Enjoyed a reading last Saturday by Gail Bowen at the launch of her new book The Nesting Dolls and the kickoff of her term as this year's Writer-in-Residence for Calgary Public Library. She will be giving manuscript consultations and giving a variety of programs until the end of November. If you have a manuscript you want some feedback on, I'd encourage you to get it in early as the spaces do fill up.
Speaking of Calgary Public Library, as I mentioned earlier Dan Hayes of The Golden Calgarians and myself are putting on a program entitled Cow Town / Punk Town on November 6th, as part of CPL's inaugural One Book, One Calgary project. Aritha van Herk's Mavericks is the book this year, and it's inspired the library to put together a whole slew of really interesting programs. Looking forward to reminiscing...or trying to. I'll be reading and Dan and his lovely assistant Christine are putting together a really rockin' multimedia thing. Should be a blast.
In mundane daily news, chugging away on this novel revision, which I'm hoping to have wrapped up once and for all by next spring. I was a little bit afraid that I'd been away from it for too long and that the whole thing would have gone cold for me. But actually, I think I have abundant objectivity now and am able to make some big changes -- improvements, one hopes.
My mom is hanging in there, but her ALS continues to progress and almost weekly she loses more and more physical capabilities. It's meant lots of challenges, no question. I have to hand it to her, though -- she is coming through this with grace and dignity intact, as well as her sense of humour. Food for thought indeed. All of this has had me thinking about the nature of compassion quite a bit, and I happened to come across The Charter for Compassion a little while ago. That food for thought is everywhere, I tell you.
Finally, looking forward to a beer tomorrow eve with my friends on the Writing in the Works organizing committee. Watch for our fourth annual fabulous showcase of local writing coming out sometime in the spring. Seems far away right now, but you know how that goes.
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