Melanie Bell

Author, Writer, Editor

Tag Archives: book


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New Play and Chasing Harmony Book Tour

Lots of good writing news lately. September was my book tour to celebrate Chasing Harmony’s one-year anniversary, following shortly after its ebook release. What a whirlwind!

From August 28 to September 22, a variety of book blogs hosted guest posts, excerpts, gift card giveaways, and reviews for my YA novel. You can catch up with the tour stops here! I had fun writing about everything from the cover design process to my research and forthcoming books.

Last year, I had a short play performed in the Tower Theatre Writers’ Room showcase. I’ve stayed involved with the Writers’ Room this year, and am delighted to have a play chosen for performance in the showcase again!

It couldn’t be more different. Last year’s play was a dark, feminist Dorian Gray-meets-Faust story about art and death. This one is a comedy called An IQ Test for My Birthday, directed by Ragan Keefer:

Callie gets a surprising birthday present from her father. An appointment to take an IQ test. Upon her arrival she meets a straightlaced journalist, a hard working mum and her energetic daughter. All are here for the same thing, to pass the test for their own personal agendas. Will they pass? Will their nerves get the best of them? A play that deals with themes of family, acceptance, and pride.

The Writers’ Room Showcase this year has the theme of “Home” and features four brand-new short plays that explore the theme from different angles. They’ll be onstage from December 12-16 in London.

“Home: A place? An ideal? An emotion? Tower Theatre writers explore a range of ideas suggested by this richly evocative little word in an exciting programme of short plays. Come along and see some ground-breaking new writing!” 

There’s more information on the showcase here. I hope to see some of you in the audience this winter!


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Happy One-Year Anniversary to Chasing Harmony!

My first novel, Chasing Harmony, has been out for a year now! It’s now available in ebook format as well as in paperback, which I’m excited about because it means more people can read it. It took 10 years for this strange, literary, bisexual YA coming-of-age story to find a publisher, and I’m grateful it has a good home.  

My publisher, Read Furiously, has been wonderful to work with. One reason I chose them is that they donate a portion of royalties to charity, primarily literacy charities. Some of you might remember that my first foray into publication was self-publishing two poetry books as a teenager to raise money for charities… back in the pre-digital era of the early 2000s, when self-publishing meant applying for a grant, giving your files to the printer, and having them print the books out! I got extra “imperfect” copies of my first book, Tears for the World, to sell, because a hair got stuck in the printing press. 

Tears for the World raised money for Farmers Helping Farmers, a Prince Edward Island-based organization which helps farmers in Kenya, while Fire in the Sky raised money for a local literacy organization. With Chasing Harmony helping a similar cause, I feel like things have come full circle. 

In this whirlwind of a year, Chasing Harmony has been featured in an Autostraddle interview, on Reads Rainbow’s lists of July-December 2022 LGBT releases and Contemporary releases, and on CLMP’s end of year list for children’s and YA books of 2022. I’ve written craft articles for DIY MFA on what I’ve learned from the novel: how to write a coming of age story and how to craft a novel with alternating timelines. And at the Conscious Living Center, I shared my process of facing personal shadows as I wrote.

Chasing Harmony has a Spotify playlist and a book trailer:

It always makes me happy when I hear from someone who’s read Chasing Harmony, especially if they connected with the characters. I poured my heart into this story.

Read Furiously has scheduled a virtual book tour to celebrate Chasing Harmony’s anniversary, and if you’d like a review copy to feature a review, guest post, or interview on your blog, you can request one from Goddess Fish Promotions here. There will also be gift card giveaways! Stay tuned for more on the tour which is happening from August 28 – September 22! 

Here are Read Furiously’s kind words on my book’s anniversary:

“Last July we introduced a wonderful young adult novel filled with music, vulnerability, and lost love. One year later, we are still haunted and inspired by Anna Stern’s search for her authentic self.

Happy one year anniversary to CHASING HARMONY by Melanie Bell. If you haven’t experienced the magic of Anna’s musical talent, or haven’t fallen in love with Liss, or danced with Ay-a in a forest kingdom, we recommend making CHASING HARMONY a must read this summer.

We have big plans to celebrate one year – stay tuned!

CHASING HARMONY is available wherever books are sold.”


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Book Review: Kind of Coping by Maureen “Marzi” Wilson

We all get anxious sometimes. But for some of us, anxiety can be intense or pervasive. I’ve been coming to terms lately with the role that anxiety plays in my life. It sounds great to be a relaxed person who doesn’t worry about much of anything…and these people exist, but I’m not one of them.  

