Spring Books!

My Own & Others’

I guess the countdown has really begun now: The Fall-Down Effect comes out April 21, just a month and a handful of days away now. As I’ve said far too many times lately (apologies to friends for being such a broken record), this thing I’ve been working toward for years and years is starting to feel really real now.

There are a couple excerpts from the novel out in the world now. First, you can find the very beginning section from chapter 4 on River Street Writing’s blog. The chapter continues on with another excerpt at Wild Roof Journal.

And I responded to a few questions from On Creative Writing. Check out the interview if you want to read a bit about my inefficient writing process, my first-ever publication, and how my writing has evolved over the years. To the question “Do you see generative AI as a threat or benefit to writers?” I begin, “I see generative AI as a threat to humanity, not to be too overblown about it.”

On that subject, I’ll quickly share a post on Bluesky that caught my eye yesterday:

Speaking of the opportunity to have my mind briefly and mysteriously touched by another’s, I’m excited about so many books coming out from beautiful human minds this spring, and I’d like to highlight a few from folks I’m going to have the honour of reading and launching with. First, some poetry:

I’m thrilled that the stars aligned so me and the incomparable Laurie D. Graham—publisher of Brick, onetime fellow Victorian Review work-study intern, longtime friend—will be launching books in the same season. I love her poetry always, and I loved the chapbook that this new collection, also called Calling It Back to Me, grew out of. I’m excited to read this book that (per the catalogue copy) “traces the story of her great-grandmothers’ lives before and after they left their homelands and settled on this continent.”

And Sadiqa de Meijer—I can’t wait for her new collection, Qaf’s People! I first got to know Sadiqa’s writing when a review copy of Leaving Howe Island arrived at Brick, where I was then circulation manager (if I recall correctly), and I recognized the poet’s name from one of the loveliest notes on a renewal form we’d ever received. Year’s later, Brick published her brilliant essay “Mother Tongue,” which became a part of her Governor General Literary Award–winning alfabet/alphabet. More recently, I got to work with Sadiqa on another extraordinary essay collection, In the Field. Suffice it to say, I await poems with bated breath.

And fellow Book*hug author Jennifer LoveGrove will be launching her latest collection, The Tinder Sonnets. The book sounds great, and I’m so happy I’ll get to hear her read from it at a triple book launch (with Laurie) at Take Cover Books in Peterborough on April 30. Stay tuned, as I may line up another couple events with Jenn too.

Of course, I will be doing readings with fellow novelists too!

Aga Maksimowska is another Brick connection. The magazine has been lucky enough to publish a few essays by her (standing out in my mind is a piece about her mother reading her The Little Mermaid and another in which she fixes the ending of Othello). Aga’s forthcoming novel, Becalming, sounds so darn good—about a woman, feeling stalled in her life, who travels to her native Poland to visit her estranged father—and she has awesome blurbs, including ones from Jenny Offill and Weike Wang. I’m going to get to read with Aga (and Laurie) in Ottawa on April 18, a few days before my book is officially out in the world (though of course there will be copies there), and then she, Sadiqa, Laurie, and I will all be launching together in Kingston on May 22.

At Junction Reads on May 3, I’ll be with Kerry Clare, whose novel Definitely Thriving just came out, and Alice Fitzpatrick, author of A Dark Death. And of course, the series is hosted by Alison Gadsby—whose just had a collection of stories come out herself. I was at the launch of Breathing Is How Some People Stay Alive just last week, and what a lovely event it was.

I’m lucky enough to have Hollay Ghadery and Selena Mercury of River Street Writing doing publicity for The Fall-Down Effect, and Hollay has a new novel out too, The Unravelling of Ou. I look forward to picking up a copy at her launch next week.

And to round out my list with one more book, I’ve heard (read) great things about Carrianne Leung’s Wonderland Road, which will have its Toronto launch April 20, just the day before mine. Can’t wait!

The spirit of camaraderie and mutual excitement and support among writers launching in the same season was something I hadn’t known to expect from this whole publishing-a-book experience, and gosh, it’s pretty special.

Congratulations and good luck and all the rest to everyone launching a book in the next few months—and for all time!