The Golden Mean on NPR

'Golden Mean': Everyday Liveliness in Ancient Greece': to hear Alan Cheuse's review for NPR's All Things Considered, please click here.

Welcome, UK Readers!

The Golden Mean is now available in the United Kingdom from Atlantic Books. Welcome, British readers! Please check back from time to time for information on my upcoming readings (including the Edinburgh Festival) as well as information on the writing of the novel, research tidbits, and more.

The Golden Mean - Audio Book

The Golden Mean is now available as an audio book. For more information, please click here.

CAA Literary Awards Shortlist

I'm so pleased that The Golden Mean is on the Canadian Authors Association Literary Awards shortlist. It's in stellar company, alongside Michael Crummey's Galore and Ian Weir's Daniel O'Thunder. The winner will be announced on June 26, 2010 at the CAA Literary Awards banquet, held at the Harbour Towers Hotel in Victoria, BC. For more information, please click here.

Aristotle and...football?

See a Canlit novel get quoted by a sports commentator! This made my day:

"Talented, ambitious and good looking, [Jose Mourinho] has all the intangibles that persuaded the world to bow at Alexander's feet. But he also has an appreciation for balance, and an open ear. And when he addressed a throng of reporters in the run-up to today's Champions League final, he might just as easily have been reciting one of Aristotle's lessons.

To read Jerrad Peter's article for the Winnipeg Free Press, please click here.

Hello, Yellowknife!

I'm so pleased to be taking part in the Northwords Writers Festival, June 3-6, 2010 in Yellowknife, NWT, alongside Sharon Butala, Ivan E. Coyote, Cathleen With, Richard Van Camp, and others. To see the program, please click here.

Toro Interview

"And that’s the genius of Lyon’s book – every minute detail is celebrated with the same fluid prose as a sweaty sexual experience."

To read the full interview with Stephen Smysnuik, please click here.

Just Because...

Taxi!

I'm so pleased to be taking part in an evening of readings and performances celebrating the 35th anniversary of the publication of Helen Potrebenko's great Vancouver novel Taxi! Organized by the inimitable Anakana Schofield, this free event will take place on Thursday, April 29th at 7:30PM at the Vancouver Public Library, Central Branch. For more information, please click here.

Hello, New Brunswick!

From April 22-24 I'll be in Moncton, New Brunswick for the Frye Festival. A roundtable discussion; an evening of CanLit with Linden MacIntyre, Noah Richler, and Nino Ricci; Brunch and Books; the Frye Jam.... It should be a lot of fun. For more information, please click here.

Hello! Canada Women of the Year

I'm so honoured to be one of Hello! Canada's 2009 Women of the Year (alongside Olympic figure skater Joannie Rochette, astronaut Julie Payette, and Betty Fox). Check out the 26 April 2010 issue (with Shania Twain on the cover) to see the full list, plus Toronto photographer George (The Genius) Whiteside's lovely photo.

North Shore Writers Festival

On Monday, April 19 at 7:30PM, I'll be reading at the West Vancouver Memorial Library as part of the North Shore Writers Festival. The event is free but seating is limited. For more information, please click here.

Darwin's Bastards Launch

How do you follow up a novel about ancient Greece? With a short story about an alien, of course: rocket ship, robes, exoskeleton and all. I'm so pleased to have my short story "Remote Control" (first published in Geist magazine in 2000) in the brand new collection Darwin's Bastards: Astounding Tales from Tomorrow, published by Douglas and MacIntyre. The launch will be on Friday, April 16 at the Wise Hall and will feature readings / performances by Laura Trunkey, Anosh Irani, Jay Brown, Paul Carlucci, Oliver Kellhammer, Lee Henderson, Adam Lewis Schroeder, Timothy Taylor, Zsuzsi Gartner (mistress of ceremonies), and me. Costumes encouraged (not by me, particularly; I'm just repeating what I'm told). For more information about the launch, please click here. See you there!

UBC Bookstore Videos

Bobbi Macdonald and Treena Chambers discuss The Golden Mean.

I think the one on the right stole my hair.

Hello, Sechelt!

