C.K. Kelly Martin’s YA writing is the kind you want to give the teens in your life. It’s written for them, not adult crossover readers, and it meets teens where they live. — Quill & Quire
As we move into summer this week, the e-book version of my first love (but will it outlast the summer?) novel Just Like You Said It Would Be is on sale for 99 cents at Kobo, Apple, Barnes & Noble, Google, Smashwords, Amazon and other retailers.
The first cut is the deepest.
On New Year’s Eve seventeen-year-old Amira texts the Irish ex-boyfriend she’s been missing desperately since they broke up at the end of summer, when she returned to Canada. They agreed they wouldn’t be friends, that it would never be enough. But that was then—back when Amira’s separated parents had shipped her off to relatives in Dublin for the summer so they could test-drive the idea of getting back together on a long haul cruise. Back when Amira was torn away from a friend in need in Toronto only to fall in love with a Dublin screenwriting class and take a step closer to her dream career. And only to fall for cousin Zoey’s bandmate, Darragh, the guy who is first her friend, then her enemy and later something much more complicated—the guy she can say anything to, the guy who makes every inch of her feel wide awake in a way she hadn’t known was possible. The guy she confides in about the dead sister she has no living memories of but who has remained with Amira nonetheless. The guy she might never see again. Or is there, despite the distance, somehow still a chance for them?
Continued thanks to the Canada Council for the Arts who supported this book through an invaluable writing grant!
I acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the
Arts, which last year invested $153 million to bring the arts to
Canadians throughout the country.
Nous remercions le Conseil des arts du Canada de son
soutien. L’an dernier, le Conseil a investi 153 millions de dollars
pour mettre de l’art dans la vie des Canadiennes et des Canadiens de
tout le pays.
So much hangs in the balance here in Canada and we have a whole weekend plus
most of Monday to get through. Hold your nerve, Canadians, and for those
who haven't voted yet, support whoever can beat the Cons in your
riding. Keep authoritarians out of power.
If you're not sure who stands the best chance to block the Conservative Party in your area, you can use votewell.ca.
At this point, Pierre Poilievre is well known for declaring a war on 'woke' and vowing to defund the CBC. The broadcaster has long been an integral component of our nation, reflecting Canada's evolving identity back to us. Thanks to Stephen Harper (who fundamentally changed the media landscape by allowing the foreign takeover of Postmedia) far too many of Canada's outlets are rightwing media hedge fund owned and that bias increasingly shows, making the CBC's survival, in both English and French, even more crucial.
During Poilievre's federal election campaign he's restricted media access, limiting access at campaign stops by only allowing handpicked reporters to pose questions. Unlike Canada's other major political parties, the Conservative Party of Canada refused to allow journalists to travel with Poilievre on his campaign bus and plane, "ending a decades-old tradition of reporters embedding with a prospective candidate to lead the country." Poilievre's demonizing of the press and his disturbing restricting of reporter access is far from new. His ongoing war on journalism demonstrates a marked lack of respect for a cornerstone of democracy. This should concern all Canadians.
There's a reason why Poilievre's Elon Musk's choice for Prime Minister and that Canadians are being bombarded with rightwing disinformation on X as well as Meta. Given the chance, Poilievre intends to make Canada over in the U.S.'s image from the inside. A slew of regressive changes delivered with a sneer. He's continually courted the far right, playing fast and loose with the truth while fermenting rage that he's hoped to ride to power. His own record and recent campaign promises starkly demonstrate his malicious intentions. Tax cuts at the expense of keeping our healthcare system and social safety net strong, scapegoating rather than nation building.
Poilievre was a leading defender of the “Fair Elections Act,” a voter suppression Bill that "impaired voting rights, reduced political participation, injected partisan bias in election administration, increased the influence of money in elections, diminished transparency and accountability, and seriously undermined the integrity and fairness of the electoral process." Here are some other highlights of his voting record as an MP.
Let's not forget that soon after securing his own government pension, Poilievre voted to raise the retirement age for others to 67. Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, when asked about the CERB benefits that kept many Canadian afloat, Poilievre admitted "We're Conservatives we don't believe in that."
If you'd like to read more about why Poilievre is perceived as an authoritarian threat that would destroy Canada as we know it if given free reign, here's some further reading material for you.
We've seen where voting for Populist politicians who vociferously feign being a friend of the common man while actually representing a select few elite and disenfranchising and impoverishing everyone else gets you. That's not democracy. That's not the kind of Canada most of us want.
If there's anything more Canadian than a Canadian band (Our Lady Peace) covering another Canadian band (The Tragically Hip) in an arena called the Canadian Tire Centre in the nation's capital it's starting a singalong of the national anthem, which happened last night too!
A clip from OLP's cover of Locked in the Trunk of a Car last night:
Anyone who has lived in this country awhile is these days no doubt experiencing much the same thing as I am, which is a unity and demonstrative pride in Canada unlike any I've ever seen outside of Canada Day, the Olympics or hockey games. Much as Canadians love this nation, we're not ordinarily showy about it. With few exceptions Canadians are traditionally not flag-wavers, and when we sing the national anthem aloud (which is not often) it's generally underneath our breath.
An antagonistic United States, making threats to our sovereignty and repeatedly disrespecting our Prime Minister, has unleashed something inside us that won't be put back in the bottle anytime soon. We're shopping Canadian, avoiding U.S. products and travel, and wearing our hearts on our sleeves.
I don't know how well you can make the sound out on the below video but OLP's Raine Maida had the CTC audience singing the national anthem late in their show in Ottawa last night. I've never seen anything like this at a rock concert before. The emotion in the arena was incredible.
Here are a couple of other clips from Our Lady Peace's amazing show in Ottawa last night. I always find myself thinking of Finn, from One Lonely Degree, during Clumsy in particular. She was fifteen when the book was released in 2009 which would make her around thirty-one now, but I know she'd still be hitting Our Lady Peace concerts.
Happy Read an Ebook Week! You can find most of my C. K. Kelly Martin books at half price at Smashwords this week to help you celebrate.
It's also a good time to pick up my latest sci-fi, RISE, TOMORROW GIRL, on sale. Set in 2050, in many ways RISE is a love letter to Canada. Healed of plague after years in cryogenic storage, a seventeen-year-old Canadian struggles to integrate into a world that's moved on without her and then must fight to stay alive, fleeing an American invasion.
Russian Mathematician Sofia Kovalevskaya wrote these words in 1888, and the
message holds true across miles and years. Stay true. And in this casealso, elbows up, Canada. I know
Canadians will do what they can to support their neighbours and
countrymen during this difficult time. We will never again feel the same way about the United States, a once valued friend and ally, no matter what happens from here on out. We will, however, do what we must for our national sovereignty. Because Canada is not the United States. We value different things, and we will control our own destiny, no matter what that costs in dollars and cents.
Like The Tragically Hip's Gord Downie sang in Wheat Kings, "You can't be fond of living in the past, 'Cause if you are, then there's no way that you're gonna last." Together we will move forward from where we currently stand, mindful of what matters, and we will weather the storm.
This country isn't perfect, but it has never stopped striving to be better. Canada is beautiful, strong, and free. And it's ours.
With the same moderation changes that resulted in a torrent of hate speech and disinformation on X now set to roll out on Meta (Facebook, Instagram, Threads) it was time to pull up stakes and spend time places that respect facts and people instead. As for what you can expect at Meta moving forward:
I've already left Facebook (and Twitter/X before that) and am currently in the process of packing up my Instagram account. Many of my favourite photographs from 2007 to the present have moved to Flickr. My final day on Instagram will be January 19th.
Here are some other places you can continue to find me:
