I’m pleased to see that the publisher of my period fiction, the Cape Breton University Press, is letting potential readers know that Thomas, A Secret Life and The Maze are books one and two of what is an unfolding series. I intend to write two more, the third of which I hope to see released in the fall of 2015.

Here’s a link to how CBU Press is summarizing the story so far:

http://cbup.ca/books/ajb-johnston-thomas-pichon/

Trevor Sawler has reviewed The Maze in the latest issue of the Nashwaak Review, vol. 32-33. Among other things the reviewer writes: “Pichon is as real and developed a character as you will find anywhere … both believable and impressive.”

That’s something an author likes to read.

If you’re interested in reading all that Trevor Sawler has to say, below is a link. Go to the bottom of the page on the website and you’ll find the section entitled “Reviews.” The Table of Contents identifies the reviewer as Trevor Sawyer, but his last name is Sawler.

http://w3.stu.ca/stu/about/publications/nashwaak/vol_32.aspx

I doubt Trevor Sawler will really purchase extra copies of the book to leave for people in airport lounges, as he states, but I’d like it if he would. I think that novel and its predecessor, Thomas, A Secret Life, would intrigue and please lots of readers if they would come to learn of their existence.

It’s a bit of a puzzle to me to see bookstores carrying The Maze, the second of my Thomas Pichon series, and not the first, Thomas, A Secret Life. True, you don’t have to read them both, or in the sequence in which I wrote them and they appeared, but I hope readers do. But when Thomas is not even on the shelf beside The Maze, it pretty much guarantees people will not know there was a book one before book two. I recall one bookstore that had both, but in different sections of the store fifty feet apart. Four places I know that do carry both Thomas and The Maze, and have them side by side, are Halifax’s Bookmark, Fredericton’s Westminster Books, Sackville, NB’s Tidewater Books and the Colchester Historeum in Truro, NS.

Online, the ebook versions are always both available, though I don’t think there is anything in the descriptions that tell potential readers that they are books 1 and 2 of what will be a quartet.

I’ve been writing books for quite a while, and have always been fortunate to have good editors. What they bring to each publication — questions, comments, suggestions and ideas, not to mention copy-editing — makes each book better than it would be if it was just me all by myself. Seeing what each editor brings to the project is one reason I’ve not yet been tempted to start self-publishing.

Yet as important as editors are, they don’t get much limelight. This note is a first attempt to correct that, if only with a low wattage bulb. I’m afraid that’s the best I can do.

Over the past few months I have once again had the definite pleasure of working with Whitney Moran, Editor at Nimbus Publishing. This time the manuscript was Grand Pré, Landscape for the World (to be released in the spring of 2015). The first time I worked with Whitney was on Louisbourg: Past, Present, Future. On both occasions she has been great. Clear-thinking, rigorous, aware of the big picture at the same time as she focuses on details. I don’t know if there will be a third occasion to bring a book along with Whitney’s help, but one can hope. Whether or not not another project with Nimbus comes to pass, thanks Whitney for all you have done on the first two!

I hear from Nimbus Publishing that the Spring of 2015 will see a fresh printing of Louisbourg: Past, Present, Future. I’m pleased. Soon after the first edition came out in 2013 I realized that I had been guilty of an unfortunate oversight. I should have put something in the book about the diversity of the population at Louisbourg and on its residents of African origins or African descent. I immediately wrote two such units to cover those aspects, and they have been waiting until the first print run was gone before they get to appear in print. The wait is nearly over. I’ll post something here and on the Facebook page: A J B Johnston, Writer when the new edition is released in a few months time.

A couple of weeks ago I mused that my Nov. 4 presentation at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic might be the last time I was going to talk about Louisbourg. How foolish and forgetful was that. I had forgotten about La Rochelle and Rochefort. Late November in those two small cities on France’s Atlantic coast (at roughly the same latitude as Louisbourg) I have to speak about that intriguing, vanished place two more times. I have spent the better part of the past two days writing a paper to collect my thoughts. It takes longer to do it in French, but I have to say it’s fun. My title: “Qu’est-ce que c’est, ce Louisbourg?” Along with the paper, simultaneously, I’ve put together 43 images that go with the different parts of my talk.

Now that it’s finished I can get back to laying down more pages in the third Thomas Pichon novel.