Thursday, July 22, 2010

Island; Canadian Literature

Been on Vancouver Island the last week. Enjoyed Nanaimo, Tofino and Ucluelet over the weekend and early part of this week. Cold and foggy out on the west side, especially since we camped at Pacific Rim National Park three nights. Now we're back on the mild and calm east side, hoping to visit Comox and Mount Washington tomorrow. More Qualicum and Bowser relaxing until Monday when we go to Victoria for three days starting Monday and then make the trek back to Alberta starting Thursday.


I was very pleased to see Timothy Dugdale's review of  Love Minus Zero (along with Silver Salts by Mark Blagrave) for an upcoming issue of Canadian Literature, available on the web here. Cool!


Well, enough of this stuff. Too much like work. Back to relaxing!

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Betty's Run; Summertide; Beer; Writing

This year's Betty's Run for ALS raised almost $400,000. When the website is updated I'll link to it here. Thanks again to everyone who made a donation on behalf of my mom. Took my dog along for the walk and I was amazed at the number of other participants who were there for someone else. It certainly puts things into perspective, something that I've really needed lately. For a supposedly rare condition, it amazes me how many people I talk to who know someone who's had to deal with it.

In other news, summer is upon us again and now that Nick and Dan are becoming more prodigious sleepers I find myself defaulting to my natural sleep patttern, which is heading to bed around 12:30 - 1:00 and getting up around 8:30. We are looking forward to setting off for Van Isle later in the month.

Went to a session on crafting an Alberta Foundation for the Arts grant proposal last night (this is what I'm supposed to be doing right now) and picked up some tips. Then headed out for beer with Rona and Maureen. Yum. Talked books all night of course. What else is there?

And have been doing pretty well, I think, with ye olde writing. Pumped out the first draft of another (!) new story for a proposed anthology I've been invited to submit to. And yes, there's that novel, which I'll be getting back at as soon as I get this grant application off the ground. Really. Speaking of which...