I'm happy to announce that John van der Woude's cover design for my book, Drive-by Saviours, has won this year's Judge-a-Book-by-Its-Cover Competition! That's good news for me because the prize is a review by Salty Ink, a wildly popular blog on Atlantic Canadian literature. See the announcement at http://saltyink.com/2010/12/10/chris-benjamins-drive-by-saviours-wins-salty-inks-2010-judge-a-book-by-its-cover-competition/.

Speaking of Salty Ink, it has also selected Drive-by Saviours as one of its "top-notch" debut novels of 2010. See that announcement at http://saltyink.com/2010/12/07/salty-inks-selected-top-notch-books-of-2010/.

Drive-by Saviours also received some very nice reviews in the "blogosphere" (hate that "word") this week. You can read those at http://stargazerpuj.wordpress.com/2010/12/06/book-review-drive-by-saviours-by-chris-benjamin/ and http://literallife.wordpress.com/2010/11/30/drive-by-saviours-chris-benjamin/.

Lastly my latest column, on how long-distance travel is my generation's environmental Kryptonite, is up at http://www.thecoast.ca/halifax/flying-into-the-abyss/Content?oid=2054316.