Wow! It’s been almost two months since we published Tall Tales of the Weird West and never did I think that it would still be riding an Amazon Bestseller list! I want to thank everyone who picked up a copy, and if you haven’t yet, make sure to check it out.
In fact, Tall Tales has been so successful I’m looking at putting out another collection of short stories, based around a short novella I wrote back in the 1990s, entitled Twilight of the Idle, featuring four short stories set during different seasons in Calgary, including the award-winning fin-de-siecle “Labellypock”. Currently, I’ve got ten short stories picked out, each one set during a different year and season, so the reader gets a progressive view of life in Calgary from 1990-1999, albeit from a youth perspective. It’s not a coming of age piece by any stretch, but anyone who grew up here will hopefully recognize parts of the city because while each short story is a stand alone narrative piece, they are linked to each through local neighbourhoods, and characters that reappear and interact at different points in the decade.

(not a cover)

Those of you who have followed me for some time know that I’m sitting on several unpublished novels: A Special Education, Games of Chance, and the grand parking attendant novel joculatores domini (although fair warning: titles may change once published). There are also plenty of other works in various stages of completion, but most of them relate to each other in some way. In fact, the short stories of the new collection will actually feature a couple of cross-over characters as they all live in the same version of Calgary. The collection will even include the Gorilla House favourite, “Summer of Sloth”, featuring the first appearance of everyone’s favourite art auctioneer, Bassano del Grappa.

Tim, from “Dinner in Carcosa” is not slated to appear though, but I promise, I have some very big plans for him and the Ambrosovich Family…