Naked Launch

The launch was a blast. I hope this book does well because it's full of amazing writers and good solid stories with a tinge of darkness, which is the kind of writing I like mostly. Someone asked me why that is recently, and all I could think of was that stories of loss, even if there is redemption, are just more interesting. I'm not sure that would hold up under scrutiny, but there ya go.

I did my reading last Tuesday night and it seemed to go over well. There were plenty of compliments on it, but I don't think anyone would actually come out and say it was a bad reading. It was a strange experience, though. There were a few friends there from MUN and a few people I knew from the writing community--Michael Crummey, Michelle Butler Hallet, Leslie Vryenhoek, to name a few. And I also glimpsed Chad Pelley, who recently won the Cuffer Prize for 2009. Of course, editor and now friend Mike Heffernan was there, along with the illustrator Darren Whalen, whose work is phenomenally good.

The great thing about the launch was the feeling that next day that I was sort of floating--and not just because I was tired. And it's not like it was my first public reading of my work. People kept telling me how much they enjoyed it or that they heard it was good. And, of course, The Telegram published a pretty nice photo the next day. I'm not a fan of having my picture taken, but that one came out better than most (it's not the one above, btw. I don't have a link to the one taken by Joe Gibbons at the newspaper.

I did feel a little naked up there. But it was fun reading an excerpt from my story, "Hold Out". Whenever people pay attention to you as a writer, that's a good thing. For the next few days, I've been feeling very creative, like I could write anything I put my mind to. Even came up with an ending for the novel I've been labouring on these many months. Can't wait for Christmas break. It could be epic. Funny how acting like a writer can make you feel like one. Huh.

GC