Kate’s reading was followed by a talk about writing craft by Suzanne Desrochers, Humber School for Writers alumna, and author of the bestselling novel Bride of New France. Suzanne was remarkably poised and coherent for someone who had given birth to her second child only six weeks before. She had interesting stories to tell about her path to publication, including that she abandoned navel-gazing type contemporary stories in favour of historical fiction, which she researched by taking a master’s degree in history. She is now following up that degree with a Ph.d., beginning work on her second novel, and caring for her young children. Which makes her either an inspiration or a superhuman. Click here for more info about her.

The final part of the event was the flash assessments of manuscript pages submitted in advance by some of the people in attendance. To do this, I was joined by the gracious and thoughtful Kate Cassaday, an editor of Harper Collins Publishers. We did our best not to bruise too many egos in the process – and we did not spend our entire time looking as skeptical as we do in this pic, while entertaining a question from the audience, I think. Our hope was that everyone who attended the event could consider themselves a winner.

Again this year, I’m going to be hosting and assessing first pages of manuscripts at “The Word Doctors Are In” Master Class event presented by the Humber School for Writers at the International Festival of Authors in Toronto.

This year’s event takes place on Sunday October 23, 2011, from 11 am to 1 pm in the Brigantine Room in the Harbourfront Centre. Author Suzanne Desrochers (Bride of New France) will speak about her approach to writing fiction, the winner of the Author for a Day contest will read the winning entry; and HarperCollins Editor Kate Cassaday and I will evaluate manuscript first pages submitted in advance by attendees.

All this for only $35! For more info and to buy tickets, click here.

Submit two pages of fiction or narrative non-fiction by October 7, 2011 for a chance to read at the October 23, 2011 “Word Doctors Are In” Master Class event at the IFOA at Harbourfront Centre in Toronto, followed by a literary lunch with the event speakers.

Entries (maximum 600 words) should be cut and pasted into the body of an email, identified by genre, and sent with name, address, phone number, and proof of contest entry fee payment to authorforadayifoacontest@gmail.com by October 7, 2011. The $15 contest entry fee can be paid to the Harbourfront Centre Box Office at this link.

The winning entry will be chosen by Humber School for Writers faculty.

At the witching hour of 5:00 p.m., I’ll be sharing the stage with Jack David of ECW Press, and trying not to be witchy while we jointly do public assessments of first pages of manuscripts submitted onsite that day.

Last week I was fortunate to be teaching at the Humber School for Writers Summer Workshop in Creative Writing in Toronto, alongside my fellow faculty members Nino Ricci, Richard Bausch, Wayson Choy, Isabel Huggan, Julia Glass, Olive Senior, Bruce Jay Friedman, John Metcalf, Guy Vanderhaeghe, Alistair MacLeod, Erika De Vasconcelos, David Bezmozgis, and Frieda Wishinsky.

Though I’ve taught the workshop for several years, I always wonder and worry beforehand how the week will go, how the group chemistry will develop. My group of five this time were diverse in interests and background – three are working on serious novels, one is writing a travelogue/memoir, and the fifth writes short stories – and they seemed a little subdued at first.

I had to work harder than usual to get them to laugh at my jokes, but by the end of the week, friendships had formed among them, they appeared willing to take at least some of my writing advice, and if they weren’t exactly eating out of my hand, they did seem to enjoy the Sea Salt Chocolate Chip Nut Cookies I baked to mark the bittersweet moment of our parting, when, after a convivial and thought-provoking week spent sharing the writing life, we all left the workshop to go write in solitude.

I thought I’d spice up the blog a little by introducing a new soon-to-be regular feature wherein published writers complete the newly minted (heh) Hungry Novelist Questionnaire, a set of questions about reading, writing and eating, in the tradition of Vanity Fair’s Proust Questionnaire, New York magazine’s New York Diet, and the NYT Sunday Routine. I’ve cross-posted the questionnaire here.

First up to give the questionnaire a trial run is me! More writers to come in the weeks ahead.

Writer: Kim Moritsugu
Currently residing in: Toronto
Website: www.kimmoritsugu.com
Blog: The Hungry Novelist
On Twitter? Yes. As kimmoritsugu.

What’s going on in your writing life right now?
I recently had a YA story and an easy-read novelette published, I’m preparing to teach at Humber School for Writers Summer Creative Writing Workshop from July 9-15, 2011, and I’m chipping away at a novel in progress, my fifth or sixth.

What’s your writing routine:
Avoid writing for as long as possible each day, then consider myself productive if I get in two or three hours of writing or writing related work (like a blog post) before midnight.

What do you usually eat for breakfast?
Glass of o.j., slice of Harbord Bakery caraway rye toasted with butter, tea.

What good books have you read recently?
Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand by Helen Simonson. One Day by David Nicholls.

What did you eat for dinner last night?
Spaghettini with chopped fresh tomatoes, kalamata olives and baby salad greens, drizzled with olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

Writing rules you live by:
I admire clarity, a strong story, skilful plotting and a mixture of funny and sad/bitter and sweet in the works of others, and try to incorporate those elements and qualities into my work.

