Bookin’ It Across Canada

Partying it up at the Drake Hotel post-reading.

Who knew a book tour could be so… fun? I’m sitting in an Ottawa hotel room reflecting on a great weekend. First Toronto: it was an eerily foggy night in Hogtown, but I kinda loved it, and was humbled to see so many friendly folks come out to the official Toronto book launch at the Drake Hotel Underground. Besides my fine friends from the CBC Radio 3 community (pictured above), the collection of amazing people in the room included thee head honcho of CBC Radio, a Stanley Cup winner, a winner of the Radio 3 Sexiest Canadian Musician Award, the owners of the rock ‘n’ roll crossroads of Canada, the man who declared in song that he knows he’ll be spending the rest of his life in Canada, a girl called “Bangs”, the man who invented the Polaris Music Prize, and many other friends, musicians, and family.

Thanks hugely to Michael Barclay for MCing, Jill Barber and Matthew Barber for performing, Type Books for selling, the Drake for hosting, and to Toronto for coming out in friendly force!

Ottawa was also amazing… an afternoon event at a lovely little joint called the Raw Sugar Cafe. So great to see all sorts of friends from various “eras” and times of my life in that little space, be it rock ‘n’ roll, hockey, CBC, Smugglers, or R3 bloggers. There were also lots of new babies with names starting with “E”.

Huge thanks to Mr. Community, Jonny Bartlett of Kelp Records, for presenting, Andy Swan for performing (“Can I Pay You With Sunshine”!!!), Raw Sugar for hosting, and Collected Works for selling books. I had a fantastic time in both cities.

Next up… Halifax!