Author Archives: Peter Darbyshire
Finally — some value for your dollar
Hey, I think the third Cross novel is the first of my books to break the 100,000 word mark. I’m really starting to ramble in my old age!
Sweet, sweet 16
Hey, my new book, The Dead Hamlets, hit No. 16 on Amazon.ca’s Contemporary Fantasy list. That’s probably as high as it’s going to get. There’s no way I’m beating How (Not) to Kiss a Were-Bear. That book’s got crazy ratings! It’s free if you’re on Kindle Unlimited, too, so go and get it if you’ve ever fantasized about were-bears. Hey, I’m not judging.
B.C.’s bookish blades
I’ve published a piece called B.C.’s Bookish Blades over at the Province. It features three insanely talented writers from B.C. talking about their new books: CC Humphreys, Sebastien de Castell and Ian Weir. These are the writers who make other writers insane with jealousy because they have both the commercial chops and the literary language. Great stuff. Check out their books today!
Historical thrillers are nothing new. In fact, they’ve been around since we started recording history. What are The Odyssey and Beowulf if not their era’s version of Dan Brown or Andrew Pyper?
But a trio of B.C. authors are writing a new chapter for the historical thriller genre, and they’re turning to past masterpieces for inspiration. C.C. Humphreys, Sebastien de Castell and Ian Weir are also breaking down some of the walls between genre fiction and literary fiction to write perhaps the most literary thrillers yet.
You can still win The Dead Hamlets
Hi all. Just a reminder that you can still win a free copy of The Dead Hamlets through two giveaways. The Black Quill giveaway runs until the end of February. Just mention The Dead Hamlets in a social media post and tag me, and you’ll have a chance to win a copy of the book — and the mysterious Black Quill! What is the Black Quill? Well, you’ll have to read the book to find out the answer to that dangerous question.
My Bookish Ways is also hosting a giveaway of The Dead Hamlets for U.S. citizens. Just four days left!
Good luck and good reading!
What I learned about writing from a church
Today I’m over at Kate Heartfield’s site as part of her Unlikely Influences on writing series. I reveal what I learned about writing from the Gaudi church. It’s one of my favourite places in the world and I can’t wait to go back there again.
The spirit of wild imagination and utter audacity of La Sagrada Familia, as well as its mashup of architectural traditions, gave me the imaginative framework for my book. The history of the church helped me to flesh out the character of Cross. The church has existed through several eras of history, just as he has. It’s been in a constant state of reinvention and evolution, just like he has. It combines different architectural styles, just as I do with literary styles in the book: noir, urban fantasy, historical fantasy, literary fiction, and probably some others I’ve forgotten.
Author writes zombie novel, gets brain tumour
Over at The Province I talk to Adam Lewis Schroeder, who discovered in the middle of writing his new zombie novel, All-Day Breakfast, that he had a brain tumour. Crazy story.
“Between the end of substantive edits and the start of copy edits, I found out I had a big tumour on my pituitary gland the size of a Rubik’s Cube,” Schroeder said. “It’s almost like the book prompted it.”
Oh, my bookish ways
Hey, I’m interviewed over at My Bookish Ways. It’s one of my favourite sites, so I was pretty happy to wind up there. I talk about how my new novel came to be, reveal how I dealt with writing about Shakespeare (turn him into a wizard, of course!), and give shoutouts to some of my favourite writers. Bonus feature: If you live in the U.S., you can win a copy of The Dead Hamlets.
I asked myself what I would do if I was immortal, and that’s how Cross became a drunken, thieving, self-loathing liar with murderous tendencies who tries to do right by his friends.
The reckoning continues!
Hey, The Dead Hamlets continues to rock on Amazon. It just hit No. 42 on the Contemporary Fantasy bestsellers list. It’s beating out Haruki Murakami and Jim Butcher. I’m going to enjoy that while it lasts, and I expect it to last about 8 seconds.
Thanks again for reading and buying the book!
Right behind Stephen King on the bestseller list!
Well, that’s enough to make a dead old soul like me smile. My new novel, The Dead Hamlets, made Amazon Canada’s bestseller list in Occult Fiction on its first day on sale. It was at 18th place, but by the time I got around to taking a screenshot it had dropped to 23rd. I didn’t know it was occult, but hey, I’ll take it!
The Dead Hamlets also cracked the Historical Fantasy list, reaching 26th spot, right behind big names like Felix Palma and Gail Carriger. I’m proud of that little book!
The future of the Canada Council
A while back I wrote about the Canada Council planning a major overhaul of its funding processes. A lot of people were interested in it — OK, most of the creators in Canada seemed to be interested in it — so I contacted the Canada Council to find out more. I wound up having a fascinating conversation with Simon Brault, the head of the Canada Council about the changes. Read more about it over at The Province.
Brault says the future Canada Council will be “a sort of portal where artists create their own profiles explaining everything they do … Their job will be to explain to the Canada Council what they want to do, their artistic practice, and all of that, and our role will be to make sure that we serve them well in the context of very few programs … The intentions of the artists will be the driving force of the assessments and not a rigid compliance with a very small sub-program.”
peter darbyshire 