It was like laying beams in the dark, trying to trust that something will hold even though I could not see or understand the entire structure yet. There was a tenacious fear that I was imagining incorrectly, that I was misunderstanding my own creation, and mistaking whim for truth.

The longer form definitely comes naturally to me, though it’s not something I set out to do, so much as a reflection of how I think. I’ve learned to see my own intuitive approaches more clearly, and how to amplify or deconstruct them, challenge or upend them. Something particular that I’ve realized is that as I write, everything is somewhat of a spiderweb; ideas emerge connected to several other ideas, which connect to one layer, then another, and so on. It’s part of what feeds me electricity as a writer: this instantaneous, sparking interaction between narrative, symbolism, philosophy, psychological and emotional interiority, history, and commentary, and I find that it means the story will probably need more breathing room. 

We are beyond thrilled to be welcoming many time award-winning author, Anthony Bidulka to our blog to talk to us about his compulsively readable and utterly absorbing new mystery thriller, Home Fires Burn (Stonehouse Publishing, June 1, 2025). Anthony is a Canadian legend of the mystery thriller genre who writes from places and perspectives that you don’t often see represented on the page.

John gazed down at his bloody, raw hands. Curlicues of peeling skin had frozen and snapped off, falling into a crimson mound of snow and wood shards, all that was left of the fence post. The car’s windows and doors, even its hood and trunk, scratched and dented but otherwise intact, had all been subjected to a brutal beating.

I wrote a story for you in a journal and it vanished. Yes, van- ished. The journal itself disappeared. Where do such missing things go?

In the story I laid down all the things I wanted you to understand. I wanted to write it because, in the years since we lay in the yellow grass, I have come to some knowledge. I cannot recall the contents of the story in full. Because of its loss, I sobbed and felt like the victim of a cruel and unusual fate.