Book reviews and how to survive them

Every once in a while I repost this from several years ago. If you're a creative type, I hope it helps inspire you to keep creating.

“I have spent a good many years since―too many, I think―being ashamed about what I write. I think I was forty before I realized that almost every writer of fiction or poetry who has ever published a line has been accused by someone of wasting his or her God-given talent. If you write (or paint or dance or sculpt or sing, I suppose), someone will try to make you feel lousy about it, that's all.” --Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

There have been lots of public meltdowns lately about bad reviews. Authors take to social media to have a public hissy fit over a bad review, which then turns into a viral shouting match. Social media makes it all too easy to lash out, which never ends well. Read BookRiot on recent internet brawls over bad reviews (and why you should never do it).

But the truth is bad reviews hurt. They do. There’s no way around it. I’ve received my share of great reviews, and then the less-than-glowing reviews, too. We all do, it’s part of the job of being a writer, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s not easy being at the mercy of public opinion.

You’ve worked on a book for a year (or two, or three or god knows, 5 or more), you’ve polished, you’ve created something from nothing and had the faith in yourself and in your skill and in your publisher’s vision for the work to send it out there into the world like a toddler to their first day of pre-school... and for whatever reason, or for reasons that you can’t fathom, the teacher dislikes your child.

It’s devastating. Of course you’re hurt. Astonished. You may lose faith in yourself and your ability, at least for a while. You’re helpless because your only option, truly, is to take it on the chin. All you can do is choose to stop writing forever (or threaten to for a while), OR wallow for a little, lie around for as long as it takes, then as Mr. Marley said, pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all over.

Here’s the truth: you aren’t alone.

Everyone who has ever created anything has received a terrible review for it somewhere, even if buried among the thousands of good ones. Even Stephen King. Even E.B. White (whose Stuart Little was universally hated by critics when it came out in 1947). Even Shakespeare had his “slings and arrows” from the critics. Once loosed upon it, the world can say whatever it likes about your creation. Art is vulnerability.

If you're looking for some perspective on reviews, here are 5 ideas that might help:

1.      Read historical reviews. A quick web search will turn up a heady cornucopia of terrible reviews for now-famous books. Here’s what Emily Bronte had to endure from Graham’s magazine about Wuthering Heights:  “How a human being could have attempted such a book as the present without committing suicide before he had finished a dozen chapters, is a mystery. It is a compound of vulgar depravity and unnatural horrors.”  Start with this link for more examples of terrible reviews for famous books from Flavorwire if you like, but don’t stop there, misery truly does love company.

2.      "Sucks like you”: go to youtube and watch all the hilarious videos of authors reading their 1-star amazon reviews, there are dozens of them. Start here: Authors Read Terrible Reviews

3.      The 10% rule: peruse all your favourite authors and books with hundreds or thousands of reviews on amazon and Goodreads, and note that Neil Gaiman, Anne Rice, Stephen King, J.K. Rowling (add your favourite author to this list) all have roughly a 90% positive rating (give or take a percentage or two), meaning that close to 10% of their reviews are 1- or 2-stars. Go look. It’s a thing I’ve noticed: 1 in 10 people (minimum) will hate a book, no matter what it is. That holds true for yours too, unfortunately. The bigger point is it's not logical to expect that everyone will like your book, since precedent, statistics and human nature make that impossible. 

4.      Other authors won’t recoil from you: your family and loved ones mean well by telling you not to worry about your bad review (bless them) and they think you’re a great writer, but they don’t really get the self-doubt a bad review can inflict upon a writer. You should also brace yourself and have a business-like chat with your publisher and your editor, if it’s an important national reviewer who has disliked your book (likely you’ll get quite a bit of support from them too). But your best friends right now are other authors. Hopefully you’ve got a group of trusted authors to talk to, commiserate with, run ideas past (and if you don’t, get on that). Share your bad review with them, let them lavish kindness (and copious amounts of wine or whatever) upon you, and remind you that it’s a rough job, and you’re not alone. Read blog posts about how other writers deal with less-than-stellar reviews (which clearly you’re doing right now, thank you).

5.      What did I learn? It’s okay to write as many clever retorts to your bad reviewer as you like in your diary but DO NOT PUBLISH THEM ANYWHERE, EVER. You can wallow for a bit, even grieve (because it does feel a little like the public death of your book), cry, wander around in a fog for a while, tell yourself you liked your book, you know it’s good … then after the initial pain subsides, decide whether or not you’re ever going to read any more reviews. Plenty of authors don’t read reviews. Get your publicist or editor (or trusted friend, someone who knows your work and you well) to read it and distill it for you. Or just don’t read them.  And once again (if you didn’t look at it at the top of the page) read this blog post from BookRiot about why it’s so important to NOT respond to bad reviews (they specifically refer to Goodreads, but frankly it holds true for anywhere else, too): Dear Authors, Don't Respond to Goodreads Reviews

After a while doing this job of being a writer, I've realized that what's really important is to keep writing. It's always great to receive a good review, and thank you to the many, many reviewers who have liked or loved my books, it's really appreciated. But also thank you to anyone who has taken the time to read my books, frankly, whether they liked them or not.  

