The Hanover Post Prints Article on Lorina!
Neustadt author to appear at three Chapters’ book signings Local News – Friday, November 02, 2007 Updated @ 10:24:41 AM Whether it’s writing the Everyman’s Cookbook or a historical fiction about the mysteries of Upper Canada’s backwoods, Lorina Stephens has proven herself a diverse and engaging author capable of navigating a Canadian publishing landscape dominated by closed publishing houses and agents disinterested in commercial work. Stephens appears in November at Chapters locations in Barrie (Nov. 10), Owen Sound (Nov. 17) and Guelph (Nov. 24) to sign copies of her newly released historical fiction, ‘Shadow Song,’ as well as her cookbook, ‘Recipes of a Dumb Housewife,’ which was released earlier this year. Explaining why she decided to ramp up her writing career, Stephens says, “In the late 1980s things were looking good.”
I’d sold several short stories to recognized magazines and one to Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Sword & Sorceress X. I’d signed a contract with Boston Mills Press to write, ‘A Guide to the Niagara Escarpment: Touring the Giant’s Rib,’ and wrote another under contract for the Credit Valley Conservation Authority, ‘Credit River Valley.’ “Then the Nasty Nineties happened. It’s hard to justify spending money on paper and postage for submissions when you’re trying to raise adolescent children and pay the mortgage in the middle of a devastating recession.” Recognizing the explosion of the internet and electronic communication during the decade-long sabbatical, as well as the rise in reputable POD publishers, Lorina, encouraged by her husband of 33 years and adult children (one who is the publicist for Alberta Theatre Project, the other studying law) returned to her first, best destiny, that of a writer. Rather than opt for weeks, sometimes months of waiting for agents’ and publishers’ responses, she chose to self-publish with a view to gaining credibility and readership which will stand her in good stead when again she dips her paddle into the conventional publishing stream. ‘Shadow Song,’ Lorina’s second self-published book, is written in the tradition of Guy Gavriel Kay and Charles de Lint, and set amid the economic ruin that occurred to so many ‚migr‚s and British pensioned officers of the 1830s. It is full of psychological and cultural contrasts of two cultures at odds with one another, and an intimate familiarity with the geography of the novel, from the immigrants’ miserable landing stage at Grosse Isle into the dark reaches of Superior’s North Shore. ‘Recipes of a Dumb Housewife’ will also be available at the Chapters book signings. What makes this recipe book different is that it’s the Everyman’s cookbook with a pinch of quirk.
I’d sold several short stories to recognized magazines and one to Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Sword & Sorceress X. I’d signed a contract with Boston Mills Press to write, ‘A Guide to the Niagara Escarpment: Touring the Giant’s Rib,’ and wrote another under contract for the Credit Valley Conservation Authority, ‘Credit River Valley.’ “Then the Nasty Nineties happened. It’s hard to justify spending money on paper and postage for submissions when you’re trying to raise adolescent children and pay the mortgage in the middle of a devastating recession.” Recognizing the explosion of the internet and electronic communication during the decade-long sabbatical, as well as the rise in reputable POD publishers, Lorina, encouraged by her husband of 33 years and adult children (one who is the publicist for Alberta Theatre Project, the other studying law) returned to her first, best destiny, that of a writer. Rather than opt for weeks, sometimes months of waiting for agents’ and publishers’ responses, she chose to self-publish with a view to gaining credibility and readership which will stand her in good stead when again she dips her paddle into the conventional publishing stream. ‘Shadow Song,’ Lorina’s second self-published book, is written in the tradition of Guy Gavriel Kay and Charles de Lint, and set amid the economic ruin that occurred to so many ‚migr‚s and British pensioned officers of the 1830s. It is full of psychological and cultural contrasts of two cultures at odds with one another, and an intimate familiarity with the geography of the novel, from the immigrants’ miserable landing stage at Grosse Isle into the dark reaches of Superior’s North Shore. ‘Recipes of a Dumb Housewife’ will also be available at the Chapters book signings. What makes this recipe book different is that it’s the Everyman’s cookbook with a pinch of quirk.
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