Lee D. Thompson's Blog
April 10, 2025
Bookbeat Interview
This is from 2023, but I had entirely forgotten about this interview with Tom Bowden of The Book Beat. Scroll down the page for the nice little review and shortish interview.
https://www.thebookbeat.com/backroom/...
https://www.thebookbeat.com/backroom/...
June 6, 2023
An Award!
Awards, awards... say what you will about them, but it does get the book out there a little better. So, I hereby announce that Apastoral: A Mistopia received the Mrs Dunsters (yes) Award for Fiction at the New Brunswick Book Awards, 'bleating out' (I mean probably just bullying itself forward very rudely) Varlerie Sherrard's charming young adult novel A Bend in the Breeze and Megan Rose Allen's fine collection The Summer the School Burned Down. There it is. Now go and buy it? Yes, do that.
August 15, 2022
Novel with Corona/Samizdat!
My novel Apastoral: A Mistopia was published by semi-obscure, cult-riddled, somewhat bent and partially submerged underdog press Corona/Samizdat on July 15, 2022, and we wouldn't have it any other way. The novel is a dystopia of sorts, but so little time is spent on the world outside that that word - dystopia - didn't feel right. And plus, this is more Heart of a Dog (Bulgakov), or We (Zamyatin), or Riddley Walker (Hoban) or near sci-fi like McElroy's Plus, than, you know, Hunger Games (author deleted) or even 1984(well). So I called it a mistopia, a "wrong place".
It's the story, in short, of petty criminal whose punishment is to have his brain implanted into a sheep, to live out his sentence as a farm animal, amongst other such farm animals (Constock).
You can purchase it direct from the Slovenian-based publisher, right here.
Lee, 8/15/22
It's the story, in short, of petty criminal whose punishment is to have his brain implanted into a sheep, to live out his sentence as a farm animal, amongst other such farm animals (Constock).
You can purchase it direct from the Slovenian-based publisher, right here.
Lee, 8/15/22
February 17, 2022
Two titles available!
Recently received - inherited? rescued? - three boxes of my first book, S a novel in [xxx] dreams. The publisher of Broken Jaw Press, Joe Blades, passed away a couple of years ago, sadly. Send me a message if interested in a copy. $10 including shipping.
Also have a handful of copies of my chapbook 'mouth human must die' - it's a limited edition! 125 were printed. $20. Again, message me.
Also have a handful of copies of my chapbook 'mouth human must die' - it's a limited edition! 125 were printed. $20. Again, message me.
June 15, 2020
Well hell...
Just pulled my first edition FC2 Evan Dara The Lost Scrapbook off the shelves, nearly mint condition, and whimsically checked Abebooks wondering this worth anything? Oh, like, $2000 Canadian... Hugs book.
May 8, 2018
Does this make me an 'award winning author'?
A partial manuscript (30,000 words) of my ongoing story collection (entitled "The Purpose of Evolution is not Immortality" - taken from a line in one of the stories) was awarded the Writers' Federation of New Brunswick's David Adams Richards Prize this past month.
Adjudicator/author Michelle Butler Hallett said this:
Sophisticated literary fiction: haunts, tickles, and disturbs — and subverts. I laughed several times in places I later felt I shouldn’t, and I often shuddered. I at once admired the writer’s technique, and experienced emotional connections with the characters; those two things don’t always happen. Because the writer seems to be not as concerned with plot as much as what the characters believe is happening, some stories risk sag in the middle. Overall, however, the work is a delight: rich and strange.
Adjudicator/author Michelle Butler Hallett said this:
Sophisticated literary fiction: haunts, tickles, and disturbs — and subverts. I laughed several times in places I later felt I shouldn’t, and I often shuddered. I at once admired the writer’s technique, and experienced emotional connections with the characters; those two things don’t always happen. Because the writer seems to be not as concerned with plot as much as what the characters believe is happening, some stories risk sag in the middle. Overall, however, the work is a delight: rich and strange.
February 6, 2017
Chapbook w/Frog Hollow Press
Great little publisher Frog Hollow Press (Victoria, BC) has released a limited edition of my short story "mouth human must die." Thrilled about this. It's beautiful little book, 46 pages long, collectable (125 copies were printed). It's available here:
http://froghollowpress.com/catalogue....
http://froghollowpress.com/catalogue....
January 2, 2016
Long story at Numero Cinq
Once again some new fiction has appeared with Numero Cinq. A long story that's part of a collection in the works:
http://numerocinqmagazine.com/2016/01...
http://numerocinqmagazine.com/2016/01...
