About

 

I’m Victoria. I also answer to Vicki.

I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was seven years old. I had devoured the Little House on the Prairie books and discovered that the author Laura Ingalls Wilder had been an ordinary woman writing about her life. I figured that if she could write, then so could I.

I have some success writing. My work has appeared in some newspapers and magazines and on a few websites. I have a day job and struggle with making writing – my writing – a daily habit.

Education

Honours Bachelor of Arts (Political Science), University of Toronto – 1998
Diploma in Journalism, Humber College of Applied Arts and Technology (with a specialization in creative writing)
Humber School for Writers Summer Program – 2000, 2001, 2002
Ryerson University (Novel Writing  I with Sarah Sheard)
Certificate in Creative Writing (in progress), University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies

Selected Publications

The View from Down Here – Globe and Mail
Defying Expectations – Current
In Praise of Dependence – Mosaic Minds
The Old Man – All Things Girl


1 thought on “About”

  1. re: book review request by award-winning author

    Dear Vicki,

    I’m an award-winning author with a new book of fiction out this fall. Ugly To Start With is a series of thirteen interrelated stories about childhood published by West Virginia University Press.

    Can I interest you in reviewing it?

    If you write me back at johnmcummings@aol.com, I can email you a PDF of my book. If you require a bound copy, please ask, and I will forward your reply to my publisher. Or you can write directly to Abby Freeland at:

    Abby.Freeland@mail.wvu.edu

    My publisher, I should add, can also offer your readers a free excerpt of my book through a link from your blog to my publisher’s website:
    http://wvupressonline.com/cummings_ugly_to_start_with_9781935978084

    Here’s what Jacob Appel, celebrated author of
    Dyads and The Vermin Episode, says about my new collection: “In Ugly to Start With, set in the eastern panhandle of West Virginia, Cummings tackles the challenges of boyhood adventure and family conflict in a taut, crystalline style that captures the triumphs and tribulations of small-town life. He has a gift for transcending the particular experiences to his characters to capture the universal truths of human affection and suffering–emotional truths that the members of his audience will recognize from their own experiences of childhood and adolescence.”

    My short stories have appeared in more than seventy-five literary journals, including North American Review, The Kenyon Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, and The Chattahoochee Review. Twice I have been nominated for The Pushcart Prize. My short story “The Scratchboard Project” received an honorable mention in The Best American Short Stories 2007.

    I am also the author of the nationally acclaimed coming-of-age novel The Night I Freed John Brown (Philomel Books, Penguin Group, 2009), winner of The Paterson Prize for Books for Young Readers (Grades 7-12) and one of ten books recommended by USA TODAY.

    For more information about me, please visit:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Michael_Cummings

    Thank you very much, and I look forward to hearing back from you.

    Kindly,

    John Michael Cummings

    Reply ↓

Leave a comment