Swell time helping today at Munro's Books in Victoria (one of the world's best, as recently decreed by National Geographic). Authors for Indies Day is always a great time--really glad to volunteer at the bookshops that help authors and readers so much. Hosted games, served cake, bumbled around behind the register with a fun group of BC writers. It was sunny, too. Here are a few photos.

Here's a picture of the fresh American galley of All True. I'm thrilled to have Tracy Chevalier's and Richard Holmes's blurbs on the cover.  US publication day is coming up August 9. Interested in reviewing early? Contact [email protected].

The BC Book Prizes tour around northern British Columbia finished yesterday, 2000 km later. Driver Paul, children's writer Jordan Stratford, and I are all glad to be home and a little less grubby. But I got to meet hundreds of high-schoolers in places I've never been before, see plenty of beautiful country (alas, no wildlife, though we tried hard), and spend a week talking about books. Highlights: a terrific senior writing class in Williams Lake; the fire alarm going off halfway through my talk in the Kitimat high school auditorium; "Mike-sized" drinks at Mike's bar in Terrace; standing on tables to finish talk in Burns Lake after mic failure; very many enthusiastic and inspiring teachers; being lovingly (I hope) called a "citiot" by a writers' group; nearly coming to blows over plotting versus seat-of-your-pants writing on a panel with Jordan; the happiest kid I've ever seen eating a big bowl of soup and grinning through all the readings at the Kitimat Library on our last night.  I wish I had a picture of that, but here are a few others.

 We're still on the BC Book Prizes Tour around northern BC this week (in damp, beautiful Kitimat this evening),  but I wanted to share this piece I wrote for The Millions on Anita Brookner. She's a curious writer, one of my favourites, and when she died recently I pulled out all her books again. Maybe this will make you want to do the same, or try her for the first time. An acquired taste, maybe, but hard to shake. And I love the image the editors picked to illustrate . . . 
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I'm on the northern leg of the BC Book Prizes tour, visiting schools and libraries. Smithers yesterday, Burns Lake today, and more coming. Here are a few photos so far. Please do note my standing-on-table lecture technique for when the mic fails . . .

From tonight's reading at the terrific Pulp Fiction Books on Main Street in Vancouver.  We launched Andrew F. Sullivan's new novel, Waste (great reviews already--he's the tall one). Michael Christie and I were the opening acts, and Can't Lit's own Dina Del Bucchia hosted.