At a BookExpo America panel discussion last June, Publishers Lunch proprietor Michael Cader wondered aloud why publishers don’t set all of their authors up with in-house blogs. Now a Canadian house has taken at least one step in that direction — House of Anansi Press is promoting a blog by Michael Winter.

The online diary’s hefty subtitle about says it: “Journey with author Michael Winter as he travels from Canada to England and Spain and then all the way back to Newfoundland before launching his brand new novel The Big Why this autumn.” So far, the Toronto-by-way-of-Newfoundland author has been ruminating on his travels in his typical stylish prose: “I walked through Stanley Park. I stood by one of those big redwoods. When I got close to it, the sound in the world was turned down a few notches. That room noise that they inject into a film’s sound mix. The air felt absent of it. I put on my coat because, in the shade, I was cold. There is not a tree in all of Newfoundland with this girth.”

And on the new book, about to be published: “They say that my book is done. It’s an object now, and that it looks beautiful. It has end papers and someone in production called the dustjacket the ‘case.’ Thank you Bill Douglas and thank you Anansi for making a good-looking book. I can’t wait to see it.”

Related links:
Michael Winter’s blog