I just finished coding the new issue of ChiZine and received permission to post it a couple of hours early. So if you feel like some late-night reading, check it out.
I have a feeling there will be a lot of talk about Paul Tremblay’s “The Blog at the End of the World.” Brilliant concept, excellent story. (And props to Deena Warner on the design.)
I just read that my story “Relaxed Best” received an honourable mention in The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror 2008.
Also, Ellen Datlow had the following to say about Not One of Us (the mag that published “Relaxed Best”) in her Summation 2007: Horror:
Not One of Us, edited by John Benson, has been around for a very long time now, and continues to publish unusual, often dark, fiction. There were two issues out in 2007 and an excellent special one-off called Midrash. The strongest stories and poems were by Chris Bell, Amanda Downum, Sonya Taaffe, Torger Vedeler, and Ian Rogers.
The honourable mention was sweet (my first one!), and that was even sweeter. Congrats to John and the rest of the contributors.
Maybe next year I’ll be part of the actual collection. I’ll have stories plenty of stories in consideration, so anything’s possible.
Last night, Kat and I made the trek to Toronto to join a bunch of horror writers who meet semi-regularly to talk shop, dish, and eat bar food. I’ve tried to make it out a few times before, but something always seemed to come up and quash my plans.
So this ended up being the first time I was able to make it out, although it wasn’t the first time I met most of these people, who I hung around with at Ad Astra earlier this year, and the World Horror Convention the year before that. But it’s still nice to reconnect with everyone since we don’t get together that often.
Shout-outs to Simon Strantzas (thanks for the book!), Richard Gavin, Sèphera Girón, Brett Savory, Michael Rowe, and a bunch of others that I’ll group together since I know I’ll forget someone. The two people I noticed missing that I had hoped would be there were Gemma Files and Michael Kelly. A couple of excellent writers and good people that I was hoping to introduce to my wife, but I guess I’ll have to catch them at the next one.
And last but not least, I finally got to meet Joel Sutherland, an excellent writer and all-around good guy, who I’ve been corresponding with for the last couple of years. He’s a fellow Whitby boy, and probably lives closer to me than any of the other writers I talk to, but naturally, he ends up being the last one I meet. Better late than never!
Anyway, it was a good time with good people and I’m looking forward to the next one.
(Btw, if you haven’t been following my photoblog, you should check out the groovy shot I took Friday night off our front porch.)
From the Weird Desk:
Experts ’solve’ mystery of Stonehenge
Hubble finds unidentified object in space
Buffy the Vampire Slayer inspires women to leave churches
From the Writing Desk:
Beneath the Surface, a collection of dark and weird tales by Simon Stranzas, is now available
To be creative is, in fact, Canadian
Joseph Boyden wraps up Trent Reads 2008 (written by my wife)
We all know it exists. The so-called literati is generally believed to look down upon genre fiction, and to be fair, it goes the other way, too. Some genre writers feel all literary fiction is snooty and pretentious.
While there may be cases to support both sides of the debate, it can hardly be true all of the time, or even most of the time. But it’s interesting to see how these comments can be made, both consciously and unconsciously.
For instance, my father-in-law recently gave me his copy of the latest University of Toronto alum magazine, featuring an interview with Andrew Pyper, an author whose work I enjoy. Pyper is an interesting case. He is a Canadian author who writes very literary genre novels. Pyper doesn’t typically get nominated for awards, but his books tend to sell very well. He came to most people’s attention after the publication of his first novel Lost Girls, a kind of northern gothic ghost story/mystery novel. The novel sold well, Pyper got a big advance, and opinions were generally split on whether Pyper was a literary writer or a genre writer (because of course you can only be one or the other). Part of the problem is that there is an element out there who sincerely believe that no matter how litr’y Pyper is, all of his efforts are immediately nullified the moment he enters the arena of the thriller or the mystery or the ghost story. I’m sure there have been many comments along the lines of, “I really enjoyed Lost Girls, even though it was a supernatural mystery.”
