My review of The Glass Hotel, by Emily St. John Mandel ....

is now available on the Canadian Writers Abroad website. This novel has been getting a lot of attention lately, and deservedly so. It's about many things, but it's primarily about a Bernie Madoff-esque Ponzi scheme and its impact on a multitude of characters, whose lives interlock in various ways throughout the story. It's definitely one of the best books I've read so far in 2020 and I can't recommend it highly enough.

Best New Reads for Spring!

Well, imagine my excitement this weekend when I woke to discover that my forthcoming novel, All the Animals on Earth, made the Globe and Mail's Books section's list of best new reads for the spring. This a really killer list of books by authors like Gil Adamson, Vivek Shraya, and Emma Straub, and I'm still walking on air that my weird little book has been included with them. Hazzah!

Interview re All the Animals on Earth

As we start to close in on the publication date for All the Animals on Earth, I've got another tidbit of media to share with you: this interview with me by Steven Buechler for his blog, The Library of Pacific Tranquility. Steve has been very supportive of my work over the years and has interviewed me a few times now about various books I've published. In this latest interview, I talk about the origins of All the Animals on Earth, discuss how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted plans to promote it, and provide a sneak peek into I'm working on next. Enjoy!

My Quill & Quire review of Radiant Shards: Hoda's North End Poems, by Ruth Panofsky ...

... is now on the Q&Q website.  Radiant Shards is quite a strange little book, really - a poetic rendering of a fictional character from a Canadian novel, Adele Wiseman's Crackpot, published more than 45 years ago. This review was part of a series of reviews of poetry collections for April, which is poetry month. It was great to be back in the pages of Quill & Quire - it had been a while. Anyway, if you're a huge fan of Wiseman's novel, you should definitely check this collection out.

First interview for the new novel: Halifax magazine

So, yes, it has been a while since I've posted anything here on the blog, and yes, we're all hunkered down and trying to ride out this pandemic, but I do - finally - have something new to report. The first media regarding my forthcoming novel, All the Animals on Earth (out May 12 with Wolsak & Wynn) has just been published.

The article, A world turned upside down, comes from my long-time friend, Trevor J. Adams, at Halifax magazine. The piece does a great job of describing the premise and themes of the novel, and also ties it very nicely into what we're all going through right now with COVID-19. I'm very grateful to have some ink out there on the book as we approach the publication date.

There will be more pieces coming soon, I promise. In the meantime, you can pre-order All the Animals on Earth from all your usual bookselling vendors.

M.

All the Animals on Earth update

We have a cover (see below) We have an ISBN (9781989496107). We have pages on Amazon (pre-order now!), Bookmanager, Worldcat, etc. We have a launch date (May 2020). I am beyond excited to bring this weird little book into the world.

Publication: FreeFall magazine

Is there a better kind of mail day than a mail day that delivers contributor's copies? Mine for FreeFall magazine, containing my poem, "Dracula, Count of Transylvania, Does an MFA in Creative Writing," which placed third in FreeFall's annual poetry contest, arrived yesterday. Here's what the judge, GG-winning poet Richard Harrison, had to say about the piece:

"Like all great comedies, it's playing with danger; in this case, the unsettling language of gender and genre, desire and fear, blindness and vision. It's frightening because Dracula always is, even when he's an object of ridicule: a creature who seems so much more powerful than us because he has given over completely to his needs but in the end one whom we cannot wait to puncture."

The issue also contains works by my fellow winners Bruce Meyer, Hadeel and Abdel-Nabi, plus many other fine and flourishing writers. Go check it out  - on better newsstands across the country.