Settling In

We're back home after 10 days on the Charlottetown trip to watch our daughter Lisa curl in the Scotties. It was an exciting week, especially since team Homan made the playoffs and finished fourth overall. They did us proud. Between games, we toured around the city and ate as much seafood as humanly possible. By my fourth meal of fried clams, however, I thought I might have overdone it. I wisely switched to scallops and mussels for the remainder of our stay. The people in Charlottetown couldn't be friendlier. I popped into the Bookmark while there and introduced myself to the manager - a great little independent downtown shop if you are ever on the island.

I was beginning to miss being away from my keyboard. I'm restarting an old manuscript and will settle into that this weekend in addition to finish reading all the entries in the Awesome Author contest. I've been plugging away at the entries and have a handful left to read for the first time through. Then, I'll reread the finalists for order of finish. Luckily, it's a rainy day and I'm content to be inside.

The Thunder Bay Chronicle Journal ran a good article about my writing life (by Kenneth Grierson) and a review of In Winter's Grip - "Crime Thriller Heats up Cold Winter Nights" (by Deborah De Bakker). De Bakker's take was interesting. She liked the book fine but thought my publishers might be trying to capture the American audience by saying I grew up near the border and using the word 'Indian' instead of Aboriginal. She would be correct in this analysis; however, isn't breaking into the much larger American readership a goal of every author? If you are in this industry, you quickly realize how small the buying public is in Canada for beginning authors. It can take years to get readers to pick up your books. It seemed like an odd point to fixate on in a book review, but I'm not complaining. The fact she reviewed the book is gratifying. In Winter's Grip also received a 'very highly recommended' from the Midwest Book Review, a respected American book review site - now, perhaps, there is some irony there :-)

And big news on the publisher front as I mentioned last time. RendezVous Crime has merged with Dundurn so I am now officially a Dundurn author! http://www.dundurn.com/authors/brenda_chapman Also, still an Orca writer in their Rapid Reads series. The Second Wife is due out April 1st and I'm planning to launch it at a local pub in May with fellow authors Barb Fradkin and Jeff Ross. Stay tuned.

I wrote a blog entry for Crime Writers of Canada blog about the Rapid Reads series - it will be posted next week and I'll be sure to blog the link. So, curling excitement is settling down, spring is around the corner and lots of projects are in the works. Some interesting author events on the horizon - more posts to come!