Copies of the author’s Stories in the Key of Song on the top shelf of Indigo at the Devonshire Mall in Windsor, Ontario. The book of poetry to the right of mine, The Sky Above, was written by my friend, former colleague and Black Moss Books publisher Marty Gervais.
Originally published on Medium on Feb. 4, 2026.
I’m verified, after all these years.
Medium, the platform I have used for much of my writing (non-fiction as well as short stories and poetry), now identifies me as a verified book author. It’s right there in a “badge” on my profile next to my name and featured books: Stories in the Key of Song (Black Moss Press: 2024) and the chapter I wrote called “Canada, the 49th: The True North Strong and Free! The View of America from Windsor, Ontario” that was published in the 2025 book Canada is Not the 51st F**king State (Cosmic Cranium Press).
“Your readers will immediately know they’re reading from a published author,” Medium tells me.
Verified is derived from Old French and Latin and means proved to be true. It’s a funny thing to be proven for something I’ve been doing for decades.
I’ve worked as a reporter and editor for newspapers going back to the 1980s. Being “published” and seeing my byline in print is old hat for this old hack. I have written hundreds, maybe thousands, of stories for newspapers and magazines so this really shouldn’t be different right?
Ah, but this is different.
Having my words permanently etched in books is a big deal. It was a big deal when I published my first work of fiction in 2024 and again when my chapter appeared in an anthology in which contributors spoke out (or rather wrote and drew out their rage) in resistance to Donald Trump’s aggression against Canada.
The author as a high school short story award winner in 1981 in the library at W.D. Lowe Secondary School.
I have to go way back to 1981 at W.D. Lowe Secondary School in Windsor, Ontario when a short story I wrote first appeared in print. It was called “The Ultimate Challenge” and it was bad, a ripoff of an episode from The Twilight Zone. But it won first place in a creative writing competition and I was as proud of it then as I was of my rock and roll hair.
Since then, I’ve worked for newspapers in Ontario and British Columbia. At one community paper in B.C., they even let me out of the office one day in 1990 for my one and only gig at a McDonald’s restaurant during their “McHappy Day.” (But I digress.)
The author during McHappy Day at a McDonald’s in Burnaby, B.C in 1990. Photo by Brian Giebelhaus
When I moved back to Ontario with my family a couple of years later, I resumed writing and editing at newspapers including the Windsor Star where I work today. (That’s me again below in 1995, sans long hair but still with a moustache, looking annoyed at being interrupted at my desk.)
Proud as I am of the many newspaper and magazine stories I’ve written over the years, they still fall short of book authorship. That’s why it felt so surreal to see my name on a book, published by the venerable Black Moss Press, a couple of years ago.
Chapter 1 as an author: My first book
Stories in the Key of Song is a collection of short stories themed around music. It includes: “Julie Andrews vs. Alice Cooper,” about a plagiarism allegation and lawsuit against the rock and roll legend that leads to an epic, nightmare revenge rock opera; “Mexican Siesta,” a surrealistic story set in the Riviera Maya during the first administration of Donald Trump; “Carol’s Last Christmas,” about an aging curmudgeon who may have had an epiphany on Christmas eve; and “I Meme Mine” in which a failed writer finds success, if not fame and fortune, in the afterlife by mining George Harrison memes.
Here’s an excerpt from another story, “Server OUTRAGE!,” about a computer server that goes rogue:
“Hannibal sat opposite the bank of other computer servers in the data centre of PoshMedia’s Toronto operations. Out of two flanges at the bottom of the machine, Hannibal vented vapours of steam into the cool air like slow blasts from the nostrils of an awakening dragon.
Hannibal’s namesake was Dexter Leonard’s attempt at geek humour. Dexter thought that that portion of the machine, with its eerie mouthlike aperture and small holes resembling nostrils, looked like the mask of the psychotic killer immortalized by the book and movie series. The slow-breathing machine, building up in temperature, was one of many that sat inside the small data centre and controlled the local operations of PoshMedia Society Co. At least, they were what remained of the local servers that were tied into PMS’s much larger data centre in Calcutta.
Late at night, digital currents pulsed into the building and coursed through the electrical veins of all these servers. It kept them alive and breathing and cool to prevent them from overheating — ensuring they operated until they would be needed to process thousands of computations. Most of them were happy enough to chill out.
Not Hannibal. Not today.”
You can read more about the book and links to interviews and reviews by clicking here.
Chapter 2 as an author: The second book
A year later, I was back in print as one of 10 people who contributed to Canada Is Not the 51st F**king State. In my non-fiction essay, which includes a few personal recollections, I laid out my case against the U.S. president’s threat and economic war against Canada from the perspective of my resilient hometown of Windsor, Ontario, which has shared a long and sometimes uneasy relationship with our larger border city of Detroit, Michigan. I wrote about the historical, geographical, cultural and economic reasons why Windsorites, like Canadians as a whole, will always resist American hegemony. “More than 77 million Americans voted into office Trump who is supported by billionaire captains of news and industry and a sycophantic Republican party,” I wrote.
“So Canadians recognize there’s an army that’s mobilized on the other side of the border and a leader who has revived America’s dreams of manifest destiny. For this Canadian living in this border city, the weight of that reality is as real as the cannons that were pointed at Windsor more than 200 years ago. The War of 1812 is a lesson that Trump and those 77-million-plus Americans would do well to remember today.”
To find out more about this book, click here.
Chapters next as an author
And I’m not done writing.
I have a book of poems that is almost complete. Some have been published on this platform and can be accessed here. It’s a companion piece to Stories in the Key of Song in that all the poems are themed around music. I’m calling it Words & Pictures Across the Musicverse.
I also have a novel that I started and hope to finish this year. And I have a second collection of short stories that are shaping themselves into another book. I will be publishing some of them here over the coming weeks and months.
As always, thanks for reading. Check out my website and send me a comment. I would love to hear from you! If you’re interested in purchasing my work, let me know.
And feel free to browse my Medium site and follow me. There’s fiction, poetry, book reviews and more.
Claudio D’Andrea has been writing and editing for newspapers, magazines and online publications for about 40 years and has published a book of short fiction, Stories in the Key of Song. Visit him at claudiodandrea.ca or read his stuff on LinkedIn and Medium.com and follow him on Bluesky.
Claudio D'Andrea 
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