Foodstuffs you’re fiending these days:
Avonlea Clothbound Cheddar from PEI. Buttermilk bread from Allie’s Bread at the Evergreen Brickworks Farmers’ Market or the St. Lawrence Farmers’ Market. Lemon meringue tarts. Rainbow sherbet/lemon frizzante floats.

A scene or piece you’ve written that features food:
In my first novel Looks Perfect, a romantic comedy, the heroine slurps up some noodles while eating ramen at a New York restaurant called Omen, and splatters broth all over her dreamboat crush object. He likes her anyway.

Favorite restaurants:
In Toronto: Pizzeria Libretto, Nami. In New York: Locanda Verde, Ippudo. In L.A.: Pizzeria Mozza.

Three formative books from your youth:
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (C.S. Lewis), The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger), Brat Farrar (Josephine Tey).

Three formative books from your adulthood:
Heartburn (Nora Ephron), The Music Lesson (Katharine Weber), What Was She Thinking: Notes on a Scandal (Zoe Heller).

Dishes/recipes in regular rotation in your cooking repertoire:
Shrimp tacos, sesame-encrusted salmon on salad greens, caraway cheese straws, roasted vegetables in boeuf bourguignon sauce.

Random bits of writing advice:
Keep the story moving forward. Don’t eat over your keyboard.

What do you do when not writing, eating or reading?
Sing in a community rock choir. Go to step class. Walk. Procure and prepare food.

What’s your idea of comfort food and comfort reading?
Thanksgiving dinner – roast turkey with potato stuffing, rice, gravy and cranberry sauce. And a Maeve Binchy novel.

I’m very pleased that my YA story Marcus the Great has just been published in an anthology for the educational market  by McGraw-Hill Ryerson. The anthology has the rather clunky title of iLit: Reality Imagined: Stories of Identity and Change and also includes stories by Jean Little, Richard Scrimger, Sheree Fitch, and several other established and up-and-coming Canadian writers.

Marcus the Great is a coming of age story of sorts, about a mellow biracial basketball player from downtown Toronto who attends the city’s Northern Secondary School, likes history class, and starts dating an uptown girl. It was totally inspired by the exposure I got to the fascinating Toronto high school basketball scene when my two sons played ball for Northern. Go Red Knights!

The story will also be available soon as a download for teachers who want to pick and choose from  a selection of stories on offer to put together their own classroom anthologies at ilit.ca. To that end, the ilit site is currently offering up Marcus the Great as a sample work – you can read (but not print) the whole thing, with illustrations! – here.

How much do I love the idea of high school students studying my story?  A lot.

1) Sweet bell pepper and egg sandwiches, a traditional Italian-American Easter food that I discovered at Torrisi Italian Specialties in New York, and created my own non-Easter version of at home [The Hungry Novelist]

2) The Writers Reading Recipes podcasts on Julie Wilson’s BookMadam blog, including one of me reading a recipe for Butterscotch Brownies from The Joy of Cooking, which can be found here. Figuring out how to record myself without using an iphone or mic was a real technical adventure, alright. [BookMadam]

3) That I’m soon to begin prep work for the Humber summer workshop in creative writing, a highlight of my summer which takes place from July 9-15, 2011. [Humber School for Writers]

3) A Tony Awards afterglow: I loved the telecast, loved seeing How To Succeed, Catch Me If You Can and Sister Act - shows I’d enjoyed seeing on Broadway – bringing it to their musical numbers, and I now can’t get out of my head the beautiful chorus in the song Commencing in Chattanooga from The Scottsboro Boys, a show I hadn’t loved when I saw it last fall. Check it (earworm alert):

This Saturday, May 7th, 2011 at 1:30 p.m. I’ll be co-leading a free Heritage Toronto and Jane’s Walk walking tour of Toronto’s North Rosedale neighbourhood with the catchy title of “Hidden Treasures in North Rosedale.” I originally designed and wrote this walking tour partly as a way to promote my novel The Glenwood Treasure, which is set in a fictionalized version of North Rosedale, and also so that I could repurpose some of the research that I did while writing that novel.

The tour has a historical focus as much as an architectural one, and traces the history of the enclave’s development from its beginnings in the late 1800′s, when it was home to the original Rosedale Golf Club, until its more recent past. My favourite stop on the tour is Chorley Park, a tranquil green space where once stood the grand mansion pictured above, the residence of Ontario’s Lieutenant Governor. The starting point for the walking tour is the corner of Beaumont Road and Glen Road. I hope to see you there!

My new Rapid Reads book, And Everything Nice, was officially published on April 1. You can read the opening chapter of it here, and you can buy it online here. And you can come hear me talk about it – and about my other novels – when I give a talk about Food in my Fiction at the Danforth and Coxwell branch of the Toronto Public Library on Wednesday April 20, 2011 at 6:30 pm.

Also, here’s a little review of it from Booklist:

“In And Everything Nice, twentysomething Stephanie, a Gap store manager, meets local TV personality Anna after she joins a church choir. After a blackmailer steals Anna’s journal and threatens to publically reveal its juicy details, Stephanie tries to help Anna trap the culprit and land an exciting new job at the same time. Many readers will find Stephanie’s voice, both street-smart and strongly principled, to be a winning combination.”  -  Gillian Engberg