Finally, ask yourself this: did you write your book to please reviewers, or did you write it because it was a brain tick and you needed to write it or die? If you told the story you wanted to tell, and told it as well as you could, then you stuck to your artistic vision and that’s the greatest success any writer could have as far as I’m concerned. Kudos to all of us who manage that.

If you're still reading, check out pundit Chuck Wendig on "25 Hard Truths About Writing and Publishing." As he says: "Go forth and art harder, little pen-monkey. Because really, what else can you do?" 

Or 2018 UPDATE, for a slightly different take: Book Marks on "When Writer's Respond" (with thanks to Rachel Seigel for this one).

The Tin Foil Fairy

I was six the Christmas that the tin foil fairy appeared in my life. Other people will tell you that she wasn’t real, they’ll insist that it was all an elaborate hoax, and that they regret it.

People who were actually there that night, people who should know better, will deny that she ever existed, but I can tell you that she WAS there under the kitchen spotlight in the snow of our enormous, wooded backyard. And that she was real, in every sense of the word.

It began simply enough.

I was sitting in my bedroom colouring in a Peter Pan book (I remember this so well), when my older brother came into my room and slipped out again. Had I been an older child (although I can’t say exactly how much older), or even a tiny bit more suspicious of my brother, I might have guessed something was up. But I wasn’t older, or suspicious. I was a totally innocent six-year-old.

Then my much older cousin came into the room, looked around, smiled brightly, and also left without saying anything. But had I been more observant, or wily, I might have noticed someone was missing from my doll collection.

I went back to my colouring book, oblivious.

How was I to know that my life was about to change forever?

While I coloured in my bedroom and events were set in place that would permanently change my life, I knew that my mother was wearing an apron, as was my aunt, and that they were both in the kitchen preparing Christmas dinner. I remember the aprons, matching red-and-green wreaths.

It was snowing gently outside, and our deeply wooded backyard ended where the green, silent, glowering acres of Carolinian oak forest began. The woods at the back of our property were old and dark and very silent. The trees housed eagle and deer and pheasant when we moved into that house in the late '60s. It was a beautiful, wild and slightly magical place.

Who knew what other creatures lived in its depths?

As I coloured in my bedroom, and turkey was basted and gravy was carefully stirred, a roll of tin foil vanished from the kitchen drawer where it lived, then was quietly returned. No one would notice a small piece was gone, as tin foil is much used on Christmas Day, coverer of turkeys and warmer of dishes of root vegetables. Tin foil holds its shape around a pot, over the breast of a big bird, or clutched in a tiny hand in the snow.

Then she came.

There was an urgent call from my brother at the back door, not too loud, not so loud as to alert the adults.

“Pip! Pip! Come quick!”

My brother is six years older than I, twice my age on that day. Our worlds rarely collided, so the urgency in his voice drew me to him immediately. I dropped my crayon. I raced down the stairs and into the back hall where my brother was waiting, pointing into the backyard…

“It’s a fairy, Pip! A Christmas fairy!”

There WAS a fairy in my backyard!

The spotlight by the back door shone on the falling snow and glinted off the fairy standing at the very edge of the soft light. I could just make out her wings and in her hand … a perfect wand. She was caught in the deep snow, struggling and shaking the falling flakes from her hair. She turned her head, and smiled at me…

…then the spotlight went out. 

I RACED into the group of surprised adults: fairy! fairy in the backyard! I shouted, dragging my mother in her Christmas wreath apron to the back door. My brother (and cousin who had mysteriously reappeared) turned on the spotlight again, but she was gone.

Was I disappointed that the fairy had vanished? Yes. Did I notice my mother later talking quietly to my brother and cousin about teasing me? Maybe. Did I care? No.

A fairy was stuck in the snow of my backyard on Christmas day. I didn’t care what anyone said about a toy doll and tin foil and elaborate plots. The fairy shook snow from her hair then turned and smiled at me before the spotlight went out. I believed it with every inch of my six-year-old soul.

All these years later when I remember that Christmas day I know this too: your heart’s desire is a magical thing. It was without a doubt the best gift anyone ever gave me.

My brush with mortality ... and measles

IMAGE: Twilight Zone, Eye of the Beholder, 1960

The spring that I was 11 years old, I came home from school one day with a slight fever, runny nose and a cough. Nothing to worry about, my mother decided, children get viruses all the time.

I was put to bed to rest, like the dozens of times before when I'd had something similar.

But this time felt different. I was old enough to know that something was more deeply wrong with me, this time. My entire body was cold, weak, numb. I was itchy, I was sore, I had a weird headache. I wanted to close my eyes, but my eyelids hurt. My throat was burning from thirst but I didn't want to drink. Or eat. Or talk.

