Eyeballing the world

Oh for technological progress. I am taking a course in photoshop and we spent out first night drawing eyeballs. It's all in learning how to layer

Flak and fights on the web? Why?

Why do people get into big fights on internet chat sites?? I think the problem is the internet. It's so easy to misinterpret and take the wrong way, emails that have been posted on chat sites. Then things start to get out of hand. An author friend of mine, and I got off to a very rocky start to our friendship because of internet postings and how they were interpreted. We made up, and she started to understand a certain side of my nature in my posts. Maureen stays in the background on stuff like this because, being the psychotherapist that she has been for the past 35 years, feels that people communicate so differently when they are face to face. She feels emails can be interpreted comepletely different from face to face discussion, and suddenly you are entrenched in a feeling about someone that can be way out to lunch. But in the end, conflict is what interests people in fiction and certainly those who write fiction, so why is it such a big surprise when people fight over their beliefs, even if they are misguided. It's absurd (no criticism of anyone) to think that we can get along all of the time. It's conflict that shapes things, and the creative process is fraught with conflict and frustration. But peace and calm are also necessary for creativity. We observe the human condition through our conflicts, and resolution ultimately brings satisfaction. Just like closing the back cover on a crime novel, hopefully the reader feels satisfied with the conclusion and then says to him/herself, "What shall I read next?".

A day at the beach - a morning by the Humber

I accompanied the famous mystery novelist and our dogs over the weekend for some surf and river walking. Still recovering from my nasty accident last weekend. Maureen is working very hard on the final re-writes of A Journeyman to Grief, the 7th Detective Murdoch novel. We heard from her agent on Friday, but alas have to wait til Monday to see if the next book Maureen decides to write, after she finishes "Journeyman", is another Christine book, who is featured in "Does Your Mother Know", and which will be realeased this October, or whether she launches into the 8th Murdoch novel. Here's the rub, our television series starts the story writing process in about a month. Maureen really wants to co-write a script. She has loads of ideas for both a new Christine book, and another Murdoch. So many books, so little time.

Mcclelland Catalogue Synopsis of Murdoch #7

A Journeyman to Grief (Murdoch novel #7 - publication date May 2007) In 1858, a young woman on her honeymoon is forcibly abducted accross the Canadian border into United States and is sold into slavery. Thirty-eight years later, Detective Murdoch's latest case is a murder that it will take all of his resourcefulness to solve. The owner of one of Toronto's livery stables has been found dead. He has been horsewhipped and left hanging from his wrists in his tack room, and his wife claims that a considerable sum of money has been stolen. Then a second man is also murdered, his body strangely tied as if he were a rebellious slave. Murdoch has to find out whether Toronto's small "coloured" community has a vicious murderer in its midst – an investigation that puts his own life in danger.

Night's Child - Triple nominee!

This was the only photo I had of the cover of Night's Child, the other two books are there to compare trade paperback sizes. Anyway, the Macavity Award shortlist was announced over the weekend for best historical mystery published in 2005. Along with the Bruce Alexander Award and The Barry Award, this gives Night's Child the elite status of being a triple nominee for Historical mysteryies published in 2005.

Long Pen - A Margaret Atwood Invention

This is the famous invention that Marageret Atwood debuted at the London Book Fair, without success. It seeems the bugs are now gone, and in this photo you see Maureen Jennings sending a signed note to a friend, who receives it at the other end. There are two tv screens so you can talk to the author, and then the sending screen where the author writes, and the writing machine that copies the exact note and signature. This all rents for $300 per event. You can set this up through q publisher for any author, anywhere in the world. This saves travel expense, brings the author to the fan via tv screen, and gets you infront of more fans to sing first editions. Here is the web link, just copy and paste to see more
http://www.unotchit.com/

