Introducing Midlife

Look, a rare written post!

I wanted to tell you about the launch of Midlife, a collection of personal essays by a group of friends who met twenty years ago at the University of Alberta’s student newspaper, The Gateway. 

Editor-publishers Sarah Chan and Jhenifer Pabillano brought the old crew together in January, and over the past four months 27 of us contributed to what turned out to be a warm, thoughtful, poignant, funny anthology in a beautiful package. The project was a wonderful way to reconnect when so many of us were feeling disconnected, and I feel privileged to have been a part of it.

We wrote this book as a gift to one another, but we thought other people might like to read it, too. I’m painfully averse to self-promotion, but I encourage you to get to know my brilliant friends through their writing!

You can order the book as a limited-edition hardcover or ebook at midlifebook.ca. (We sold out of our first print run in a day! You can order books from our second—and final—print run right now. You’ll get the physical book in early June and can read the ebook, included in the price, in the meantime.)

For every book sold, $1 goes to the Edmonton Community Foundation. The book will also be available through the Edmonton Public Library, and the publishers are working on getting it into other libraries as well.

Keep up with the project through social media (@midlifebook on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook) or by signing up for our newsletter at midlifebook.ca. If you love the maze illustration on the cover as much as I do, you can learn more about how the idea for it came about from illustrator Raymond Biesinger in the first issue of the Midlife newsletter. 

Upcoming events

• Thursday, April 22, 5:30 to 7:00 PM Eastern Time—You can win an ebook copy of the book as a door prize at the Freelancers Happy Hour.
• Thursday, April 22, 8:00 to 9:00 PM Mountain Time (10:00 to 11:00 PM Eastern Time)—The Midlife public launch will be a livestream on YouTube featuring publishers Sarah and Jhen interviewing Midlife contributors Leanne Brown (NYT bestselling cookbook author), Jag Dhadli (consummate Oilers fan), and Don Iveson (mayor of Edmonton). Ask a question for a chance to win a copy of the hardcover!
• Saturday, April 24, all day—I’ll be doing a Twitter takeover of the @midlifebook account. Look out for other contributors’ Twitter takeovers over the next month, too.