Some writers do have ’em (birthdays, that is)!

Happy 91st birthday Carl Dow!

**(May your 92nd be both happy and productive)**

Photo shows Carl Dow (left), with Geoffrey Dow (right). — **One young man with another …**

July 15, 2024, Ottawa — Last night I, along with my wife and daughter, spent the evening with Carl Dow to celebrate his 91st birthday one day early.

Carl — author of the story collection The Old Man’s Last Sauna and the novel, Black Grass — is, of course, also my father, and the reason the BumblePuppy Press exists at all.

As I have said more than once (and probably, have written about as well), more than 10 years ago, Carl asked if I would be interested in reading a novel he had written.

I didn’t say yes right away. He had not let me read any of his non-journalistic work since I had been a teenager, when he asked for my thoughts on a radio play he had written, and I’d told him it was, well, not very good.

But after some thought I did agree to read it, and he sent me a copy of the manuscript by Canada Post. When I sat down with it one evening a few days later, I began to read with more than a little trepidation; I had no wish to tell him he had written something bad again.

Covers to Black Grass and The Old Man's Last Sauna — **The first two, with more to come …**

But instead, I finished what would eventually be published as Black Grass in one sitting, literally putting aside the final page just as the sun was (literally) literally rising.

I had laughed, shed a tear or three, and eagerly rushed through the climax because I needed to find out what happened next. Carl (I call him “dad” but refer to him as Carl — don’t ask why, it’s just worked out that way) was — yes — a real novelist.

I told him as much, and he told me that he hadn’t been able to interest a publisher in it. Westerns are out of fashion was one rejection; Americans don’t want to read about another country was another; too much action; too much romance; the list of ostensible reasons why it couldn’t sell went on and on.

I found it hard to believe. The Black Grass I had just read was a compelling adventure, featured an unusual but believable romantic subplot, complex characters and was leavened with wit and humour.

Granted, it had a Canadian setting; granted it bore considerable resemblance to a western … but was the traditional publishing industry so hidebound, so constrained by genre, so unimaginative, that it couldn’t see the potential in a great romance (in the tradition of Sir Walter Scott, as one university English prof put it)?

Well, my reader’s outrage percolated for a while, then I eventually decided that if no one else would publish Black Grass, I would just have to do it myself. That was the genesis of the BumblePuppy Press. (Yes, The Old Man’s Last Sauna, Carl’s collection of short and not-so short stories was published first, but Black Grass was the spark.

And so, on the 91st anniversary of his birth, we are for a brief time offering The Old Man’s Last Sauna, and Black Grass together, for the low (low!) price of only $25.00, $13.00 less than it would cost to purchase them individually. ~~Click here to buy them now!~~

Note from July 31, 2024: The sale is now over, but of course the books are still available.

Image shows and ad for Black Grass (left), and The Old Man's Last Sauna (right), with author Carl Dow's photo between the two book covers.

One more thing: Though he is now 91, Carl says that his next novel, Wildflowers: The Women Who Made McCord Chronicle, is very nearly finished. And after that? He has a sequel to Black Grass already percolating.

Happy birthday, old man — and keep on writing!