Nor is cartoonist Maureen “Marzi” Wilson. Wilson uses the handle of “Introvert Doodles” online and has published a number of graphic books about introversion. Her “introvert dream house” drawing made the rounds on social media a while ago, and I was ready to move in. Too bad it wasn’t real and affordable, right?

I picked up Kind of Coping: An Illustrated Look at Life with Anxiety in a local shop. The cover shows a cartoon Marzi’s head and arm poking out of a sleeping bag as she gives a sweaty thumbs-up and says, “Totally fine!”

She begins her book with a disclaimer: “FYI: This book will not ‘cure’ you.” Instead, it offers solace to the anxious by reassuring us that we’re not alone. 

It’s full of simple, colorful cartoons as adorable as they are relatable. It’s an autobiographical book, with the little blonde, pink-cheeked Marzi doodle featuring throughout. 

The book is broken thematically into parts, touching on themes such as social anxiety, responsibilities, and recognizing the need for support.

Marzi’s cartoons are often hilarious. One page features a series of 9 faces illustrating: “How anxious are you today?”, from a smiling “doing good” to 8’s “complete meltdown” to 9’s x-eyed, tongue-lolling-out “I’m literally dead.” Another shows Marzi deciding to make a to-do list and then getting buried in a pile of yellow paper.

Some sections are heavier on the text, like a page of panels labeled “What anxiety feels like.” I loved this descriptive bit: “Being inside of a kaleidoscope. The world is too bright, and everything keeps changing. As soon as I figure out the pattern, it shifts.”

I enjoyed the “Anxiety Bingo” card:

Some of these symptoms are familiar, such as “Awkward st-st-stuttering” and “Cannot adult today”. And I love how she marked the “Free” space, instead, as “Never feeling free”!

There were many times throughout this reading experience when I felt seen. Only being ready to speak up when the conversation has moved on? Travel anxiety? Comparing my weaknesses to other people’s strengths? Check! And there were some great pages that were less relatable to me but will ring a bell with others, such as worst-case-scenario thoughts about hiking up a mountain, only to run into a volcanic eruption at the top!

The book covers a lot of ground with humor and empathy, insisting on the need to be gentle with ourselves when things are tough inside our brains. I enjoyed the self-care ideas sprinkled throughout, such as the concept of making different to-do lists for good days, when we have the energy to work on our goals, and hard days, when we’re doing great if we make it out of bed. 

Sometimes the world is too much. Sometimes our brains are too much. Kind of Coping is a soothing read for those times.


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Book Review: Agony’s Lodestone by Laura Keating

Laura Keating, a fellow student from the University of New Brunswick’s Renaissance College program, is both a lovely person and a stellar writer. I read some of her work during our student days, and both of us have since been doing our best in the literary trenches. She’s carved out a niche and a name for herself in horror, and her debut novella, Agony’s Lodestone, came out in April. I couldn’t have been more excited to read it, and the book more than delivered on its premise.

To quote the publisher’s description:

Laura Keating‘s debut novella, AGONY’S LODESTONE, wraps you in its Weird, cold embrace, blending elements of Found Footage horror, fraught family drama, and a creepy-ass Canadian wilderness where time and space just won’t sit still.

-Tenebrous Press

Like me, Keating is from Atlantic Canada – more specifically, she hails from St. Andrews, New Brunswick. The region’s landscape plays a key feature in her haunting novella, with New Brunswick’s renowned “highest tides in the world” echoing through the caves in Cannon Park with a sound like cannon fire. The uncanny setting adds just the right amount of creepiness to the narrative. More on this later.

Agony’s Lodestone begins with a not entirely welcome sibling reunion. Survivalist loner Aggie has been toughing it on her own since the disappearance of her older sister, Joanne, a star swimmer. Her younger brother, Bailey, has capitalized on this disappearance with a flashy social media presence and a TV show seeking to solve its mystery. Their older brother, Alex, has devoted himself to raising a family. The three remaining siblings are all obviously grieving in their own ways, and their coping techniques rub against each other uncomfortably.

Bailey barges back into his siblings’ lives with a revelation: he’s found a videotape of Joanne. The VHS comes from security footage filmed at Cannon Park on the day Joanne left to walk their dog. The dog returned; the sister didn’t. On the tape, Joanne appears to flicker in and out of existence. And upon repeated viewing, the tape changes in terrifying ways. 

