The Husk Chronicles, Episode One — ACCEPTANCE

My, Corey, what an intrigu­ing post title.

And what a nau­se­at­ing image (cour­tesy of Rob Sachetto’s Zom­bie Daily blog).

What’s it all about?

Well, you may have noticed a marked decline in the post­ing of posts on this here web­site. Frankly, I’ve been rather busy. The new job as pub­li­cist for Goose Lane Edi­tions keeps my brain a’popping, leav­ing me with scant energy at the end of the work­day. I do what I can, but I am at heart a lazy man who needs seri­ous downtime.

And now, the posts may be com­ing with even less reg­u­lar­ity, although I will do my best to update, review, and whine. Another ele­ment has been added to the mix, one which will def­i­nitely eat away at my time, time usu­ally spent watch­ing House or 30 Rock. You see, after years (no hyper­bole here, folks, bloody years) of wait, and work, and false starts and restarts, the almost unthink­able has occurred. Corey Redekop, your one and only favourite writer of nov­els and blogs enti­tled Shelf Mon­key, has had his sopho­more novel accepted for publication.

Now, now, put away your wal­let, stop search­ing online for the best price. It will be some time before Husk (that’s the title) reaches shelves. We’re talk­ing 2012 here, so you have plenty of time to start putting away the pen­nies. Why, just sav­ing a dime a day will put you so far ahead you’ll be able to afford two copies. Good for you, good for me.

But this will mean much time and effort be placed into edit­ing, which goes on and on and on, and as a result, less reviews. I will des­per­ately try to keep all three of you still read­ing this sen­tence enter­tained and informed, but no guarantees.

And the image? Suf­fice to say, Husk is not (despite some pleas from earnest fans) a sequel to Shelf Mon­key. It is, rather, what I refer to as the Great Cana­dian Zom­bie Novel (hence the image). I feel I’m on pretty solid ground with that claim; there sim­ply haven’t been that many Cana­dian zom­bie nov­els, cer­tainly not writ­ten from the zombie’s POV. There was a small seg­ment of Max Brooks’ World War Z set in Canada, and Joey Comeau’s One Bloody Thing After Another had its fair share of undead may­hem, but that might be it. Except for Tony Burgess’ Pon­ty­pool Changes Every­thing, a gut­bust­ing mas­ter­piece, but really so much, much more that a ‘zom­bie novel.’

So, prep your­selves for the 2012 release of Husk. I’ll be blog­ging updates on my progress, as well as other things that entertain/infuriate me.

And if you can’t wait until 2012, con­sider vot­ing for Shelf Mon­key at the CBC Reads nom­i­na­tion page, on until Octo­ber 26. It’ll help pass the time.