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DANCING THE MUSE - Danial Neil

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- July 06, 2017

This is my old blog that I can no longer add new posts after May 18, 2014 - started a new one on April 4, 2017 http://danialneil.blogspot.ca/

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Dominion of Mercy - The Voice

- March 14, 2021

The world needs strong feminine voices. My mother was a strong woman, as was her mother, my grandmother. As three of my grandparents were from Scotland, it is the only immigrant story that I can tell with some certainty. There my story begins, Edinburgh - 1917, and Mary Stewart, a force of nature, embarks on epic journey that will take all her courage, strength and wit. And the destination, something I know as well. The town of Anyox, British Columbia, the perfect setting. I remember as a boy, my father telling me that his father was sent to Anyox to work in the copper smelter in 1916. Anyox was located on the north coast near the BC/Alaskan border deep down Observatory Inlet. Nothing is left of the town now except an emerging forest and towering stacks from the smelter. I wanted to bring it back to life. That was exciting, to breathe new life into the plank streets. It was a short-lived company town of 3000 residents. A robust community that enjoyed a certain affluence from 1914...

Understanding the title of my new novel - The Sum of One Man's Pleasure

- November 10, 2023

In my interview with Sheila Pratt, I was asked what The Sum of One Man's Pleasure meant, what informed me to create such a title. As a book title has great weight, and a certain mystery behind it, I wanted something compelling, and provocative. But I found the title in an unlikely spot, in one of Roderick Haig-Brown's celebrated books, A River Never Sleeps. Haig-Brown was a magistrate in Campbell River BC., but more recognized for his books on fishing, and for his views on conservation and environmental protection. His writing was one of my greatest early influences. Haig-Brown wrote eloquently of the rivers he fished, the mood, such as the heavy water of November. The feel of water against his legs, the power of it, the companionship of fellow fishermen, a bright fish, and life along the river. It's smells, and the texture of the woods, the earthy aromas. He called such things fishermen's pleasures. They are sensory pleasures, something the romantic in me can identify...

The Fuse of Fiction

- May 31, 2022

An idea arises, perhaps from a sketchbook of ideas in your head, yes, snippets of thought, inspiration from an article you read, a television news story, real life experiences that includes your own, historical records, and, of course, information from the creative Universe. So, ideas come from many sources. There is never one way to create a story. It is an intimately personal affair. I can only give one view of it all - from my own writing journey, what I have learned after more than twenty novels. A great catologue, you might think, but only six have been published. The other novels, I can reflect now, are where I learned to write well. I am always open to where the next novel comes from. I ask the Universe for a story, something important, what the world needs to hear. Sounds a bit self-righteous, I know, but I want my 900 hours of work to be worthwhile, that I learned something important, that it contributes to a better understanding of human end...

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Danial Neil: While working for the City of Delta, he authored the motto, “Ours to Preserve by Hand and Heart” for the city’s coat of arms in 1988. Danial worked steadily at his craft. His short story “Grace” was published in the 2003 Federation of BC Writers anthology edited by Susan Musgrave. He went on to participate in the Write Stretch Program with the Federation of BC Writers teaching free verse poetry to school children. As well participant in Word on the Street Vancouver. He won the Poetry Prize at the Surrey International Writers' Conference four times, and went on to study Creative Writing at UBC. His first published novel was The Killing Jars in 2006, and then Flight of the Dragonfly in 2009, my June in 2014, and The Trees of Calan Gray in 2015. Dominion of Mercy in 2021 and The Sum of One Man's Pleasure in 2023. His prose has been called hauntingly beautiful and lyrical. His poetry and fiction articulate a close relationship with the land, its felt presence in his narrative and vision. His characters arrive like guests and leave an edible presence in a reader’s experience. Danial lives on Vancouver Island, British Columbia.

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