I haven’t been posting about all the reviews Masks has been getting because there have been quite a lot of them–more than I’m used to, and a function, I think, of this being my first hardcover release and getting some early favorable attention from the likes of Publishers Weekly and RT Book Reviews. There’s also …
Tag: young adult
Masks by E.C. Blake: Prologue and Chapter One
Masks, the first book in The Masks of Aygrima, my new fantasy trilogy for DAW Books (written as E.C. Blake) will be released in hardcover and ebook formats in just over one month’s time, on November 5. I’m very excited about this, of course, and I want you to be excited, too. And so, as …
The Shards of Excalibur series gets a new publisher
I’m thrilled–maybe even ecstatic–to announce that my five-book modern-day fantasy series with Arthurian overtones, The Shards of Excalibur, has been picked up by a new publisher, respected Regina literary press Coteau Books. I originally sold Song of the Sword, the first book in the series, to Lobster Press, and it came out a couple of …
Cover art for new edition of Spirit Singer
The launch of the new edition of my Saskatchewan Book Award-winning YA fantasy Spirit Singer by Edmonton’s Tyche Books is close upon us, and as proof, I offer this reveal of the cover art! It’s very different from what was on the original…which is good, since this is a new edition from a new publisher. …
The Space-Time Continuum: “Dammit, Jim, I’m a storyteller, not a social worker!”
My latest “Space-Time Continuum” column from the Saskatchewan Writers’ Guild‘s newsletter Freelance… *** This column I want to return to the World Fantasy Convention held in Toronto last November…and a panel that rubbed me the wrong way. Entitled “The Changing Face of YA Fantasy,” the panel was described this way: “Fantasy works for young adult …
On narrating the audiobook of my own novel
The audiobook version of my young adult fantasy novel Spirit Singer (the book which is also soon to have a new print and ebook edition from Tyche Books), is now for sale at Audible.com, which is exciting because a) you never know, someone might buy it, and b) I narrated it myself. Spirit Singer is …
The tangled tale of how my YA fantasy Spirit Singer was born, died, and is being resurrected
Let’s step into the wayback machine, and set it for the turn of the century… In that long-ago time, ebooks were in their infancy. There were dedicated ebook-reading devices, but practically nobody had them. (Although I did: a Hiebook. Read a lot of David Weber on it through Baen’s free ebook library.) There were ebook …
Things my editor told me
I think I’ve mentioned—though no more than a gazillion times or so, so you might have missed it—that my next book to be published by DAW will be Masks, first book in a trilogy (and hopefully series) that will continue with Shadows and Faces. Earlier today I spent a couple of hours on the phone …
Writing for an audience
My wife and I have had season tickets to the Globe Theatre here in Regina for many years. One of the great things about having season tickets is that you go to shows you might otherwise not have chosen to attend, because you’ve committed yourself to taking in whatever the artistic director decides to present. …
Saturday Special from the Vaults: The Shelter
I missed a couple of Saturdays of posting bits from my vaults, and I may even be running a bit short on material, but here’s something that might be of interest. This play was written a long, long time ago, in the 1980s, when I was working at the Weyburn Review. Someone (the Saskatchewan Writers …
Saturday Special from the Vaults (a bit late): Chapter 1 of The Chosen
This week’s Saturday-special-I’m-actually-posting-on-Monday is the first chapter of the YA science fiction novel (dystopian before dystopian YA SF was cool!) I just epublished last week: The Chosen. The original version of this book was only the second novel I wrote out of university, but I rewrote it sometime in the last few years. It never …








