Get up on this!

It is literary festival season and instead of just sitting in the crowd and relaxing, I am going to get up on the stage and tell my stories.

On September 23rd, I will be at The Word on the Street in Toronto, reading and signing at The Great Books Marquee at 1pm with Stacey Madden and Mathew Henderson. http://www.thewordonthestreet.ca/wots/toronto/whatson/intro

On September 27th, I will be at two events at Thin Air, The Winnipeg International Writers Festival. At 12:15, I will be "The Nooner", reading and answering questions at the Carol Shields Auditorium. In the evening, I will be sharing the main stage with Anakana Schofiled, Daniel Allen Cox and Dave Williamson. We will be reading and talking about l-o-v-e.
http://www.thinairwinnipeg.ca/schedule/thin-air-2012/date.2012-09-27

Finally, I will be at the Plan 99 Fiction Cabaret of the Ottawa Writers Festival at the Manx Pub at 5pm on October 27th, with Pasha Malla.
 http://www.writersfestival.org/events/fall-2012/plan-99-fiction-pasha-malla-and-missy-marston

Can't wait to meet these writers and am really hoping that some of my new friends that I have only met through the wonder of the internet will come and say hello.

See you soon!

A feeling

Listen. I am going to express a feeling.

The Love Monster has been on the shelves for four months now. I wrote this book in fits and starts over six years, while working full time and raising kids. I was trying to get down on paper a story that would explain the basic way I feel about the world: that life can be miserable; that some of us are much luckier than others; that a positive attitude, love, rock and roll, art and fantasy can save us.The warm reception this weird little book has received to date has blown my mind.

So, I feel compelled to compose some thank-you notes.

First: the reviewers, the bloggers and tweeters.
Thanks to Mark Medley of The National Post for letting me guest-edit The Afterword and gush about things I love: Margaret Atwood, Donald Sutherland, Aliens and Mothers.

http://arts.nationalpost.com/2012/06/25/missy-marston-missy-loves-margaret/

http://arts.nationalpost.com/2012/06/26/missy-marston-missy-loves-donald/

http://arts.nationalpost.com/2012/06/27/missy-marston-missy-loves-aliens/

http://arts.nationalpost.com/2012/06/28/missy-marston-missy-loves-your-mama/

Thanks to Guy Bérubé, owner of La Petite Mort Gallery, for saying that The Love Monster was his favourite book of the year in his Q&A with Ottawa Citizen Style http://www.ottawacitizenstyle.com/category/around-ottawa/the-thursday-qa-with-guy-berube/

Thanks to Cori Dusmann of Quill & Quire for calling The Love Monster "a journey that spirals from bitter loneliness through the surreal before circling back to a world of hope, friendship, family, and love." http://www.quillandquire.com/reviews/review.cfm?review_id=7652

Thanks to Anna Leventhal of Montreal Review of Books for saying that my prose is "unfailingly charming", that it contains "Miranda Julyesque flights of fancy", and that my observations are "wry, funny, and often moving and insightful.`http://mtlreviewofbooks.ca/reviews/the-love-monster/

Thanks to Chad Pelley of somethingdaily.com for saying that "The Love Monster has all the makings of a perfect summer read." and for letting me write about my book and some of the books I love: http://somethingdaily.com/pitch-and-plug-with-missy-marston/

Thanks to Mary Oxendale Spensley who said this in her review on the WordFest blog: "Missy Marston has created a story that is both highly ridiculous and humane. It’s a wonderful read that will have you smiling and feeling good about the human race and the aliens too!"
http://wordfestblog.wordpress.com/2011/06/15/volunteer-reader-review-3/

To Cailin at The Word on the Street who said she would recommend The Love Monster "especially to those who have experienced a bad break-up, hate their job, or who have just been perplexed by how hard life can be."
http://torontowots.wordpress.com/2012/05/25/what-the-word-on-the-street-is-reading-8/

To Leigh Nash of Coach House Books who chose The Love Monster, when asked which book by another publisher she was excited about at Congress Expo this year: http://congress2012.ca/features/introducing-the-congress-expo/

Thanks to the one and only Vicki Ziegler (aka @bookgaga) for saying she would love to see The Love Monster on the Giller Prize longlist (What?!)
Vicki Ziegler ‏@bookgaga
Would love to see The Juliet Stories, @CarrieASnyder & The Love Monster, @MissyMarston on the @GillerPrize longlist

And -- saving the most unbelievable for last -- thank you to Margaret E. Atwood, towering giant of Canadian literature, for promising to read my book. Never in my wildest dreams. Really.
Margaret E. Atwood ‏@MargaretAtwood @MissyMarston: Missy, I will read your book. Promise, cross heart, juré craché (sworn, spat: an oath). Cause you sure have chutzpah!

