A New Season in bookstores August 29th

Writing life: 38

You’re invited…

While A New Season arrives in bookstores on August 29th, we’ll be celebrating its arrival the next evening. Yes, on August 30th at Noonan’s Pub on the Danforth here in Toronto, we’ll be officially launching my ninth novel, A New Season—and you’re invited. If you’re in the area that day, you’re more than welcome to join us. Click here or on the image below to visit the Eventbrite page and reserve a spot.

As usual, my twin brother Tim will be serving as Master of Ceremonies for the very few and short speeches to be made. Books will be available on-site courtesy of my friends at Book City who will have the new novel as well as my backlist available.

Original songs included in the audiobook

As I’ve noted in an earlier post, there are two original songs that will be included in the official audiobook. We think this may be a first for audiobooks, but who really knows?

So we thought we would give you an early listen to the two recordings and push my anxiety to the limit. In the audiobook, the songs are fully weaved into the story. In other words, the songs will be heard right when and where they come up in the story. As well, the songs are recorded just with guitar and voice. No other instruments or harmonies are heard because that’s how the songs appear in the story. One day, perhaps will have more elaborate recordings, fully arranged with more instrumentation. But that is for another, more distant, day.

Given that my songwriting is a very private thing for me, that only family and close friends even know about, I can’t quite figure out how I was somehow persuaded to record these two songs and have them included in the audiobook. Perhaps it’s because when we first started discussing this idea, launch day was still so far in the distance that my anxiety/terror was not yet fully ramped up—as it is now. But I confess, I am nervous about it all as I’ve always been a somewhat closeted singer/songwriter who clearly understood and accepted that music would only ever be something I did for fun in the privacy of our home. The phrase I sometimes use is “I’m a good enough singer and guitar player to know that I’m not good enough.” Yet audiobook listeners are actually going to hear these recordings—my guitar and my voice. (Yikes, how did I let this happen?)

Just for context, here, again, is “A Note about the Original Songs” that appears at the end of the novel.

Anyway, in an effort to “lance the boil” in advance of the audiobook release on August 29th, here are the official recordings of the two original songs in the order they appear in the story. (Be gentle.)

More Than the Game (©Terry Fallis 2011 )

Until the New Year (©Terry Fallis 1981 )

---

The 12 Days of Jack McMaster

If you follow me on Facebook and Twitter, you may already have seen this, but in the run-up to launch day, I’m releasing via my social channels a quotation from the narrator of A New Season, Jack McMaster each day. This is something I did for my last novel, Operation Angus, and people seemed to like it. Here’s the quotation released today. For the others, check my personal and/or author Facebook pages or Twitter feed.

The Day #4 offering in my 12 Days of Jack McMaster.

---

Some early media coverage for A New Season

There has been some early media coverage supporting A New Season courtesy of my tireless publicist Cam Waller at Penguin Random House/McClelland & Stewart. We’ll take it! More to come post-launch (he says with fingers crossed).

Canadian Living Magazine

A nice and timely piece in the September issue of Canadian Living magazine.

Zoomer Magazine

The graphic above only shows A New Season, but there were thirteen other great reads in this piece. Click on the image above to see the others.

Canoe FM Interview

Here's the YouTube version of my recent interview with Mike Jaycock for Canoe FM in Haliburton, Ontario.

---

“Go west, young man…” but not till October

It’s now official, I’m heading west in October to promote A New Season, thanks to the efforts of my stalwart publicist at Penguin Random House/McClelland & Stewart, Cam Waller. Here’s an early look at where I’ll be:

October 10, 2023: Book talk/interview at McNally Robinson, Winnipeg, Manitoba.

October 14, 15, 2023: Wordfests’s Fall Imaginairium Festival, Calgary, Alberta.

October 16, 2023: A book talk at Bolen’s Books, Victoria, British Columbia.

October 18, 2023: A book talk at the Pender Island Public Library, British Columbia.

There may be other events added and some bookstore stops to sign stock, but the dates above are now locked in. Looking forward to returning west.

More fall events in Ontario…

There are many other Ontario engagements already booked for the fall including:

• The Canadian National Exhibition;

• Eden Mills Festival (leading a virtual workshop);

• Waterloo Public Library;

• Meaford Public Library;

• Cedar Canoe Books event in Huntsville;

• Tweed Public Library;

• 1,000 Islands Writers Festival in Gananoque;

• Toronto International Festival of Authors;

• Ottawa International Writers Festival;

• The Book Drunkard Festival, Uxbridge;

• Wordstock Sudbury Literary Festival;

• The Grimsby Author Series.

Click here to see my full schedule on my website.

I expect as the fall approaches, more events will be added, and that’s just fine with me. That’s how it works. You write a book, and then you get out and talk about it. It’s an important part of the writer’s life.

---

Wrapping up…

I’ll do my best to keep up with these posts in the rush of activity after the launch, but for the next several posts at least, most of what I’ll likely be writing about will be related to the new novel and the flurry of events that tends to follows the launch of a new novel. Apologies in advance, but every two years, a new novel takes up quite a bit of space in my daily life.

Thanks for checking this out and do please subscribe (it’s free) and share if you haven’t already. Many thanks!