you may be taking a ride on my learning curve

Through the magic of the Internet I'm actually able to see if anybody has bought my little e-book on amazon.com, and, actually, surprisingly, a few people have. But this is a learning curve for me, and I'm not happy with the formatting on the current version, so I've sent it off to a very sweet guy who is turning it into a better reading experience. If you did already buy Bowl of Light, thanks! You can return it to amazon.com and get credit for it, then wait a few days until the new improved version is up before you re-order it. It would be better for you. I'll post here when the improved version is ready to go.

launching a Bowl of Light

After dillying and dallying around about a book I've decided to just go ahead and publish it on my own. So, it's an e-book, called Bowl of Light, and it will be available through Kindle Books on Amazon.com in the next few days.

I'm quite happy with this book, which is a collection of essays, most of which began their lives as blog posts. The book is a whole nother kettle of fish from the blog. The strengths of a blog come from its immediacy and the sense that every day offers some surprising new variable. The strengths of a book come from a greater sense of coherence and maybe a greater reflective quality. Also, just as a music video may take away from the experience of a song by limiting the hearer's imagination, a blog's images can sometimes diminish the imaginative power of the written word.

On the home front, I think our grieving over the island is drawing to a close. I find that my gratitude for the experience has begun to outweigh my sadness over its loss. And here in Montreal, the epic struggle between light and darkness appears to have been decided in favour of light, once again. It's still cold, but the days are getting longer.

a lovely award for Greg

Greg was awarded the prize for best speciality column by the Atlantic Community Newspaper Association. Many thanks to Greg Bennett, editor of the Shelburne County Coast Guard, for nominating Greg's column.

I have copied the description of the award below, since you would only be able to read the newspaper page with a magnifying glass. It's quite an honour for Greg, and, as I wrote earlier when he was nominated, bitter-sweet.

Here's what the judge wrote:

Greg Brown's thoughtful and inspiring ruminations on nature and home life were a pleasure to read, not only because they are so well written, but because each column pays off in unexpected ways.

Crossroads takes first place as this year's Best Speciality Column because it's so easy for me to imagine regular readers of the Shelburne County Coast Guard anticipating its appearance in their weekly paper. It's obvious Brown strives to make his column accessible to everyone.

His ability to weave Christian parables into the narrative with subtlety and nuance expertly avoids the tendency for columnists working in this vein to come across as heavy handed.

Great work.