Last Day – The Merril Collection, Toronto, Canada
The flight was delayed by a couple hours in London, so I didn’t get to my hotel in Toronto until 3, and only wound up snatching about 3 and a half hours sleep. But I don’t feel too badly. It’s the last day of the tour, and then I get to go home and vanish for a while.
I’ll be reading tonight at a place with a very long name: The Toronto Public Library/Lillian Smith Library in the Merril Collection (239 College Street). Hope you can make it. The reading gets going at 7 PM.
Had myself a good time in England – and here was a particularly nice moment. St. Paul’s Cathedral, out in the sun by myself, listening to the bells. Only now it’s like you were there too. (Quicktime video at the link – cool, huh?).
March 22nd, 2010 at 8:34 am
Looking forward to seeing you tonight. Thanks for making an appearance in Toronto Joe. Hope you’re still awake by the time tonight rolls around.
March 22nd, 2010 at 11:02 am
Please tell me that everyone reading this blog has already seen this ZOMBIE FLOWCHART: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_tNOND6_o1Sg/S6YSDWbKn0I/AAAAAAAAAcM/HSuxJlaYXPU/s1600-h/zombie+flowchart.jpg
That is all.
March 22nd, 2010 at 11:15 am
Joe,
We have a book club for men here in St. Louis and meet at Pudd’n Head books. We are meeting Tuesday, April 13th at 7:00 PM, central time. We are discussing “Horns” and would like to have you join us via conference call or Skype.
What do you think?
My cell is 314-265-5472.
Regards,
Paul Fiess
March 22nd, 2010 at 2:07 pm
If any British people are reading this, please tell me what a bugaboo is. My friend, Andrew, asked me if I were being one intentionally or if it came naturally.
He was upset that I didn’t know the London signing time for Horns until the last minute.
I said ‘Well, you can always go next time. Criminy.’
‘Oh no. You’re on your own next time, lassie.’
I hate it when he calls me that. I never CAN get the image of Lassie the dog out of my head when he says it.
He’s lucky I like dogs that look like Lassie, even if the poor dog they used for the movie was a boy. And they kept saying ‘Here Lassie, come here girl.’
No self-respecting male dog wants to be called ‘girl.’
March 22nd, 2010 at 3:12 pm
Awesome bells – it was like a big happy wedding just happened.
March 22nd, 2010 at 4:09 pm
Glad you don’t feel too bad with such little sleep. Good luck tonight at the Toronto signing, Joe.
March 22nd, 2010 at 4:50 pm
I’m always getting only 3 hours of sleep when I’m on call. I’m always on call on weekends, and certain people are at their most stupid on Friday & Saturday nights. Yes, I mean people who can’t hold their liquor-or booze if you will.
Last weekend I had to respond to a call at 2 am, b/c two drunk guys got into an argument over a woman, and the one hit the other w/ a golf club so hard it cracked the other’s skull and became embedded in the victim’s brain.
Brains were showing in that scenario, which is why I still can’t read about zombies or watch movies w/ that particular undead creature in them.
People may think that’s weak of me, but I don’t wanna see brains any more than I’m going to have to on my job. Head injuries, aka traumatic brain injury (TBI), have a low recovery success rate. Especially when brain matter becomes exposed to the outside air.
There are a lot of rewarding aspects to my job, which may surprise people. However, treating head injuries usually isn’t one of them.
I thought the woman they were fighting over wasn’t much to look at and certainly not worth going to jail for; that’s where golf club swinger ended up.
March 23rd, 2010 at 5:45 am
Congratulations on finishing the tour, Joe! Looks like it was a blast all the way from start to finish. Can’t wait to see you again next time. Enjoy some R&R!
March 23rd, 2010 at 7:14 am
Hi Joe,
Nice to meet you at the Merril in TO last night. Enjoyed our chat on writing short stories and the screenwriting to novel structure. Can you recommend any short story collections to read? I just finished Ron Rash’s ‘Burning Bright’ – the guy’s got some mad skills.
Looking foward to reading more of your work. – Nicole
March 23rd, 2010 at 8:57 am
Joe,
Congrats on a great tour! I see that Horns is doing the King Kong dance up the New York Times best seller list.