My mother put me to bed and thought nothing more of it, until 5:00 a.m. the next morning.

I woke up, gasping for air, croaking for water, calling for help, but too sick to bellow loud enough for anyone to hear me. I staggered out of bed and fell on the floor, which woke my mother. Lights switched on down the hall, feet hurried to me.

I was sick. Very sick. And covered with red spots.

I had the measles. I had a fever of 105 F. My chest was on fire, breath was hard to draw. I was hustled back into bed where, for the next 48-hours I fell into a kind of quasi-consciousness, darkness and light blending together, time irrelevant. I remember odd disconnected moments: the very worried look on my mother's face as she took my temperature, then disappeared from the room. Then I saw my neighbour's equally worried face below a halo of hair-curlers (when did she get there?), as she looked at the thermometer drawn from my fevered and blistered mouth.

Next I heard someone shouting, someone very far away, someone who sounded a lot like me. Whoever she was, she demanded that the curtains be closed. The sun must have come up.

At some point later a doctor appeared at the end of my bed, quietly conferring with my mother. Even as an 11-year-old in the mid-1970s, I knew that doctors only made house calls for people who were dying.

Was I dying? I was too ill to care. Maybe. So this was dying, was it? Hmm. Just leave me then ...

I was too ill to move except to go to the bathroom, and to do that my mother had to help me down the hall, as though I was an old woman. I will never forget the Herculean effort it took to stagger down the hall, clutching my mother with every step. My joints screamed, my feet were hot and swollen, my heart hammered, sweat poured down me, and I was weak, so weak. I remember thinking this must have been what old age was like. Or death.

This went on for days, weeks maybe. No one was allowed to visit except my mother and the doctor, who came every day. I lay in darkness, quiet, solitude, my  head throbbing and my body on fire, struggling to draw each raspy breath. An oxygen tent was set up over my bed for a few days, I think, but my mother has no memory of that.

Later I learned that the household had been quarantined, and the other residents of the house had  gone to live elsewhere. When did they leave? When did that happen?

Then ... I went blind.

I will always remember the kind look on the doctor's face as he apologized to me, saying he had no choice but to bind my head for several days. He was a pleasant young man, and I know now that I had identified him as my saviour, much like captives who empathize with their captors after a while, a symptom of Stockholm syndrome. As he wrapped the gauze around my eyes, and I wondered if his smile might be the last thing I would ever see, he gently said it wouldn't be forever, but we had to save my sight because I was so light-sensitive due to the measles. Total darkness was the only way.

I lay with my head wrapped in gauze for four days. No reading. No sound. No looking at anything. I was totally isolated from everyone, from the world, the sun, the birds, the trees. I must have lived in a kind of semi-wakeful state, too sick to really care, because other than the binding and unbinding I remember little of those four days.

I was 11 years old, and I contemplated the possibility that I could die. I was fully aware that I was mortal, that dying was a real thing. But I wasn't afraid, not really. I was still too young for that.

There's a Twilight Zone about a woman who has her head bandaged, who has had surgery to make her beautiful. The actress spends the entire episode with her head bandaged in gauze. I still can't watch that episode without a low-grade terror. Whenever I see war movies with gauze-eyed soldiers, I shudder.

Eventually, the doctor returned and removed the bandages. I can't really tell you how sweet it was to see his face again. I was slowly feeling better, although I had lost one quarter of my body weight due to lack of appetite. I was skin and bones. He gave my mother the okay to begin to very slowly take me outside into the fresh air, for small periods each day.Within a week without the bandages, we put a large dressing gown and slippers on me, and my mother and I went out into the garden.

It was spring! When did THAT happen? Sunshine on my face! Blossoms on the peach tree! Birds in the trees. It took all my strength to clutch my mother's arm and walk one slow, halting turn around the garden, then go back to bed.

I did get better, although I had lost over one month of school and spring had somehow arrived. It took another full month for me to attend school regularly. In my memory it was still winter when I fell ill, which all added to the immense disorientation of extreme illness. According to the World Health Organization, of all children, 11-year-olds are statistically the most likely to survive severe illness, starvation or trauma. That may be so, but personally I've always thought I survived because I live in a wealthy Western country.

Why am I sharing this story with you? I'm sharing it because measles is making a comeback in the West, including Britain, the US, and now Canada, and measles still kills over 100,000 children a year, many but not all, in developing countries. Due to vaccination, adults my age and younger have never had the measles so don't realize that it's not a benign childhood illness, and if they did have measles likely they were very young, too young to remember. At 11, I wasn't too young to remember: it was the closest to death I've ever come.

