Don’t you hate people who claim to be hip enough to have websites, but then never update them?
I must raise my hand, guilty as charged, since I haven’t updated my site in nine months.
It has been a busy time, with me balancing my first-ever teaching jobs at Wilfrid Laurier University with finishing my PhD in the School of English and Theatre Studies at the University of Guelph. I just now feel that I’m coming up for air.
Meanwhile, thanks to Stuart Broomer for his review of our trio CD, The Phantom Hunter, in The Whole Note. Any musician is lucky to be listened to and written about by this elegant and insightful writer.
On June 15 I successfully defended my dissertation, Outside the Empire: Improvised Music in Toronto 1960-1985. Thanks to my committee: Ajay Heble (supervisor), Daniel Fischlin, and Frédérique Arroyas (who stepped down for the defense, and was replaced by Christine Bold). Also to the outside examiner, Jack Chambers, grad coordinator Gregor Campbell, and David Prentice and Maureen Cochrane, who showed up to offer moral support. I believe that SETS director Ann Wilson, whose office is next to the examining room, paid us a great compliment when she remarked that she had never heard so much laughter coming out of that room during a defense.
The PhD process has been long: I entered the program in September 2011. It has been an intense period: besides university work, I published my first novel (Commander Zero, 2012), as well as the third edition of The Battle of the Five Spot (Wolsak & Wynn 2014), and The Midnight Games (Poplar Press, 2015).
This summer, I am doing some playing with Chris Palmer, and waiting for Connor Bennett to get back from Ottawa so we can reconvene the trio. I am talking to a publisher about a book adaptation of my dissertation. And I am working, whenever I can, on a sequel to The Midnight Games – motivated, mostly, by the readers of all ages who told me they enjoyed that book. Thanks!