Sue Feder Award & Bike accident

After Maureen picked me up from the hospital today, I got hit on my bike and knocked out this morn, no broken bones, lots of bad bruises, my bike is a wreck, I had my helmet on thank god otherwise I would not be writing this, we heard Night's Child got nominated for the Sue Feder award. We're happy, this book has gotten a lot of notice.I am going to be in bad shape for a few days, but the people around the scene helped me. the paramedics were great, Oh god please people wear a helmet if you ride a bike. This was an incident of someone opening their door without looking, my head, shoulder and knee bounced off the pavement, I momentarily blacked out when they stood me up, fortunately there was a nurse there who knew to
call 911 and lay me back on the ground where I felt better and did not lose consciousness, which I was close to blacking out when I was standing. I am going to be okay, the driver was charged. Gonna lay low for a few days, wear a helmet and god love you who read and enjoy my wife's books, I am happy about both this new award and the Barry, they are great notices for her, win or not.

Book Expo Canada

These images are from Book Expo where Maureen was promting her new book Does Your Mother Know, set in The Outer Hebrides Scotland and featuring Christine Morris, a forensic profiler from Canada. Also she appeared with Rick Mofina at the CWC booth where she signed 100 copies of Vices of My Blood. There was a tremendous buzz for Maureen not only at Boox Expo but also she had a feature article on the Toronto Star yesterday, which was part of their Literary Toronto series. Read that article in the post below.

More Images from Book Expo

Here we have some of our friends, Alex Brett, Louise Penny, Joseph Kanon, Rick Mofina, and more

Toronto Star Sunday Edition

A fine spot for offing a scoundrel
URBAN OASIS | Allan Gardens has long been a sanctuary for weary Torontonians, especially in the depths of winter. But for mystery novelist Maureen Jennings, writing in the fourth of a series on cherished Toronto places chosen by city authors, the Gardens' c
Jun. 11, 2006. 01:00 AM

On this Sunday afternoon, Allan Gardens is lined with long white trucks. Up Jarvis, along Carlton, down Sherbourne, along Gerrard, a film shoot is happening.
My husband and I are here to do our own bit of re-enactment. I have a photograph, taken in 1898, of the original pavilion and fountain that once stood in the grounds. In the picture, a man in a bowler hat is lounging on a bench, his bicycle thrown rather carelessly (they were expensive, after all) on the ground. He is facing the pagoda-shaped pavilion, and to his left the tall spire of Jarvis Street Baptist Church soars through the trees. Some children, all in hats, are staring in the direction of the photographer, who would have set his camera on a tripod and would have been hidden by his black cloth as he focused the shot.
I want to see if I can find the approximate position of the man in the bowler, and to look at the Gardens from that vantage point. Because I write a historical mystery series set in Victorian Toronto, I'm always in search of the past. Rub away the mist from the glass and there it is, if you know how to look.
At the moment I am distracted by the film shoot. A spectator tells us that the short man with the bushy grey hair, who is presently doing a sort of jig under the camera lights, is Dustin Hoffman. Wow. I know we take pains not to be dazzled by celebrity, but to be within 20 feet of one of my all-time favourite film stars is exciting.
A young man on a nearby bench tells us that he himself is a "background performer." You might be more familiar with the word "extra," but he says that term is demeaning. Other B.P.s are standing on the path, waiting for their cue. A Business Man. A Business Couple. A Woman with a Dog. They are motionless, spaced apart, all facing the same direction. They suddenly put me in mind of Seurat's painting Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. Young assistant directors politely make sure nobody else goes in front of the cameras.
Other than the film crew, Allan Gardens is host to the usual variety of people. A woman pushes an elderly man in a wheelchair. Children play badminton. People walk dogs. A man sleeps on a bench. My favourite season to visit the Gardens is actually dark mid-winter, when we are in the green-starved state that afflicts Torontonians, and when the eyes crave the soothing sight of blossoming trees and flowers, and the skin dries and shrinks in self-defence against the lethal weather. Then the lush vegetation in the greenhouses provides a paradise indeed.
We last came down in February. The afternoon was dark and cold, the sky leaden, the trees naked and black. But when we stepped into the Palm House, the warm moist air, smelling of earth, wrapped around us like a longed-for embrace. Here was greenery and colour, huge palms reminding us that Persephone would return from the underworld in the spring.
At this point, I have to make a sort of confession. One of the weird things about being a writer of crime fiction is that I often find myself in some lovely spot, keenly observing what is around me with the sole purpose of determining if it would be a suitable site for a murder or the miserable end of some nefarious character who gets his come-uppance. In this instance, the water wheel and the pond look perfect. Secluded, private. I decide to incorporate this spot into the book with an inward apology for defiling it in this way.
I couldn't write about this area of Victorian Toronto without involving the Horticultural Gardens, as they were then known. The large public park was donated to the Toronto Horticultural Society as early as 1860 by George William Allan, who stipulated that it be used for the purpose of a botanical garden and pleasure ground, no admission charges allowed. Eventually the city took over the land from the Horticultural Society.
Through the years, the Gardens have always been an important place for the hard-working citizens, who for all-too-short a time could get out of their stifling houses and walk here among the flower beds and trees. Mashers looked out for a chance to "chat up" comely nursemaids pushing perambulators; children played hide-and-seek and threw off their manners (but not their hats) for one sweet precious afternoon.
Until the pavilion was destroyed by fire in 1902, it hosted band concerts, dramas and dances. If you are under the impression that the Victorians were sedate, you should try doing a fast waltz or military step for a few hours. And imagine if you were a woman, you'd be doing all that jumping around clad in a tight corset, underskirt and most likely in your hat.
Today the greenhouses are quiet during our visit, but we meet a good friend who is showing her mother around. A visit of nostalgia, I am told. Her mother, Hilda, is 92. She tells me she used to live near the Gardens and as a child she came over to bathe in that self-same fountain of my photograph. My friend tells me that she, herself, came here regularly after her chemotherapy treatments to gain some peace of mind.
My husband, meanwhile, has his own encounter. He sees Natalie Portman, Dustin's co-star, walking along the winding paths. He's sure she's stressed-out, and like so many others before her, she is taking in the beauty, the fecund air, the sense of the eternal renewal of life. I think that's very possible.

