In Residence
Exciting news: For a month this Fall, I’ll be the Writer-in-Residence at the AC Hunter Library. Between Tuesday, October 22 and Wednesday, November 20th, I’ll be running four workshops, hosting group writing sessions, and reading/ offering feedback on your prose during twice-weekly office hours. Everything on the program is free, in-person, and open to writers of all levels. Better still...
Blurbs
Recently, on CBC’s Commotion podcast. there was a dishy chat about blurbs. It’s worth a listen if you’re an aspiring author or have a first book deal or are curious about what it means to get a more established author or Barack Obama to say one nice word* that can be printed on your cover.
Most of us need blurbs and we all have a fraught relationship with them. It’s amazing to receive any sort of advance praise, especially when you’re deep in your feelings in that final stretch right before a new book comes out. But blurbs require hours of free labour. And the galling part is it’s impossible to do the (unpaid) job without toppling into cliche hell. To wit…
Eulogy
The story was titled Wankus Interruptus, and when I first read those words, centred at the top of the page, I paused. (Do you know this feeling? A fleeting fuzz of nostalgia. A whiff of emotion. In this case, the top note was humour.) The phrase was familiar. Why? And in the next second I recalled.
Diversity road to no where
Last week #publishingpaidme blew up on Twitter, highlighting the ugly truth Black authors have long known, that they are offered a fraction of the advances white authors get, even when the Black authors in question are well established award-winners with an international fan base and a history of successful books, and the white authors in question have untested debut manuscripts or less, perhaps just a single essay that went viral. How can this be, this appalling and unfair disparity? IT’S WHITE SUPREMACY. WAKE THE FUCK UP.
No
Years ago, in the waning minutes of what would be my last day at a certain mediocre job, the HR rep hustled into my windowless office, pushed a piece of paper under my nose and declared: “You have to sign this.”
“I don’t have to do anything, Belinda*,” I said, before tossing a lit match on a trail of already-poured gasoline and burning the damn place down.
Poetry police
During the Inauguration, National Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman stole the show with her poem “The Hill We Climb”. I watched the ceremony the same way I read my reviews - breath held, jaw clenched, and squinting - because remember the confetti canon and the armed terrorists who stormed the capitol? Luckily, it was fine. No one got assassinated and I had the privilege of witnessing Gorman’s performance in real time. It was a tour de force and 99% of the millions who saw her agreed. But you know…there’s always the one per cent.
There be dragons
One Saturday a few months after The Boat People came out, I was at my local nursery, pleasantly hung-over, and feeling optimistic about the fact that this time I would for sure keep the new basil alive (spoiler: I did not). It was one of those sunny, hopeful mornings. And then, while in line, I made the mistake of checking email.
Gripes
Rebecca wrote this dark comedy of a blog post recently and I was all “SING IT, SISTER.” It’s about the indignities she has endured in her years as a writer. Rebecca has been writing and publishing longer than I have so she’s had to grin and bear more, but I share indignity #4 on her list. Anyway, like Rebecca, I had mostly wonderful experiences in my debut year as an author and I know I’m incredibly lucky to even be a writer and have work published but there are also moments that make me want to shake my fist. Please enjoy some dark humour…
The spreadsheet
I've written about rejection before but not about my spreadsheet. The spreadsheet is key to the whole "brush it off" process. (It's also key to staying sane and organized.)
On rejection
In the late summer of 2011, I did something that, in retrospect, was a gamble. I left a full time job to write. Yes, there would be freelance work (read: paid gigs) but it was a conscious decision to check out of one career and make a running leap at another.