Hello
Author of Compelling Novels
Engaging Writing Style
In-depth Research
Forceful Characters
Dweller of a City Brimming With Unexpected Charm
Dutch Treat
Greg Randall is the husband of one, the father of two, and the grandfather of three. He is a reader, writer, musician, and Duolingo junkie. Without the hope of ever becoming functionally fluent, he has studied Dutch, French, German, Portuguese, Spanish, and Swedish. “It’s to keep Alzheimer’s at bay,” he tries to explain, wringing his hands and glancing away. When pressed, however, he confesses that Dutch is his favourite of the northern European languages. It’s just like English and German, only unpronounceable.
His Usual Rates
Greg holds a PhD from the University of Alberta and knows how to paint a house, wire an electrical switch, and repair a hole kicked in drywall. A lifelong DIY-er, he has progressed from reciprocating saws, framing hammers, and nine-inch nails to furniture refinishing. “No job is too small,” he confides to his close friends and those select family members who are less handy than he. However, his usual rates apply. They have to listen to him sing whenever they come to his house for dinner. Some musicians paper venues to fill seats, Greg fills bellies.
The Writer’s Pen
When he is not cooking with spice, tussling with his grandchildren, or waking up the neighbourhood with his song, he is held captive, shackled in a windowless basement cell that he calls “The Writer’s Pen.” His solitary confinement is a run-on sentence. While others have their caves, studios, and garages, Greg has a room without a view, a desk that forces him to sit there for hours at a time, and a fountain pen full of ink. That is his vocation; this is his desire: to write something people want to read.
Waiting Game
Over the years, Greg has discovered that getting published is a waiting game. Writers hide away in corners and cafes. They scratch out plots and scribble rough drafts. They thin this patch and expand upon that, speculating the whole time on what comes next. They write in the dark. The blank page is a barren land that needs filling. Writers need someone to read their work. They fear rejection, yet crave affirmation from friends, publishers, and finally from the reading public.
Word of Mouth
Writers are like musicians. They need audiences to complete their performances. Writers put their work on the line when they send manuscripts out for consideration, hoping to find readers who will buy their books and like them enough to create a buzz among their friends. And they wait and wait and wait, sometimes for years; or they self-publish, only to wait some more, discovering in the process that marketing their books is harder than writing or publishing. They learn the hard way that word of mouth is the best form of marketing, regardless of what you are trying to sell.
Active Waiting
Greg kept writing while he waited for a publisher who would read past the first few pages. While his first novel Dita was out there not finding a home, he wrote his second Among the Colours. When he finished its first draft, he rewrote Dita, gradually discovering the magic under her fairing. When he finished the second draft of Among the Colours, he started his third Life’s Tender Return, rewrote Among the Colours, and sent Dita out again.
When he needed a break from the Group of Seven, he wrote a rough draft of his fourth novel Golden Boy, a fictional memoir he insists has nothing to do with his own upbringing.
No one could survive the trauma Antony endured and still have a sense of humour.
With Golden Boy gadding about getting rejected here and rebuffed there, Greg drew a six-stage hero’s journey about Frederick Horsman Varley and Emily Carr, a work that is now simmering on a burner in the back of his mind. Its working title is The Power of Paint.
After rewriting Life’s Tender Return, he wrote another draft of Golden Boy, his funniest and saddest work to date. It’ll make you laugh, cry, and wonder what on earth.
Freedom and Those Other Words
When AOS Publishing accepted his novels, one after the other, Greg couldn’t believe his good fortune. His years of hard work had finally paid off. He could finally emerge from isolation, get parole, and move into a halfway house. Except his is a life sentence and he is still handcuffed to his desk. A close friend who feasted many times in Greg’s home and endured in close quarters his glacial progress as a musician recently said: “It buoys me that it has only taken Greg 15 years to become an overnight sensation.” Truer and kinder words have never been spoken. Thank you, Karen M.!
Guns Not A-Blazing
In 2012, Greg read Daniel Pink’s To Sell Is Human, hoping to revitalise his flagging real estate career. Pink argues that everyone sells, whether ideas at work or persuading kids to eat more vegetables. He investigates the science of persuasion and develops practical strategies for influencing others. He adapts Pixar’s storytelling principles for effective communication.
In The Hero With a Thousand Faces (Pantheon Press, 1949), Joseph Campbell outlines the stages of a typical protagonist's journey—from ordinary life through an extraordinary opportunity to escalating conflict, resolution, and life back home.
Pixar applies Campbell’s mythic structure to cinematic storytelling and Pink applies Pixar to selling.
