Mid-July Book Shopping Interlude

I've been hard at work on two short projects I'll be writing about here in the next couple of days. In the meantime, since it was a bit cooler today (and my eyes were going Hammer-red from staring at my computer) I had lunch downtown and hit the World's Biggest Bookstore on Edward St. in downtown Toronto today. In addition to their always wonderful support of local writers, like yours truly...

...there's never a shortage of great books on sale to pick up for a song. I found this one today. This is the sort of marked down coffee table book that makes horror writers instinctively reach for their credit cards. I used to work at this store back in the mid-80s when I was getting started as a writer. You know how some bookstores just smell like bookstores? Well, this one does. Feels like home.

Keep cool, and stay tuned. I'll be back over the weekend with some updates.

Happy Canada Day/Happy Pride

Sunday is a day I like to lie in bed a little later than usual. I don't' sleep, but I do take my iced coffee in bed and usually throw in an easy-on-the-mind horror movie, for instance Dracula A.D. 1972.

The affection I feel for this brainless cinematic giggle, which was already a dated period-piece before the cameras were switched off during the filming, is one I share with my friend and colleague, novelist Rio Youers. He and I can toss lines from this movie back and forth with a dexterity that is Wimbledon-worthy. Fecund with clichés and improbability (the Scotland Yard cops discussing the possibility of vampirism alone is worth the price of the DVD) it's the ideal "don't talk to me, I'm not awake" sort of flick, and since the DVD player is in the bedroom, it barely necessitates movement.

Last night, I had dinner with friends. It was the perfect pre-Canada Day, pre-Pride evening--a traditional backyard barbecue in good company, with beer and wine aplenty, and lots of bookish gossip and good cheer.

When we called it a night near one p.m., I took a taxi back home. The CN Tower was lit up in rainbow colours, and there was a festive mood on the streets as Toronto prepared for the annual Pride celebrations, the city's biggest and most lucrative cultural event of the year. At home, I took Beckett around the block for a walk, then settled down for a long summer's nap (interrupted, naturally, hellishly early by Beckett, whose own schedule is sacrosanct to him, and by extension, his "forever family.")

This morning, between reading the Happy Canada Day and Happy Pride Day messages on Facebook, and swiping back and forth with BFF Ron Oliver, and checking Huffington Post Canada for its Pride coverage (and the always hateful, turgid comments from readers whose lips likely move when they watch television), I revisited London in 1972 via Dracula A.D. 1972. I love this movie the way one loves an old dog who was never completely "there," who farted and bumped into mirrors, but who was ever-present and ubiquitous throughout one's childhood. Christopher Lee is an actor whose brilliance shone through the material he played, whether it was good, bad, or mediocre. He was always Christopher Lee, no matter what the film.

Now, time to get cleaned up, hit the gym (via non-Pride Parade routes) and then come home and do some writing, as deadlines loom. Happy Pride (even if you're not gay) Happy Canada Day (even if you're not Canadian) and Happy Sunday (even if you're unlucky enough never to have seen Dracula A.D. 1972.)

What Are You Re-Reading This Summer? A Partial List

My second novel, due out from ChiZine Publications in the fall of 2013, is a contemporary ghost story. As I did with Enter, Night, I'm re-reading some classics in this particular genre, as well as some newer works that come highly recommended, and some personal favourites. Of course, during the writing of Enter, Night I plodded through the complete Jesuit Relations in addition to the cool vampire stuff, so this particular reading marathon is going to be a lot more fun

This (very partial) list includes The Mammoth Book of Victorian and Edwardian Ghost Stories (Richard Dalby, Ed.), The Literary Ghost (Larry Dark, Ed.) 50 Great Horror Stories (John Canning, Ed.), A Pleasing Terror,the M.R. James omnibus edition from Ash-Tree Press (a glorious, glorious, luxurious book to own), October Dreams (Chizmar and Morrish, Eds.), Northwest Passages, by the brilliant Barbara Roden, and of course, Peter Straub's classic Ghost Story. I posed the signed limited edition hardcover of Ghost Story from Hill House in this stack (it's one of my most prized possessions) but I'm toting around the paperback in my briefcase.

Susie Moloney's terrifying contemporary ghost story, The Dwelling, deserves its own review here, and will get one. There's a copy of The Haunting of Hill House around here too somewhere, or else Beckett's made off with it.

(Author's Note: My books aren't usually stacked up like this on my desk, nor are my owl bookends usually separated from each other, or perched theatrically on a stack of supernatural fiction. They've mated for life, like night-flying dolphins. The photo of my buddy Ian Rogers, whose short story collection, Every House is Haunted, will be read by all the cool kids this fall, however, is permanently installed on the edge of my desk. Truth in advertising, my friends. Truth in advertising.)

First Post: "Jesus, It's Hot."

Welcome to Forever October, my new blog. 

I'm Michael Rowe, a novelist in Toronto, Canada. I hope you visit it again soon, and often. You'll find a variety of information here about works in progress, the writing process, horror movies, the occasional book and/or film review, and a schizophrenic collection of glimpses into my life on and off the page, all broadcast from my office on the top floor of the old Victorian farmhouse in Toronto that the Ball and Chain, Beckett the Black Labrador,and I call home.

The world needs another "writer's blog" like it needs a hole in the head, so here's your hole in the head, dear reader.

Earlier this week, I received the news that Enter, Night is a finalist for the Sunburst Award, Canada's premier spec-fic book prize. Coming, as this news does, on the heels of the news, earlier this spring, that the novel is also a finalist for the Aurora Award, I'm feeling more than a little gobsmacked, and also quite humbled, especially considering the cut of the company of co-finalists in both prestigious awards.

The best part of these award nominations: my co-finalists. Hands down the best part.

On Wednesday of this week, I went to the ChiZine Reading Series at the Augusta House "resto-bar" on Augusta Avenue in Kensington Market, to hear my friend David Nickle (also up for both awards for awards for his novel, Eutopia) do a reading from his new novel, Rasputin's Bastards. And a week ago tonight, I had a party for my visiting American friend, Scott Bramble, the Cowboy, which was attended by Caitlin Sweet, whose novel, The Pattern Scars, is also up for both awards. Both Dave and Caitlin are ChiZine authors too,

In related news, Jesus Christ it's hot!

I'm just in from running some errands downtown, and I wanted to take Beckett out for a walk. I don't think the heat is good for a year-old black Labrador puppy out on a day like this. Picture the temperature of blacktop, then add a couple of bright eyes, a foolish smile complete with a lolling pink tongue the colour of an English rose, then wrap it in a black mink coat, and you have Beckett.

Poor Beckett, I think he's going to be in lying on my office floor for a bit longer with his chew-toys until the temperature cools a bit. At least he doesn't eat horror novels, though I could toss him a couple of "paranormal romances" and see if he has too much good taste to sample them.

I'm betting he does. Labs are classy that way.