I'm so pleased to be reading at the Sechelt Arts Centre on Saturday, April 10 at 8:00PM. The reading is sponsored in part by the Sunshine Coast Arts Council. For more information, please click here.

BC Book Prizes Soiree

Come one, come all to the BC Book Prizes Soiree on Wednesday, April 7 from 7:00PM to 9:00PM at the Listel Hotel. Door prizes, book signing, a silent auction, light refreshments...free!

CBA Libris Awards Shortlist

The Golden Mean has been shortlisted for the Canadian Booksellers Association Libris Award for Fiction Book of the Year. The other nominees are Linden MacIntyre for The Bishop's Man and Michael Crummey for Galore. Good company! Also, I'm tremendously honoured to be nominated for Author of the Year, alongside Linden MacIntyre and Alice Munro. And, best of all, my marvellous editor at Random House, Anne Collins, has been nominated for Editor of the Year. Winners will be announced May 29, 2010.

For more information, please click here.

Hello Surrey!

On Saturday, April 3rd at 2:00PM I'll be signing at Black Bond Books, 1-15562 24th Avenue in Surrey. For more information, please click here.

Mary Renault on the Lost Man Booker Shortlist!

Hurrah! Mary Renault's Fire from Heaven has been shortlisted for the so-called Lost Man Booker prize. The 1970 novel looks at the first twenty years of the life of Alexander the Great from the boy's own point of view.

From the Man Booker website: "The Lost Man Booker is the brainchild of Peter Straus, the honorary archivist to The Booker Prize Foundation. He realised that in 1971, just two years after it began, the Booker Prize ceased to be awarded retrospectively and became - as it is today - a prize for the best novel of the year of publication. At the same time the award moved from April to November and, as a result, a wealth of fiction published for much of 1970 fell through the net and was never considered for the prize."

To see the full list of contenders and vote for your favourite, please click here.

The Paperbacks Are Coming! The Paperbacks Are Coming!

The trade paperback edition of The Golden Mean is in stores now. Available from amazon.ca, chapters.indigo.ca, Black Bond Books, and lots of other places too. (Though not BC Ferries, since the trade paperback still features a bare bum on the cover. Oh, BC Ferries. You have one too, you know you do!)

Hello, Ontario!

I'll be reading at a number of events in and around Toronto to coincide with the paperback release of The Golden Mean:

On Monday, March 22 at 7:30PM, I'll be reading at the Grimsby Authors Series with Alan Bradley (The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie). For more information, please click here.

On Tuesday, March 23, I'll be reading at the PEN Authors Series at the Toronto Badminton and Racquet Club. For more information, please click here.

On Wednesday, March 24 at 7:00PM and Thursday, March 25 at 12:30PM, I'll be reading at the Toronto Public Library's Eh List Author Series, 170 Memorial Park Avenue. For more information, please click here.

On Thursday, March 25 at 8:00PM, I'll be at the Roselawn Reading Series in Port Colborne. For more information, please click here.

CNQ Review

"How refreshing to find fiction – and Canadian fiction, at that! – unafraid to make demands on its readers’ intelligence, unafraid to tackle a deeply unfashionable subject, unafraid to eschew postmodernism’s stale devices of fracture and discontinuity. How refreshing to find a woman writer who assumes, as she should, that access to the world is her right, and who boldly proceeds to slip into the skin of a third-century BCE Greek intellectual – and not just any intellectual, but the ancient world’s most famous philosopher. Combine all that with the dense economy of the prose, the utterly contemporary voice of its protagonist, and the result is rich, fresh, strange, and deeply original."

To read Patricia Robertson's full review for Canadian Notes and Queries, please click here.

Words on the Water

On Friday, March 19 and Saturday, March 20, I'm so pleased to be taking part in Words on the Water, aka the Campbell River Writers' Festival. For more information, please click here.

BC Book Prizes

Woo-hoo! The Golden Mean has been nominated for the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize. The other nominees are:

Michael Turner, 8 x 10
Ian Weir, Daniel O'Thunder
Cathleen With, Having Faith in the Polar Girls' Prison
Deborah Willis, Vanishing and Other Stories

Winners will be announced April 24, 2010 in Victoria. For more information, and for lists of nominees in all the categories, please click here.