Letter from Joy
September 14, 2026
Hi, everyone,
Well, it’s that time of year when summer is ending and fall is starting to show its true colours - mostly red, yellow and brown. I probably say this every year at this time, but fall always seems to go so fast. One day it’s Labour Day, the next Halloween, the next Christmas! Already the stores are full of decorations for October 31, and soon it will be Christmas trees and Santa Claus. I guess it’s true that summer and spring also pass by quickly. It’s only winter that seems to hang around forever.
This used to be the time when I’d be spending ten days going to at least three movies a day at the Toronto Film Festival. But Covid changed all that, and I haven’t been to the Festival in years. In some ways, I really miss it. In others, not so much. I used to love getting a day pass that allowed me to pick my movies on a day-to-day basis. Yes, I often had to stand in line for hours, with no guarantee of getting in, but I also had the freedom to leave a film I didn’t like and go find another. Then came the change to reserved seats and pre-ordering tickets, which meant spending hours and hours perusing the list of films, choosing whatever appealed and selecting second and even third choices, should one’s first choice already be sold out, and then trying to organize one’s schedule accordingly. Even that wasn’t so bad compared to going on line and actually trying to order the tickets. I remember one time when I had completed the very time-consuming process only to be told there was some sort of computer error and I had to try again! It became extremely anxiety-inducing, and after Covid, I had no desire to put myself through it again. Not to mention that the cost of tickets has skyrocketed, and so many of the movies I want to see are opening in theatres or showing on specialty channels shortly after anyway. I had hoped that a couple of the films I was interested in seeing might have a single seat available, but the two I was most interested in - “Your Mother…Your Mother…Your Mother” and “Elsinore” are all sold out. (As are most of the films.) I also miss reviewing all the films I saw for you guys. I confess that the only movies I’ve seen lately are “The Invited” (which I wasn’t crazy about, despite mostly terrific reviews) and The Odyssey (which I loved.) There’s a bunch of movies I want to catch on various streaming services, but I keep forgetting what they are!
I’ve been reading. Just finished The Boy Who Followed His Father into Auschwitz (formerly published as The Stone Cutter) which was, to say the least, harrowing and depressing as hell, especially in these times of rising antisemitism. What the hell is wrong with people? Jews make up less than 1% of the world’s population and their contributions to medicine, science, music, show business, technology, and art are immeasurable. I just don’t get it.
In lighter news, I’ve now started Liane Moriarty’s latest - “Big Little Truths.” It’s a sequel to her decade-old bestseller, "Big Little Lies.” And while she claims that you don’t have to have read the earlier book, it certainly helps. I read it when it first came out, and frankly, I’m still confused. Not that I’m not enjoying it. I like her style and her sense of humour, but I’m having trouble keeping up with the (too) many characters in this book, let alone trying to remember who did what in the previous one. And as usual, I have a whole stack of books I recently purchased to get to.
Now that I finally gave in and signed up for Apple, I’ve been enjoying Ted Lasso enormously, and am looking forward to seeing all the wonderful series I’ve missed. One series I’ve been watching - on Prime - is Reacher. It’s essentially the same episode every week, but the last episode was SO bad and required so much clumsy explanation, that if it weren’t for the fact that there’s only one more episode left, I wouldn’t bother.
My new novel - due out next summer - is now competent and entering the copy-editing process. More about it the closer we get to publication date. And I’m trying to get my thoughts organized for my next one. Still in the very early planning stages.
We’re planing a trip to Miami soon to spend a week with my younger daughter and family. We won’t be heading down till December. Hopefully by then, tensions between our two countries will have lessened. I repeat: what the hell is wrong with people? Why can’t we all just get along?
As I believe I mentioned in my last letter, I’l be teaching a course this fall at the University of Toronto - Tuesday nights from 6:30 till 9, October 16 - Dec.1 - on Writing the Breakout Novel. If you’re in our fair city and interested in taking the course, I hope you’ll sign up through U of T’s Continuing Education Studies Program. I look forward to seeing you there.
And that’s it for now. Till next time, stay safe and above all, be kind.
Warmly,
Joy