It was a traumatic and terrifying experience, one I wish no other child had to endure. We never found out how I contracted the measles, there was no clear vector, no cluster of similar cases nearby, it was a complete mystery although we did realize that I had never been vaccinated due to the fact that I was born in England before vaccinations were available there (they were available in Canada long before England), and once we moved to Canada my mother had somehow never been told to vaccinate me. So my classmates were all vaccinated and I, due to an oversight, never was.

And I caught measles when no one else did.

 Measles is still a terrible disease that can kill unvaccinated people, particularly children. It's all easily preventable.

More Information:

World Health Organization (WHO) on Measles
Centre for Disease Control (CDC): Global Measles Outbreaks

Dance, Girl

I had the best big brother. Here's a poem I wrote for him a few years ago, about the day I ruined his birthday party. Enjoy a little dance with us ...

Author and her brother,
before she ruins his party

Dance, Girl

My brother had a party,
when he was twelve.

I was locked in my bedroom,
too wild,
not to be trusted at
the party, age six.

But I escaped.

I ran into the basement,
wild-eyed, slippery, a flame,
and danced,
startling the shy boys and girls there,
twice my age.

I danced with long-haired,
twisting, child-hearted rage.
None could stop me,
None could get close enough.
My quiet brother dismayed 
at me dancing the twist with
everything I had,
begged my parents to DO SOMETHING.

They cleared the dance floor,
stuck to the safety of the walls.
What is this girl?
I heard one boy say.

What is this, girl?

I got claps, cheers, whistles,
I whipped my long hair from side to side,
clapped madly like the tambourine man
(that might have been the song),
and was not to be denied.

I danced at the party
the biggest,
the wildest,
the loudest,
a freak.
Sweaty and staggering,
drunk on fiery stars,
until the music stopped
and someone threw a blanket over me
like a feral cat,
and carried me to bed.

I danced a lifetime,
seldom raged such, since.

But once in a while,
in a tune, a light, a falling leaf,
the long-haired girl comes again
for a moment,
lifting her freak, happy,
wild child’s arms to shine.

Dance, girl, dance
until you are still,
mine.

PD/ First published on this blog November 15, 2020

The January Poet

The January Poet

I have barely moved all day.

Island House by Baye Hunter
www.bayehunter.com

This is January.

Full, replete, burrowed, dark.

I have sprouted a light down,

and a long snout to warm under my

new tail.

I find comfort in words like “root cellar”

and “tuber”

and blink when the sun startles the living room.

It is still and warm and could use

a few more leaves around the place.

Only short words will come to me,

as I move sluggish,

stripping the bark from mid-winter trees.

Strobing the few lights in the chemicals

that are left to me:

a low grade imagination and burgeoning hips.

I wait in the snow for angry neighbours to chase me

with brooms.

Scat, you!

But no-one notices my grubby boots
and January coat.

She’s just another writer come out of the dark woods
back into the house,

with empty pockets for words.

PD/Jan. 3/2012

The Ghost of Lego Past: an Ode

From whence did you come,

you warrior’s badge of youth?

From which ubiquitous movie tie-in
were you lost?

Star Wars, or Indiana Jones, or Harry Potter
or no… the list will only sadden us.

Let us roll your sharp corners
in our wearied hands,

and remember your usefulness,
and your former glory.

The hours in former times, in which
your simple symmetry kept children,

engaged, quiet, entertained, head-down
and building for hours.

The many, many, many (oh Lego masters,

hear our prayer) hours,

in which we followed your careful instructions:
numbers 1-17, numbers 18-32,

numbers 33-77, numbers 78-130,
sizes and shapes and colours,

to test our failing vision and dexterity,

in your simple creation

(except that 1,000 piece Star Wars cruiser,

which nearly tore us all apart).

Your parts bible which we followed so religiously,

well past the time to turn the turkey,

or mash the potatoes, or set the table,
or make eye contact with other adults,

forgoing that, instead we built with you,
oh Christmas morning parental rite-of-passage.

On our aging knees, after a thorough cleaning,
behind the couch in the basement,

I find you, red rectangular reminder of boyhood
birthdays and sleepovers,

and loud,  endless Lego parties,

from which this pointed, six-holed

piece was thrown, or kicked, or left
somehow, idle in the dark,

separated and not even a second thought
would bring you to mind,

for you were once so common as to be laughable.

How many times did I just vacuum you up?

I admit! The rattle of your brothers and sisters
up the hose was a release, a small act of defiance!

Why would I stoop to collect something

as small and insignificant as you!

Your kind was a curse! A scourge! To be
carefully avoided when barefoot in the dark!

And yet now, after the great Lego purge
of many years gone,

I feel an immediate kinship.

I honour your place in my past,

I feel your heft and your perfection,
remember your snap and trusty grip,

and return you to your dark corner,

beneath the basement couch.

One day I will find you again, decades hence,
and remember the joy there was in your making:

for now, as long as you lie in wait,

my boy is not completely grown.