Next: the readers.

Thanks to all of you who have bought my book, read it and then tracked me down to tell me how much you loved it. It has been a wonderful surprise.

In particular, thank you to the surprising number of people who have taken it upon themselves to aggressively market my book by:

- relentlessly pressing it on their friends, family, co-workers, book clubs, screenwriters, strangers in the street
- bringing it to every single dinner party they went to this summer as a "hostess gift"
- giving it to their mothers for Mother's Day
- giving it to the members of their wedding party on their wedding day (true story)
- reading it aloud at their yoga class (also true)
- demanding that book store staff get it out of the stock room and onto the shelf
- taking it off the shelf and smuggling it onto promotional tables
- and voting for it as the Readers Choice nominee for the Giller Prize.
http://www.cbc.ca/books/scotiabankgillerprize/nominees-p1/


People: you are spectacular. Your love is fierce and powerful. It is truly humbling. Big kisses to all of you.

Missy

Now tweeting like a crazy little bird!

Now tweeting as often as I can think of something interesting to say @missymarston

Lighting up the blogosphere, one crush at a time

I am delighted to be blogging for the National Post Afterword this week.

It started this way, with literary pretensions: http://arts.nationalpost.com/2012/06/25/missy-marston-missy-loves-margaret/



Then, very quickly, it became more like this: http://arts.nationalpost.com/2012/06/26/missy-marston-missy-loves-donald/



And then this started happening: http://arts.nationalpost.com/2012/06/27/missy-marston-missy-loves-aliens/





Then, as usual, it came to this: http://arts.nationalpost.com/2012/06/28/missy-marston-missy-loves-your-mama/

Love up your local bookstore on June 16th!

Collected Works Bookstore in Ottawa was born the same year as my youngest son -- I went into labour there. True story. The store was the first baby of my dear friends, Craig Poile and Christopher Smith. I was stunned by their resourcefulness and bravery. Entrepreneurs!

Fifteen years later it is as though it has always been there. It is part of the neighbourhood. People come for coffee, authors read, kids come for story-time. It lives!

This Saturday, June 16th, people will be gathering in bookstores accross North America for Save the Bookstores Day! to show their love for neighbourhood bricks and mortar bookstores. I will be at Collected Works with a dozen other local authors, reading, signing and shopping.

Come see us and buy books!

 http://www.facebook.com/#!/events/315625078520971/

Love that can be seen from space

What a beautiful night! The launch party for The Love Monster was everything anyone could have hoped for. Beautiful weather, a great venue packed with beautiful humans. Tears, kisses, flowers, drinks. Book sales!

Thanks to Raw Sugar Cafe and Collected Works book store and every single person who attended. And thanks to Dan Ziemkievicz who took these magic pictures.

"As the story gets weirder, it becomes both funnier and unexpectedly moving." - The Globe and (frigging) Mail!

It is the first day of the long weekend. The sun is shining, the house is quiet. Except angels are singing. True story. Missy Marston from Iroquois, Ontario, who has written a novel about green aliens saving a woman named Margaret H. Atwood, is in the The Globe and Mail. Page R13. There is a picture of me, smiling. The caption beneath says: "Marston: weird, funny, moving." I would happily wear that T-shirt.

Here is a link to Jim Bartley's review in this morning's paper. Thanks, Universe.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/books/the-love-monster-by-missy-marston/article2436905/

Monster loves bookgaga!

What a nice Mother's Day present! Vicki Ziegler says "... everything about The Love Monster makes me smile." and posted the section, Everyone carries a kernel of sadness as her poem of the day:
 http://twitter.com/#!/bookgaga/status/201670338940116993

Thanks, bookgaga!

Look out, Montreal and Kingston!

Get ready: Daniel Griffin and I are coming to read at Paragraphe in Montreal on May 15th and A Novel Idea in Kingston on May 17th. Please come if you can!

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1257201580#!/events/167723503354641/

 http://www.facebook.com/#!/events/365946566789650/

book launch! book LAUNCH! BOOK LAUNCH!