Anyway, the article in question features a quote by Michael Bryson, another Canadian writer and editor of The Danforth Review, on the subject of Pyper’s second novel, The Trade Mission. Bryson comments, “He seems more intent on following Grisham than Faulkner.”
Knowing the blogosphere fairly well, and knowing that Bryson has one, I jumped online to see if he had seen the article and commented on it. Turns out he did on both counts.
If you follow the link, you see that Bryson is amused by the idea of someone accusing him of literary snobbery, for which I would agree. Having read Bryson’s fiction, I can say it’s not of the pretentious, artsy type that I was forced to read and analyze in high school. It doesn’t contain any elements of what Andrew Pyper referred to in one interview as the “anti-plot.” We’ve all read stories of this type. They’re always easy to spot because, well, nothing happens. There is no story. The author is so wrapped up in constructing the pretty prose that they actually forget that half of the term “short story” is “story.” If you don’t have one, then you don’t have one.
I’m also a regular reader of The Danforth Review, and I can say that the stories there aren’t of that type, either. I’ve submitted a few stories to TDR, and I can tell you I wouldn’t have bothered if I thought that Bryson was a CanLit snob.
On the other hand, I had to admit that when I read the quote in that UofT article, I did find it a bit snobby. Perhaps it was the context (or the lack thereof). Even Bryson admits that it was from a review written about ten years ago, and that he hasn’t read anything by Pyper since. I did have to wonder if maybe the reason why I hadn’t cracked TDR was because my stories weren’t artsy enough, that my prose wasn’t ornate enough. But mostly these were my own insecurities. As I said, I read TDR regularly, and I’ve read Bryson’s own work, and I don’t see any of that snobbery in either.
I think the problem is that it’s hard to compare authors, much less two disparate ones like Grisham and Faulkner, without coming off as a bit of a snoot. When I talk about books and authors I like, I very, very rarely compare them to others, and almost never in a negative way. It’s usually along the lines of, If you liked this author’s books, then you might enjoy that author’s books. Bryson might not have been directly comparing Pyper’s work to either Grisham’s or Faulkner’s, but it’s close enough that some people might take it as a slight against him.
On the other hand, this quote was taken from a review, and reviews are sometimes meant to stir the pot and start discussion. I don’t know. Being in the position of enjoying both authors’ work, I’m still feeling a bit torn on this one. I sympathize and agree with Pyper who has no patience for the artsy types who decry storytelling and promote style as the be all and end all, but then I don’t think that’s what Bryson was saying in this case.
As I’ve mentioned before, my wife works at Trent University in the communications department. One of the perks of her job is that she gets to meet all of the famous people who visit the university. And since I’m her hubby, I usually get to tag along to these events, which typically consist of a dinner followed by a speaking or reading of some sort.
Last night the university’s guest was award-winning Canadian writer Joseph Boyden, author of the short story collection Born With A Tooth, Three Day Road, and his most recent book, Through Black Spruce. Joseph was in town with his wife, Amanda Boyden, who is also a novelist, to promote their latest books.
Although I’m a fan of Joseph Boyden’s work, I wasn’t planning on attending the dinner/reading. I had spent the day at work in meetings and training, and I was extremely tired. I knew I wouldn’t be in the right headspace to properly enjoy an evening with an author, even one of my favourites,
So I stayed home and relaxed, made a couple of grilled-cheese sandwiches, and poked a stick at my novel-in-progress. Around 9 p.m. Kathryn called and told me that she, Joseph, Amanda, and a few others were going to the Olde Stone, a downtown brewery/pub, for a couple of drinks. Did I want to come along?
I said no thanks. I was still feeling pretty bushed, I was already in my comfy pants, and I had to work the next day. My wife told me it was only going to be a small group and I’d actually get to talk to Boyden, and did I really want to pass up this opportunity? Apparently yes.
