RIVERBEND

Old houses talk. 

I've begun a new novel and am about 50 pages in. Part haunted house, part dark humour, part I don't know what. All I know is that the story works so far; the characters are alive and I'll let them take me wherever they go. The story takes place in the summer of 1975, in a huge Tudor-style house on Rothesay Road that looks onto the Kennebecasis River. A writer from Toronto, along with his wife and daughter, have rented the house for the year and right away they realize something isn't quite right. It should be a fun novel.

Characters so far include novelist Thomas Cooper, his wife Beth, and their daughter Lily. They have a dog, a black lab named Burt. There is also Hans Mueller, who owns the house. 

 

As with every first draft, I've no plan for a timetable or length of the manuscript, but if I'm guessing, I'm hoping for a completed first draft sometime either late 2022 or early 2023, at roughly 300-350 pages.

WORKS IN PROGRESS...

 Current status of all works-in-progress:

THE BOULEVARD (Novel): Speculative fiction. To be published by Galleon Books, summer 2022

ANIMALS (Novella): Speculative fiction. Ready for submissions. A bit of tweaking here and there.

LAMB TO THE SLAUGHTER (Novel): My Streetsville novel. Literary fiction. Third draft complete. 

UNCLE ANDY (Novel): Literary fiction. Just begun. 30 pages in. Minimum a year away from first draft.

SKELETONS (Poetry): Ongoing. 35 poems. A few years out.

THE BOULEVARD coming this summer

THE BOULEVARD, my sixth novel, will be published this summer by Galleon Books out of Moncton, NB. What's more, Saint John Artist Pamela Marie Pierce is doing the cover art. I've seen the sketch already and it's fantastic. I can't wait for the cover reveal when it happens.

Ernest Hemingway, Vincent van Gogh, Satan, and a train.