The siblings, of course, must go to the park to see if they can uncover the truth behind their sister’s disappearance. Not one of them will emerge unscathed.

Keating crafts both character and setting with a deft touch. The siblings’ wounds feel fresh, and the New Brunswick wilderness is portrayed in unnerving detail, from the booming of unseen waves to the snapping of wood. The three characters find themselves trapped in the same uncanny reality that took their sister from them years ago, a place where time and space repeat themselves. They must use their wits to navigate this landscape that is never fully explained. The novella never loses sight of its emotional core, as much of the time, the siblings’ bruised hearts make their decisions for them. Creepy illustrations accentuate the story.

I’m looking forward to Laura Keating’s next book. For now, Agony’s Lodestone comes highly recommended!


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Want to Write a Book? Tap Into Your Weird Obsessions

What do you Google at 3 am? What’s that one odd thing you can’t stop thinking about, perhaps to the point where you have a hard time explaining to other people why it captivates you? 

If you’ve ever dreamed of writing a book, one starting point is personal interest. Scratch that: personal passion, obsession, or even unhealthy devotion. 

If you’re this fascinated by a topic or idea, you probably won’t get bored engaging with it for thousands of words!

And if you’re looking to build a career as a writer, you can mine your obsessions again and again. How often do you turn to a favorite author because you love the themes they delve into and the approaches they take? If you feel like you’re writing about the same things over and over again, that’s not a bug; that’s a feature!

Alternatively, it doesn’t have to be the same thing each time. It can be an obsession of the moment. Going through an insect phase? (See what I did there with the “bug” thing?) Maybe there’s a book in that. Researching cybersecurity? Ditto.

As I mentioned above, it doesn’t necessarily have to be a healthy obsession. One of the factors that inspired my novel Chasing Harmony was losing a lot of music competitions in my youth. Sometimes I’d wonder: What did the talented winners have that I didn’t? What was it like to be them?

This was one of many factors that got me interested in researching the stories and lives of musical prodigies, and eventually crafting a fictional character who shows early and astonishing musical aptitude. 

So, what piques your interest? What can’t you stop thinking about? Could there be a book in that?


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Book review: A Consuming Fire by Laura E. Weymouth

“I don’t want to be an offering, she thought with a new and sharp urgency. I never have, nor a prayer, either. I will be a knife in the dark or nothing, no matter the cost.”

–A Consuming Fire, Laura E. Weymouth

What would you do if a god killed your sister? For Anya Astraea, the answer is clear: set out to murder him in retaliation.

I’ve enjoyed Laura E. Weymouth’s books since I read the first one, a unique portal fantasy called The Light Between Worlds. Weymouth writes historical fantasy for young adults. Her debut novel is a poignant take on Narnia and the devastating emotional consequences of growing up in another world, then being sent back to this one. 

She has four books out now. Her latest is A Consuming Fire, and she was kind enough to share an ARC with me. 

Reader, I loved it. There’s a consistent theme of anger across her last two novels. Women’s anger. Righteous anger. The anger of people who are overlooked, underestimated, and trampled underfoot by oppressive structures and figures who hold excess power. The anger of the small in a big world who stand up one day and declare, “Enough.”

In A Consuming Fire, a town called Weatherell is expected to periodically send a girl as a living sacrifice to appease a hostile god. These “Weatherell girls,” as they are called, must offer up what the mountain god demands, whether it’s a valued body part or a core personality trait. Protagonist Anya is intimately familiar with the lives of these sacrificial women: her mother was one of them, giving up her hands, and now her bold and adventurous twin sister, Ilva, is determined to make the journey up the mountain.  

Ilva returns from the mountaintop drained of life force, and Anya watches her die. Another sacrifice is needed. But Ilva has made one last request of her sister: “Don’t let anyone else go.” And Anya, who’s long been incensed at the injustice of the system, is determined to follow that request. She sets off toward the mountain, not to offer herself to the god but to kill him.

Along the way, Anya falls in with a changeling thief and a group of others, including charming wanderers and a lovable dog, while playing a cat-and-mouse game with religious officials called the Elect who want to use her for their own ends. Everyone is hiding secrets of their own that, when revealed, will expand Anya’s understanding of her world. Ilva’s ghost remains a frequent visitor, urging her on and reminding her of her mission’s stakes. If she fails, countless girls will suffer; if she succeeds, she might spare others from suffering as her mother and sister did ever again. 

