B.C. Almanac

Monday afternoon, Mark Forsythe, the host of B.C. Almanac on CBC Radio, had me on his show to talk about Fatal Tide and the issues around risk, reward and outdoor adventure. It was great to chat with such a radio pro as Mark, who had read my book and was able to draw the story and opinions out of me with a clear line of questioning, and engage his phone-in listeners (all of them guys, curiously) in the debate, too.

If you have RealPlayer on your computer, you can listen to the interview for a couple days longer right here. (It's about halfway in, after the mayor of Williams Lake complaining about a street person.)

My wife likes to joke that I must feel guilty every time I go on CBC Radio (this is my fourth interview, for stations across the country) because I often complain when she has it playing in the house. (I can't read or write with talk radio in the background, and we also own the world's tinniest-sounding kitchen radio.) It's true: CBC (and radio in general) has been very generous in supporting my book.

Given how paltry (and poor-paying) the book review sections (where they still exist) of major newspapers have become, I don't know what Canadian writers would do without their radio fix. That has been one of the loudest lessons I've learned from my first four months as a novice nonfiction novelist.