Nature / Writing

 Sunday September 19, 2010 Just finished reading Fauna by Alissa York, which I loved.  My Goodreads review is below: Fauna by Alissa York My rating: 4 of 5 stars I knew I was likely to love the content of this book before I even started reading - it's set in Toronto right where I used to live, and focuses on the intersections between the lives of people and urban animals, which I love. But this is also the first book I've read by Alissa York and now I can also say that style-wise, she's fantastic. Both her human and non-human characters show distinction and depth. She also has a great sense of when incredibly well-researched details about the everyday actions of her characters will add to the story, ranging from what it's like to operate a car crusher to what wildlife officers face during a search - or what a raccoon faces during a search for food. Just an all-around great book that's one of my new favourites. View all my reviews

Saturday August 14, 2010   My Examiner error message Toronto Animal News is Temporarily Offline No, I didn't leave my new writing job that quickly.  But Examiner.com just did a major redesign and it seems that all of my pages - along with those of many other newish Examiners - haven't been migrated to the new system yet.  It's frustrating, since there are a lot of animal stories going on in the city right now, but the developers say they're working on it.  I'm hoping everything will be back up and running by the time the weekend is over. Whenever the migration happens I'll also have a shiny new url to share with you. Gizmo and Gadget, Meet the Great Outdoors However in real animal news, Steve and I finally suited up our two indoor cats for their first on-leash adventure into the backyard.  Unfortunately I don't have any pictures since I wanted to be able to focus on the task at hand, but I'm sure I'll get some during out future excursi...

Sunday August 8, 2010 Butterflies are part of my new beat! I mentioned last week that I should have some web writing news and indeed I do - I now cover Toronto Animal News for Examiner.com.  Although I repeatedly tell anyone who will listen that I'd like to spend more time on fiction, this is an opportunity to write about something I spend a lot of time following anyway.  There's actually a large redesign pending for Examiner, so I've decided not to do a lot of promo until I've got a bit more content built up and the site gets its new look, but I'm already enjoying it! On Toronto Animal News this past week: Toronto Butterfly Festival coming to Tommy Thompson Park 2010 CNE Horse Show and HorseCapades free before The Ex begins City council candidate wants Toronto to stop the sale of dogs and cats in local pet stores On About.com: Toronto this past week: Toronto Fails to Make Frommer's Top Subway List 140 Olympic Medals and One Hockey Puck Plus the...