Publish Day

In my twisted head, writing is all about ritual. To that end, I have evolved a weird one surrounding the publication of my work: When anything I write gets into print, the day it's published is called Publish Day.

If it's my newspaper column, I run down the stairs at first light to be the first to grab the paper out of the mailbox. I then scan it into a PDF file on my computer before the cat has a chance to walk all over the still-pristine newsprint.

Publish Day is, by definition, a happy day. Good things always happen when my work hits print. I'm not sure why. It just is.

Speaking of which, today's a Publish Day (yay!) Here's today's Free Press column. An archive of my most recently published articles is stored on my columnist home page on Canoe, Canada's highest-traffic media Web site. Happy reading!