April 30, 2017
A Remarkable Week for Mitzi and Me
As excellent weeks in the life of Mitzi Bytes go, I don’t know if any other will top this one. On Monday, I had the great pleasure of listening to my interview with Shelagh Rogers on The Next Chapter. On Tuesday, in preparation for the 1000 Islands Writers Festival (next weekend!!), I published a post on Mitzi Bytes and ambivalence on the festival blog. On Wednesday, I drove to Waterloo to partake in the Appetite for Reading Book Club event, which was so much fun, totally delicious, and dear friends were there, part of a room packed with avid readers—you can see some of their smiling faces above.
Thursday evening was the thoroughly bonkers and wholly enjoyable Toronto Library Bibliobash, which took place at the Toronto Reference Library, which is one of my favourite places on earth. It was hilarious fun and also a privilege to be able to support the library in such a wonderful way. It was very exciting to see Mitzi Bytes in such a setting…
And the next day I would discover it somewhere just as lovely—in Shawna Lemay’s beautiful response to the book at her blog, Transactions With Beauty.
Saturday was the third Authors for Indies day and I had the pleasure of a road trip with CanLit superstars Kate Hilton, Jennifer Robson, and Karma Brown, who were so much fun and (unsurprisingly) delightfully bookish. We went to Curiosity House Books in Creemore and Forsters Book Garden in Bolton, which was so wonderful because there is nothing I ever love more than a destination bookshop. It was terrific to meet the booksellers and the readers…and of course I bought a few books on my own. There was much raucousness and the snacks were great…
…and I arrived back home in time to listen to the rebroadcast of The Next Chapter with my family! (Happy to see Mitzi Bytes included on “15 books you heard about on CBC Radio this week”!).
One more thing—the new issue of The Hamilton Review of Books is up and it’s really great. And it also includes my review of Marianne Apostolides’ memoir, Deep Salt Water, which was such a joy to puzzle out and write about. I’m very pleased to be included in this issue. And I’m closing out here with a photo of Marissa Stapley and I from my Toronto Library Eh List Event on April 13. Marissa was wonderful and it was such a good night—one of many I’ve been experiencing lately.
April 24, 2017
My Book in the World This Week
It’s going to be a very fun week in the world for Mitzi Bytes, which kicks off with my interview on CBC’s The Next Chapter With Shelagh Rogers. Our interview is broadcast today at 1pm and on Saturday at 4pm, and you can listen again online. And yes, our talk—which took place in February—was an excellent experience, everything a debut novelist could dream of. Really, it was such a pleasure.
March 29, 2017
Talking Canada Reads on the Radio
Today I got to talk about my favourite Canada Reads contenders from days of yore on CBC Ontario Morning. If you missed me on the radio, you can listen again on the podcast. I come in at 41.00.
February 22, 2017
More Books on the Radio
I’m not kidding when I tell you that all I ever really wanted from this life was a books column on the radio, and so my spots on CBC Ontario Morning are indeed the culmination of a dream as well as a great deal of pleasure. What a thing: to get to talk about books you love. Today I talked about this excellent stack of reads, and if you didn’t hear it, you can listen again on the podcast. I come in at 40.40.
January 4, 2017
Three Cool Things
1. I was on CBC Ontario Morning today talking about books you really should get around to reading—and what a pleasure was that! You can listen again here at 45 minutes (although I regret we ran out of time before I was able to mention Marnie Woodrow’s Heyday, but you should definitely pick up that one too). Anyway, this was fun. What a privilege to go on the radio and get to talk about some of your favourite things.
2. I got to curate a shelf at Hunter Street Books in Peterborough, and I selected a theme of “Strong, Powerful (and funny!) Women’s Voices”. My picks are The Mothers, by Brit Bennett, Where’d You Go, Bernadette?, by Maria Semple, and Rose’s Run, by Dawn Dumont. If you’re near Peterborough, head to the shop and pick one of my recommendations up. And if you’re not local, go somewhere else to get them.
3. And finally, Quill & Quire’s Spring Preview is now on newsstands, and I’m thrilled to see Mitzi Bytes in the mix. It’s a very nice thing to imagine that you might not be the only one waiting for your new book to come into the world. Also pleased to see the book in such good company with so many other titles forthcoming in the first half of this year.
November 30, 2016
Books of the Year (and on the radio too!)
49thShelf’s Books of the Year list came out on Monday, and I’m thrilled with it. It turns out that 2016 has not been a total disaster—maybe the books will save us after all? And I was on CBC Ontario Morning today talking about some of the picks that would also make great holiday gifts. You can listen to the podcast here; I come on at 37.30.
September 7, 2016
Listen Again
I was so happy to talk books again today on CBC Ontario Morning. If you didn’t catch the broadcast, you can listen again on the podcast. I come on just after 33 minutes, and oh my, did I ever have some great books to tell you about, including Zoe Whittall’s The Best Kind of People, which was just long listed for the Scotiabank Giller Prize.
August 3, 2016
Summer Reads on the Radio
I was so pleased to be on CBC Ontario Morning today talking about great summer reads, and sharing the books that so delightful occupied my July. If you missed the show, you can listen again online at 33.15 minutes—I hope you do and take me up on some of these suggestions. This is a fine, fine stack of books.
May 31, 2016
Books on Ontario Morning
Tomorrow morning I’ll be talking about books on CBC Ontario Morning at 8:20. I am ridiculously happy about the stack of books I’m recommending, because the easiest thing in the world to do is convey enthusiasm for things you’re actually enthusiastic about.
Hope you’ll listen in.
