Canadian Tour
Fly to Ottawa the Capital city of Canada to be a presenter at the Ottawa International Writers Festival Oct 25-26. This was a very impressive gathering of writers from across Canada, authors were invited from Scotland, England, and the US. The festival consisted of a wide variety of methods of presenting works of literature. Some authors read passages, others where interviewed on stage individually and in groups, while some visited local schools and made presentations. The main venue was a beautiful old Catholic church called St. Brigid’s in the downtown portion of the city. On Sunday afternoon I made a 20 minute Power Point presentation showing the Stoker family connections to Bram Stoker, the research notes e used for writing Dracula, and I expanded on my research for Dracula the Un-Dead. I was then interviewed by a very knowledgeable young professor of Gothic English Literature Sean Moreland from Nipissing University.
It was exciting to be back in Ottawa after many years, the volunteer who picked me up at the airport actually works for Sport Canada, her former boss, Michele Pellerin, was the official who I worked closely with for many years when I was the National Coach for Modern Pentathlon Canada.
First thing Monday morning I took the 2 ½ hr train ride to my former hometown; Montreal. I had a wonderful time reconnecting with old places and making new acquaintances. A newspaper journalist Bram Eisenthal wrote a very nice article about me and brought me to the home in Westmount were I grew up and took some photos of me standing in the front yard. Throughout the day the Penguin publicist Wendy Bush- Lister brought me to T.V. and radio appearances and interviews with print journalists.
At Casa De Popola a trendy literature “hang out spot” bar I shared the stage with Alex Galant and his wife Carmen who where dressed in full 1912 period costume as they read a few passages form the script for the Un-Dead dramatic reading Alex was producing and Directing the next night in Toronto. I made a presentation about the writing and research behind Dracula the Un-Dead, and was honored to have my Uncle Patrick, his daughter Carlotta, her husband Ralph, and my cousin Thornley Stoker in attendance.
Early the next morning I was off to the airport to fly to Toronto, for a day and a half full of interviews primarily TV and radio. The main event the next day was the rehearsal and production of the staged reading at the Bathurst St Theater. Alex did a great job finding outstanding professional actors and actresses, and called in many favors to produce a fine show with excellent effects. Shannon Mulholland and Richard Zampella from MODA entertainment in New York did a tremendous amount of work to promote this event. Their efforts resulted in a very full house for the two hour performance. Penguin Canada’s Barbara Bower also deserves kudos for putting together a fantastic and creative book launch in the three cities where I visited.
No rest for the weary, Ian and I were up at 3:30am to be driven to the Toronto Airport for a 6:20am flight to New York. We were meeting Carrie Thornton and Carrie Swetonic from Dutton publishing at the Barnes and Noble.com headquarters to film a 10 min trailer to coincide with the release of New Moon. The trailer was tracing Vampires in literature starting back with Bram Stoker and moving onwards to Stephanie Meyer’s New Moon.
Later that day I had a series of phone and email interviews from my hotel room, followed by a book signing event at the Borders bookstore in The Time Warner Center.
The next morning I was up early 7:30am for two hours of radio call in shows, a series of nine interviews from all over the country. Our final event was a screening of Todd Browning’s 1931 Dracula starring Bela Lugosi. MODA organized Ian, Alex, Carmen and I to be guest speakers at this screening at the Arts Cinema in Huntingdon Long Island. It was lots of fun to watch the old classic again, and answer questions from a very enthusiastic audience. Flying home on Halloween to South Carolina was very surreal, many airport workers and airline gate attendants were dressed in costumes. It gave new meaning to how the sprits of the night and the dead travel fast!