Stories
How to Cook a Ham Slice
When writing my latest novel, which is set during the early 1960s, I had fun cooking recipes from the Cold War years. Many were awful, which means I had to remind myself not to condescend to the past. We like to believe we’ve progressed beyond our parents’ and grandparents’ generations, which can strike us as […]
1960s Home Cooking (Not Recommended)
Mid-Century Modern furniture is one thing, but I’m afraid the dinners originally laid on those enviable teak tables were seldom up to the decor. My new novel, Far Creek Road, is set in suburban Vancouver in 1962, around the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Research—I love doing research—often had me wading through tomes about Cold […]
North Vancouver Roots
My book launch last week was held in an important place: Gabby’s, the favorite bar of our friend Michael Finlay. Michael was a former CBC radio producer who died in Toronto last February after being assaulted only metres from Gabby’s. While walking down Danforth Avenue, Michael was pushed into a large concrete planter. He suffered […]
Far Creek Road — Out Now
My new novel, Far Creek Road, was launched into the world last night at lovely pub gathering. That’s Michelline behind the bar at Gabby’s in Toronto, the enthusiastic host of the launch. Huge thanks to all my family and friends who gathered at Gabby’s to raise a glass. Major thanks as well to ECW Press, where […]
Notebook Download: Toronto, Summer 2023
Sitting in a restaurant on a sunny evening. Outside is a man wearing shorts, a jacket and a black top hat like a magician’s. Both the jacket and the top hat are sewn with shards of mirror, sparkling with them, scintillating. The man is parading back and forth on the sidewalk. Back and forth. Another […]
Journal of a Meeting #2
The second and final excerpt from my journal about meeting with Dutch writer Mies Bouhuys in April, 2000, this time about the betrayal of Anne Frank. That’s her photo above. I’ve written a number of pieces about the issue lately, and a link at the bottom of this page will take you to the first. […]
Journal of a Dutch Meeting #1
Below is an excerpt from my journal of April, 2000, about my meeting with Dutch writer Mies Bouhuys, who told me that Anne Frank and her family were betrayed to the Nazis by a man named Willem van Maaren. I’ve written about her claim over the past couple of weeks, starting here. This has led to […]
The man who betrayed Anne Frank
I’ve been taking long and winding roads in my reading lately, and as I wrote last week, the latest one brought me back to the name of the man I was told had betrayed Anne Frank to the Nazis. A Dutch writer told me his name, and I’d written it in a journal I kept […]
The Betrayal of Anne Frank
When I was in Amsterdam researching my third novel, a writer who had known Otto Frank told me that in 1963 he’d found out who had betrayed his family, including his daughter Anne Frank, to the Nazis. I wasn’t expecting to hear this and was startled that the writer, Mies Bouhuys, had brought it up, […]
Book Review: The Diary Keepers by Nina Siegal
More than a year before the Second World War ended, the Dutch government in exile did a very smart thing. The minister of arts and sciences went on the clandestine Radio Oranje to ask people throughout the country to preserve their diaries and papers about everyday life during the war, documents that detailed their struggle […]
Tilling The Corner Garden
That’s Jessie Barfoot looking away from us on the new cover of my third novel, The Corner Garden. I love the designer’s portrayal of Jesse, and I’m launching the revamped cover today with a story about what inspired the book. Jesse narrates the novel, and she introduces herself by saying, “I think I’ll call myself Gretel […]
ChatGPT and my novels (in the style of Drake)
I was bored, and actually had some questions, so I logged onto the AI model ChatGPT. Here’s our conversation, edited for length. My novel Time Squared from 2021 is being pirated. Can you find any pirate sites, including Reddits and sub-Reddits, where the novel is being offered for free download? I’m sorry to hear that […]
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