Lost Enough: My Book Baby Becomes Homeless

American author Glen Hirshberg once gave me and James K. Moran some great advice: that every stage in writing, publishing, marketing and book-selling will have highs and lows, so you should enjoy all of the former at their utmost, and do your best to roll with the latter. (The same could be said for most adventures in life, but I"m trying to stick to one massive thing at a time here.)

It's through Glen's big-picture lens that I'm trying to view the sad news that my tiny-but-lovely publisher, Morning Rain Publishing, recently announced it will be shuttering its publishing house, essentially making my short fiction collection, Lost Enough, homeless.

Lost Enough will continue to be available through the press until March 2019.

In the meantime, while I figure out how to keep this collection of speculative and other stories in print beyond then, you can still purchase the through the retailers below. Please help keep it alive by buying it for yourself, reviewing it on Goodreads and Amazon if you've read and liked it, telling others about it and/or asking your local library to carry it!

Argo Bookshop (Montreal)

Chapters (Ottawa)
Perfect Books (Ottawa)
Prospero: The Book Company (Ottawa)

Novel Idea (Kingston)

Glad Day Bookshop (Toronto)

Pages Books on Kensington (Calgary)

Variant Edition (Edmonton)

Chapters.ca (shop online, for ebook or print edition)
Amazon. ca (shop online, for ebook or print edition)
Amazon.com (shop online, for ebook or print edition)

You can also order Lost Enough through your local, independent bookstore, or any Chapters/Indigo store.

Another Dysfunctional Cancer Poem Anthology

Some of you know that my mom died last year of cancer of the esophagus. But, she was far from the only person I know who has had cancer. Given its prevalence as a world health epidemic, and leading cause of death, I'm certain that, if you are reading this, no matter where you are, you know someone who has, or has had, cancer, too. Or maybe you have had to face it yourself.

The amazing and kind writer and editor Priscila Uppal, who passed away earlier this year after her own extended battle with cancer, wanted to create an anthology of poetry related to cancer and those it affects. She and fellow author and editor Meaghan Strimas reached out for poems last year.

The resulting collection, Another Dysfunctional Cancer Poem Anthology, becomes available this month. It includes poetry by dozens of emerging and established poets, including myself and my partner, James K Moran, as well as writers such as Zoe Whittall, Canisia Lubrin, Bardia Sinaee, rob mclennan and Susan McMaster.

The book launches at a reading and memorial service for Priscila in Toronto, November 8:

An additional launch will take place in Ottawa on Wednesday, November 21, 7 p.m., at Bar Robo, as part of the Sawdust Reading Series, with James K Moran generously donating his featured reading spot to help support the anthology. The event will include readings by several of the anthology's poets hailing from the Ottawa-to-Montreal region, myself among them.

Priscila wrote, in her original emails to me and other potential supporters for and contributors to the project, that she hoped poetry could be applied to help others, including those who struggle to support people with cancer, either as part of their work or as part of caring for parents, partners, children, friends or other loved ones.

Priscila originally envisioned not just that poems by published poets could provide a source of support, empathy and personal insights, but that the project as a whole would encourage people, including those who may never before have thought of reading or writing poetry, to discover it as a way of expressing some of the many thoughts and emotions that come with living with cancer and its effects.

I'm looking forward to reading the anthology, and I hope Priscila's vision becomes a reality for those who could very much use poetry in their lives.