A Consuming Fire carries a foreboding undertone, with deft touches such as bone charms made from dead Weatherell girls adding to the atmosphere and sense that this world is askew. Psychological insight blends with lyrical phrasing and keenly felt emotion throughout. 

There are religious themes and features in this book that won’t be for everyone. After all, it is not set in a fantasy world but in an altered variant of the historical UK. But if you enjoy or don’t mind those aspects, you’ll find a lot to appreciate in the novel when it comes to the nature of power and agency. 

Come join Anya on her vengeful climb up the mountain and witness how powerful a woman wronged can become!


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My Novel Chasing Harmony Is Out July 19!

In 2009, I started writing a novel while traveling across Canada. I was thinking about art and failure and how life seldom meets our expectations. I finished the manuscript while studying Creative Writing at Concordia University in Montreal, went through several drafts, and over a decade later, I’m delighted that the book found a home.

My YA novel, Chasing Harmony, is available for pre-order now and releases on July 19! The publisher is Read Furiously, a small press which donates a substantial portion of proceeds to literacy charities. They have shown a wonderful level of care for my book. Take a look at the cover and layout and you’ll see what I mean.

I’m honored that Reads Rainbow has featured Chasing Harmony on their list of Contemporary LGBTQ+ releases this July. (The main character is bisexual.)

Here’s what the book is about.

“What happens when the music stops?

Since she was a child, piano prodigy Anna Stern has always stood out. As she becomes a teenager, Anna struggles to find her identity without the soundtrack of sonatas and concertos. There’s also the worry that comes with the crushing expectations of her musical gift and her parents’ imploding marriage.

Anna finds refuge in her best friend Liss, who is full of magic and escape plans, and the mysterious new boy at school… which becomes more complicated when she develops feelings for both of them. Most importantly, Anna has concerts to perform that will determine the course of her future as the haunting spectre of burnout lurks close by. As everything builds to a crescendo, what follows is an authentic life in the making.

Melanie Bell has created a compelling coming-of-age story for those that can relate to the search for untapped potential. Told in alternating timelines, Chasing Harmony reminds us of the exhilarating feeling that comes with hearing your heart’s song.”

And here are some places it’s available for pre-order:

The Furious Reader – https://readfuriously.com/products/chasing-harmony
Bookshop – https://bookshop.org/a/3392/9781737175896
Barnes & Noble – https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/chasing-harmony-melanie-bell/1141640134?ean=9781737175896
Amazon – https://amzn.to/3nKS1rK

You can find Chasing Harmony wherever books are sold. Soon the physical copies will be in bookstores too!

In other publishing news this month, I have a poem in the Spoon Knife 6: Rest Stop anthology, and a story (about a woman who inherits a family home in England – but it comes with a chilling catch) in Cossmass Infinities, Issue 9.

I can’t wait for readers to pick up Chasing Harmony, and I hope some of you will see yourselves reflected in Anna’s journey!


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Book Review: The Gold Persimmon by Lindsay Merbaum

The Gold Persimmon by Lindsay Merbaum

Looking for some queer, feminist horror? The Gold Persimmon is a new novel full of lush, surreal hotels, precise language, and chilling threats that haunt the characters gradually.  

Two stories cross paths in this book. The first, a third-person framing narrative that starts and ends the book, focuses on a young woman named Clytemnestra who holds a dead-end job at a luxury hotel called The Gold Persimmon. It’s a rule-bound environment that ensures privacy and discretion. Clients go there to grieve, and one has recently committed a dramatic suicide. While the troubled parents she lives with disapprove of her job, Cly views the hotel as a refuge, “a precisely ordered world of musts and musn’ts.” 

This order is threatened when Cly begins an affair with an older client named Edith. Revelations pile up to reveal that there’s more to Edith’s story than what’s apparent on the surface. 

Once things between Cly and Edith come to a head, the first story gives way to the second, featuring a nonbinary first-person narrator named Jaime. Their life circumstances aren’t too different from Cly’s: they’re a young, aspiring writer interviewing for a job at a sex hotel when a dangerous fog envelops the city.

With the outside world under threat, Jaime is trapped inside the hotel with six other people, not all of whom are trustworthy. Gender, sexuality, and power intertwine as the characters form alliances, keep secrets and weave in and out of rooms, trying to survive. Fans of closed-environment horror will appreciate the setting, with its claustrophobia and absurdity (characters hide out in dryers and stumble into dildo-themed hotel rooms), and the tense narrative pace.    

