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Portrait Photo - Eric Fefferman
Reader response to Dying Times has been wonderful. Daniel Weinzweig, Cultural Arts Consultant and son of the noted late author, Helen Weinzweig, has given me permission to share his personal response on my blog: "I have been meaning to let you know how much I enjoyed Dimes Times. You have written one of the best works of fiction (faction?) on the subject of dying and loss and done so with humour and poignancy. At times, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry...Or both! The story continues to resonate with me. It is so full of truth about family and the business of loss, rarely found in writing...I could not help thinking of how Helen would have responded — approvingly, I think and maybe with some recognition. Please keep writing."
Genni Gunn, author of twelve books, including Solitaria (longlisted for the Giller Prize 2011), had this to say: "Dying Times by Darlene Madott is a meditation on death, viewed through the eyes of a lawyer who is losing her mother and mentor to cancer. The novel is populated by various characters and emotional ties: the two sisters, whose hatred for one another has no bounds; the protagonist’s mentor who has supported and befriended her to the chagrin of others in the law firm; the beloved artist father whose insights into painting function as metaphor: “The first time you take a crack at a painting, you try to cover the whole canvas so you have a feeling of where everything is, finding the darkest things. Snow isn't just white. Snow, when you really see it, can look like it has a bruise.” Indeed, his perception about painting encompasses everyone in this novel, whose characters are not black-and-white, and show their bruises readily, and it extends to the perspective we take on our own lives and those of others. It is a call to delve deeply into what we think we see or know, to search those depths. The relationships in Dying Times are fully alive, and the love between these characters shines through."
This is my favourite photo from the Book Launch by Eric Fefferman
August 24, 2021: You are invited to celebrate...
Dying Times Book Launch
Sep. 26/21 from 3 to 5 p.m.
R.S.V.P.
Contact Darlene if you wish to attend.
Complimentary wine, water and individually packaged hors d'oeuvres.
Author requests double vaccination and willingness to follow prevailing protocols. Ample space in the gallery for safe social distancing. Masks and hand sanitizer available.
Click here to download the invitation (pdf).
Donna Child Fine Art Gallery
365 Evans Avenue, Suite 101
Toronto, ON M8Z 1K2
365 Evans Avenue, Suite 101
Toronto, ON M8Z 1K2
Free Parking & TTC accessible
July 29, 2021
Real writers write. They write because they are driven by a powerful internal imperative. The writer will not be at peace until the story is written. What this surprising anthology, edited by Maurice A. Lee, reveals -- happening notwithstanding the pandemic-aborted conference in Calabria, the potentially silencing pandemic -- is that real writers will write, notwithstanding anything. And real publishers will publish their stories. Some 108 writers of the short-story representing this form in all its intensity and wondrous variety are showcased here. It is food for the soul, like Spanish tapis, laid-out in delightful morsels as varied and intriguing and satisfying as a buffet any reader can taste at leisure, and in the small allotments of time permitted by our dense lives, yet come away full, with new insights into our common humanity, our small and common spaces in a global landscape. Bravo @Maurice A. Lee and @Aaron Penn, and to all involved in this wonderfully diverse Anthology!
Click Here to purchase this book from Amazon Canada
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