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www.oakvillebeaver.com The Oakville Beaver, Friday February 27, 2009 - 31 Artscene · FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 2009 Some conditions apply. Expires March 4, 2008 The write stuff... Oakville celebrates new books Big names at brunch By Melanie Cummings SPECIAL TO THE BEAVER A columnist turned author, a singer and songwriter come memoirist and an outreach worker newly emerged as storyteller -- these are the career paths of the scribes who took centre stage at the recent Bookers Author's Brunch. After 15 years as Toronto Star humour columnist, Linwood Barclay packed in his newspaper career last year to pursue book writing. "I always wanted to write mysteries and thrillers," Barclay told about 150 book lovers gathered at the Oakville Golf Club. But before even retiring from the Star, Barclay had made his mark. When No Time for Goodbye was published in 2007, his first thriller had became a best-seller in Germany, only to be outdone "annoyingly" that year by J.K. Rowling of Harry Potter fame. And thanks to the U.K.'s version of Oprah's book picks, BBC TV hosts Richard & Judy put No Time for Goodbye on their 2008 Summer Reads list, catapulting it to the single best-selling novel there last year. Daunted but not dismayed to follow up on that success, Barclay has created his latest mystery Too Close to Home. It's a story that was spawned by the thought that if everyone in the house next door is killed, probability would dictate it won't happen in that neighbourhood again. But what if the killers went to the wrong house? The Sudden Disappearance of Seetha is garnering plenty of positive attention in this debut novel from Toronto's Andrea Gunraj. "I had no aspirations to be an author," said the outreach worker for Metropolitan Action Committee on Violence Against Women and NIKKI WESLEY / OAKVILLE BEAVER BOOK FAIR: Authors skim their new works, including Dan Hill with I Am My Father's Son, Linwood Barclay with Too Close to Home and Andrea Gunraj with The Sudden Disappearance of Seetha. See Renowned page 33