As of last week, Dans la Cage, previously known around the land as In the Cage, has been published by Albin Michel, one of the leading literary publishers in France, and the kind of house that publishes translations of writers like Donald Ray Pollock, Stephen King, Claire Vaye Watkins, Colson Whitehead, and this random guy from Midland, Ontario.

I’ll be heading over to Vincennes in a few weeks for Festival America, where I’ll be participating in a number of events with far fancier people, and where I’ll be lucky enough to share the stage with John Irving (the guest of honour this year, on the 40th anniversary of The World According to Garp), Nathan Hill, David Chariandy, Heather O’Neill, Ivy Pochoda, Aura Xilonen, Michael Farris Smith, Baird Harper, and Dan Chaon. That’s not a bad list of authors to talk with about writing.

The festival has a Canadian focus this year, with a bunch of English and French language authors heading over. So, I think it’ll be an interesting experience talking about what is really going on over here, and especially about what is going on at a community level in the CanLit scene. I’m very happy that the organizers of the festival, and my fine editor at Albin Michel, Francis Geffard, have put together such comprehensive panels where we can really dig deep into that, and maybe get a conversation going about the actual guts of the place and people that we write about in a way that they’ve not quite read or heard before.

So, I’ll be posting some reviews and response to the book leading up to the fest, and my thoughts on it after, and perhaps during if I have the gumption. But, in the meantime, tell everyone you know in France from anytime in your life about this. I’ll high five you a number of times if you do.

Thanks everybody. And, believe in your dreams, as always…
KH