So Kathryn hung up and I sat there for about three minutes. Give me some credit. I was really freakin’ tired. Then I realized she was right. I might never get this opportunity again. I didn’t want to meet Joseph Boyden so I could ask him about finding an agent or get him to read my manuscript. I wanted to meet him because I’m a huge fan of his work. I didn’t have any intention of telling him that I was a writer.
Long story short, I called Kat back and told her I was in. She came back to the house and we drove down to the Olde Stone. The place was packed so we ended up going to the restaurant next door, Hot Belly Mamas. I told Kathryn explicitly not to introduce me as a writer, as I felt it would seem like I was fishing for attention. Kat said she wouldn’t, and then her boss, sitting on my other side, promptly says, “Oh, Joseph, have you met Kathryn’s husband Ian. He’s a writer and he’s sold something like thirty short stories.”
Ahhh…
Despite that, Joseph and his wife seemed genuinely impressed, and while it was not the kind of introduction I would have preferred, it did help break the ice and we ended spending a great deal of time talking about writing. Joseph told me about his upcoming appearance on Matt Galloway’s show on the CBC, and how he had been asked to pick a few songs that they would be playing during his interview. I asked what songs he picked and he mentioned that one of them was a track off the latest album by the Tragically Hip. As a fairly big Hip fan myself, I asked which one he had chosen and we ended up talking about the band. Turned out Joseph is good friends with Gord Downie, the band’s leader and songwriter. Joseph, who lives in New Orleans, mentioned that he gets up to Toronto every now and again and sometimes visits with Gord. He said the next time he was in the city, he’d let me know and he’d introduce me to him. I said, Um, okay. Then he asked if the Hip ever come through Peterborough. I said, Yes, they were here touring their latest album about a year and a half ago. Joseph says, Okay, well, if they come back again, let me know and I’ll be sure to get you some tickets, and I’ll introduce you to the band. I said, Um, okay.
I have to admit that I was still pretty tired from my long day at work. And then at some point in the evening the shock of meeting one of my favourite Canadian writers set in. And then he tells me he’s friends with the lead singer of one of my favourite bands, and then offers to introduce me to him. It was all a bit overwhelming.
It’s finally started to sink in now, but last night it was so surreal that I wasn’t even sure it was actually happening (the beer might have played a part in that, too). A part of me felt like I wasn’t really there, that I had never called Kathryn back and I had spent the evening at home with my grilled-cheese sandwiches and comfy pants. Thankfullly I was there and I had a great time.
I’m so glad my wife prodded me into coming out, and that I — eventually — decided to go.
That’s why they call it the better half, folks. Living proof.
Over the next few weeks I thought I’d throw out some questions to my writer peeps. I’m curious to hear your thoughts on these subjects, if you feel so inclined to share them.
The first question is about story credits.
Do you care where your work is published?
How much do you care?
Do you only submit stories to paying markets? paying professional markets?
Do you care if an author you don’t like is being published in these magazines?
How much do story credits mean to you? Do you see them as opening doors to agents and bigger publishing houses? Does quantity count? Do some credits mean more than others or are they all equally useful… or useless?
If you’ve got the time and you’re willing to share, drop me a comment.
So I sent “Buffalo Money” back out yesterday after the publication to which it had been previously accepted closed down. Then my wife and I went out to do some yard work. I came back in and received an e-mail saying the story had been accepted again, this time to Rope and Wire: Western Lifestyle Magazine, an e-zine that publishes all things western.
Rope and Wire isn’t a paying market, but I was paid on acceptance to Great Western Fiction before they folded, so it all worked out in the end. I got paid and the story still got published. Cuh-razy.
Anyway, the story is available online if you’re curious to see how I handle a western. Rope and Wire has a pretty fun website if you’re a fan of the genre. It’s definitely worth checking it out.
Hope everyone had a nice Labour Day. Kat and I sat on the back deck reading and drinking mojitos. Actually she has a headache and I ended up drinking a whole bottle of mojitos myself. So if there are any spelling mistakes here… well, you know…
"Leaves Brown"
in Shades of Darkness