September 19, 2014
Short Fiction at Numero Cinq
One of my favourite Canadian authors - and the list is short - is Douglas Glover. Glover does it right. Included in this rightness is his online magazine Numero Cinq. And I am rightfully thrilled to have story published there now:
numerocinqmagazine.com/2014/08/09/a-s...
numerocinqmagazine.com/2014/08/09/a-s...
November 20, 2012
The Next Big Thing: 10 Question Interview
A meme-o-gram:
What is your working title of your book?
A Pastoral Picaresque? I’ve considered and rejected at least 50 titles... still searching, though something as banal as A Sheep’s Tale may win out.
Where did the idea come from for the book?
From the folly in my head, which spawned a line and then a musing in my previous (unpublished) novel. It feels like something I’ve considered from the moment I could consider. What’s it like to be something else? But I didn’t want a talking animal story and that led to human brain in an animal’s body which then lead to how? why? and the plot.
What genre does your book fall under?
Literary fiction, satire. Dystopia (or mistopia).
Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?
Uhhh… some actors from The Princess Bride plus half the cast of the Simpsons and a few Cohen Bros characters? Early on I described it as Tarantino by Pixar.
What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
A petty thief, who has been punished by having his brain inserted into the body of a sheep (a government penal program called Constock), attempts to escape his prisons and clear his mostly worthless name. Maybe “Little Sheep, Big City” could be a title?
Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
It will not be self-published and it may or may not be represented by an agency (must get on that). Those aren’t the only two options.
How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
It was written over two years, with the lamb’s share during a few months in early 2010 and the lion’s share during the latter half of 2011.
What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
Obvious comparisons are Animal Farm & 1984 by Orwell, but it’s more ambitious in terms of structure and language and is more a comic novel than either of those two. I was thinking of Bulgakov – Heart of a Dog – when writing the first outline. I see touches of Pynchon in it. I see myself flattering myself right now.
Who or what inspired you to write this book?
No one, nothing. Or maybe just the folly (that word again) of making this idea real, the challenge. Could be fun, I thought. I didn’t know finding a title would be so hard, though, or else I wouldn’t have bothered.
What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?
Sheep sex? A pun a paragraph? Sentences that shapeshift? Talking to animals? An evil pig? A clumsy heroine? Satirizing everything?
Include the link of who tagged you and this explanation for the people you have tagged. Be sure to line up your five people in advance.
The tagger is Jeff Bursey. I lined up five people, yes, and then shot them all.
What is your working title of your book?
A Pastoral Picaresque? I’ve considered and rejected at least 50 titles... still searching, though something as banal as A Sheep’s Tale may win out.
Where did the idea come from for the book?
From the folly in my head, which spawned a line and then a musing in my previous (unpublished) novel. It feels like something I’ve considered from the moment I could consider. What’s it like to be something else? But I didn’t want a talking animal story and that led to human brain in an animal’s body which then lead to how? why? and the plot.
What genre does your book fall under?
Literary fiction, satire. Dystopia (or mistopia).
Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?
Uhhh… some actors from The Princess Bride plus half the cast of the Simpsons and a few Cohen Bros characters? Early on I described it as Tarantino by Pixar.
What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
A petty thief, who has been punished by having his brain inserted into the body of a sheep (a government penal program called Constock), attempts to escape his prisons and clear his mostly worthless name. Maybe “Little Sheep, Big City” could be a title?
Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
It will not be self-published and it may or may not be represented by an agency (must get on that). Those aren’t the only two options.
How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
It was written over two years, with the lamb’s share during a few months in early 2010 and the lion’s share during the latter half of 2011.
What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
Obvious comparisons are Animal Farm & 1984 by Orwell, but it’s more ambitious in terms of structure and language and is more a comic novel than either of those two. I was thinking of Bulgakov – Heart of a Dog – when writing the first outline. I see touches of Pynchon in it. I see myself flattering myself right now.
Who or what inspired you to write this book?
No one, nothing. Or maybe just the folly (that word again) of making this idea real, the challenge. Could be fun, I thought. I didn’t know finding a title would be so hard, though, or else I wouldn’t have bothered.
What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?
Sheep sex? A pun a paragraph? Sentences that shapeshift? Talking to animals? An evil pig? A clumsy heroine? Satirizing everything?
Include the link of who tagged you and this explanation for the people you have tagged. Be sure to line up your five people in advance.
The tagger is Jeff Bursey. I lined up five people, yes, and then shot them all.
