Sunday 27 October 2013

Thanks, Ottawa!

Ottawa:

I have always loved you. You are good-looking, you have a great personality and you always know the right thing to say.



Jury Statement:

In this joyous calliope of a book Missy Marston has achieved that rare thing in a first novel: a literary romp and a riveting tale that fights tough in the corners. Marston's characters stick with the reader and her audacious turn of phrase wizardry lingers on the page. A book to engage and delight, The Love Monster rewards the reader page after page with a flair that dazzles just as much as it entertains. A modern fairy tale and a zoned out fantasy in one satisfying confection.



I was thrilled that The Love Monster received the Ottawa  Book Award for fiction on October 22, 2013. This is a beautiful city, full of great writers. I was honoured to be honoured.


Thursday 8 August 2013

Brain taken over by new plot line

I'm sorry. I have fallen behind. It must be incredibly boring to come to this blog and see that my last post was ten words long and was written in February.

But I promise I have an excellent excuse. I have been working and working on my new book. As with the last one, I swing between loving it and being woefully discouraged. But the point is, I have an idea. And it keeps doubling and tripling, replicating itself. Going madly off in all directions. I am pretty sure it will be a book and that it will be a bit better than the last one. These are my goals.

What it is it about? It is about a group of young people making bad decisions, engaging in high risk behaviour. It is about love, love, silly old love and terrible disappointments. It is set in a small town on the St. Lawrence River much like the town I grew up in. That old chestnut.

One of my kids once told me that he learned in English class that the best plot-lines were like the letter W (high, low, a little bit higher, low again and then right back up to the top). I am giving this a try. Sort of.

It will take me a while to get this done and to get it out in the world.

So in the mean time, if you would like to find out about The Love Monster, my real book that actually exists and is for sale, here are some links:

Globe and Mail review: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books-and-media/the-love-monster-by-missy-marston/article4186641/

Quill & Quire review: http://www.quillandquire.com/reviews/review.cfm?review_id=7652

Montreal Review of Books: http://www.quillandquire.com/reviews/review.cfm?review_id=7652

The book can be purchased at your local independent bookseller. We have this one in Ottawa: http://octopusbooks.ca/

Or at any of the usual online places:

http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/books/the-love-monster-a-novel/9781550653267-item.html?ikwid=the+love+monster&ikwsec=Home&gcs_requestid=0COjcvorh7bgCFVLj5wodMjkAAA

http://www.amazon.ca/Love-Monster-Novel-Missy-Marston/dp/1550653261/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1375961841&sr=8-1&keywords=the+love+monster

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-love-monster-missy-marston/1109673910?ean=9781550653267

It is also available as an e-book for Kobo, Kindle, Sony e-reader, Nook and so on.

Thanks for your interest and your patience. I will do my best to make it all worth your while.

M

Wednesday 20 February 2013

Vancouver!

If you live in Vancouver, meet me here tomorow night.
http://www.robsonreadingseries.ubc.ca/walid-bitar-and-missy-marston/


Will be reading at the UBC Bookstore on Robson with Walid Bitar and Basma Kavanaugh at 7pm. Will read something silly or gross. Probably both.

Sunday 20 January 2013

Cray cray

Sometimes my life really does feel like something I am just barely clinging to as it barrels through the landscape. Over past few months, the following have sped by me in a blur.

1. Return of kids to school: I have one who lives here with me, one who is in university in Toronto. The administrative and logistical list is long. We all made it back to where we are supposed to be.

2. Literary Festivals! I had the time of my life at the Word on the Street in Toronto, Winnipeg Thin Air and at Plan 99 in Ottawa. Big, warm crowds at all three. Amazingly kind and organized staff and volunteers. Friends in Toronto and Winnipeg that I hadn't seen in twenty years. I had a great time.

You can hear me read with Danile Allen Cox, Anakana Schofield and Dave Williamson at the Thin Air mainstage here: http://www.thinairwinnipeg.ca/events/mainstage-new-scripts-for-love

Or by myself at the Winnipeg Public Library, here: http://www.thinairwinnipeg.ca/events/the-nooner-missy-marston

And you can read about my experience at The Word on the Street here:  http://torontowots.wordpress.com/2012/11/14/writers-words-missy-marston/

Here is how I look reading. (Those sticky notes are enormous and rough-looking! Have since replaced them with more tidy, appropriate tabs.)



And this is how hard I smile when I find an old friend I thought I had completely lost track of:




3. Art Show! Because people are wonderful, Guy Berube of La Petite Mort Gallery in Ottawa let me curate a group show about supernatural visitors (aliens, ghosts and saints). I spent time in November and December working with my favourite Ottawa artists, who all produced new work for the show: Natalie Bruvels, Karina Bergmans, Jeremiah & Joshua Degranpre, Guillermo Trejo and Peter Shmelzer. The show opened January 4th. The work was beautiful, the party was great and people listened to me read about nude green aliens sneaking up on earth women in their bedrooms. Perfect!

Below: Trejo, Bergmans, Bruvels, Shmelzer



And: Bruvels, Degrandpre, Marston


4. Reprint! Thanks to all of you who have bought my book, The Love Monster went into reprint. The new edition has a review page, including this. Life: complete. Thanks, Universe.