While To Sell is Human did not boost Greg’s sales, it helped him organise his novels. He has a two-metre sheet of paper on the wall in front of his desk. It features six columns with headings that help organise his thoughts.
1. Once Upon a Time
2. Everyday
3. One Day
4. Because of this
5. Because of that
6. Until Finally
In each section, Greg asks a series of questions about his hero(es), their motivations and fears, the challenges they face, and the consequences of their actions. When Greg has completed the first draft of a manuscript, he determines which is the most exciting bit of the story and places it at the beginning. Starting with a dramatic event, then flashing back a couple hours, a few days, some years or decades is common in many movies. Greg uses it in all of his novels.
A story cannot be a mere chronological retelling of a character’s life from birth to death, unless it is a fictional memoir written in the third person. It has to grip the reader’s attention. Guns need not be blazing but there has to be dramatic tension.
• Dita begins with a boy and a slingshot
• Life’s Tender Return with a scorned woman emptying ashtrays
• Among the Colours with disappointing sex
• Golden Boy with a baby choking
• The Power of Paint with an older woman and her crush
Dita
Before writing Dita, Greg read Mick Phillips’ article “Alan Shepherd, Classic Bike,” July 1999, he became intrigued with the story of a British racer riding an East German motorcycle to a first place finish at the Daytona GP 1964 when Cold War tensions were at their highest.
Greg wore out a German-English dictionary, struggling through Manfred Woll’s definitive history of German motorcycle racing IFA/MZ-Renngeschichte 1949-1961. Some years later, he discovered much to his disappointment that Mat Okley had already covered the story of Walter Kaaden and Ernst Degner in Stealing Speed: The Biggest Spy Scandal in Motorsport History.
Rather than quit writing and become a full time busker, Greg made the witty, tempestuous Dita his main character. Her English is better than Greg’s German and her jokes are not nearly as lame.
She is sexy, witty, and a hoot to ride to the Winner’s Circle.
Canadian Trilogy
The next bit of flash to lure Greg down a narrative rabbit trail was the story of Tom Thomson’s murder. It morphed into a trilogy of novels about the Group of Seven. Two are finished. The third is out for consideration and should be available sometime in 2027. Greg based his Group of Seven stories on the scholarship of others. They are giants in their fields:
Michael Bliss, Banting: A Biography
Sherrill Grace, Inventing Tom Thomson
James King, Inward Journey: The Life of Lawren Harris
Sarah Milroy, Uninvited: Canadian Women Artists in the Modern Movement & Tom Thomson: North Star
Maria Tippett, Emily Carr & Stormy Weather: F.H. Varley, a Biography
With these supplements to his first-year Art History course, Greg tries to bring history to life for his readers. His characters lived unforgettable lives, real and imagined. The art they produced is timeless. Since starting his Canadian Trilogy, Greg has learned that while most people recognize Tom Thomson and Emily Carr, they have to be prompted with the others. It became clear to Greg that these stories needed to be told. They motivate him to get up early every morning. Greg’s calling is to bring history to life without writing a romantic love story and an inevitable happy ending. His stories are real. They ring with truth. They also stray from the historical record when the narrative demands it.
Golden Boy
Greg’s Golden Boy is entirely fiction. It is written from the heart.
Pipe Dream
An Albertan who once dreamt of a pipeline to salt water, Greg has another dream that he hopes will set him free. It involves boys, aeroplanes, and scandals that continue to rankle. Currently circling the moon, Greg’s next story needs to be brought safely back to earth before he can talk about it. Please stay tuned!
Piquet and Balzac
Piquet and Balzac is a series of children’s stories written for adults. It is about an old man and his beret-wearing French Bulldog in search of the long lost time when he was a middle child between two sisters. Oh, the shenanigans he and Balzac got up to! They defy the imagination. Ray Bradbury’s Dandelion Wine is the inspiration for this flight of humour and charm. You’ll laugh from the heart when you read it.
Questions You Never Thought to Ask
The Colbert Questionert: 15 Questions to Cover the Full Spectrum of Human Experience
1. Best sandwich?
BLT. With ingredients like bacon, lettuce, and tomato, how can anyone go wrong?
2. What's one thing you own that you really should throw out?
The expired jar of chipotle tartar sauce that I bought a few years back for 75% off.
3. What is the scariest animal?
Humboldt squid. With global warming, they are extending their range into BC waters. I am never swimming in the Pacific Ocean again.
4. Apples or oranges?
I love oranges but eat more apples. Crisps, crumbles, pies with Streusel toppings or Viennese strudels.
