It’s happening again. The Great
Canadian Book Bash is coming to a bookstore near you. On Saturday, April 30, roughly 700 Canadian authors will turn up at more than 100 bookstores across the country. It’s called Authors for Indies and, yes, we
do it to show our support for Canada’s independent booksellers. We
want them not just to survive, but to flourish. You can read all
about it at www.authorsforindies.com. 

Above, a photo from last year entitled The Calm Before the Storm. Here we see Our Hero at Book City in the Beaches with two fellow authors — Glenda McElwain and George A. Walker — and also veteran bookseller Ian Donker.

Shortly after Sheena Fraser McGoogan snapped this photo, a mob
descended, clamoring for photos, counsel, and signatures on books.
Donker, general manager of the Book City stores in Toronto, reeled
around this outlet, slapping his forehead: “I’ve never seen anything
like it.”

This year, Book City has invited authors to pick three “desert island” reads for possible hand-selling. I said let’s go with  White Eskimo by Stephen R. Bown, Empire of Deception by Dean Jobb, and What Lies Across the Water by Stephen Kimber. Book City will also stock a few extra copies of my latest opus, Celtic Lightning, and of a few tomes from my backlist . . . Fatal Passage, Lady Franklin’s Revenge, How the Scots Invented Canada. 

Hey, we’re talking win-win-win. Besides, it’s lots of fun. Maybe see you April 30.