Unconventional & Slightly Strange

Me

In order to intro­duce myself, I had a few friends and fans ask me some really import­ant questions:

Q: Why do you do what you do?
A: In order to avoid doing the things I don’t do.
Q: Is it a bur­den being that cute every day?
A: Yes, but it’s a bur­den I’m pre­pared to endure for the greater good.
Q: Who put the “bop” in the bop she bop she bop?
A: My daughter’s fish, Bubbles. (Sadly, Bubbles was sui­cidal, so he didn’t have time to put the “ram” in the ramalama ding dong).
Q: How do you feel about Vik­ings as cent­ral char­ac­ters in fantasy?
A: Some of my best friends are Vik­ings! I OFTEN put my friends in my work, so you can anti­cip­ate there being some Vik­ings in my upcom­ing nov­els. Vik­ings have always been a source of inspir­a­tion to me.
Q: Assum­ing there is room enough for only one book in your emer­gency sur­vival kit… What col­our would you paint your room?
A: I’m glad you asked that ques­tion. It’s one of those burn­ing ques­tions that are often dis­cussed around the din­ner table and long into the night. Entire week­ends have been squandered pon­ti­fic­at­ing when one ought to be vacu­um­ing or paint­ing the house or build­ing a sus­pen­sion bridge. What was the ques­tion again?

But, ser­i­ously, now…

I had a look at a list of the Top Ten Job Inter­view ques­tions, fig­ur­ing I’d use that as a model of where to begin. The very first ques­tion was this:

“Tell me about yourself.”

In case you can’t see the prob­lem with that, I will tell you. That is not a ques­tion! Thanks for NOTHIN’.

Writer — Fantasy, a bit of Sci­ence Fic­tion, nov­els and short fic­tion. In the works:
Nov­els: Dark Elf’s War­rior (series); Griffin and the Spuri­ous Cor­rel­a­tions; an untitled paranor­mal romance.
Short fic­tion: He Had it Com­ing, To Serve and Pro­tect, The Pageant — A Battle Maiden’s Cun­ning Stunt

Singer — with FAT Jazz. Formerly with Earth to Doris, and Chris Colt & the 45s; vocal/performance coach: “Bugsy Malone”, “Zom­bie Prom”; vocal work­shops for sec­ond­ary and middle Schools.

Actor — BFA in Theatre from UVic. Played Rosa Bud in “The Mys­tery of Edwin Drood”, Pristine in “The Pinch­penny Phantom of the Opera”, Laura in “The Glass Mena­gerie”, Olivia in “Twelfth Night”, The Teacher in “The Visit”, etc. Dir­ec­ted middle school pro­duc­tions of “Seussical Jr.” and “A Grimm Night for Hans Chris­tian Ander­sen”, as well as two ele­ment­ary school music­als. Cur­rently I use my act­ing to work a LOT as a Stand­ard­ized Patient for many health pro­fes­sional train­ing programs.

My favour­ite job, of course, is being a par­ent to two awe­some pro­geny, along­side my Incom­par­able Spousal Unit.

Oh, and by the way… I don’t col­lect any­thing, except rejec­tion let­ters. I con­sider them “progress.”

And finally, here are some of My Favour­ite Things:

 

Books – Pride & Pre­ju­dice (I read this every 18 months or so… Jane Aus­ten, of course), Mrs. Mike (Bene­dict & Nancy Freed­man), Lord of the Rings (JRR Tolkien… duh), the Vlad Tal­tos series (Steven Brust), The Khaavren Romances (Steven Brust), Nev­er­where (Neil Gai­man), Cor­aline (Neil Gai­man), The Grave­yard Book (Neil Gai­man), [Rork­ruun], Everything Jasper Fforde has writ­ten (Thursday Next series, Nurs­ery Crime series, Shades of Grey).

Authors – Steven Brust, Jasper Fforde, Neil Gai­man, Eliza­beth George, Carol Berg, Kel­ley Arm­strong, Jane Aus­ten, Agatha Christie, Tom Holt, Stu­art McLean

Bever­ages – Single Malt scotch; Gin & Tonic; Vodka & just about any­thing; cof­fee with chocol­ate, cream and honey; Columba Cream;

Movies – Little Big Man, Sil­verado, Serenity, Lord of the Rings, Tomb­stone, Emma (with Kate Beckin­sale and Mark Strong), Little Women (with Winona Ryder and Susan Saran­don), Monty Python and the Holy Grail, The Life of Brian, The Help, Hard Day’s Night, Help, Yel­low Sub­mar­ine, The Out­law Josie Wales

Shows – Fire­fly, Doc­tor Who, Corner Gas, Holmes on Homes, Monty Python’s Fly­ing Cir­cus, Fawlty Towers, North­ern Expos­ure; The Vinyl Cafe, This is That (CBC Radio).

Places – Port Coquit­lam, Scot­land, the stage, the com­pany of friends, my house.Alex and Geddy meet Krista and kids

Bands/Musicians – Yes, Kate Bush, Rush, Indigo Girls, Kurt Elling, Gor­don Lightfoot, The Beatles, Bela Fleck & the Fleck­tones, Peter Gab­riel, kd lang, Annie Len­nox, Queen, Roy For­bes, Pink Floyd, Bob Dylan, The Arrog­ant Worms, Arcade Fire, Miles Davis, Ella Fitzgerald

Foods I love – Meat (beef Medium rare, pork, chicken), hag­gis (I make my own), cheese, pea­nut but­ter (without added sugar… the just pea­nuts kind).

Golly, I have a lot of favour­ite things! Maybe my tastes are not dis­cern­ing enough… Okay, to provide some balance:

Baked salmon with fresh asparagus and vegetables served with risotto

Foods I don’t love – sal­mon, rais­ins, cil­antro, most beer. Ick. (Except the asparagus and other veg­gies. I like them).

 

 

Spe­cial thanks to Web Maven, Stephanie Kwok!