PD/Nov. 26/2011

The Whales of August, in September

This month, my father would have turned 99. I recently completed a manuscript about his war experiences, more to come on that. 

So today, the last day of September 2024, I repost a poem from September 2011. That year, I looked through the books his wife sent me after he died. I came across a 1987 play he was in: The Whales of August, by David Berry.

The pages smelled faintly of dad's pipe smoke, all these years later. His stage notes were scrawled all over the copy in his large, uppercase hand. I knew he loved this play, he loved playing the part of Maranov the Russian, but I never asked him if he played it with a Russian accent. I wish I knew. 

The Whales of August, in September

I find this book among your things

which your wife sent and

I thought I didn’t want.

A play, which I’ve never read:

The Whales of August

Then all is not lost, dear lady...

It is one of your favourites,

which I never saw you perform.

Imagine.

Yes, imagine...to dine and be flooded by moonlight...

Your pipe tobacco hits me before I even open

the cover,

then your uppercase, manly handwriting hits me,

when I do

And you held this book,

you broke this spine, smoked your pipe as you read

and marked these lines, your lines, with green pen

You loved this play. I remember now.

But then, a thing of beauty is never fully at rest...

I begin, and you are Maranov the faded Russian noble,

right from the start:

Maranov appears on porch boardwalk. Unbowed by his years, he moves with grace and dignity. He wears woolen knickers, a rather worn, dark tweed, stout boots and heavy socks, a blue shirt, and a roomy, old navy blue cardigan, all rather comfortably gone to seed. He sports a Panama hat and carries a bamboo fishing pole along with his burlap-bagged catch of sea perch. The women don’t notice him as he approaches the screen door...

It’s unspeakably sweet, this stage image of you,

aged, gentle, gracious,

a vagabond with great manners and a mysterious past

coming up from the beach with dinner, discreet and worldly

We have the promise of moonrise, and whales...

We spent years on the beach:

you flew kites,

you buried me in sand,

we ate “crisps” and drank wine,

we canoed,

in your later years you wore a crazy-man muumuu and

a tea cozy hat that really set you apart,

along with the zinc oxide nose cream

but not once did I see you fish

Art lies to us, once again.

Let us not speak of sad things...

And yet art tells us the truth, too, since I know

you would have loved delivering your last line...

Do you see how the moon casts silver coins along the shore?

There is a treasure, my dear, that can never be spent...

PD, Sept 14/2011
With thanks to David Berry!

The family story I never expected ...

Murray Dowding's Magic Lantern and Slides @ 1910,
Town Hall, Chipping Sodbury, UK  * Photo courtesy Rich McDonough, Bristol

This photograph is the result of an incredible family story that began in the early 1900s and ended last month, June, 2024. 

What does the photograph depict? 

My grandfather, Murray Dowding (1881-1966), was a well-known photographer and local historian in Chipping Sodbury, UK. 

The photograph at the top of the page shows Murray's "magic lantern" projector from @1910 and two boxes of his silver nitrate slides. These treasures finally found a permanent home after a 54 year wait, and are now on display in the Town Hall cabinet in Chipping Sodbury, Gloucestershire, UK, for all time. 

Image: Murray Dowding's photo of "The Ancient Parish Chest" @ 1910.

The long, black object below Murray's lantern is the 15th century "Parish Chest," which once held birth, death, and marriage certificates, along with landholder title papers. An historical and irreplaceable treasure. On the wall above, the Town motto, and not shown, the town seal and crest.

How did Murray's lantern and slides end up in Chipping Sodbury Town Hall? 

Long ago, after my grandmother died in 1970, Murray's magic lantern and two boxes of his slides were saved from the garbage. A kind (and wise) local man thought that "someone would want them one day," and stowed them away in his cottage attic. 

Fast forward to August 2023, when thanks to a Canada Council Research and Creation grant, I traveled to England to research a children's book about WWII. One day, local photographer and historian Rich McDonough drove me to the countryside to visit someone who "wanted to meet me." 

We arrived at a beautiful 12th century Cotswolds cottage, and an incredible surprise was waiting: two older people who knew my grandfather! And more, they had Murray's magic lantern and slides in their living room!

The biggest surprise of all? Their exact words to me: "We've been the custodians of your grandfather's treasures for over 50 years Philippa, but they really belong to you."

Did I cry? Oh, I tried so hard no to! I was overwhelmed, frankly.  My grandfather's magic lantern? Two boxes of his slides? I gathered myself, and promised the two kind older people that I would find a place in Chipping Sodbury to house Murray's treasures. And soon. 

Image: Author with Murray Dowding's @1910 magic lantern and slides, a gift from two wonderful custodians after waiting 50+ years for someone from the family to claim them! Photo courtesy Rich McDonough.

