fool's errand

This illo is for a story called What is the answer, Secretariat?. It's about a fool's journey, mostly to work.

pure evil, unhinged

She seems like a twenty-something version of the crazy old lady who lives on the hill, the one with all the cats, and the birds, and the meth-lab, and while it's been fun throwing stones through her windows all week, I guess it's time to give Jeanette her promised portrait. The colours might be light but the subject is pure evil.

more blankness

I love the white-noise that comes off a phrase like "it's not quite for us". It's right up there with ...

It's not a good fit for us.
It's not what we're looking for.
It's not what we're looking for at this time.
It's not the direction we're leaning towards.

... and so on.

**Bonus Noise**
The "Sorry about the time it's taken to bear bad news" part refers to the one year it took them to get back to me. That, after I had to ask them where my manuscript was. The one they lost. The one I had to re-send. What a satisfying conclusion to a long, pointless episode.

panda, unhappy

This is a canvas I posted to Illustration Friday Night.

for illo friday ... {remember}

... a kid's idea of happiness ... rainy-day vague and full of costumes ... remember?

a real prize with my real name on it

I've known about my own result for awhile, but it wasn't until today that they finally announced the winners of the Writers’ Federation of New Brunswick's 2007 Literary Competition, in which I won the Richard's Prize (I guess calling it the 'David Adams Richards Prize' was too long) for best manuscript (a collection of short stories, a short novel or a substantial portion of a longer novel; in my case a collection called Punishing Ugly Children). The judge, author Michelle Butler Hallett (The shadow side of grace) wrote ...

“Punishing Ugly Children” burrowed into my head and laid eggs. Highly polished, crisp and frightening. Should be submitted to a publisher.

... which was nice to read (in its own strange way). The winners in the other categories (and descriptions of their work) can be seen here.

for illo friday ... {polar}

... as in polar opposites, a winner and a loser, decided by violence, announced at the bell.

a portrait (for a portrait party)

This is a portrait done from a very difficult photograph supplied by Fern. There's a whole site dedicated to this kind of thing here.

For Illo Friday {fortune} + Bad Days and Worse Days (and Other Miscellania)

First things first, my contribution to Illustration Friday, a picture about better fortunes, about happiness for Mister Sunshine (part two) ...


It could be the virus or the infection or the antibiotics but this has been a very long week. As I've told a few people, it feels like I've had a pound of glue in my head. Still, I did manage to see my niece in Montreal for Easter, and we did have a nice time until the chocolate high scrambled any remaining thought. Plus a cop hiding under a bridge came out to give me a speeding ticket (first one ever), I did something crunchy to my spine, and this nuclear spring continued to blow its little shredded-paper storms back and forth. Today it's raining.

Got an anti-treat in the mail yesterday, this rejection slip from Grain ...


I have quite a collection of these, just from the same magazine (my entire collection of rejection letters could paper a good-sized bedroom), going back six or seven years at least. Honestly, I don't know what these guys want. And while it's always galling to send away something worked on and worried over and get back nothing but a passing slap (I mean really: their comment here is about as generic and useless as they come, and then they can't even be bothered to sign a name to it? because what, a circle was more professional?), what really jams in the guts is that this is from the province I grew up in, that these are people I should have some affinity with. Maybe we just have different ideas on how to spell "sorry".


Kurt Vonnegut has died. The old fart was a bit of a nut. His most famous book, Slaughterhouse-Five (or The Children's Crusade, A Duty-Dance with Death) is the melding of a children's book with a loopy science-fiction novel and a sad personal story about World War Two. It is strange and mutable and hands-open honest. The main character in Slaughterhouse-Five is named Billy Pilgrim. When he becomes unstuck in time, passing through the full arc of life, he sees violet light. Like all those people in Dresden.

A suicide bomber blew himself up in the Iraqi parliament yesterday. Condoleezza Rice said that the American commanders were just starting to bring security to the Iraqi people. She said there would be "bad days and good days". Neil MacDonald, the reporter covering the story for CBC, said that most Iraqis think more in terms of "bad days and worse days". And so it goes.

One good thing this week? The start of the NHL playoffs. One better thing this week? No Toronto Maple Leafs. No Leaf Nation, no sudden appearance of Leaf flags everywhere, no Go Leafs Go, no swarms of fan-tourists, no big crash of the party going nowhere, nothing for the fans of "Canada's Hockey Team" to cheer about at all. Period. And a franchise with a license to print money still can't put a winning team on the ice. Hopefully it never will.

{green} ... for illo friday

... as in green with envy, jealousy, rage ... Iago whispers it all in Othello's ear. Next stop? Strangle the wife.