Yikes! Really living my art, senses heightened, everything merging. I awaken in the novel, visiting characters. Ideas! Such a lovely escape from the pressures and banality of life, inner poor girl happy to recycle pain, angst, channel it into fiction. Not sure it works to exorcise but surely it informs, lends authenticity. This is what I wanted, to be caught up in the work of writing, free of ruts. Discussions over the dinner table cause me to jump up, make notes. Insert here. Add this. Remove that. My son was talking about a friend complaining about the yahoos next door firing guns to celebrate 4th of July, which made me recall a character’s fixation with firearms. When our hero Fiona lived in Los Angeles, she didn’t dare go out at midnight New Year’s Eve for the same reason, neighbours’ penchant for shooting up into the air, each year someone injured or killed. Only one reason why she returns to Vancouver as dismayed as she is to discover the city’s burgeoning gang activity.

Hectic times ahead; Summer Dreams Literary Festival, Saturday, July 13 in the afternoon, I’m on a panel; Music and the Muse: Exploring the Links Between Musicality and Textuality in Verse. Bridging the Gap Between the Poetic Bard and the Minstrel with Catherine Owen and Leanne Averbach. Moderator: Sean Cranbury. Poets pontificate! A talk on what I call spoken word song, the fusion of verse and music.

Sunday, Aug. 21, I’m honoured to be reading at the Queer Film Festival’s bill bissett retrospective feature, Strange Grey Day This at Emily Carr with Daniel Zomperelli, Elizabeth Bachinsky, and bill! Hosted by Billeh Nickerson. Come on down, we can celebrate at the closing gala later that day. Thursday, Sept. 1, I’m featured at Twisted Poets Salon with the inimitable Al Mader.  And I’m looking forward to a reunion of sorts with my punk rock homies at Zippy Pinhead’s birthday party at the Fairview Pub Sept. 9. See you in the city!