Foreword ‘Canada’s Foremost Offbeat Author’. My moniker, my branding. It just seems to fit, as most my stories are indeed offbeat, with twisty endings. You never know where I might take you. Whilst most writers will just strive to write that novel, the one that is apparently in all of us, I interrupted my novel-writing self to switch to short stories (sometimes). Many were either contest winners, or at least short-listed, or published. Some were written to enter unique, challenging contests; yes, I do enjoy having my muse challenged. Some of my earlier works wax rather lyrically with romantic tastes. The romance genres appealed to me, only to realize that woman rarely read romance written by males. That hit home when I went to my first romance convention in Calgary. I arrived late, and the main speaker had already started. I ran up to the check-in desk, out of breath and sweating a bit, and gave my name. The one girl looked down the list of over two hundred authors and the other nudged her. “He’s the other guy registered.” True story. Some wonder why I have written a (so far) three volume urban fantasy series based on a Haida Shaman and oral legends of the BC First Nations. It was the voices. In the Victoria Provincial Museum. Quietly contemplating the many totems in the dark, quiet room, some from Haida Gwaii, I swore they were talking 11 to me. I’m not crazy (honest) and I’ve never heard them before or since, so for those of medical minds don’t call the doctors. Not yet, anyway! The cutting down of the Golden Spruce in 1997 awoke one of those voices. A white man, ironically in protest of logging, cuts down a rare tree. A tree venerated by the Haida people. My pencil began to fill pages with words and later ‘Raven’s Lament’ was born. Tom Patterson, a First Nations person of high artistic ability, told me they were a very oral culture and still look for those with the muse to hear them and tell their story. Perhaps that was the message coming from the totems? Who knows? A fair few of my short stories morphed into novels. I originally entered a writing contest by the Vancouver Sun, where you had to write a new chapter every week based on the one published by another author the week before. I loved that challenge. Starting with their first chapter, writers wrote their version of the second. One was chosen, and then you wrote the third to follow the second. If you get my drift. (Keep up at the back, there!). I got an award for entering every week of the contest and a couple of times was the runner up. I wrote a scene based on the opening where a detective was on stake out in Stanley Park, in Vancouver. I wrote the appearance of a crazy shaman into that scene where he knows what has happened and vanishes leaving our female detective Carol Ainsworth wondering what just happened only he left clues as to the fact he knew what he was talking about. This scene morphed into a short story, ‘A Guitar Cries In The Night’ that has been published several times and it along with another Foreword short story, ‘Kelsey’s Bar and Grill’ became the basis for ‘The Lure: Book Two in the Stillwaters Runs Deep Series’. It is still my favorite novel I’ve written blending the mythos of Pauline Johnson, an evil transformer succubus witch, The Lure, which is based on First Nations legend of a witch transformed into a rock in Stanley Park. Along with the idea, based on modern urban mythology that you go out drinking, not remember a thing, but your friends say you did some crazy stuff. This happens in a pub beside Stanley Park, where spirits hang out and take over your body until you sober up. Think about that for a moment. What if one of those was a Hell’s Angels type of spirit that has come back for revenge against the club that murdered him and his family? I’ve included the first chapter of both novels as teasers. You wonder why? Didn’t I mention I’m a little offbeat? So on with the stories.