About

I’m a writer based in Ottawa, Canada. I was a music critic and editor for a popular webzine between 2010 and 2014, and I have reviewed books for bookwookie.ca. My journalism has been published in SPIN, Canadian Business, the National Post, the Ottawa Citizen and many others. My fiction has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and I won a $4,000 emerging artist grant from the City of Ottawa. My fiction and poetry has been published in various publications in Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom.

In my spare time, I humour my Calico cat Dot (or maybe it’s the other way around) and I collect vinyl records. I’m a member of the First United Church in Ottawa. I enjoy coffee too much, so I’m switching more and more to herbal teas. (If anyone ever wants to sponsor me, David’s Tea would be my first choice! I’m a regular there now.)

If you want to get in touch about being reviewed on this site, you can contact me at zacharyhoule [at] rogers [dot] com.

I’m back on Twitter at @zachary_houle. You can follow me there.

NOTE: I prefer downloads over streams (though streams will do in a pinch), but before you send me anything, look at how I structure my reviews and try to include that information in any emails (ie. release dates, labels (if applicable), YouTube/Soundcloud media, etc.). Also, if you do send downloads, please, please, please tag all of your tracks/albums properly. I love getting free music, but it’s a real pain in the butt to go searching for that music in iTunes in an “unknown songs” folder (that runs some 600 songs deep right now) because it isn’t tagged properly!

Also, and this goes without saying, the more press assets you throw at me the better – even for stuff such as song posts and video posts. Yes, this means photos – of the album cover, of the artist, and so on. I don’t mind going looking online for stuff, but some of you guys, no offense, can be pretty obscure. Lack of decent media assets for the blog probably means that I might take a pass because, hey, I like to jazz things up with pretty pictures here.

Speaking of which: realize that I get roughly 50 e-mails a day from publicists and bands on an average day. Some days, it can be much more than that. I work a day job, so I just can’t reply to everyone. There would be no content here if I did.

So, please, DO NOT take it personally if you don’t hear back from me or nothing happens. I’ve learned that I just can’t be everywhere all the time. The good news? If I do get back to you or post a review or song or video here, you caught my attention somehow.

Hint: Being Canadian helps, as I help Canadians.

Hint 2: Being from Ottawa helps even more, as I help the hometown crowd as much as I can.

Still, feel free to hit me up.