I should note here that my grandfather took thousands of images, many of which are safe in local archives and private collections in the UK. The images in these two boxes have been digitized and made public. I  should also note, that my grandfather and his family lived at 62 Broad Street, right across from Town Hall, for three generations. The box I'm holding in the image has Murray's handwriting on it, his address, and the name of the slides within: William Tyndale.

So now, I had to find the magic lantern and slides a home. As you can see, the lantern on its display box is quite large! Who would take it and keep it safe?

With some guidance from new friends in UK, I approached Chipping Sodbury Town Hall. After some back and forth with me in Toronto, the council agreed there was historical and cultural value in Murray's treasures, a local who lived and photographed the area for over 50 years from @1890 - 1945. Image: Murray's photo of Stonehenge, @1905

Much of the town's history is recorded in my grandfather's photographic legacy, and his magic lantern slide talks were part of the social history of the time. My father, Marcus, often spoke of how, as a young boy, he moved the slides across the front of the projector lens while his father, Murray, gave his talk. An expert in local history, the Roman camps, 16th Century Martyr William Tyndale and much more, Murray's magic lantern talks were held in halls and centres across Gloucestershire. Today, many of Murray Dowding's photos hang in Town Hall and in local pubs and businesses. 

And now, as of June 2024, his magic lantern and a few boxes of his many thousands of slides are waiting in Town Hall for the next generation to enjoy. Thank you to everyone who helped make this happen, and thank you to Chipping Sodbury Town Hall for seeing value in ancient technology and images, and in my grandfather's contribution to local culture and historical legacy. By all accounts he was a modest man, but I like to think Murray might be a little glad to see his work curated and protected for all time.

Image: Murray Dowding, Ridley, Gladys, and my father, Marcus, the little guy at right, @1930.

More about Murray Dowding on this blog

More about research for The War Lantern, my children's book set in England in 1941  

 

Thunder Thighs, the setting for FIREFLY, is in the news!

 

My nephew/Thunder Thighs/Toronto Star, Oct 17/2022

“Everybody loves to be a cop,” Hanus said, noting military uniforms, which require a lot of accessories, are also popular. Army or Navy, take your pick."

So delighted to see my nephew and his costume shop, Thunder Thighs, highlighted in The Toronto Star (Oct 16/2022). Here's the full article: Need a lobster costume for an upcoming social event?

This shop is the setting for my Governor-General award-winning book, FIREFLY. It's a place I've loved for over 30 years, and a beautiful place to write about. My sister-in-law died in 2016, but the shop she created in the late 1970s has left an incredible legacy of amazing costumes, millions of them, that you can't find just anywhere. I hope you'll read the article, and realize that some places are just magical, and the perfect setting for a book! How lucky I've been to be part of it.

Way to go, and congrats to my amazing nephew and his staff:

“It’s taken me five years to figure out how to run this place, without any road map. It’s been a lot of work but it’s been fun and I have a good team and we are always busy,” Hanus said.

AND to top it off, my friend and writer Frieda Wishinsky has written a book, "How to Become an Accidental Entrepreneur", which also features Thunder Thighs and my sister-in-law, Lynda Kemp. Yay!

A few days in Parry Sound

 

Author, Philippa Dowding 2022

  Oh it's been a long, cold spring. We really need
  some sun! But I did enjoy a few days with family     up in Parry Sound (Ontario) this week, here are a  few memories...

   1. The author's son makes her laugh.

   2. A Pink Lady Slipper, a variety of wild orchid. (I've       read about them, never seen one before.)

   3. Three on a bench.

   4. BIG Buoy! (Medium man, Little dog)

   5. LOVELY view with feet and hummingbirds buzzing      above my head.

A poem for 2022, "But that was twenty years ago, Auntie"

Eating, dreaming, 2021

Here is a new poem about pandemic for the first month of 2022, taken directly from a recent dream sequence. Set in the future, in another body, on another continent, I think we'll all have this moment one day in the years to come, PTSD on a global level.

This dream seemed real enough to want to write it down and share it. I'm still here writing, and I hope you are doing something you love, too. Poetry is always my way to get at the heart of something true, so I hope you can relate.

Please enjoy my dream poem: But that was twenty years ago, Auntie 

I.

This dream, the evening, will occur
twenty years from now.

We sit among the others,
place our body, this body,
(grey we are, old women,
creped and thin, still fine hands
and your beautiful eyes,
hair together down to our thighs).

You set our body in its seat
among the audience,
and we all agree to keep breathing in time,
to maintain decorum,
we aver to the general notion
of filling our lungs,
to allow light and form in at the eyes,
to interpret image and pattern
that concur: a play is performed
for our pleasure.

This is gathering,
this is an agreed-upon,
acceptable evening out,
this sitting and breathing in,
we generally recognize the story
and context while hearts beat
around us,
filling each warren of darkness.

And we know, suddenly,
that this should not be!
There is something terrible about this!

This being together.
This is what they have told us not to do!
Why are there humans everywhere?
The boy beside us is too close!
Another in front! Another behind!
We could touch them. Breathe into each.
This cannot be, this them, this me.

