My chapbook, Pilgrimages, will be published in the fall
Read about my chapbook, my appearances, and my book recs for the month
Welcome to my newsletter. This is the best place to go to learn about what I’m up to.
Since this is my first newsletter in a long time, let me describe what you’ll be getting: information about my public appearances, my reading recommendations, updates to my Archaeology of Weird Fiction Challenge blog (#WeirdFictionChallenge), and writing prompts. The newsletter will be released twice monthly.
If you haven’t already, you can subscribe here.
(I had a Mailchimp newsletter from before the pandemic that some of you might remember. I have switched to Buttondown because it has a slimmer interface and allows for fewer distractions when writing these newsletters. I hope ultimately this makes me more consistent.)
Publication News: Pilgrimages (Cactus Press, 2025)
My debut poetry chapbook Pilgrimages will be published later this fall by Cactus Press!
The chapbook is largely based on my adventure in Scotland and England last August, my first time in the UK. Think of Pilgrimages as a journey to the Outer Hebrides, like one of the voyages of Saint Brendan.
In it, I reflect on my family history, on my grandfather who immigrated to Scotland from Glasgow in 1923. I also reflect on the more general history and folklore of Scotland, touching upon topics like the Brahan Seer’s predictions, the Highland clearances, and the colonialist education policies of Thomas Babington Macaulay, who shares my grandfather’s last name (from a different clan branch).
In future newsletters, I will be relating anecdotes to let you in on some of the stories behind the poems in the chapbook.
Purchase information will be given in September. There are no pre-orders unfortunately. Pilgrimages will also have a limited print run, but if it sells well enough, Cactus Press might do a second printing.
The Riddle of Three Crimson Doors
The best thing to happen to me this month was doing the Q+A at a launch for my best friend Jerome Ramcharitar, whose debut poetry collection The Riddle of Three Crimson Doors (Cactus Press, 2025) came out this month. A winner of the 2022 Expozine Award for his chapbook The Wrong Poem and Others Like It, Jerome has a stage presence like a stand-up comedian, always electric, and always gracious.
In the Rocket Science Reading Room, Willow Loveday Little opened for him with a poem about the Greek myth of Pygmalion and Galatea. Samara Garfinkle presented an atmospheric folktale using a drum-shaped rainstick to produce an immersive soundscape.
I read “Sir Arthur Evans,” the story of the archaeologist who excavated, restored, and reimagined the palace of Knossos, supposedly the basis for the labyrinth in the Theseus and the Minotaur myth.
It was an appropriate segue into The Riddle of Three Crimson Doors, which is structured around three mystical doorways that divide the labyrinthine sections of the collection. Jerome imagines the consciousness of animals in poems like “Ravensong” and “Batsongs,” while plumbing the surreal, Jungian landscape of dreams in poems like “Ohana.” He also wrote about an atomic bomb victim and the horrific, surreal paintings of Polish Holocaust survivor Zdzisław Beksiński, whose canvases have gone on to inspire many heavy metal album covers.
My interview with Jerome appeared with the Miramichi Reader on June 22nd. We talked about everything from #EveryDayIsPoetry to Erasmus Darwin and the religion of bats.
Five poems in Lothlórien Poetry Journal and a travel guide to South Uist
I have five poems with Lothlórien Poetry Journal and a new travel guide to South Uist based on my experience travelling to the Outer Hebrides last August.
“Saint Francis of the Amazon” is probably my oldest poem in this group, written during my undergraduate years. After having submitted it to student-run lit mags like The Veg, Steps, Scrivener Creative Review, and Soliloquies back in the day, I finally found a home for it.
“Stupid Movies” is a personal poem of mine about how my last memory of my grandfather is watching CSI: Miami with him and my dad in his TV room. You never know when the last moment might come. For all you know, it’ll be spent watching a stupid movie like Jurassic Park: Dominion or a tacky cop show.
Currently Reading: Kate Heartfield, Alex Pheby, Vic Verdier
I find that I’m reading physical books slower than I would like. There are so many digital distractions and things that seem more important to do that take me away from books these days. However, I’m trying to do better.
I’ve been reading Kate Heartfield’s The Tapestry of Time. A fellow Canadian author writing historical fantasy, which I at one point aspired to write (and still may), Kate is the one who inspired me to get on Buttondown (she also gave me my Bluesky invite). I had the pleasure of meeting her and Guy Gavriel Kay in conversation with Mathieu Lauzon-Dicso at the Salon du livre last November.
The Tapestry of Time is about the Nazis’ attempt to steal the Bayeux Tapestry from France during World War II. It stars the Sharpe sisters, who have the Second Sight, although they are not certain at first whether they have clairvoyance or how to use it. Kit joins the Resistance while Ivy joins the SOE and Helen puzzles over their fate from the homefront. It has some of the same Nazi-punching (and stabbing) action as Indiana Jones while also not shying away from the horrors of what it’s like living under German occupation in Paris and in an SS prison.
My recommended pairing is The Monuments Men, about a team that rescued thousands of artworks stolen by the Nazis, either the movie with George Clooney or the nonfiction book by Robert M. Edsel and Bret Witter. (I have both listened to the audiobook and watched the movie.)
