Author Archives: Peter Darbyshire
I was trying to break the genre, but I wasn’t strong enough
Further to my last post about charming product placement, I see The Dead Hamlets has made the Genre-Bender list over at Tor.com. Which, now that I think about it, is the perfect way to describe my writing. Can we please start a petition to include “genre-bender” in the list of official genre categories in bookstores and Amazon and such?
Also, The Dead Hamlets is in some pretty fine company on that list.
That immortality game
In a lovely moment of product placement, my new book, The Dead Hamlets, and The Lazarus Game by Stephen J. Valentine are listed side by side over at SF Signal’s February releases roundup. Anyone who’s familiar with Cross will get why this is charming.
Also, great representation by ChiZine!
Books brawl breaks out online
The other day I noticed a bit of controversy growing online after Vancouver writer Raziel Reid’s book Everything Feels Like the Movies was announced as a contestant for the 2015 Canada Reads. National Post columnist Barbara Kay attacked the book for being void of values, and a petition was launched asking the Canada Council to rescind the book’s 2014 Governor General’s award for children’s literature. Vancouver writer and international bestseller Steven Galloway stepped into the fray, and things started to get heated, so I decided to write about it.
Then things got crazy.
The Dead Hamlets are alive!
It’s alive! My new Cross novel, The Dead Hamlets, is shipping. ChiZine wasn’t just pranking me when they said they’d publish it!
I’ll have more details about launches, blog tours, reviews and so forth soon. But right now I’m just going to crack these open and breathe deep of that new book smell.
And then get back to working on the third Cross book.
This is how they hook you
My publisher ChiZine is giving away books for Family Literacy Day.
TORONTO, Ontario (January 26, 2015) — To celebrate Family Literacy Day, January 27, ChiZine Publications (CZP) will be giving away copies of its young adult books. Trade paperbacks will be distributed at select bookstores across Canada while PDF versions will be available for free for a limited time from the ChiZine website.
CZP will be giving out copies of its first two titles printed under its young adult ChiTeen imprint: Floating Boy and the Girl Who Couldn’t Fly by P.T. Jones (a.k.a. Stephen Graham Jones and Paul Tremblay), and The Door in the Mountain by Caitlin Sweet. Giveaways or contests will take place at Bakka Phoenix Books in Toronto, McNally Robinson Booksellers in Winnipeg, and BookShelf in Guelph.
In addition, PDF versions of titles with young adult themes will be available for free download from the CZP site for a limited time on January 27. Titles that will be available include:
Picking Up the Ghost by Tone Milazzo
The Choir Boats and The Indigo Pheasant by Daniel A. Rabuzzi
Westlake Soul by Rio Youers
Napier’s Bones by Derryl Murphy
a ChiTeen sampler of upcoming books: Dead Girls Don’t by Mags Storey, The Good Brother by E.L. (Elaine) Chen and The Flame in the Maze by Caitlin Sweet
“The love of reading is something that runs strong in everyone at ChiZine Publications,” says Sandra Kasturi, co-publisher. “And literacy is more than just enjoying books; it’s an essential skill for success in life. We’re hoping to help raise a new generation of readers and book lovers.”
Details of when and how to download the free ebooks will be posted to the social media channels of CZP and the dedicated ChiTeen Twitter and Facebook page a few days before the event.
Contact
Sandra Kasturi, Co-Publisher, ChiZine Publications
http://www.chizinepub.com
sandra@chizinepub.com
About ChiZine Publications
ChiZine Publications (CZP) is British Fantasy Award-winning and three-time World Fantasy Award-nominated independent publisher of surreal, subtle, and disturbing dark literary fiction hand-picked by co-publishers Brett Alexander Savory and Sandra Kasturi, Bram Stoker Award-winning editors.
Roll a d20 for appearances
If you follow this blog, you know that I’m a big fan of the Storm Crow Tavern in Vancouver. Where else can you eat an Elvish Burger while rolling a d20 for random shots — Critical Hit! — while playing one of their many board games — who’s in for a quick game of Arkham Horror in front of the giant Cthulhu head?
On very special nights, such as when the Known Planets align with the Unknown Ones, or certain Thursdays, you can also hear writers such as myself read from their works.
I held the Vancouver launch for The Mona Lisa Sacrifice at the Storm Crow Tavern, and it was a great success, aside from that Curse of Typo Terror cast by the wait staff. Now I’ll be returning to the Storm Crow to read from The Dead Hamlets, the sequel to The Mona Lisa Sacrifice, at 7 p.m. on Thursday, April 16.
My reading will be part of the Storm Crow Tavern Reading Series – Season Two. Other readers will include James McCann, Kristi Charish, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Claude Lalumiere and Heather Haley. I’m thrilled to be part of such a great lineup.
I already have a special surprise in mind for the reading. But you’ll have to be there to experience it. Book your time away from work and your family now!
Day job linkage
The day job kept me busy today. First, I wrote a little piece about the Exploding Kittens Kickstarter blowing up the Internet. Seriously. For a while I just sat there, staring at my screen and watching the dollar figures multiply in real time. Clearly, I am working in the wrong business. I need to be getting drunk with friends and coming up with crazy card games.
Second, I wrote an article about the Canada Council, the arts funding agency in my little nation, deciding to completely overhaul its funding model. It’s a decision that will affect artists of all stripes in major ways, but no one yet knows what those major ways are. Yes, that plan of getting drunk and making games is looking more attractive by the minute.
It’s alive!
My publisher teases me by posting a photo of my new novel, The Dead Hamlets, partying somewhere in Toronto with new friends, in no hurry to find its way home to me. Wicked, wicked publisher.
The Peter Darbyshires: We are legion
A little while back I got contacted by another Peter Darbyshire who was getting ready to publish his first book. That’s right — there’s another Peter Darbyshire author out there. Cue the Highlander music!
I promised him I’d give the book a shout-out when he published it, so check out The Carpenter’s Tale if you want to read a book by another Peter Darbyshire. (It just launched, although he went with the name P.A. Darbyshire to avoid confusion. Or maybe he just didn’t want to be associated with me. I can’t blame him if so.)
Hmm, maybe if there are more Peter Darbyshires out there we could all band together and make the bestseller lists through our accumulated sales….
Licence Expired
Here’s a piece of interesting news: my publisher ChiZine is publishing an unauthorized James Bond anthology. Ian Fleming’s work has hit the public domain in Canada (there’s a whole other post about copyright in regard to that), and ChiZine is looking for works of a certain flavour. Full press release follows. Read the rest of this entry
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