Author Blair Keetch joins Donna on Dead to Writes for a lively discussion about his soon-to-be-released thriller: Flight Risk.
Carrick Publishing is actively seeking crime story submissions for our Fall 2020 anthology: A Grave Diagnosis.
Tag Archives: Donna Carrick
Dead to Writes – S1, E3: The Case of the Carriageless Horse
In this Episode:
* Donna interviews #DeadlyFriend author Steven M. Moore (The Chaos Chronicles Trilogy, Carrick Publishing 2018)
* Tips for authors courtesy of Steve and Donna
* #ReadersOnTheRun short story feature: “The Case of the Carriageless Horse”, by Steven M. Moore, World Enough and Crime (Carrick Publishing, 2016)
Are you a published author? Would you like to be featured on our podcast? Email Donna at carrickpublishing@rogers.com – subject line: Schedule an Interview on Dead to Writes.
All music featured on Dead to Writes is brought to you courtesy of songwriter, composer and performer Ted Carrick. Keep up with all of his new music at his YouTube Channel
Find us on Facebook: Dead to Writes, or on Twitter: @DeadToWritesPod . You can also visit our site: www.deadtowrites.ca or look for donnacarrick.com or carrickpublishing.com .
Dead to Writes – S1, E2: Snake Oil
In this Episode:
* Donna interviews Deadly Friend author M.H. Callway (Windigo Fire, Seraphim Editions, 2014)
* Tips for authors courtesy of Madeleine Harris-Callway
* #ReadersOnTheRun short story feature: “Snake Oil”, by M.H. Callway, 13 Claws (Carrick Publishing, 2017)
Are you a published author? Would you like to be featured on our podcast? Email Donna at carrickpublishing@rogers.com – subject line: Schedule an Interview on Dead to Writes.
All music featured on Dead to Writes is brought to you courtesy of songwriter, composer and performer Ted Carrick. Keep up with all of his new music at his YouTube Channel
Find us on Facebook: Dead to Writes, or on Twitter: @DeadToWritesPod . You can also visit our site: www.deadtowrites.ca or look for donnacarrick.com or carrickpublishing.com .
Dead to Writes – Podcast S1, E0.1, the Prologue ~ Dec. 9, 2017
Our inaugural Dead to Writes Podcast Episode is up at iTunes!
Join us for the fun of it.
In this episode:
•An interview with musician/composer/songwriter Ted Carrick
•#ReadersOnTheRun feature, title story “North on the Yellowhead”
•Today’s Tip for Authors
•Fantastic theme music: Eyes of Gold by Ted Carrick
Are you a published author? Would you like to be featured on our podcast? Email Donna at carrickpublishing@rogers.com – subject line: Schedule an Interview on Dead to Writes.
All music featured on Dead to Writes is brought to you courtesy of songwriter, composer and performer Ted Carrick. Keep up with all of his new music at his YouTube Channel
Find us on Facebook: Dead to Writes, or on Twitter: @DeadToWritesPod . You can also visit our site: www.deadtowrites.ca or look for donnacarrick.com or carrickpublishing.com .
Hello to “New Beginnings”!
For this author, 2014 was a spectacular year in many ways.
My story “Watermelon Weekend”, featured in Thirteen by the Mesdames of Mayhem (Carrick Publishing, 2013) was a finalist for the prestigious Arthur Ellis Award for Best Short Crime Story.
My author friends will understand: there is no greater professional joy than to have one’s work acknowledged by peers. Whatever the future holds, such a moment will be treasured forever.
2014 is also the year my work achieved a major milestone: over 100,000 copies of my various titles are now in circulation. Most were downloaded as Kindle e-Books from Amazon, a fact which thrills me, since a mere decade ago such a reach for readers would have seemed a distant dream!
Through my work at Carrick Publishing as well as on the executive of Crime Writers of Canada, I was blessed to enjoy continued affiliation with numerous wonderful and dedicated authors. This exposure to today’s talents has a profound impact on my work: I find myself constantly driven to produce better and more meaningful characters and stories.
We released our anthology, World Enough and Crime, to great fanfare at our favourite bookstore, the Sleuth of Baker Street.
In other areas, though, 2014 was a challenge for me. Job stresses coupled with an extremely busy schedule to hamper my writing productivity.
With 2015 comes a feeling of renewed commitment, a sense of accomplishments pending, if you will.
Please stay tuned — and I hope you will enjoy the ride!
For the love of books…
In June, I had the very great honour of being named one of five finalists for the prestigious Arthur Ellis Award for Best Short Story.
The title that received this nomination was Watermelon Weekend, from our Crime anthology THIRTEEN, by the Mesdames of Mayhem.
I’m proud of this story. It was written with an understanding of how families work, and how their fragile dynamics may or may not be destroyed by encounters of the criminal kind.
But then, the truth is that I feel this way about all of my stories.
Maybe it’s my genre, which allows me to go beyond the nuts and bolts of “whodunit” and delve into the humanity of crime, or maybe it’s the stories themselves, concerned as they are with suffering and survival.
For whatever reason, my novels and short stories have touched readers, and for this I am eternally grateful.
There can be no greater joy for an author.
On January 28, I’ll be participating…. Let’s Talk
It isn’t easy to engage in a real dialogue about ‘depression’.
First, there’s the stigma that attaches itself to mental illness.
Assumptions are often made about those who suffer chronic depression. Sometimes those assumptions are founded in reality. Often they are not.
Long ago, in the checkered landscape of my own past, I learned that problems tend to grow in the darkness of ignorance.
Open discussion, honesty and dialogue… these are the tools available to us in learning to live well with mental illness.
In my books, The Noon God and The First Excellence, I explore the harshest effects of long-term depression, most notably suicide. In The Noon God, my protagonist Desdemona Fortune experiences ‘survivor’s guilt’ after not one, but two, close family members end their own lives.
In The First Excellence, the story opens with Min-xi, the soon-to-be mother of a second born daughter, who finds herself under tremendous pressure to kill her daughters in hopes of later conceiving a son. Unable to hurt her daughters, she instead abandons them in a popular tourist area, knowing they will be found and hoping they will make their way to a better life. After leaving them on a park bench, she takes her own life.
I have an intimate understanding of the kind of depression that can lead to such a tragic outcome.
Like Desdemona, I am a survivor of ‘sibling suicide’. A long time ago — a lifetime ago, it often seems — I lost my older sister, Debbie. As a teen suffering from an intense and long-term state of depression, one dark night she chose to throw herself through the window of a 12-storey apartment.
I’d like to pretend that I don’t understand. Sadly, I do.
I am also a survivor of chronic depression, and like many such survivors, I remain alert to the triggers that can bring about a spiral into darkness.
There is one thing that seems to help stave off the ravages of depression, in my experience. That ‘one thing’ is honesty.
When I pretend everything is ‘OK’, that’s when I’m in danger.
On the other hand, when I accept that this illness is part of who I am, and when I am honest with myself and others, then I can find a way to not only survive, but to live well, to enjoy this gift I’ve been given.
Depression hurts.
If my words can help even one other person to cope, and more, to live well beyond the scope of that pain, then I will feel this dialogue has been worth the effort.
So come on, world, let’s get together on January 28 and remove the stigma!
Join me in Tweeting and Texting to support @Bell_LetsTalk.
Keep the journey alive! Tweet with me, or feel free to copy and paste the following Tweet:
#EndTheStigma with @Bell_LetsTalk on Jan.28/14 http://tinyurl.com/kj8ws5s TweetOrText #BellLetsTalk about #Depression & #MentalIllness