Five, four, three, two, one... We have book launch (photos).

Thanks to everyone for coming out to my launch at Supermarket on Friday night! I genuinely felt all the love and support in the room, and I'll never forget it. And thanks to Anthony, Shane, Matt and Tas for sharing their photos. (If you're viewing on your mobile, check out this link.) More photos coming soon!

Too literal?

The launch party for my book is coming up soon: Friday, September 23 at Supermarket (268 Augusta Ave. | Toronto, Ontario). I hope you and all your rich friends can make it!

Doors open at 7:00 p.m., and I'll be reading around 7:30 p.m. Books will be for sale via credit card only because our new Canadian money smells like maple syrup and so I can’t be trusted around it.

Special note: For bonus karma points, please wear/bring a white dress shirt, the kind with a collar, as per my book cover. It’s for a social media photo thingy. (Plus you look GREAT in white.) If you wear said shirt, you’ll be entered into a draw for a prize that I promise is not a dented copy of my book.

Hope to see you there!

Put a bird bird bird bird bird bird bird bird bird on it

Had a grand weekend shooting a pilot for a web series I wrote with some friends. As you've probably guessed from the photos from set, it's an introspective drama about love, loss, the indoctrination of the spirit, and the fragility of man.

When you have the flu* and look like $#it but the first copy of your first novel arrives in the mail!

*Update: It is in fact strep fu**ing throat and I am six years old again wanting my mommy and a tiny mug of warm apple juice.

I Google myself, therefore I am

I Googled myself the other day and lo and behold, I got some good news: My sex tape is still undetected! Also, I discovered that I'm on the Most Anticipated Fall Fiction list over on the 49th Shelf blog. It was exciting to see my book up there in such good company. So good, in fact, that it cancelled out the clammy shame of the self-Google.

There's loads of brilliant books on this list, but a few in particular caught my eye. Strange Things Done sounds like a smart spine-tingler, which I'm very much in to these days. (Plus, the author, Elle Wild, is described as growing up "in a dark, rambling farmhouse in the wilds of Canada where there was nothing to do but read Edgar Allan Poe and watch PBS mysteries.") I'm fascinated by China, so Shenzheners by Xue Yiwei and translated by Darryl Sterk is also tops for me. If the reviews are any indication, Teardown by Clea Young (and my publisher Freehand Books) will indeed be "clever and imaginative, an absolutely addictive read." I'm endlessly intrigued by virtuosos and the inner lives of boys/men, which means Eric Beck Rubin's School of Velocity could be a winner for me, too. 

I'm going to have to re-prioritize my life just to fit in all these delicious fall reads. Let's see... Cancel three out of four television streaming services I subscribe to? Stop Googling myself? Give up the sex-tape lifestyle? Tough choices ahead.

By the way, if you want to pre-order my book The Weather Inside you can do that now direct from Freehand Books. Other options include going to your favourite local indie bookstore and asking for it, or giving them a call. You can also get it through the usual suspects like Chapters, Amazon and Barnes & Noble. For e-book readers, the link will be available on September 24 on Kobo, Kindle (Canada), iBooks, Google Play, All Lit Up and Broadview Press. 

Explore Inside Emily, Saso

I'm on the 2016 Crazy for CanLit list, which is put together by the Giller Prize people. Hold your applause: every Canadian author published this year is on it. But I'm on a list, okay, which means I exist, my book exists. So I'm throwing roses and high-fiving myself and champagne is bursting out of bottles, etc.

When I heard about this list via my friend Erin, there was a confusing moment when I thought I had made the long list for the Giller Prize. It made no sense -- I knew this -- but my body still reacted as it does to good news. Sweaty forehead. A tingle up the spine. A "wait wait wait wait wait" rush. Fear.

Being on this list is nowhere close -- not even a little bit -- to being on the long list for the Giller Prize. But I am a capital everything IDIOT, and so I believed in the fantasy, I allowed myself that two-second rush. And then I wiped my forehead with my sleeve, and it was gone.

I don't understand Pinterest so I haven't a clue how one is supposed to interact with this list. Further confusing matters is the page that popped up when I clicked on my book:

I wouldn't recommend exploring "Inside Emily, Saso," but I would recommend checking out some of the books on this list. (And a big thanks to the Giller Prize people for including me.)

The sins of self-promotion

I confess: I am "BookNerd."

Looks like "Anon" is on to me.

Why did I recommend my own novel in the comment section of The Millions "Most Anticipated"?

Because, according to The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), 19,900 new books were published in 1996 in Canada. A staggering number that, with the ease of electronic publishing, I can only assume has grown even more staggering since.

It’s every writer for herself, people.

Is it unethical to comment anonymously on one's own book? Tough call. I actually do like my own book, so it's not like I'm steering people towards a crappy read. I'm not a journalist recommending a friend's novel in the media even though I know it stinks. I'm not trolling blogs and media outlets or hiring Russian spammers. I'm a writer publishing with a small press just trying to find my readers in a bloated marketplace.

I'm not wholly innocent, of course. I used a screen name on The Millions and, through the wonderfully ambiguous third-person tense, positioned myself more as a fan of my work instead of the author of. Is using a screen name a lie? Is using third-person? Is asking my friends to plug my book in the comments section in the Globe & Mail a lie? Probably, yes. But before you judge me, did you know that 19,900 new books were published in 1996 in Canada?

Self-promotion is awkward for me. Not because I'm humble -- ha! -- but because I judge others harshly for their missteps. I roll my eyes on the daily over authors' self-congratulatory tweets, retweets and worst of all the *retweets of retweets.*

I'd love to find a self-promotion strategy that feels comfortable but, as you probably figured out, leaving comments on book blogs ain't it. Not because I think it's unethical. But because doing so made me feel like an enormous twat.