How Yah Doon?

I think John Stiles is a kindred spirit.

Mr. Stiles is a Canadian expatriate writer living in England. Unlike me, he was born and raised in Annapolis Valley, Nova Scotia. And unlike me, he has a London-based poetry magazine called How Yah Doon?. They do reviews and publish a little poetry.

Mr. Stiles stumbled on my web site while researching the writer Mordecai Richler and was impressed by the information I had about his first novel, The Acrobats. Anyone who googles Richler and read Morley Callaghan's Strange Fugitive is cool in my books.

In addition to his nifty blog, which every writer should have these days, he did a superb (yet unfinished) review of Chris Robinson's newest book, Stole This From a Hockey Card. Chris Robinson is an author, freelance writer and the Artistic Director of the Ottawa International Animation Festival.

You can visit John Stiles' web page is http://howyahdoon.blogspot.com. In addition to his current writing, he has published a novel called The Insolent Boy (Insomniac Press, Toronto, 2001) and a book of poetry called Scouts are Cancelled (Insomniac Press, Toronto, 2002). Thanks to Mr. Stiles' maritime generosity, I am a proud owner of the two books which are written with a down-home Nova Scotian feel to them. Oh-my-jumpins, de best way I coud describe his writen is dat he's like de William Henry Drummond uv Nova Scotia. Now I gots ta git back ta warshen ma dishus or sumpinerudder.