New stuff in print

1. The new issue of Canadian Screenwriter is out, with my story on the Bruce Smith / Tommy Douglas miniseries fiasco. (CBC pulled the plug on its own miniseries and apologied to the descendants of someone portrayed in the film -- without ever consulting the screenwriter, who stands by the accuracy of his script.) The same issue also has my first "as told to" piece. I got to sit down with the wonderful Barbara Doran, get her telling stories, and then put it together for print.

Links to follow, if the mag puts the pieces online.

2. Last summer, Reader's Digest gave me a nifty little decibel reader and set me loose in Halifax and the surrounding areas, to record noise levels and talk to people. I went to a sports bar during the Stanley Cup finals, a monster truck show, the gym, a massive construction site, and several other locations. The results are in the latest Reader's Digest, but don't look for my name. I'm one of the anonymous researchers the story refers to (which is fine -- that was the deal all along).

When I did the research, I was surprised to learn that traffic noise in Halifax was not all that bad. I figured it would be worse in the bigger cities. But the story says that in general traffic noise is not all that bad. Your mp3 player is a lot more likely to blow your hearing.