We are death to one another.

"Why aren’t we all wearing masks!”

I think this is our voice which has yelled.
There is silence;
the actors stop and look up.
The night turns around, all eyes
upon us,
flickering across our open mouth,
our startled cry.

The boy beside us gently says
that he is our nephew.
What is nephew? We see only eyes.
He lays a plump, blood-stormed
hand upon our arm, kind:

“But that was twenty years ago, Auntie.”

II.

This moment you have dreamed me,
will not be wasted
on the day that it happens.

Our terror in the audience,
our fear at such intimacy,
too much breath
to endure, or protect.

We will know each other
across the crowd:
the flare of memory
will flood us,
dream and breath connect.
But it will be you knocking,
insistent
and loud.

PD/January 2022

Here's pundit Chuck Wendig on "Writer's Resolutions 2022: The Necessary Act of Selfishly Seeking Joy"

Enjoy my December 2021 short piece, The Time Twin on CBC Books

More poetry on this Blog

Time out on Manitoulin Island

"Give me nights perfectly quiet, and I looking up at the stars." Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass (1855)

There is very little to cheer about this year. I still take time, however, to try to remember what I love about summer, and to do the things that make me happy.

Here, in no particular order, are some of those things:

1. Reading. I've been reading and re-reading Whitman, Melville, Shakespeare, Virgil, alternating each with modern authors. Reading is my greatest love and in this horrible time of pandemic, I've revisited old favourites and discovered new ones: I finally read Middlemarch! 

Here are Goodreads reviews and books I'm reading.

2. Playing guitar. My second great love is to create music. I've played guitar since I was eleven, and I've put out three albums with my editor, Allister Thompson, over the years. 

You can listen on YouTube here: Philippa's Guitar Music. Spotify and other links at right.

3. Manitoulin Island... this place is quiet, peaceful, and I try to visit every year or two. COVID kept us away last year, but this year we managed to visit. We've been visiting for 20 years now, the same cottage, the same fields, the same wildflowers. I sit on the porch and read, or write, or play guitar. Then, walk the lane to the farmhouse with Molly the farm dog. Or go for a swim. Or look at the night sky ...

4. Writing. I've been writing a lot during the pandemic. I can't promise that what I've written has been terribly good, but I have had a weird urgency to keep writing. Poetry, short stories, a novella, two middle grade novels (need polishing before I can submit them anywhere). AND, big news, I finished the sequel to OCULUM. 

It's OCULUM ECHO, and I've been working hard at it, although honestly it's been weird writing a book about a post-apocalyptic world with a ruined environment and a plague stalking everyone. I wrote the first book in 2016 and DCB published it in 2018 ... it's a little creepy to be so prescient and accurate, but writers are futurists, observers, smart liars. In fact, writing OCULUM ECHO has been cathartic too, since I get to imagine my characters healing and starting a new world, by being brave, and kind.

Here's more about OCULUM ECHO.

I've been so lucky to be able to write, and escape into my head. I hope that you have a creative outlet too, dance, music, art, soap bubbles, whatever it is, embrace it. Art will carry us through.

5. The Olympics, Tokyo 2020! I know, I know, it seems frivolous, to watch young athletes athleting their hearts out right now during a pandemic, but that's exactly why we SHOULD watch it. Human endeavour, challenge, striving, small acts of humanity, coming together as a global community to compete in play, joyous in winning or gracious in defeat. It's what makes us human, I think, and we can't forget to watch, to remember, to celebrate. 

I love that the IOC didn't change the name of the competition year, it's still Tokyo 2020 even though the events are happening in 2021. I think it's a small act of defiance in the face of COVID; the pandemic has taken so much from us all in the past year, but still we celebrate and compete as though it hasn't, and strive and live, read and write, play music and walk the country lanes, despite it. 

Or look at the wildflowers on Manitoulin Island, right after it rains ... 

All posts on this blog about the Pandemic

Teenagers in my basement

WELCOME! THIS BLOG ROLLS OVER 100,000 VISITS TODAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2019! 

To celebrate, below is my first ever blog post in this space, from August 25, 2011. Today is the day this blog will hit 100,000 views, so it's taken 8 years to achieve that milestone. Thank you to everyone for visiting over the  years! 

Note: my first few posts didn't have images, or links. Wow.

When I reposted it on August 27, 2013, here's the introduction I wrote: I must be feeling nostalgic today. It's the end of summer, I always am at this time of year. So, I went looking through some old blog posts. I found this one, the first post I did, almost exactly two years ago to the day. The books mentioned are published or about to be, and WE have a dog now. But the rest rings truer than ever.

And below is what I wrote on August 25, 2011. My third book, The Gargoyle at the Gates (2012), was about to publish and I was signing the contract for my fourth, The Strange Gift of Gwendolyn Golden (2014). I am currently about to edit my 12th book, Quinn and the Quiet, Quiet (2019). The "teenagers" are now 21 and 24. Time, she flies.

