Dana's House

Yes, here is the house on Brunswick Avenue which I chose to be Dana's home in The Book of Dreams. It belongs to a very dear friend of mine and I lived happily here for a year way back when. A beautiful place for the Lord Ganesh to stand guardian over. (Next blog will be a pic of one of his statues in the very place in the Wicklow Mountains where he appears to Dana in a dream.)

Adult Work

I'm thinking about my one and only - so far - work of fiction for adults, Falling Out of Time, which I have not featured on my website. It's my sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll book. Here's the author photo on the back: me as a punky girl, taken by my punky artist sister, YM Whelan, see below.) The bar code is Penguin's. The book came out in Canada and the USA and got great reviews from the L.A. Times and Publisher's Weekly, but mixed reviews on the home front. However, someone did call me "the leprechaun of CanLit." I will include this book, now out of print, on my new website which is being created, even as we speak, by the brilliant Canadian web designer Terry Findlay: www.simtechcomputerservices.com. I won't give too much away - it will be up by Christmas - but there are sparkles and sounds! So, why am I thinking of my one and only - so far - work of fiction for adults? Because I am utterly entranced with my second work of adult fiction! Yes, it has taken me over and and I am working solely on it. I will get back to the Young Adult one some time next year.

Two Sisters Strut Their Stuff

For those of who have read The Book of Dreams (available in the USA in Fall 2008!), the real-life versions of Dana's mad aunties are having an exhibition of their work in Toronto this week. It is called, appropriately enough, TWO SISTERS and here are the details:
ShinDig: Thursday November 22, 7-11 pm
Exhibition continues to Sunday December 9th 2007
Gallery Hours: Saturdays and Sundays 2:00-7:00 pm
Fountain Gallery
652A Queen Street West at Palmerston (Behind the Second Cup)
Toronto, ON M6J 1E5
647-519-0420 fountaingallery@gmail.com

Benbella Anthologies

Just finished my paper, "Being Good for Narnia and the Lion" for another Benbella anthology due out next year. I got quite carried away. Really, CS Lewis was so important to me as a child and I just loved Aslan and The Chronicles of Narnia. The last paper I wrote for this Texan publisher was published in The World of the Golden Compass, ed. by Scott Westerfield which came out last month in America to celebrate the release of the film next month (can't wait). It's sold exclusively by Borders, I think. My paper argues that Philip Pullman's work is very similar to CS Lewis's and JRR Tolkien's, despite the fact he hates both these authors. (Heh, heh.) It's called "Tempest in a British Tea Cup." But Herbie Brennan's "A Short History of Hell and the Crabby Old God Who Sends You There" is much funnier. I also liked Sophie Masson's "Lord Asriel: Dad from Hell or Heroic Rebel?" and Maureen Johnson's "Hot Sex and Horrific Parenting in His Dark Materials." The whole book is a good read, actually.

Magic in Toronto, Canada

He turned at the sound of cloth rustling like wings. Behind him was a statue of a tall angelic figure with shoulder-length hair and a long robe to his feet. The figure strode across a low stone wall with a book in his hand. His head was bowed as he read.

"What are you reading?" the wolf wondered out loud.

"A book of dreams."

"Whose dreams?"

"Ah, that is the question."

Riddles. It was a night of mystery. The wolf accepted the obvious. Magic had come to the city.

Chapter One, The Book of Dreams

CANSCAIP

Well, the conference was fabulous and well attended. I went to Janet McNaughton's workshop on character which helped me enormously in sorting out an elusive character in my new book. I do believe my key-note speech went over well as - so far - nobody has complained. It was called "The Secret Language of Creation." I put on a bit of a concert, as we say in Ireland, - talked, showed gorgeous slides, and ended with a musical interlude, i.e. Martin Springett on guitar and his two beautiful daughters, Rebecca and Miriam, on flutes playing tunes which Martin wrote inspired by The Chronicles of Faerie. A good show, methinks.