Another book I’m reading is Mordew by Alex Pheby (Tor, 2020). The publication date reads like a headstone: the pandemic. Sales must’ve hit a brick wall, which might be why so many free copies were given out during the Montreal World Fantasy Convention in 2021, where I acquired this fantastically imaginative bildungsroman. I’m pleased to see that it’s now the first book in a trilogy called Cities of the Weft with Gallery Beggar Press. Mordew is currently my bedside reading.
Nathan Treeves is a slum boy who has “the Spark,” a powerful but terrible ability to create life or take it away. While trying to survive by selling the flesh of half-alive creatures to tanners for a few coins, he embarks on an adventure throughout which he maintains a curious passivity, as the people he meets—kids his own age, professional criminals, the Master who controls his world through magic and mysterious machinery—teach him how to survive in the world. I haven’t finished reading it yet, but it’s a curious mix of Charles Dickens, China Miéville, and Lewis Carroll with a large glossary at the back.
It’s been a while since I’ve read a fantasy novel with glossaries and maps, so I’m enjoying this one very much.
Mes lectures en français / Reading in French
Mon roman préféré du moment en français est Mercurochrome par Vic Verdier, qui fait parti de la série Un Roman Dont Vous Êtes La Victime. Vic Verdier est connu comme un écrivain de “le chic lit de gars” et les premier pages montrent pourquoi: Vic, l’héros éponyme de l’auteur et un conduisant d’un cybertruck, réveil de sont rêve de sexe avec sa femme perdue pour se trouvent en plein milieu d’un apocalypse de zombie.
Tous le civilization a faire chute après la Peste Bleu. En créer des armes médiévales comme dans la série de télé Forged in Fire, il doit diriger un petit groupe de survireurs en tuant les “hurleurs” (les zombies) et éviter les membres du culte de la soi-disant Communauté. Si tu peux survivre les premiers pages, tu pourrais survivre la reste du roman—si tu fais des bons choix.
Un bon film (bien, un film si mal que c’est bon) que je recommande avec ce roman est Punk Fu Zombie, où, sur la veille de l’indépendance québécoise, un drogue bleu tourne les Montréalais (au ville de Hochelaga) en zombies. Voire-le sur Tubi, mais faire avis que c’est un filme qui dure plus de deux heures.
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My favourite French novel right now is Mercurochrome by Vic Verdier, from the series Un Roman Dont Vous Êtes La Victime (Choose Your Own Murder). Vic Verdier is known for being a “chick lit for dudes” writer and the first pages show exactly why: Vic, the author’s namesake, wakes from a sex dream with his long lost wife only to find himself in the middle of a zombie apocalypse.
The Blue Plague has wiped out civilization. Making medieval weapons inspired by the show Forged in Fire in his workshop, Vic leads a group of survivors, killing the zombie-like “howlers” and avoiding the cultists of the so-called Community. If you can get through the first pages, you can survive the rest of the book, so long as you make the right choices.
A good movie (okay, a movie so bad it’s good) that I recommend pairing with this movie is Punk Fu Zombie, in which, at the dawn of Quebec independence, a blue drug turns Montrealers living in the town of Hochelaga into zombies. Catch it on Tubi, but be advised: the movie is over two hours long.
Archaeology of Weird Fiction Challenge
In 2018, I set myself the goal of writing a review and summary of all 110 weird tales in Ann and Jeff VanderMeer’s The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories. The idea behind it was to become something of an expert in the genre, to really focus my attention on weird fiction and learn its ins and outs as a creative and a scholar.
I quickly abandoned the project, intimidated by the length of the road ahead and the sometimes depressing subject matter.
I resumed the blog project in 2020 during the pandemic and made some progress. However, I eventually let it lapse, only to return and let it lapse again a few years later.
This year, I decided to resume my efforts and push to the end. I held back on announcing its resumption until I was certain I had such a lead time that I couldn’t possibly let it lapse again. I also have a much more efficient writing habit of reading the stories at night and writing about them in the morning.
I have found myself jobless over the summer, but writing blog posts of these stories has healed something inside me—made me feel that I can finish things.
You can read through the posts of the earlier stories on my blog or in my dedicated publication on Medium.com. (The posts on Medium are not yet perfectly synched to my blog.)
My favourite weird tale for this month is “His Mouth Will Taste of Wormwood” by Poppy Z. Brite (#74) in which two sensualists take up a new hobby: gravedigging. If you want to read along, you can buy your copy of The Weird from Kobo or order a physical copy from your local bookstore.
The first post for July will be on “The Dark” by Karen Joy Fowler (#77), in which a child's disappearance in Yosemite National Park leads to the exposure of a CIA conspiracy that leads back to the dark Viet Cong tunnels under Vietnam. I’m looking forward to posting it in July.
Writing Prompt
Look through the catalogue of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (or your local fine arts museum catalogue). Pick an artwork or ancient artefact that inspires you. Write for 20 minutes in the voice of that artwork or artefact.
Who created it? What has it experienced over the years? What does it feel inside and how would it speak about its feelings if given the chance? This is based on an exercise I gave during a creative writing class I co-led with Emmy Huot at the Thomas More Institute.
Till Next Time
This was an extra-long newsletter because a ton of exciting things happened this month and I want to bring you all up to date. Stay tuned for the stories behind the poems in Pilgrimages.