Veracity was my debut novel, and was published in 2007 by a fledgling literary press (Rain Publishing). You can see the trailer here.

The novel was written in the early 2000s, when the fear of extremists, fanatics, and radicals had reached a point of hysteria, while the actual probing into how these people arrived at such a place seemed of little importance. At the same time, I was personally trying to come to grips with how contradictory we are as human beings. I had big questions and few answers (and still don’t). But the important part, I believe, is in the asking. Which is what the novel’s about, engaging and asking you, the reader, what you think, and what you would do put in the same situation, the same isolated environment, as it becomes increasingly radical—though in eerily reasonable increments. What would you do when the line that we like to draw between black and white begins to grey, then blur, then disappear?

You can download the novel as an e-book for free in pdf, html, or specifically formatted for the iPad and other e-readers. If you’d like to read the novel in paperback it can be ordered from Amazon.

Believing Cedric is my second novel, and was undoubtedly a labour of love. It’s published by Brindle & Glass, and you can read an excerpt here, and see a trailer here.

There was a lot that inspired the novel, and, likewise, there’s a lot in it. It traverses Canada, major historical events of the twentieth century, and the extraordinary lives of twelve different people, each of whom has some kind of poignant connection with a man named Cedric Johnson.

Meanwhile, Cedric is having the strangest experience of his life. He is fifty-eight years old, and flashing back to pivotal moments and decisions that he made along the way; though not as a passive observer; he's capable of interacting with his past—speaking as a fifty-eight year old man in his nine-year-old body, then in the skin of a thirteen-year-old, and so on—all while trying to figure out what exactly is happening to him, and why. Understandably, he tries to change a few things while revisiting, though with little success, imparting his more-than-flawed advice to those who played a key role in charting his course—twelve very different characters who must then decide if they will allow, or can even afford, this one blinking moment of believing Cedric.

Wayworn Wooden Floors is my first book-length poetry collection, and is published by The Porcupine’s Quill. You can read an except here and see a trailer here. I learned a lot throughout the editing process, in which Wayne Clifford electric-prodded me in directions I’d never thought to wander. The collection was a finalist for the Raymond Souster Award.

I was lucky enough to finish the collection while traversing northern Spain, walking the ‘Norte’ and ‘Primitivo’ routes of the Camino de Santiago. I bought an outdated and featherweight handheld PC, packed an ultra-light tent for illegal camping purposes (and only managed to get busted once), filled the rest of my backpack with collections of my favourite poets, and trekked a thousand kilometres, eating great Spanish food and sharing even better Spanish wine with fellow pilgrims that I met along the way. Inspiration from the experience is evident and peppered throughout the collection.

I find writing poetry a great complement to writing fiction. I think fiction becomes better the more you remove yourself from the text, the more you let the intricacies and egos of your characters take over; whereas poetry becomes better the more you put yourself in, the more you give of yourself to the page. It makes for an odd kind of balance.

Serafim & Claire is my third novel. It’s about the immigrant experience of a Portuguese photographer, and a French-Canadian dancer who is living out the glory days of the 1920s musical theatre in Montreal, and is forthcoming with House of Anansi Press.

The novel is set in an intriguing time. The twenties are roaring, and the metropolis simmering: corrupt politicians, the burgeoning of jazz, the suffragette movement, trouble in the Red Light, pro-fascism in the Italian community, the English/French divide along the Main, and two unlikely co-conspirators weaving through it all with a dizzyingly naïve plan to succeed at the other end. But, like the decade, it doesn’t quite turn out as cleanly as they expect it to. And, like the decade, it delivers them unexpected perspectives on the world, and finds them fortunate in ways they’d never thought to look for.

The research of the novel took me from Montreal to Portugal, then to the northern coast of France, Paris, and finally back to Montreal again. It is a work of historical fiction, and one that gave me a much deeper appreciation for Canadian history. It also introduced me to photography, which is a gift in and of itself.

Novels

Poetry

Blowing Grass Empire is my second collection of poetry. While writing it, a few trends began to emerge that were in line with my first collection, and, instead of pushing them away, I decided to take them on as conventions for my future collections, while of course still setting out to explore new themes and subject matter. One of the conventions was to have a title of three words, five syllables; and another was to feature four sets of series poems throughout.

Among the series in this collection is a set of poems called “Orbital,” in which five poems are written from a perspective of things in orbit or beyond—among them, the astronauts in the lesser known moonwalks of the seventies, the “Voyager Interstellar Message Project,” and “Chimp No. 65,” the name of the first chimpanzee to be launched into space. Another of the four series is a slant-rhyme set of “Prayers to the Vices,” where I pay homage to the things that seem to make me pay.  

The collection is currently being considered by an excellent (albeit slow) publisher, but individual poems have already been published in The Montreal Review, Descant, Vallum, Soliloquies, and the Poet to Poet anthology by Guernica Editions, among others.