Enjoy Teenagers in my basement:

"It's been a long summer. I'm a writer, and I haven't written. I'm a mother, too, and I haven't mothered. At least, I haven't felt like I have mothered, not in the traditional sense of the word.

No, this summer has been about keeping track of the teenagers in my life, largely by counting how many pairs of gigantic shoes are at the front door. This isn't really mothering, is it? Counting shoes? Keeping track?

I suppose I HAVE mothered in the traditional sense, by buying large quantities of food. And by daily tidying of the teen-pit in the basement, after the bodies who own the shoes have risen, washed and left the building. This usually happens around 1:00 p.m. or so. Never before.

There is little talk in this strange summer of shoe-counting. There is some laundry. There is some food preparation. There are agreed-upon phone-calls and texting and sleeping arrangements. There is allotted money amounts changing hands.

There is a craving from me, to hug someone.

I have been watching other mothers of teens, furtively btw. Some are friends, many are parents I know from the neighbourhood, acquaintances. I'm not seeing a lot of hugging or chatting there either, to be honest. I AM seeing a new crop of puppies though, or the latest batch of rescue dogs (greyhounds are IN IN IN).

September will come. School and writing will resume! I've just signed a new contract with Dundurn Press for my third book, The Gargoyle at the Gates, which will require editing and marketing input from me. My fourth book, The Strange Gift of Gwendolyn Golden, is now with the Acquisitions Editor at the publisher, and that may require a new contract and so forth. With the new month, I'm going to start working on new writing projects I have planned.

But for today, August 25 2011, I'm in that pre-September lull. Still, the teenagers will awake soon, and there are five pairs of shoes at the door."

PD

My acoustic guitar music goes on tour ...

The author at a coffee house at 16 years

Here are 3 new artist videos that use my guitar music:

Canoe Trip on the River Wye, England
Drone tour of St-Leon-le-Grand, Quebec
Lovely Fall trees 

In my non-author life, I play acoustic guitar.

I've played guitar most of my life. I started with a ukulele that someone thoughtfully gave me when I was nine. I begged my family for a guitar (my older brother had one, it seemed only fair), and when I was 12, I got a Sears guitar for Christmas. I played it until it bent in half (admittedly it wasn't a great instrument, more of a toy really).

For my 16th birthday, I got a truly wonderful instrument which I still have and record with even today: a solid body acoustic Yamaha dreadnought, mahogany top, made in Japan. Glorious deep voice, still. It's in the picture, above.

My first guitar album with
editor Allister Thompson, 2015

But before that, when I was 12, I started guitar lessons with the Sears toy guitar on Wednesday nights with Ursula Davidson, an amazing Russian woman who loved guitar and loved teaching kids how to play. Each student dropped a $2 bill in the jar at Ursula's feet, then sat in a circle and tuned (which usually took a long time). Then we played great old tunes, a new one each week, including some Monkees, Beatles, Jim Croce, even some America and CSNY.

It was perfect for me. Not too intense, no one-on-one unless I needed it, just learned some fun music every week and realized I really loved the instrument.

Ursula told my mother one spring night that I should go and audition for another guitar teacher because I had promise, and she couldn't teach me much more. So I did. I'll never forget how nervous I was auditioning for this man in a stern beard.

My second guitar album with
editor Allister Thompson, 2017

He assured me that I knew how to read music because my mother had assured him that I could. I assured him that I couldn't read music. He sighed. He said he didn't teach beginners anymore. Then he had me follow some complicated picking that he showed me quickly and I thought, sure, I can do that. I'm pretty sure I couldn't, and didn't, but he must have seen something in me because he told me to turn up for lessons the next week.

And that's how, at 13, I met my Julliard-trained guitar teacher. He patiently started at the beginning and taught me how to read music for classical guitar. He cajoled and bullied me, a fairly lazy student, into someone who could actually sight read reasonably well, and play acceptably. But I wasn't up to his standards, not really. He and I both knew that I was never going to play in Carnegie Hall. So at 16, I stopped lessons. But I never stopped playing.

2010, author and daughter doing our favourite things 

In fact, learning new songs and creating music of my own has been incredibly important to me my whole life. I've played with friends from university on a regular basis for almost 40 years now. I have a classical duet flute partner, and we practice regularly and play in public from time to time. And I also record music with my editor, Allister Thompson.

And people use the music in their videos to celebrate whatever it is they are doing in their lives. Honestly, that makes me so happy.

I think it would make Ursula Davidson happy too, and even my old Julliard-trained guitar teacher might say a quiet "well done." Or he might just be able to listen without wincing.

Thank you to them and to my musical friends, for the gift of music.

Here's a link to MORE VIDEOS using my music
More musical posts ON THIS BLOG