Get Lit

Retro show addition! Great show with Claire Cameron, the best-selling author who took the time to join me and discuss her latest novel, The Last Neanderthal. Enjoy!

Retro show addition! Excellent edition of the show featuring television personality, athlete and (now) author, Simon Donato. I hope you dig it!

This week's episode of GET LIT features Rebecca Rosenblum, author of So Much Love. The book is fantastic, and critics seem to agree. Rosenblum even had some flattering things to say about me on her webpage, which makes me feel all warm and fuzzy-like. Turns out she was a fan of my Hamilton Spectator column from the 1990s. In fact, it's one of those ridiculously small-world stories: I met poet and author Mark Sampson at an event in Toronto. He later messaged me to say that he had seen my final Generation X column – at his in-laws' home, taped up in his wife's childhood bedroom. That alone would have surprised me, but then I discovered that said individual was Rebecca, whose novel I had just started to read.

The experiment continues. I have begun making time in the AM to do some writing, and for a whopping two days straight, I've actually begun tapping away at some new work. I'll keep you in the loop. In the meantime, this week's show features Leslie Shimotakahara. Her first novel, After the Bloom, is the story of "a daughter's search for her mother [that] reveals her family's past in a Japanese internment camp during the Second World War."

Though you wouldn't expect it, I have my own connection to the internment camps, on this side of the Canada/U.S. border (yes, we did it too). My former wife is half-Japanese, and while I was part of that family, my great aunt, Auntie Yori, was that connection. She and her late husband were both interned in British Columbia. It felt extremely weird, and not a little depressing, to know that our country was guilty of such an atrocity. Anyway, believe it or not, the book isn't that heavy, despite the subject matter. Enjoyed talking with Leslie about her work, and I hope you enjoy our conversation.

From April 2017. "Emily Schultz! I truly enjoyed her novel Men Walking On Water, and the conversation we had about it. You might know Emily from her previous book The Blondes, or from Joyland Magazine…or perhaps from her novel of the same name, which was also the name of a novel by Stephen King. This led to some people purchasing Emily's novel when, in fact, they meant to purchase Stephen's. Not sure how one buys a novel by the wrong author, but anyway, it led to Emily's entertaining Spending The Stephen King Money tumblr."

From April 2017. A great interview with Janie Chang. She's great, very enjoyable chat. Check out her book Dragon Springs Road.

Folks, I have not uploaded E20 - it was event-based (GritLit 2017) and while a good conversation probalby not relavant.

E21, however! An interview with Trevor Cole, one-time Hamilton resident, HarperCollins author and the man behind The Whisky King: The remarkable true story of Canada's most infamous bootlegger and the undercover Mountie on his trail. Now that's a serious title.

Rocco Perri was one of Hamilton's – and, indeed, Canada's – most notorious gangsters. He was also notoriously good-natured and gregarious, and most of the city loved him. A great read!

Today's episode features an interview with Mark Osbaldeston, author of the book Unbuilt Hamilton. It's part of a series – the first parts being Unbuilt Toronto 1 and Unbuilt Toronto 2. Yes, they seem fairly specific to geography, but I believe anyone, in any city, can appreciate the follies and foibles of generations before; anyone can ponder the what ifs of their own hometowns.

See E18 for details!

My dear friend and fellow author Sherri Vanderveen (look her up, read her books!) has many friends in the Canadian publishing business. Through her contacts, Get Lit was able to set up a round-table discussion between myself and three fantastic individuals – Alana Wilcox from Coach House, Jennifer Lambert from HarperCollins, and Barbara Berson from the Helen Heller Agency.

Though dated - this took place in 2017 - the conversation is enlightening. These are people in different positions in the business – an indie publisher, an international publisher, and a literary agent/freelance editor. They each have different yet dovetailing perspectives on the state of publishing in Canada, on what they're looking for in a book, and on what writers should and should not do when trying to get published.