Review of Clark Blaise's This Time, That Place: Selected Stories in Canadian Writers Abroad

I'm happy to share with all of you that I'm back in the digital pages of Canadian Writers Abroad magazine, this time reviewing Clark Blaise's most recent short story collection, This Time, That Place. 

Here's an excerpt from the piece:

"Blaise, like many of his fictional doppelgangers, has led an almost preternaturally peripatetic life. He is both an American and a Canadian, with stints in Montreal, Florida, New York, Iowa, and other places during his long life. He has also maintained close ties to India, thanks to his decades-long marriage to fellow author Bharati Mukherjee before her death in 2017. Much of Blaise’s earliest stories, including “Broward Dowdy,” “A North American Education,” and “A Class of New Canadians” are intentionally autobiographical – Blaise was doing auto-fiction before it was trendy – and his overarching theme is clear. A peripatetic life can lead to a fragmented identity, and the quest for a sense of belonging often competes with one’s other desires, and, in some cases, better judgment."

Enjoy!

ACCEPTANCE: Inclusion in forthcoming short story anthology

I'm absolutely thrilled to announce that a short story of mine will be part of the recently announced anthology, Devouring Tomorrow, edited by A.G. Pasquella and Jeff Dupuis, and forthcoming from Dundurn Press in Fall 2025. My piece, called "Unlimited Dream," fits with the book's theme of imagining food of the future in the face of climate change, food insecurity, and other looming menaces. The anthology will also include works by Gary Barwin, Anuja Varghese, Lisa de Nikolits, and many more.

This is especially exciting for me since, according to my literary CV, I haven't published a new short story in just about a decade. (I've been a little busy writing novels and poetry instead.) Anyway, I'm very pleased to have this bit of news to share. Here's the formal announcement that appeared in Publishers Marketplace earlier this week: