Plans are coming together for my book tour! I’m excited to get in a car and trace the route Lansing and Evan drive — at least as far as southern Ontario. I’m delighted to say that I’ve nailed down dates and venues for a Toronto launch (Nov 29), an event in Guelph (Dec 3) and…

It’s here! Official book release day is finally here! The day I thought would never come, through long years of trying to eke out a few sentences alongside my day job, then those intense months of winter and spring of writing and rewriting thousands of words a day, and the endless-seeming summer of waiting, waiting,…

If you’re near a radio in Halifax this evening, or near the internet anywhere, you can tune in the weird and wonderful Potato Salad Radio Show on CKDU. David Dahms is a visual artist and deep-thinking guy who hosts this terrific two-hour show on Saturday evenings. Tune it in here tonight starting at 6pm Atlantic,…

It is my job to describe things. Occurrences, emotions, scenes, feelings. I ought to be able to tell you all about Word on the Street on Sunday, to take you inside my own head and show you how it felt to hold Fallsy Downsies in my hands and read from it to a packed tent,…

Oh, so much is happening! And it’s the opening day of Fall Allergy Season 2013, and I have sneezed approximately 32,589 times today. I leave a trail of wadded tissues in my wake. I am disgusting. But I am also busy and excited, so excited. Tomorrow or the next day I will hold Fallsy Downsies…

My publisher dropped by today, to give me the final Advance Reader Copy of Fallsy Downsies, which I’ll be sending to Laura Mayne in Mississauga. She won it fair and square in our Mondegreens contest on Twitter. (Search the hashtag fallsydownsies to see all the amazing, hilarious entries.) This is the pleasure of working with…

There’s a scene in Fallsy Downsies wherein Dacey Brown is singing along with Hey Nineteen by Steely Dan as she and Lansing and Evan drive across Ontario. And all her life, she has misheard the lyrics to the chorus, which doesn’t stop her singing along. We’re taking that scene as inspiration for a Twitter contest,…

Here we go! This morning brought the first review of Fallsy Downsies, and this evening brought my first interview about it. In a little more than two weeks, I’ll be reading from an actual copy — not an advance reading copy — of the book, at Word on the Street in Halifax. And about that…

So. A few months ago, one of my favourite singer-songwriters, Christina Martin, asked me if I’d consider opening for her at a Halifax show in August. I was pretty sure she wasn’t asking me to play a few nursery rhymes and Christmas carols on piano, and it turned out my hunch was right. In fact,…