Notes on fiction, writing, the Meeks series, and the experiences behind the stories.
I entered Meeks in the Whistler Independent Book Awards expecting a professional literary evaluation. What I received left me questioning the value of literary credentials, the standards behind paid evaluations, and whose opinions really matter.
Read article →A childhood summer, an abandoned car and a first encounter with Stephen King, whose advice Gabriel Tait would turn to decades later when writing Meeks.
Read article →Memories and photographs of Cumberland Terrace, the Toronto food court that became a setting in Chapter 36 of Meeks.
Read article →How readers' questions led from Meeks to The Ranleigh Tapes, and why Echo will bring Ranleigh's story to a definitive conclusion.
Read article →How a macabre Toronto urban legend I heard as a teenager became a short story supposedly written by nine-year-old Ranleigh Meeks in The Ranleigh Tapes.
Read article →How the Prairie Gothic opening of Meeks led to The Ranleigh Tapes, and the unusual method-writing exercise I used to construct Ranleigh's Fifth Step confession.
Read article →How Raymond Meeks became Ranleigh Meeks after several manuscript drafts, a frustrating search for the right name, and an unexpected discovery on a Toronto street during COVID.
Read article →How Meeks went from an American setting to Toronto and the Canadian Prairies, why familiarity mattered when writing the novel, and how the experience changed my perspective on Canada.
Read article →Why I waited 30 years to write Meeks, what lived experience brought to the story, and why I still think it's a pretty good yarn.
Read article →An idea that stayed with me for decades, a first manuscript, and what finally got me writing.
Read article →