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Some Dirt on The Land
I was aiming for May 7th to release The Land, but managed to get everything done with a couple days to spare, so here it is, complete with book trailer. I showed Tamiko and she thinks the tone is sufficiently creepy for the subject matter. Some members of my family have been waiting for this [...]
Continue reading...All My Cover Designers Are Superheroes
22. April 2011
All My Friends Are Superheroes is a slender sentimental quasi-allegorical tale by Andrew Kaufman. However, the real superhero of this book is Ian McInnis, whose cheeky whimsical cover has probably done more to sell this book than all the other marketing efforts combined. Pulled from the City of Toronto archives, the cover photo is a [...]
Continue reading...David Barker Writes Sappy Poetry
18. April 2011
I confess it: I sometimes vanity google. My name is sufficiently common that enhancing my google rankings has become an exercise in frustration. However, it passes beyond frustration when I discover that I’m outranked by a dead poet no one has ever heard of. Ah me! If you can’t fight it, then embrace it with [...]
Continue reading...Reading Mishima in Light of Japan’s Tsunami
4. April 2011
Sometimes, when I read, it feels as if the words were always already written inside me and the author has simply drawn them to my attention. That happens most often to me with poetry and large novels, rarely with short stories. But with short stories, there are a few notable exceptions—Hawthorne’s Rappaccini’s Daughter, Poe’s Telltale [...]
Continue reading...A New Novel About Organic Farmers and Psychotic Children
29. March 2011
I’ve committed an act of theft and, if I’m lucky, I’ll get away with it. I’ve stolen some lives and a piece of property and I’ve hawked them for a novel. My novel is called The Land and I plan to release it on May 7th or thereabouts. Here’s what I did: I took four [...]
Continue reading...Hex Hex Hex
28. March 2011
I’m stuck. I wouldn’t call it writer’s block. I can think of lots to blog about. There’s a list of ideas floating around my desk somewhere and it’s full of notions that may or may not work, but at least they’re worth trying. My problem is more a soulful disorganization. This has been going on [...]
Continue reading...Curio, by Laura Ellen Scott
18. March 2011
Curio is an echapbook originally serialized at uncannyvalleypress.com, it is now available for kindle or in epub format. The cost is a tweet or post to your facebook wall (i.e. it’s free). Find out more about Lauren Ellen Scott at her blog. As the title suggests, this is a collection of micro-fictions, like tiny figurines [...]
Continue reading...Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom
4. March 2011
My name is Dave and I am a Disneyholic… Hello, Dave. Why don’t you tell us a bit about yourself and your struggles with Disney addiction? Well, it all started innocently enough with Sunday evening TV — 6 o’clock dinner on a TV tray, watching Od Yeller in black and white. Even now, when I [...]
Continue reading...Bill C-32, education fair use video
17. February 2011
You know you are dealing with really conservative people when they lobby for legal provisions more stringent than those proposed by the Harper Conservatives. Bill C-32 is a case in point. Bill C-32 is the Copyright Modernization Act. The latest salvo in Canada’s copyright skirmish comes from the Writers’ Union of Canada — a YouTube [...]
Continue reading...America! Give unequivocal support to the people of Egypt
10. February 2011
A few years ago, I took an evening stroll to watch the sunset on the Campsie Fells in Scotland and stopped to chat with an elderly man who was passing in the other direction. When he heard my accent, he asked if I was American. I said no and told him I came from Toronto. [...]
Continue reading...Books and Freedom
9. February 2011
I used to think the words for book and freedom were related. That’s not so far-fetched. Liber is the Latin word for book. Looks a lot like liberty, no? And philosophically, we like to relate books and freedom. “The truth shall set you free.” Education is the ticket to a better life. Acquiring literacy skills [...]
Continue reading...Help! The Andrews Sisters are Stalking Me
26. January 2011
What is it with the Andrews Sisters? I find them popping up in the strangest places. If you’ve never heard of the Andrews Sisters, they were a trio popular during World War II and even appeared in an Abbott & Costello film (Buck Privates). But one song – or at least its lyrics [...]
Continue reading...Sampling Joshua Cohen’s Witz
25. January 2011
I’ve finished part III of Joshua Cohen’s Witz, no small feat given that I’m now more than 300 pages into an 800 page novel in which 1 page of Witz represents 2 pages of any other self-respecting novel. In other words, it’s a long book. While such a book can tax the reader’s patience and, [...]
Continue reading...Things Fall Apart when white liberals read Chinua Achebe
21. January 2011
Here I am, doing my well-intentioned liberal-white-guy best to discover other voices, and (adhering to my resolution to read at least one African author each month) I start with Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. When I finish the book, I google it and discover (assuming google’s search returns can be believed) that half the English-speaking [...]
Continue reading...The Social Significance of a Humungous Public Funeral for a Fallen Toronto Police Officer?
20. January 2011
Toronto has just witnessed the largest police funeral in Canada’s history, with 12,000 in attendance and a 2 1/2 hour procession through the downtown core to mark the death of Sgt. Ryan Russell who was killed a week ago when a man ran barefoot through the snow, seized an idling snowplow, and went for a [...]
Continue reading...New eFiction from David Allan Barker
Hogtown is my gift to the Occupy Movement. Download from Smashwords for free.
Sex With Dead People is an ebook collection of short stories. Download from Smashwords for free.
The Land is an enovel. Preview here or buy for your favourite ereader. Also available as an audiobook.
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4. May 2011
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