Yesterday I received my latest package in the mail from River Run – signed copies of both of the Locke & Key graphic novels. I now almost have a complete signed collection – HSB, Ghosts, Horns, New Dead, and both Locke & Key novels. If I ever get the chance to catch up with you, I’ll make sure to bring along The Saved, Gunpowder, Cemetery Dance, Pop Art, etc…
Thanks again for signing all of those extra books so that bums like me who do not live on the tour route can still get a prize.
Keep rock’n -
Darrell
March 23rd, 2010 at 9:52 am
Ahh, Mission accomplished! Congratulations and a toast to Joe for
completing a long tour! Joe probably wont emerge from his decompression chamber for some time, but fans like me are relieved
that all went well and he’s slid into home plate!
March 23rd, 2010 at 11:33 am
Those bells are obnoxious. Tintinnabulation, indeed.
Thoroughly enjoying Horns. No sophomore slump for you, only epics. Missing your readings makes me regret leaving Maine, but I’ll be back someday, and so will you, undoubtedly. Don’t vanish for too long; I’ll be jonesing for a new read when I finish Horns.
-Lucas
March 23rd, 2010 at 4:14 pm
Great signing, REALLY entertaining! I’m surprised you were in such fine form after so little sleep. Photo of you with horns lit posted here http://basseca.deviantart.com/art/Joe-Hill-Reading-from-Horns-158190109. Many more sent to Colleen who I believe is going to forward them to you!
Thanks for a great event and a fun evening!
March 23rd, 2010 at 5:01 pm
Get some rest Joe. Enjoy the fam. Then get back to work!
March 23rd, 2010 at 5:42 pm
Thank you for being so nice and kind to Mary and I. See you next time…as long as u dont kick us out the door.
M&M
March 24th, 2010 at 12:56 am
Salt Lake City wants to see you, Joe. Call Sam Weller.
March 24th, 2010 at 1:56 am
M&M-You saw him again? Boy, you guys are lucky. : )
I don’t know what I’d do if I saw him anyway. I’d probably faint and cause a big embarrassment-at least to myself if not everyone else.
I don’t know why I’m like that either, b/c I know two people who are actors-and one was in a major cable network production. But when I met him, I had no idea who he was, even though I had watched the show before I encountered him.
He’s nothing like his character. He didn’t even wear his hair the same, and he CERTAINLY didn’t have the same ‘rough’ look in his eyes. The longer I observed him the more familiar he became, but where I’d seen him before kept eluding me. It gnawed at me so long I finally came right out and asked him ‘Why do you look so familiar?’
When he told me, I was so shocked I made a complete idiot of myself.
Good thing he wasn’t anything like this character he played. I’d have been in trouble if he were.
March 24th, 2010 at 2:56 am
Vicki–No, no. we just seen him in san fran. Just giving some well wishes.
March 24th, 2010 at 7:08 am
The bells! The bells! The tintintabulation of the bells, bells, bells!
March 27th, 2010 at 8:07 pm
I wish I knew how to write really good fiction, b/c I could use some of the calls I get to create a really great horror story.
Especially the one I got today, w/ the drugged-out dude doing something life-threatening.
But he’ll have no memory of it if he makes it through the emergency operation he’s going to need in order to fix the problem.
I DO know how to write. I’ve written some short stories and more than 100 poems. The stories’ technical details are terrible, but I think the ideas are great.
In fact, one editor noticed I was taking Stephen King’s advice from that book ‘On Writing.’ Or I was trying to until the editor told me I was being stupid to ‘do things King’s way.’
I don’t think HE believes that, I thought, or he wouldn’t have written the damn book. But I gave up trying to convince the editor.
He didn’t believe things I took from my professional experience-for instance, he thinks there’s no way to crack a person’s skull with a hard object swung by another person, b/c he’s sure the skull is so hard it can’t be cracked by that method-and he expected me to change my information to mirror his thought.
I stopped working w/ him.
I’ll respect an editor to a point, but not one that tells me how to do my own job. Especially when he’s wrong but insists I do it his way.
That’s one reason I couldn’t publish my work. I was making sacrifices in every other area. Why did he have to insist I change it to a lie?
Changing medical information to a lie goes against everything I’ve been trained to do, and they rub that idea of never altering medical information into you like a woodworker rubbing stain into a new piece of furniture.
There’s no way I can alter medical information even when the details are fictional.
I like writing poetry better, although I’m still improving my technique and learning how to write it by using rhyme scheme and other formulas.
I love writing poetry.