The View from the road (2)

Writing life: 43

My western swing to promote A New Season wrapped up about a week and a half ago with stops in Victoria and on Pender Island. I’ll cover off those events here along with events in Toronto and Ottawa. More travels to come in the next several weeks, including Sudbury, London, Hamilton (again), Grimsby, Belleville, Burlington, Ajax, and Uxbridge.

Stay tuned for a return to broader topics—beyond promoting A New Season!—as the post-launch flurry starts to die down.

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Victoria

An early morning shot of one of my favourite bookstores in the country, Munro’s.

I arrived in Victoria on Saturday, October 14 and took it easy for the rest of the day. Calgary’s Wordfest was incredible, but I was happily exhausted by the time I arrived in Victoria.

Bookstore visits to sign stock

Then on Sunday, I visited four local bookstores, three indies and one Indigo, to sign books. On my itinerary were Munro’s Books, Russell Books, Ivy’s Bookshop, and the Indigo Store in the Mayfair Shopping Centre. It’s always great to connect with booksellers.

Signing books at Munro’s, and Russell Books.

Signing stock at Ivy’s Bookshop, and Indigo.

CBC-Radio interview

On Monday, I started my day with an early morning interview at CBC-Radio with Gregor Craigie. He asked very thoughtful questions that made it clear he’d read the book. That doesn’t always happen so I’m grateful. Gregor is also a writer and I thoroughly enjoyed his new novel, Radio Jet Lag.

Click here or on the image below to listen to the interview.

CBC-Radio interview with fellow writer, Gregor Craigie.

Bolen Books talk and signing

Monday evening, I returned to Bolen Books after several years to talk about A New Season, meet readers, and sign books. It was a very well organized (no surprise) and seemed to go well. When I arrived at 6:30 for the 7:00 p.m. event, there were already people waiting in line. I wasn’t expecting that. There were about 100 people attending and we had a great time. I signed books for quite a while afterwards.

Pender Island

On Tuesday morning, I boarded a ferry for the voyage to Pender Island where I’ve spoken on two previous occasions. It is truly one of the most beautiful places in the world, let alone in Canada. My talk, co-hosted by the Pender Island Library and Talisman Books, was a sold-out affair with additional chairs set up for the overflow. I had fun signing books after the talk and speaking with the residents of this special island. Thanks to dear friends Stewart Goodings and Paul Williamson for putting up with me for a couple days. I didn’t want to leave.

Who knows what I was saying in these shots, but I hope it was somewhat coherent. (Shots courtesy of Howard Cummer and Stewart Goodings.)

(L) The ferry voyage from Victoria to Pender Island. (R) Enjoying some time with the great lawyer and writer, Bill Deverell, creator of CBC’s Street Legal. (We’re holding Des Kennedy’s fine new novel, Commune, that we both blurbed.)

(L-R) Retired BC Supreme Court Justice Paul Williamson, retired senior civil servant and novelist, Stewart Goodings, and some Toronto writer. Great friends.

Wrapping up the western swing…

I’m back in Toronto now, my western tour behind me. I’m grateful to my tireless publicist, Cam Waller at McClelland & Stewart/Penguin Random House for organizing such a successful series of events. I hadn’t been out west in support of a novel since pre-Covid so it was terrific to renew friendships and create a few new ones along the way.

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The Badminton and Racquet Club in Toronto

A few days after returning from my western tour, I appeared at Toronto’s Badminton and Racquet Club for a talk on A New Season organized by Jane Gibson, my good friend, star tennis player, and spouse of my “editor emeritus,” Doug Gibson. Nick and Winston from Book City, my frequent bookseller partner, were on hand to sell my wares. About 90 people turned up—clearly there wasn’t much else going on in Toronto that night. The wonderful Doug Gibson kindly introduced me and all went well.

Editor emeritus, Doug Gibson, his wife Jane Gibson, and my wife, Nancy Naylor.

Some writer at the Badminton and Racquet Club.

The Ottawa International Writers Festival

This past Friday, I was in the nation’s capital for the Ottawa International Writers Festival where I appeared with fellow writers Amy Jones (a good friend) and Nathan Whitlock (a new friend), both of whom, like me, have new novels out there in the wild. We had a blast of a time and just made each other laugh for the whole session. I’ve been lucky enough to do the Ottawa festival many times over the years. It is a wonderful literary gathering and that tradition was certainly upheld Friday evening.

Alongside Nathan Whitlock and Amy Jones for our Ottawa International Writers Festival appearance where we just laughed for 90 minutes straight. Sometimes the audience joined in, too,

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Thanks for tuning in. Here’s hoping you’ll subscribe and share (it’s free and easy). Next post? Probably catching up on various other threads that have been neglected during my recent travels. In two weeks, we’ll both know!