The Official Site
Just saw that The Demonologist is on the shortlist for the Sunburst Award! And this as the sun actually appeared outside the window. Coincidence? Obviously not.
The Sunburst Award acknowledges excellence for Canadian literature of the fantastic. My thanks to the Sunburst association and the jury, as well as congratulations to my fellow nominees, including the wonderful Nalo Hopkinson and Guy Gavriel Kay.
Shirley Jackson is the sweetest when it comes to sourness, a shining light in the darkness field. Have you read “The Lottery” or The Haunting of Hill House or We Have Always Lived in the Castle? No? You must. I’m not kidding. Quit your job, file for divorce, barricade yourself inside a storage locker – do whatever you need to do to read her.
As you can see, I’m an admirer.
Shirley Jackson, the late American writer of literary horror, subtle psychological thrillers and weird tales, has a prize named after her. In honour of her accomplishments, the prizes are given each year to stories, anthologies, novels etc. that mine the Jacksonian vein of horror and suspense. And this year…The Demonologist is a finalist for Best Novel!
I’m blown away grateful to be on the list with such great writers and books, some of which I’ve already read and the others I’m about to. Check out all the shortlists here:
I learned today that The Demonologist is a finalist for the 2014 International Thriller Writers Award for Best Novel. Mondays don’t typically come with such pretty bows tied on them, gotta say.
So honored to be on a shortlist with amazing writers like Linda Castillo, Lee Child, Lisa Gardner, (fellow Canuck) Owen Laukkanen, Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child, and…Stephen freakin King.
Returned home from the Dark Side Tour appearances in Calgary, Vancouver and Ottawa (all great fun) to see The Demonologist paperback on the Globe and Mail’s bestseller list for a 9th week (in the #9 spot).
Scary nice. And I’m frightfully grateful. (Forgive me).
I’m honoured to see today that I’ve been longlisted along with a number of other amazing Canadian authors for the LIBRIS Awards Author of the Year. And that’s not all! The Demonologist has been similarly nominated for Fiction Book of the Year.
Well thank you, colleagues. And thank you, 2013. You were quite a year.
That headline about says it all for today’s news. (I think I could write for a newspaper, but I’d be terrible at making up the headlines. I’d either rely too heavily on puns, or flat-as-a-pancake statements of the kind above. A road wisely not traveled).
Anyway, thanks you devils.
I’m on CBC Radio’s The Next Chapter with Shelagh Rogers answering the Proust Questionnaire today. If you missed it, you can hear the podcast at the link below. (My bit is towards the end, but the whole thing has good stuff!)
My answer-in-progress to a question readers ask me a lot. A hint as to where I’m leaning:
“To write about the supernatural requires, I think, at least an admission to its possibility on the part of the author, if not outright belief. Otherwise it would be like a sociopath writing about love.”
Screenwriting is awash in lingo that us novelists never use and mostly don’t understand. And this is probably a good thing.
But there is one term from ScreenwritingLand that I’ve found immensely helpful in thinking about how to tell your story…
The US paperback is here! (And it will be out everywhere else March 11).
