Welcome friends and new subscribers. 

Happy winter solstice!

Just like that, the shortest day of the year has arrived. Today in Edmonton, at 8:03 a.m. (MST) at latitude 53, we will have 10 hours and 7 minutes of daylight (or 13 hours and 53 minutes of darkness).

Since daylight savings time ended on November 2nd and the clocks were turned back, it has felt MUCH darker. The good news is that after today, more light is on the way. If you are like me, you will notice it not at all and then all at once. 

The two photos above were taken from the High Level Bridge, gazing east at the Walterdale Bridge, on November 22nd and December 8th respectively. Look closely at the one from November and you can see frazil pans drifting unhurriedly with the current. 

Unlike lakes or ponds, where ice forms in a sheet across the surface, ice in northern rivers forms as frazil crystals, which vary in size. These crystals collide and freeze together and eventually rise to the surface to form "frazil pans," clusters of ice discs.

When the concentration gets high enough, they jam up at a certain point in the river. As more frazil pans congregate, the edge of the ice moves upstream, forming a solid ice cover as it progresses. 

The second photo, taken two weeks later, illustrates the massing. Strips of open water remain visible, but soon coyote tracks from one shore to the other will prove the ice can hold some weight. 

There's more to bringing a book out than writing and editing. For marketing purposes and publicity, having a good author photo is a must. 

My previous author photo was taken in 2017 when, in a frenzy of optimism, I scheduled a photo shoot because I was CERTAIN I'd have a book out imminently. HA ha ha ha ha. In truth, by the time The Shade Tree came out in late 2021, my author photo was already four years old.

With that experience in mind, I forbid myself to get a new photo until I actually sold a book. 

I'm not a fan of the camera, so the only positive thing about booking a photo shoot was knowing I'd have a great conversation with Ryan Parker. We talked about plays and movies we'd seen, books we'd read, actors we love, parenting, and more. We avoided discussing provincial politics because life is short, and we chose instead to focus on what makes Edmonton, a great place to live. As the cultural capital of Alberta, this city punches well above its weight. 

I asked Ryan to pick out his favourite photos, and I'm very happy with the end result. 

This snapshot of Miss Atomic Bomb still delights.

My third round of edits for Dog Days of Planet Earth is in, and the book has gone to the copy editor. I suspect it will return to my inbox sometime in early January.

I have also reviewed and approved the catalogue copy and sales pitches. The art director sent some cover images for me to consider, and I like what I saw. When I signed the contract for the book in October 2024, the publication date in 2026 seemed SO far away. Yet here we almost are. Things are moving forward.

In November I was in Toronto and had that "travelling to Toronto to meet my editor for lunch" experience that exceeded expectations.

Jen Knoch cares about my work, provides insightful editorial comments and deadlines, has a sense of humour, responds to my emails promptly, and is an all around great human. She gave me a tour of ECW Press and sent me home with some books. What a treat!

Books with lots of hoopla that touched me of late. 

I don't keep lists of the books I've read, and I'm leery of the marketing machines, mostly from big publishers, that give some books the lion's share of market attention. But sometimes the books that receive accolades actually merit them (she says). What does that mean? They are books that raise the bar and make me want to write better. 

Patrick Ryan's Buckeye is a tender and expansive book on love, loss, and war. 

I re-read Colm Tóibín's Long Island and loved it even more. It picks up on Ellis Lacey's life (from the novel Brooklyn) twenty years later. Oh my heart.

And speaking of heart. Lily King's Heart the Lover had me drying my tears, revisiting lost loves from younger days, and thinking how hard it is to properly communicate. 

Susan Choi's Flashlight spans decades and continents and investigates nationalities, citizenship, and what it means to belong somewhere. It's surprising and moving in so many ways. 

I have a lot of theatre and film in my life, 

and now I have added music. In October I started volunteering at The Yardbird Suite, Edmonton's premier jazz club that will celebrate 70 years in 2026. 

I'll admit that I have musician envy. To see talented humans creating art together (ensemble) makes me feel like I got the short straw in the art production draw.

Writing novels requires that I spend significant amounts of time alone. I don't need to be particularly collaborative. I control the plot and the characters. I even control the weather. I can't scold anyone for not knowing their part or showing up late to rehearsals. So maybe it's not all bad ... I might not have picked my art form, but I have been given what I need to pursue it.

In short, I'm inspired being around people who find ways to be creative. At a show last night, some local musicians sang a song about an apartment on 99th Street and Saskatchewan Drive, and I was reminded how great it is to hear your place celebrated in art. Which made me think it's time to turn my attention to that novel idea set in Alberta . . . 

In the meantime, novel four continues to move forward at a pace.

Set in Manhattan circa 1895-1900 and tentatively titled The Domestics, it's proving to be a lot of fun. I've had to leave the plotting alone for lengthy periods when returning to edit Dog Days, and it's always a challenge to return to material and to REMEMBER what I've planned or written. Still, it's good to have a page to return to. 

The nest is empty after twenty-seven years.

In mid-November, our eldest moved out. The house that served us when raising three kids now feels unnecessary. I never wanted to own a house and would have been a happy renter still, but with three kids and a dog, we needed to know we could stay in one place for a while. So we put roots down when our landlords decided to sell and were kind enough to offer us a very fair price.

Is it time to return to a pre-child life, put a for sale sign on the front yard, and move to an apartment, where there's no worry about the furnace dying or the hot water tank calling it quits? Except in our pre-child life, we didn't own a dog, and dog #2 likes his yard.

A good friend suggested I not make any big decisions for at least six months, so we will inhabit our nest a while longer. 

Yet I have noticed that my work habits have changed. Because the house has empty rooms that are already heated, I haven't been in my studio much. Seven years ago, when I hired a friend to convert the old junk shack into a work space, there were five of us living in close quarters. 

Look at that sweet studio! The glass doors face the garden and the bird feeders. I get surprise visits from a variety of winged creatures, and I suspect my longing to watch the birds will lure me back to the studio.

Our youngest arrived home for the holidays the day before a big snow storm cancelled many flights. He's back in his childhood bedroom again, and I like it. The other two kids will visit Christmas Day.

We are entering the holidays wearing long johns and many layers to survive the deep freeze. Let us take care of one another. 

Wishing you and yours all the very best of the holiday season,

and may 2026 bring you the grace and strength to deal with life in its various garbs and moods. I am insanely grateful to be bringing another novel out in the coming year. Because The Shade Tree came out when Covid restrictions were in place, I didn't have any public events. So the last time I had a book launch was in 2013!

September 29th, 2026 is the official publication date for Dog Days. Stay tuned for details. 

My Mid Century Modern wreath from the Antique Mall brings me great joy every year. I love all the pops of colour on the white stucco. 

Thank you for reading. 

Do you have any questions about the writing life and/or how to stay creatively inspired? Feel free to contact me. 

See you next season. Until then, stay engaged, and may great books find you.