I’m pleased to announce  that I have a new book coming out in March, 2011.  It’s a long story/short novel called And Everything Nice for publisher Orca Book Publishers’ Rapid Reads line of short, “easy-read” books for adult readers, which Orca describes as “well-written, well-told novels that can be read in one sitting.”

And Everything Nice is a crime novel about theft and blackmail in a community rock choir, told with humour and music. High concept-wise, I’d describe it as Glee meets Nancy Drew, for adults.

The Word Doctors Master Class that I hosted at IFOA in Toronto on Sunday, October 24 went well, despite some slight logistical problems.

I’m going to be hosting and assessing first pages of manuscripts at “The Word Doctors Are In” Master Class event at the International Festival of Authors Event at Harbourfront Centre in Toronto, on Sunday October 24, 2010, from 11 am to 1 pm.

At this event, author Nino Ricci will speak about “What Every Writer Should Know;” Janine Marie Fracchioni, winner of the Author for a Day contest; will read her winning entry, the winner of the Timothy Findley/William Whitehead scholarship (funded by HarperCollins) will be announced; and HarperCollins Associate Editor Kate Cassaday and Humber School for Writers faculty member Kim Moritsugu (that’s me) will evaluate manuscript first pages submitted in advance by attendees.

Last night I went to see a preview performance of the Broadway-bound production of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, at the Princess of Wales Theatre in Toronto.

The show is part circus, part surreal, very gay, madly colourful, inventively staged, so far over-the-top it flies around dementedly somewhere in the sky. It’s high-energy, exuberant, features an infectiously performed disco music score, and is filled with ridiculous jokes that are either raunchy, corny or both. Including, I regret to say, a too-long, offensively written scene, taken from the original movie, that features a gibberish-talking female Asian ‘dancer’ who has a way with ping pong balls.

That misstep and some of the more vulgar/tasteless jokes aside, strong performances anchor the show – particularly from Tony Sheldon, who is graceful, sympathetic and poignant as Bernadette, and from Nick Adams, a true dancer and able singer who tempers his Felicia/Adam’s character’s obnoxiousness with a goofy grin, and has a jaw-droppingly awesome physique that is constantly on display. I also admired the versatile chorus members, who play drag queens in one scene as convincingly as they portray hetero tough guys in the next. And Luke Mannikus, the eight-year-old actor who appeared as Benjamin at the performance I saw, was adorable.

Bored to Death, an HBO show about an unsuccessful Brooklyn writer turned amateur private detective, created by writer Jonathan Ames and starring an amusingly mild-mannered Jason Schwartzman, recently held a contest for the Worst Opening Paragraph to a Detective Novel.