2016 is going to be a huge year for me, with the release of Spells of Blood and Kin in June. And 2014 was a huge year, too: the year I signed with my wonderful agent Connor, the year he made the sale. A year of leveling up. 2015, then, was a bridge year in some ways: a year to consolidate my gains, to do all the work I could to make sure this next phase in my writing life will be a successful one. Timelines in writing are very long compared to some kinds of work: even more than a year, in my case, between deal and launch. I came to learn that it’s very useful time! Edits, proofing, and a lot of other associated tasks took a lot of it. And of course, other projects need to be in the pipeline–my next book, plus some short stories, although the time I’ve spent on those has dropped a lot since the novel has to take priority. Like most working writers, I also have a day job–which is understating it a bit; I have a career which I love, and which is sometimes demanding. Between this, family events, and cons, […]
The Met, the Plaza, Assouline and Andrew Kaufman
In New York last week, I went to the Met, where one cannot photograph the art, but can photograph the blossoms and the ceiling. It was mainly a business trip, but when one has been doing the same job as long as I have, business and pleasure become irretrievably mingled. I visited my friend Helen at the Assouline bookstore in the Plaza Hotel, which is one of those places where culture and myth and aspiration and art all collide in alchemical perfection. We had a glass of wine and talked about A.S. Byatt and watched the carriages on the southern edge of Central Park. I wanted to buy an ostrich egg, or a bronze bust. When I came home, I went to hear Andrew Kaufman interviewed about his second novel, The Waterproof Bible. We’re friends; I’ve had the pleasure of hearing about this novel before; but it’s quite different now that the novel is an object, a thing that exists on its own independent of Andrew’s creative mind or the kind of conversation that happens between writers. One thing that struck me is that Andrew now knows the theme of this novel, in a way that I don’t think he […]
By Grand Central Station I sat down and pulled out my camera…
…no weeping whatsoever. A passerby mumbled “That’ll be a beautiful shot.” I was well-dressed, I had dined on the company and I’d been flogging my brain all day, so that it felt loose now and light. I dropped my colleagues at their hotel and walked to mine, through this luminescent fog, deliciously cool. Manhattan in spring is always a few weeks ahead of Toronto, and so my visits there are touched with wonder and disbelief. (They have forsythias already?) And in between meetings I buy coffee and walk on Fifth Ave because that’s the part I know best, and I greet the library even if I don’t have time to go inside, and I photograph the buds on trees and the stately shop-windows. And I come home through turbulence and we bank down close over the lake and I see my own city, a smaller jewel. And everyone on the plane is a famous actor or a model. And I call my husband from the ferry; and he is glad. And through the following week at the office, I stealthily add to my aluminum notebook all the thoughts and thoughts and thoughts. If only I were immortal or could forget […]
This guy gets it
It’s wonderful to read such insightful commentary about the book business. Aspiring writers who aren’t already in the business should definitely read this post, and the comments and offshoots as well. I am both a writer and a chain buyer. Why, being the one, would I want to be the other? Well, I was a writer first. It’s natural for writers to seek employment in the book business, since writers (if they’re any good) are also readers, and reading, of course, is one of the prerequisites for being a book buyer. If I’d become a chain buyer first, though, I doubt I would want to become a writer at this point. I see the numbers. I see the number of titles a store can carry, versus the number published in a year. The odds are against any given writer at every level, numerically: finding an agent, finding a publisher, getting your book into the stores, getting your book to actually sell. But I’m different, of course. I’m brilliant. My books are going to be bought, loved, discussed, read, reprinted, reviewed. I don’t need to worry about the odds. Statistics are meaningless when you’re this good. I’m joking, of course; and […]
In which I reflect
I’m back from Chicago with a suitcase of laundry, a new handbag, and for the first time, visual records of the place that has come to mean so much to me. If I’m counting correctly, this visit was my eighth time attending CIROBE, the Chicago International Remainder and Overstock Book Exhibition. Over the years I’ve become quite attached to the city, most particularly the park across from the Hilton, where I sometimes run; the Art Institute, which houses Caillebotte’s Paris Street, Rainy Day; and the lakeshore in general, so superior to the same area of Toronto. More than the city, though, it’s the people. I am privileged to work with people so intelligent, friendly and well-read. Between this group and the people of VP, I’ve been in exalted company lately, and I have come away both humbled and encouraged. You, my friends, colleagues and mentors: each of you is something I aspire to be, and I am honoured to have so many of you in my life. […]