THIRD DAN SHARP TITLE CONTRACTED FOR 2015!

Many thanks to Dundurn Books for the vote of confidence in backing my application for a Writers' Reserve grant from the Ontario Arts Council, as well as for contracting my third Dan Sharp mystery, The Jade Butterfly, even before it's finished. I look forward to working with the folks at Dundurn again on this title, as well as on the second book in the series, Pumpkin Eater, currently scheduled for a spring 2014 release. Stay calm and read on!

High Tea and Anti-Launch

Thanks to all who attended my High Tea Garden Party and Anti-Launch for Lake On The Mountain this weekend. I'm grateful for your support and for making it such a fun afternoon. Loved all those gloves and hats, ladies and gentlemen! Special thanks to Brenda Rantala-Sykes for coming all the way from Sudbury just to cut the crusts off sandwiches ;) and of course to Master of Ceremonies David Tronetti for his inimitable contribution. You rock!

COOL CANUCK CHICKS

It was my week to hang out with some very Cool Canuck Chicks. First up was Luba Goy, one of our national icons, whose Luba Simply Luba was on at the Berkeley Theatre. Her one-woman show gave us an afternoon of laughs and joy, Luba-style, as La Goy traced her roots from a German work camp, where she was born and where her parents had been incarcerated, all the way across the waves to Canada. Touching and true. And it didn't hurt to tipple a glass or five with Luba and friends afterwards at the Distillery District.

Next I had the great pleasure to hang out with Farzana Doctor, author of Six Meters of Pavement, currently short-listed for a Lambda Award. We got together mid-week at the 40^th anniversary party of Dundurn Books in the Arts and Letters Club. The Farz and I yucked it up in front of the camera and, amid all the frippery, managed to carry on some pretty feisty conversations about the Recently Single status we've both acquired. If we both go on to gain a Bit Notorious status as well, it won't bother us one bit.

Finally, my week was complete with a long-awaited visit from Canada's reigning Queen of Crime, Gail Bowen, on tour with hubby and long-time companion (44 years!), Ted, while promoting Kaleidoscope, Gail's thirteenth Joanne Kilbourn mystery from M&S. Always the gallant host, Ted stirred and shook a bucketful of martinis, while Gail and I yacked on (and on) about the current state of Canadian publishing, and then some. Not only is she one of the great mystery authors, she's also a terrific gal to know and hang out with!

PUMPKIN EATER

This month I signed a contract with Dundurn to publish Pumpkin Eater, the sequel to Lake On The Mountain, my first Dan Sharp mystery. I love working with the folks at Dundurn. They're a great group of dedicated professionals.

I'm also currently a quarter of the way through a third book, The Jade Butterfly, which opens in Tiananmen Square the night of the massacre. Jump forward 20 years, when Dan is challenged to find a woman who disappeared in the fighting, landing him squarely on his own gritty Toronto turf. If you think you know Toronto, follow Dan around for a bit. You don't know Toronto! Even I'm a little shocked by some of the places he ends up.

Although I've been longing to get back to more traditional literary writing, I really enjoy writing in this breezy, jaded voice. Judging from the readers' notes I'm getting, I can tell others like it too. I think of these books as my "dark" mysteries, as opposed to the lighter Bradford Fairfax mysteries where mostly all's well that ends well. There's more to come in that series too, as I've got two more books just waiting to reach the starting gate.

When that happens, you'll be the first to hear about it. After me, of course.

On The Runway

Dec 13, 2011

This week my newest book, Lake On The Mountain, is going to press. For a writer, that's the equivalent of being in a plane and taxiing down the runway. You're not quite airborne, but your seatbelt is snug and all the expectation is there.

The timing was propitious. Last month LOTM received a positive pre-review in Publisher's Weekly, the bible of the American publishing industry. A single glowing sentence from that review will now end up on the book's cover along with a blurb by Gail Bowen, one of Canada's most delightfully audacious writers and author of the highly successful Joanne Kilbourn mysteries. Both of these are great coups and the sort of thing writers and publishers dream of.

As with any journey, there's an anticipated place of arrival down the road. For me, as for most writers, that hoped-for destination is one of undying fame, financial success beyond my wildest dreams, and outrageous adulation from my readers. It's called "Dreamland." Few, if any, writers reach it in their lifetime, however, so in the meantime I've learned to enjoy the journey. Duty Free shopping, here I come.

Lake On The Mountain, the tale of a gay missing persons investigator and father of a teenage son, is a bit of a departure for me in one way, yet in another it's precisely where I've been heading for years. I intended it to be that rare, some would even say "apocryphal" animal, the literary-thriller.

Like most university-educated Canadians of my generation, I was raised to be a bit precious in my reading. Genre? Not for me. Nicht, nein, never. It was verboten! I sniffed my way through the romance section in bookstores. I didn't deign to crack open a mystery or a sci-fi book, what with all the wonderful CanLit novels to be read.

So how ironic to find myself the subject of genre discrimination. My first novel, A Cage of Bones, was refused by just about every publisher in Canada. Not because it wasn't well written or literary, but because it was in a genre barely acknowledged at the time: GayLit. In fact, I had to find a publisher outside the country to take it on. For all our literary affectations, Canadians were decidedly behind the times on that one. Not that I minded having a UK publisher first time out of the gate, however. They turned it into an international bestseller, something many Canadian publishers could not have done for me.

Learning I'd inadvertently become a genre writer made me see things differently. One day I picked up a copy of John LeCarre's The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, wondering if it would be even half as good as the film. In fact, it was terrific. But I was suspicious. Should I admit I'd read it? Should I worry it might influence my writing?

Since then I've come across a considerable number of genre books and writers I feel can hold their heads up to anything being written today. Not to mention the success they achieve. In fact, you're far less likely to die the death of a starving artist if you can write outside the literary arena than in.

Ironically, the snobbery I've faced over genre writing has been a double-edged sword. Some of the most blatant discrimination has come from genre-philes who refuse to accept that a literary writer could or should make the cross-over. Our territory—keep out, is how they seem to think of it.

One of my most telling experiences came when I participated in a mystery writers' seminar in New Orleans, not long after the publication of my satirical thriller, The P-Town Murders. I talked about the difference between writing mysteries and literary fiction. At the time, I was set to publish my literary novel, The Honey Locust. Set in the Bosnian War, THL had taken me more than a decade to finish. I'd struggled with it greatly and certainly didn't want to have to repeat the effort. "The formula for writing mysteries is easier," I confided to my genre-loving audience, who gasped.

Apparently the F-word is about the worst thing you can say to a genre writer. "Where is this formula? Can I buy it somewhere?" snarled one curmudgeonly old fellow, who turned out to be a seasoned American mystery author. "Try Walgreen's," I suggested. "Second shelf on the right."

In fact, all good writing is based on a formula. Agatha Christie used one and so did Shakespeare. If you want to argue with them, grab a Ouija board and do your best. I can't help you there.

In the meantime, here I sit on the runway, waiting for my fifth title to be released. I no longer worry whether my books are considered genre or literary or something as yet uncategorized. It's a book. And I believe it's the best one I've written. Years from now, I may still believe it. I know that because of how proud I am of it and how right it seems when I re-read it.

I can feel the plane lifting.

Nov 16, 2011

With a new book coming out, there’s always anticipation to see how it’s going to be received. I’m happy to say Lake On The Mountain, my literary-thriller from Dundurn, had a great start this month with a very positive review in Publishers Weekly. Publication is slated for end of January 2012. For those of you disappointed with the delayed publication of Vanished In Vallarta, third in the Bradford Fairfax mystery series, I hope this will more than make up for the wait.