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,…

Here’s a line you won’t be reading in Fallsy Downsies: What a drag it is getting old. You may recognize it from Mother’s Little Helper by the Rolling Stones. In my final draft of the book, Lansing Meadows thinks that sentence and then muses that getting old has gone just fine for Mick Jagger, though…

Right now, I have emails in to Mick Jagger, Steely Dan, Ron Hynes and Murray McLauchlan, and I’ve already heard back from Gordon Lightfoot.  Or, from Lightfoot’s people, anyway. And yeah, those emails are really to lawyers, publishers and rights managers on behalf of those heavy hitters. My pastiche style has finally come back to…

I received official word from my editor yesterday that the book is done. She’s sent it to Invisible, and they’ve let me know to expect page proofs soon. I feel…satisfied with what I’ve written. It’s such an odd feeling. I definitely feel that at this point, as the writer I am today, I’ve done the…

I filed what I think is my final version of Fallsy Downsies yesterday. My editor, Bethany Gibson, is very good at her job indeed. The degree to which she has held me accountable, made an honest writer out of me, is startling. And awesome. Her careful, thorough, no-bullshit approach is exactly what I was looking…