Cooped Up?

BOOK LAUNCH AND PARTY
Wednesday, September 30 at 8pm
The Brickhouse, 730 Main Street

CABIN FEVER: THE BEST NEW CANADIAN NON-FICTION
Wear your plaid, dungarees, overalls, long johns - c'mon people, it's CABIN FEVER.

Join West Coast contributors Charlotte Gill, Jaspreet Singh and John Vigna as we celebrate the launch of CABIN FEVER, the Banff Centre's newest literary journalism anthology.

Cabin Fever

My personal essay, "The Ballad of Big and Small," will appear in the forthcoming Banff Literary Journalism anthology. It's a huge honour for me, as I've long been a fan of the Banff Centre non-fiction anthologies.

CABIN FEVER: THE BEST IN NEW CANADIAN NON-FICTION offers the finest and most daring work by Banff Literary Journalism participants of the past six years. Edited by Moira Farr and Ian Pearson, and published by Thomas Allen, the anthology features the work of: Taras Grescoe, Jeff Warren, Megan Williams, Bill Reynolds, Charlotte Gill, John Vigna, Margaret Webb, Jaspreet Singh, Jeremy Klaszus, Deborah Ostrovsky, Jonathan Garfinkel, Penney Kome, and Andrew Westoll.

Fill 'Er Up

How does an aging logger who loses his wife and daughters in a horrific car crash spend his first holiday long weekend without them?

"Because it’s the Thanksgiving weekend, he hangs around with the others at the end of the shift. They are a new crew, young, earnest, eager to provide for their families. He doesn’t trust them, their big talk and brazen work, sloppy and sometimes haphazard. By the third beer, he’s heard all he can take. He crushes the empties in his fist, tosses them in the slash, flexes his hand, the knuckles gnarled like lug nuts, strands of jagged scars across the top, and shakes out the numbness. He slings the rest of his six-pack, drops it in the cooler behind his seat, slams the tailgate shut and starts the truck. In his side-mirror, through the dust, one of the guys throws a can at his rear. Another raises a rifle."

To read more of my short story, "Gas Bar," pick up a copy of the Dalhousie Review, Spring 2009, 89.1.

In Good Company

Nominees for the 2008 Western Magazine Awards were announced today and I was chuffed to see my personal essay, "The Ballad of Big and Small" (Grain, Vol.35 No.1) nominated in the Human Experience category. Even more exciting? My good friend Charlotte Gill's nomination in the same category for her Vancouver Review tree-planting piece, "Eating Dirt". Congratulations, Charlotte!

My Horse Has Come In

Well, I don't actually own a horse but one helluva a saddle bronc ride appears in my personal essay "The Ballad of Big and Small" so that counts for something doesn't it? "The Ballad" has won The Dave Greber Award for Freelance Writers. I was honoured to receive the award in Calgary at Word on the Street. The award is available to freelance non-fiction writers in Western Canada, recognizing magazine and book writing.

At Last, the Return of the Big Novel

After half a decade of questioning fiction's relevance and assessing the demise of the novel in the post 9/11 world, it's a pleasure to see that instead of pandering and playing it safe, novelists have responded to reader ennui with exuberant risk-taking. Read the full article here...

Catch the Red Eye

My personal essay, "The Ballad of Big and Small" leads off the Summer 2007 issue of Grain Magazine (Vol.35, No.1). The issue's title, Tired of Burning, seems apt for the piece. Here's the opening:

"You woke me on December 25th, a rifle across your knees, barrel pointed toward the flickering Christmas tree. I shook my head, closed my eyes and opened them to see if you were still there. I didn't know you owned a gun. Instinct told me it was loaded. Your breath reeked of booze, but your voice was calm, reassuring.

"Bro, let's go out and shoot some shit.""