It will be the best Wednesday night ever in the history of Ottawa. For me, anyway.

Please come help celebrate the launch of The Love Monster at Raw Sugar, 692 Somerset West on May 23rd at 7pm. With any luck, there will be reading, laughing and all around good times. There will certainly be drinks.

http://www.facebook.com/events/329565950445981/#!/events/329565950445981/

Collected Works will sell books: http://www.collected-works.com/

Ode to Canmore, Alberta

What does Canmore have?

1. Beautiful mountain views: http://www.canmorealberta.com/webcams/three-sisters

2. This nice bookstore: http://www.cafebooks.ca

3. At least one person who read my book, liked it, and took the time to write me a very nice note.

Hooray for Canmore!

Aliens make good summer reading in both Canada and the U.S.!

Thanks very much, Literary Commentary, for putting me on your summer reading list: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2012/04/20/your-summer-reading-list/

The Telegraph-Journal says the nicest things!

Am flattered and grateful for Rebecca Higgins' thoughtful review of The Love Monster in the Telegraph-Journal, April 14th.

She says: "Missy Marston is keenly attuned to the desolation of the human journey. And then, she finds and grows hope in unusual places."

(See? This is the aforementioned literary technique of making you feel bad, then good. Please see post of March 6, 2012.)

And then she says: "The result is an affecting and funny rendering of one woman's crawl out of the dark." That really is a nice thing to say.

Thanks, Rebecca Higgins!

What time is it?

It's Buy My Book Time!

What is that crazy monster doing now? If you love your local bookstore, it is waiting for you there on the shelf. If you ordered online, it is on its way to your house. Maybe it's already there!

The Love Monster is now available online and in many bookstores, like this one: http://www.collected-works.com/

If you haven't decided yet if it's a good idea to buy my book, this person says that reading it is good for you, especially if you find yourself worrying about being kidnapped by aliens: http://findingthebookthatheals.blogspot.ca/2012/04/is-alien-lurking-near-you.html

Even if you aren't worried now, you might be some day. You never know. Better buy the book just in case.

Thanks, Baby Jesus!

The Easter bunny delivered the first copies of The Love Monster to my house this week and I have been petting them and squeezing them ever since. Should be in stores around April 16th. Will post details of the Ottawa launch as soon as I have them.

A Taste of Honey

It isn't really honey. It's an excerpt from my book.

 http://www.vehiculepress.com/pdf/TheLoveMonster.pdf

Thanks, Salty Ink!

Chad Pelley of Salty Ink says he is going to read my book (and he doesn't even know me yet)! Here is a link to his excellent blog:

http://saltyink.com/2012/03/09/this-months-canadian-affair-1-four-march-releases-ill-be-reading/

Let me tell you a thing or two about my book

1. The Love Monster is a novel about alot of things: divorce, motherhood, alien visitation, religious visions, sexual abuse, office culture. But it's funny. I swear.

2. The Love Monster will make you feel bad and then good. You should start the book feeling like the Mountain Goats song No Children and finish it feeling like Van Morrison’s Jackie Wilson Said (I’m in Heaven When You Smile). Even if you don't know those songs, you can probably guess what I mean. Or I could come up with other examples. It could take some time.

3. The Love Monster is for anyone who has ever fallen in love with an idiot. Or had diarrhea at work.

A hilarious journey of recovery.

The Love Monster is the tall tale of one woman’s struggle with mid-life issues. The main character, Margaret H. Atwood, has psoriasis, a boring job and a bad attitude. Her cheating husband has left her. And none of her pants fit any more.

Marston takes the reader on a hilarious journey of recovery. Hope comes in the form of a dope-smoking senior citizen, a religious fanatic, a good lawyer and a talking turtle (not to mention Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Warren Zevon, Neil Armstrong and a yogi buried deep underground). And, of course, hope comes in the form of a love-sick alien speaking in the voice of Donald Sutherland.

More than an irreverent joyride, The Love Monster is also a sweet and tender look at the pain and indignity of being an adult human and a sincere exploration of the very few available remedies:art, love, religion, relentless optimism, and alien intervention.

CANADIAN RELEASE DATE: APRIL 2012
U.S. RELEASE DATE: SEPTEMBER 2012

ISBN: 978-1-55065-326-7

www.vehiculepress.com