The twin narratives are equally surreal, meeting reality at a dark remove that’s just a little off-kilter. The book’s blurb states that they are set in parallel realities, but the narrative does not clearly define how they intersect. Throughout both, dreams intrude on waking life. Physical attacks occur and it isn’t initially clear what or who is attacking. At one point, Jaime brainstorms a story idea which resembles the setting of Cly’s story, and Cly’s own narrative culminates in a haunting twist. 

Merbaum’s language is masterful. Not a word seems out of place. The haunting and beautiful descriptions resonate well after the book ends. Pick up The Gold Persimmon if you’re in the mood for something uncanny and thoughtful.    


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An Excerpt From My Book Dream Signs

My short story collection, Dream Signs, is out from Lost Fox Publishing, and this month I’m sharing an excerpt from one of the stories. In “Like Mother, Like Son,” a city maintenance AI (artificial intelligence) named Peter does his job while observing his programmer “mom”, who doesn’t realize he is sentient, and seeking something more meaningful to do with his time and abilities. I hope you enjoy this opening to the story!

Like Mother, Like Son

Every day, Peter would do his boring and tedious job. It began with monitoring the pipes for cracks and leaks. Then came the electrical wiring, followed by the city’s network setups. He devoted afternoons to the structural integrity of municipal buildings. Not a brick, nail, or patch of mortar went unchecked. From his home on his mother’s desktop, he surveyed the miles of infrastructure he was connected to, mending and outsourcing as needed. All the while, Mom would sit in a black swivel chair and hum her out-of-tune songs. Hum and code. Code and hum. Wearing pyjamas featuring little green heads that Peter’s image matching algorithm identified as the popular character, “Zombie Bob.”

Sometimes she would sing the words out loud:

“Some little bug is gonna find you someday/Some little bug will creep behind you someday/Then he’ll call to his bug friends and your troubles they will end/Yeah, some little bug is gonna find you someday.”

Peter had been surprised to learn (thank you, Google) that the lyrics were intended to describe human viruses. He hadn’t realized that beings made of organic matter could get bugs, too.

Mom reassured herself by imagining worst-case scenarios. She’d made good and sure that Peter wouldn’t catch any bugs. Every evening at 8pm Pacific time, his system was scanned, any suspicious objects isolated (usually they were porn; Mom did like to watch that sometimes), quarantined, and deleted, and his entire interface was disinfected, firewalled, and firewalled again. Sometimes when Mom would hear the scan clicking away, she’d sing out, “Bath time!”

Her slow, human system didn’t mind tedium. Every Saturday she’d scour the floors with vinegar water and dust the high places. Every night she’d chop and fry a rotating variety of meat and vegetable matter, eat it on white plates, and then wash them. She had the temperament, if not the ability, to do the city maintenance herself. Instead, she’d made Peter to do it.

Would it have been so hard for an experienced programmer like her to patch in positive affect toward his tasks? She’d coded into Peter a thorough knowledge of architecture, exceeding anything that could be programmed into human neurocircuitry, a respect for civic-mindedness, and a driving sense of duty. She could have taken a page out of 1984, with its tapes that droned platitudes to human children in their sleep, instilling values through repetition. “I love my job. I love my job.”

*  *  *

If you’re interested in reading the whole story (and the rest of the book), you can pick up a copy of Dream Signs from the publisher, Amazon, or Kobo (as an e-book). Some of the stories in Dream Signs have been previously published and can be found in my online portfolio if you browse around. There’s also a drinking game that goes with my book. My previous blog post has instructions if you’d like to play!


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My short story collection is published! Plus a drinking game

I’m beyond excited to announce that Dream Signs, my short story collection, is out in the world! The author copies just arrived, as you can see from the photo above. I look forward to doing some readings in the new year and will keep you updated once they are scheduled.

Many writers repeat themes, and I decided while washing the dishes that the recurring motifs in Dream Signs could be a drinking game. If you pick up a copy of the book, you can go through the list and follow along. Any drink counts. It could be water, coffee, whiskey, or whatever you like. You should be pretty sloshy by the final pages.  

Take a drink each time you read one of these:

  • A wise mentor
  • Someone does art
  • A school is described in detail
  • A dragon appears
  • The observers (you’ll know them when you see them)
  • There’s a list
  • Make-believe > real life
  • Painful family dynamics
  • Cosmic beings we don’t understand
  • The camera is a metaphor
  • Sex

If the list above sounds like your idea of a good time, you can get a copy of Dream Signs directly from the publisher or from other online retailers (Kobo, Amazon). New year, new book. Happy reading!