Alix Hawley's Blog, page 6

I'm so happy to announce that my next book will be out with Knopf (we're hoping for spring 2018), and I'll be working again with the great editor Anne Collins. Dan turns up at Boonesborough after running from Chillicothe, and further chaos ensues. Rebecca will have a lot to say for herself this time too. Title is coming.

One Book Kelowna finished last night with an illuminating talk from Dr. Margo Tamez of UBCO Indigenous Studies. Margo's perspective on the period, geography, language, and people of All True was sharp and insightful. We were lucky to have her there.  I then read a little from the new book draft (more news on that soon). Seems readers are ready for Rebecca to get mad.

Thanks to UBCO Library, Okanagan College Library, and Okanagan Regional Library for their warm sponsorship and support of these events this month. It's been so great.

This panel is tonight at Okanagan College in Kelowna. Should be a good one.

Great weekend in the mountain town of Fernie, BC, where I'd never been in spite of my upbringing not so far off. The rain rained hard, but at least 60 people still turned out at the beautiful Heritage Library for the Booked! reading series and an evening of live music, wine, and book talk (this library has its own bar. Believe it). Host Angie Abdou and I have a lot in common--first books were both short-story collections with Thistledown Press, for one--but I spilled more drinks than she did. Thanks to my hosts and sponsors, including the Park Place Lodge with its great glass elevator! It was good to talk about All True with people who know trails and trapping much better than I do.                                                                Fellow author Angie Abdou and me at the other bar before the reading.

UBCO's One Book Kelowna is underway. We opened last night at the Okanagan Regional Library on Ellis, with the inimitable Michael V. Smith hosting, and Neela, a ten-year-old fiddler, providing period atmosphere. I talked a bit about how I wrote All True and read a short (non-vegetarian) section, and the audience didn't let me off with easy questions.  More events are coming up this month--next is October 12th at the UBCO campus for informal book-club discussion with readers. Everyone is welcome. There will be snacks. And I may wear my fancy shoes again, because they're invisible in this photo . . ..

Here's a short piece on a library I have loved, included in Zocalo Public Square's description of how libraries are still the future. 
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Here's a short piece on a library I have loved, included in Zocalo Public Square's description of how libraries are still the future. 
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The Giller Prize shortlist is out, and it's great to see writers like Madeleine Thien on the list. I reviewed listee Emma Donoghue's The Wonder for this weekend's Globe and Mail​--here it is. 

UBC Okanagan's OneBook is coming up in October, as is UBC Vancouver's Alumni Book Club (join us for either! Both! In person or online!), so I'm reposting the image that inspired All True once upon a time. Sorry, library, but I still have the copy I asked you to dredge up  from the archives when I had the idea to write this novel. I'm not sure I can bear to return it yet. The cover takes me straight back to 1985, when I was ten years old and staring at National Geographic at school. Titanic and Daniel Boone--what more could a headgear-bedecked infant romantic want? Someone already did Titanic (ahem), but Boone was still available. I couldn't believe it. When the librarian delivered the magazine from the stacks, I  hardly had to open it. The image of Daniel carrying his son's body was still framed in my mind, the first spark for All True Not a Lie In It. Seeing him again in this striking illustration by Jack Unruh, I knew I wanted to write his story.
​                                           Illustration by Jack Unruh, 1985. Thanks to the artist's estate for permission to reproduce here.

Here's my review of David Bergen's new novel, Stranger, for The Globe and Mail.  It got me thinking about the oldest story patterns​: transformation, the quest, the need for an heir, monsters in various forms, etc.  Dan is tied up in all of this too, which might be why his life story has resonated for so long.  More of all of it in the sequel, which is coming.