A bit of information about your background and how you got into writing:

I started as a stand-up comic about 15 years ago, but then I moved and the nearest club was a three-hour drive. I was still at the ’5-minute spot on open mic’ level, so it just didn’t seem worth it. Then I read that it takes several years at that level before one ‘graduates’ to a 10-minute spot, and then another several years…and it definitely didn’t seem worth it.

Plus, I quickly discovered how much being a stand-up is a performing career – the first few times, your performance is genuine, your material is still new, etc, but after a while, you really have to act. At least I did. And I wasn’t an actor, nor did I want to take the time and make the effort to become one.

HOWEVER, I really really liked the writing. That’s what I liked most from the beginning. I just couldn’t find anyone interested in performing my material. Most stand-ups do their own material, or they make it rather big and then write for the even bigger people.

SOOOO I had this idea I’d just write books of the stuff. I have a few collections of my stand-up bits and pieces, which I’m gradually posting on my website.

Then I started writing longer pieces – stories – see This Will Not Look Good on My Resume.

And then, The Road Trip Dialogues is my first novel.

(The second, the sequel, The Blasphemy Tour, will be out this June.)

Oh, and I have a graduate degree in Philosophy.

What your hobbies are apart from writing:

Lying on the couch, riverdancing, reading, walking, kayaking, lying on the couch

The Road Trip Dialogues:

Rev and Dylan are intelligent, sensitive, idealistic, enthusiastic, and – utter failures. When they reconnect twenty years after teacher’s college, Rev is en route to Montreal to see the fireworks festival. (Something with great social and political import.) (Oh shut up. I tried. For twenty years. So to hell with it.) Dylan goes along for the ride. (Typical.)

The Road Trip Dialogues is a coming of age story. For those in their forties. Who tried (and tried) to change the world.

This Will Not Look Good on My Resume:

Everyone gets fired at least once in their life. And if not, well, they’re just not trying very hard. And we all think of brilliant and immature ‘shoulda saids’ and ‘shoulda dones’ for weeks after. (Okay, years.)

In this collection of loosely related stories, Brett shows again and again that getting fired is really quite easy. Consider it an inadvertent how-to guide.

A quirky bit of fun that slaps you upside the head.

The Blasphemy Tour:

Two Canadian atheists go on a cross-country speaking tour of American Bible Colleges, and oh god, they end up committing all sorts of blasphemies.