The Toronto Star next Sunday

Recently, Maureen received and email from the Books Editor, Dan Smith, of the Toronto Star, Canada and Ontario's largest circulation newspaper. He enquired if she would be interested in doing a feature article about any location in our city that had a special relationship for her, a place she felt she could tell a story about. He was going to go all Summer in every Sunday Star, with authors from Toronto,and would like her to be part of that elite group. The article would have to be 1000 words and the fee would be $1000. Maureen replied with an "ummm, well, aw shucks, oh, all right, I'll try to think of something", and we leapt up and down with great enthusiasm and a feeling like she had just arrived at a new level of recognition. After all, the Star series was going to be kicked off by David Gilmour, who had just won the Governer's General Award for his most recent book, and each article would appear in the front section of the newspaper, not the entertainment, or books, but the front section of the Sunday Star. Whopee!! So off we went, my camera in hand, to Allan Gardens last Sunday, which has a very old Atrium and is very much part of our city's storieed past, as well as the fact that it has a very important role in Maureen's latest Murdoch novel, Vices of My Blood. So we arrived there on Sunday afternoon and lo and behold, the park had been turned into a film set for the latest Dustin Hoffman, Natalie Portman film. We got to see Dustin shooting his scenes, but I also got told off by a security guard who warned me not to take photos and to please erase the one I had just taken. Bugger him, but I obliged as we had work to do. The Star was going to have their own photographer do some shots of Maureen for the article, but I wanted some shots for myself as well. So we dodged the film crews and all the extras who were stationed around the park on various benches, waiting for the action word from the director, and headed into the atrium. We toured around a bit, smelled the flowers, and I took some photos. I then took off on my own to shoot a Venus statue which you see above. Lo and behold heading straight for me is Natalie Portman. I said hello and told her how much I liked her work. She was polite and thanked me, but seemed in a hurry to get to wherever. Anyway, Maureen wrote the story that day when we got home, edited the next day and sent it off to the Star. She had her photoshoot last Friday, and the article will appear next Sunday, June 11th in the front section of the Sunday Star. if you want to read it online, cut and past this url http://thestar.com
Enjoy, but wait til next Sunday.