5. Have you ever asked someone for their autograph?
My clients whenever they bought houses
6. What do you think happens when we die?
We live on in the memories of our loved ones
7. Favourite action movie?
A Fish Called Wanda when Archie seduces Wanda with his Russian. Lovemaking and language learning. Just like Duolingo, but more fun.
8. Favourite smell?
Wild Roses. It reminds me of my childhood in southern Alberta
9. Least favourite smell?
The smell of boiled potatoes burning on the stove.
10. Exercise: worth it?
I love walking on forested trails, ocean beaches, and skirting SUVs in Costco parking lots.
11. Flat or sparkling?
Austrian Sturm, Big Reds, Bone-Dry Whites, Tap Water, IPAs, Single Malts, and Writers Tears.
12. Most used app on your phone?
Classical Music
13. You get one song to listen to for the rest of your life: what is it?
Joni Mitchell’s “A Case of You”
14. What number am I thinking of?
4/4, the only time signature I can strum with any facility
15. Describe the rest of your life in 5 words?
Showing gratitude for each day
The Top Ten List from David Letterman’s Late Show
10. Writing is my vocation
9. Making music my pleasure
8. Language learning on Duolingo my obsession
7. Home cooking my sustenance
6. Physical labour my satisfaction
5. Family my joy
4. Faith my foundation
3. Hope my yearning
2. Kindness my responsibility
1. Novel-Tea, a blend of Brooke Bond’s Taj Mahal and Red Label, my morning desperation
Proust Questionnaire*
1. What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Raising two relatively independent daughters. The secret, you ask? Setting up an automatic deposit of their allowance into their bank account and forgetting about it until they are 25.
2. What is your idea of perfect happiness?
A boisterous Saturday morning, surrounded by grandchildren, making waffles and pancakes, with butter, maple syrup, and pounds of crispy-fried bacon
3. What is your current state of mind?
Looking forward to my next meal
4. What are your favourite occupations?
Apart from writing, which I do because I can do no other? Or all the jobs I've had from working as an illegal day labourer in a California bean field to teaching university-level English courses? Furniture refinishing and tree planting come immediately to mind. The one for the fumes, the other for the fresh air.
5. What is your most treasured possession?
A small wooden sailing boat kit that I built when my daughters were very young. Oh the adventures we had, sailing the Seven Seas.
6. What or who are the greatest loves of your life?
Milady, an ICU nurse, with whom I have been married for over 40 years, and motorcycles that run.
7. What is your favourite journey?
The summer we drove from Edmonton to Vancouver via Winnipeg. 6,000 kms of glorious western Canadian scenery and a bottle of Robaxacet Extra Strength to relieve the back pain from all that sitting.
8. What is your most marked characteristic?
My sense of humour and resilience
9. When and where are you the happiest?
On holidays with my daughters and their families. See #2
10. What is it that you most dislike?
Impatience in others
11. What is your greatest fear?
Milady. See #6
12. What is your greatest extravagance?
Panamas, fedoras, and flat caps. I need hats for all seasons
13. Which living person do you most despise?
The wretch who stole my solid acacia tenor Kala ukulele with a cutaway and a Fishman preamp. But it’s all good now. I don’t need any more grief counselling. I have replaced it with three Martin ukes, a U-bass, and a Mann banjo(y).
14. What is your greatest regret?
That I didn’t learn to read music when I was a kid
15. Which talent would you most like to have?
To play by ear and not be glued to a chart
16. Where would you like to live?
Busking on a street corner in Vienna
17. What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
When the wi-fi is down
18. What is the quality that you most like in a man?
His patience. See #11
19. What is the quality that you most like in a woman?
Her patience. See #11
20. What is the trait that you most deplore in yourself?
My impatience
21. What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Their impatience. See #10 and #11
22. What do you most value in your friends?
Their patience. See #10 and #11
23. What is your favourite hero in fiction?
Snorri Sturluson, the Icelandic historian, poet, and politician. He wrote The Prose Edda and brought the origins of Norse mythology to life.
24. Who are your heroes in life?
Annie Dillard
Harriet Doerr
Peter Egan
John Irving
John Keeble
Henning Mankell
Louise Penny
Ann Patchett
Annie Proulx
Mordecai Richler
25. Which living person(s) do you most admire?
Milady (Valentino Rossi). See #6
26. What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
Patience. See #10, #11, and #21
27. On what occasions do you lie?
To save my marriage. Like the time I hired a housekeeper and didn’t tell Milady. Naturally I took all the credit and enjoyed all the benefits. She couldn't believe how hard I worked around the house. And was so grateful. So very grateful. And I was too. The tricky part was getting Divina to finish up before Milady returned home from her shift at the hospital. This arrangement lasted until Milady’s retirement. When the dust settled in again, the grout needed scrubbing, and the toilets cleaning, my chicanery was exposed. We have since hired Lala to do the dirty work. Our marriage has survived both of us getting under each other’s foot.
28. Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
To my grandchildren: “I’m only a blood-curdling scream away.” To the women in my life: “I’m here if you need a man to solve your problem.”
29. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
What? Me change? I suppose I could. If I had to, I guess.
30. What are your favourite names?
My grandchildren’s. See #2 and #9
31. How would you like to die?
Gratefully
32. If you were to die and come back as a person or thing, what would it be?
An ambidextrous, professional baseball pitcher with an ERA (Earned Runs Average) equal to Ed Walsh’s 1.82, the lowest of any pitcher in history.
33. What is your motto?
The secret to a happy life? Lower your expectations.
*The Proust Questionnaire was developed by Marcel Proust (1871- 1922), best known for his 3,000-page À la recherche du temps perdu (Remembrance of Things Past or In Search of Lost Time).
Reviews
Book Launches
Dita
Greg Randall’s compelling work, Dita, weaves a tapestry of love, betrayal, and adventure against the backdrop of the Cold War era, featuring matadors, jazz, and high-stakes motorcycle races. The novel appeals to a wide range of readers, from history buffs to romance enthusiasts. The launch event offered an eclectic mix of literary and musical performances. Local literature fans and those intrigued by Cold War narratives attended this free event, where they enjoyed an evening of diverse artistic expression.
Order from AOS, Amazon, Indigo, or your favourite bookstore.
Wild Ride from Marketing Mishaps to Musical Mayhem
Lessons in Marketing
From belting out “O Canada” and drowning out the rest of his Grade Two class to taking piano lessons, strumming guitar, ukulele, and learning the Irish banjo, music has always been a major part of Greg’s life. He’s okay as far as amateurs go, but can only draw a crowd if he roasts a pig, smokes a brisket, or barbecues a steak. Vegetables do nicely, but they aren’t as effective as an open bar. Tapping into the craft beer, plaid shirt, denim skirt, boots and sneakers crowd, Greg developed a Circle of Fifths coaster that guitarists could toss into their gig bags for unfamiliar key changes. In retrospect, targeting patchouli scented beer drinking musicians as potential house buyers might not have been his best marketing idea. They could buy a round, another sleeve, and maybe one more instrument, but invest in real estate? When they could go to Bali for three months? Who are you kidding? If you are unsure how a Circle of Fifths works, have a music teacher explain it to you. Like his narrators, Greg cannot be trusted. The story he is telling is more important than the truth that needs to be told.
Going Postal
If you want a signed Circle of Fifths coaster, send an e-transfer of $5 CDN (+postage) to greg@gregrandall.ca. Check with Greg first.
Musical Shenanigans
Future Gigs
Ann Stuart and the Three Old Boys, St. John The Evangelist Anglican Church, Edmonton — whenever the time is right and we have our act together.
Past Gigs
September 2024 — Ann Stuart and the Three Old Boys, St. John The Evangelist Anglican Church, Edmonton
August 2024 — The CoverAlls, HV Blackmud, Corn Roast
Canada Day 2024 — The Ukeclectics
May 2024 — Ann Stuart and the Three Old Boys, St. John The Evangelist Anglican Church, Edmonton
April 2024 — The CoverAlls, Clara Tyner Elementary School
August 2022 — The CoverAlls, their first and last wedding gig when they performed Irving Kaufmann’s 1926 hit, “Tonight You Belong to Me”
Subjunctive Gigs
Featuring The Mythics with Diva D on bohrán, Early Bird on tenor banjo, Easy Street on mandolin, Flyboy on catgut, and Queen Ann on guitar. We’ll play just about anything you want, if it’s not too hard.
Random Photographs
When a writer hits the road — Greg falling flat on his face a week before Dita’s book launch. The writing was in the crossword.
Maybe / Maybe-not "Scarfaced" Greg getting ready for his next gig.
Taking the Ariel 3 for a spin.
Don Quixote and Sancho Panza on their way to Etzikom to joust with windmills.
Learning how to make Swedish meatballs the hard way.
Where to Buy Greg’s Books
You can get your hands on Greg's books by special order from your favourite bookstore, including:
Getting the Word Out — If possible, please leave positive reviews online. Tell others about your recent good read. Invite writers to your book clubs. It will be out of their comfort zone to talk to others about their work. They need the exercise. It’ll be good for them.
Most authors don’t win literary prizes. Very few receive cash advances for their work. Yet write they must. They depend on readers to get the word out about their work. Ask your library to order copies.
