Gods, Memes and Monsters anthology

Coming this summer and edited by me! This 21st century bestiary features over 60 authors from a number of countries. Check out the Stone Skin Press site for more details. You can order the book now directly from Stone Skin's shop, and it should be available from other retailers very soon.

It's the little things

OK, I haven't updated this blog in a while, and as it is now December, I thought should post at least once more in 2014. (Note to self: update blog quarterly in 2015!)

Evergreen trees in the snow - just because!

A while back, I participated in that "10 books that stayed with you" list on Facebook. One of the people whom I had tagged to participate in the list-making later mentioned in her comments that she should have also included my first book, Fortune Cookie, on her list. As you might imagine, I was hugely flattered.

Before I was published writer, I had "delusions of grandeur" and assumed I'd be famous and that my words would touch thousands of people. And of course, I'd get to go on Oprah and my books would be bestsellers. Instead, it seems that my words have touched much tinier numbers. But that's OK, as a small press Canadian writer, my audience is not exactly large. However, hearing from the handful who have been moved or affected by my work has made my writing efforts feel meaningful. In the same vein, I have another "fan friend" who reads Fortune Cookie every year as her "end of the year" book, which is both humbling and massively gratifying.

So what I'm trying to say is: for writers like me, it's the little things that make the writing process all worthwhile.

The Writers Blog Tour: I’m Up!

Carrianne Leung, author of the Toronto Book Award nominated, The Wondrous Woo, has tapped me and Lisa de Nikolits to take part in the next stop of the ongoing Writers Blog Tour. 

I must say that I’m grateful to Carrianne for giving me this much-needed kick in the keyboard, as it’s been an unduly long time since I last updated this blog. I promise my subsequent update won’t be after quite such a long interlude. Hey, I've even half-written my next post. Honest! 

 So, without further ado, here are my four Writers Blog Tour questions and answers.

What am I working on?

I’m currently creating a young adult novel (working title - Overshadowed) that’s essentially a parody of Twilight and other popular YA fantasy books. The novel’s protagonist is a snarky 15-year-old science nerd named Veronica, whose mother just happens to be the author of an internationally popular fantasy series for teens. Veronica HATES her mother’s books, which feature helpless female characters and teenagers who transform into zombies and werewolves for daring to engage in sexual activity. Things get wacky when it appears that Veronica is falling for a pale and brooding transfer student named Theo, and Veronica begins to wonder if she is somehow recreating the story line out of one of her mother’s books. 

How does my work differ from others of its genre?

Hmm, interesting question as everyone's work differs in some way. For this project, I would say that the writing is mainstream YA fiction meets feminist literary fiction meets the fantasy genre, so I guess that’s a bit different. The book aims to be funny (I hope) and doesn’t take itself too seriously. Veronica makes for a somewhat prickly protagonist rather than a straight up heroine, but she does kick butt in her own special way.

Why do I write what I do?

I’m not sure I really know the answer to this question. I write what I write about because “something” is compelling me to do so. Sometimes, this is a particularly clear and strong urge but often it is not. At times, I write what I write because the project makes me happy, and at other times, it’s because I have something I feel I MUST say. In the case of my Overshadowed project, I’m writing it because, as a feminist, I’m somewhat horrified by the popularity of the Twilight books, what with the series’ regressive politics and all. But mostly, I'm working on the book because I find it fun and it makes me laugh.

 How does my writing process work?

It depends. My “process” is all over the place, depending on what else is going on in my life or how I feel about the particular project I’m working on. I tend to write a lot of “semi-comprehensible” notes about my ongoing writing projects, but rarely work from detailed outlines. I write best in the mornings, but I also work well with actual looming deadlines, because I don’t think ever quite got over my “finish homework only at the last minute” syndrome. I do have a terrible tendency to want to polish and edit my work at too early a stage, rather than just ploughing through the early drafts. I’m trying to correct this tendency because I think it will improve my process over the long haul, but it "ain't easy" as they say. My favourite parts of the process are those “aha” times when I’m not “over-trying” and ideas and characters and plot points just seem to organically emerge from me. I just wish those eureka moments happened more often! But hey, the ebb and flow of creativity are a writer's lot in life.

Richard Scarsbrook is up next on the tour, so watch his blog for updates. Please also check out Mary Lou Dickinson's Blog Tour post. Lisa and I both tagged her on the tour, but Lisa got there first!

IWD/MONTH REDUX

Note: This is an old piece by me that was originally written for the Shebytches blog a couple of years ago. Since it's all still relevant. I thought I put up here too.

IN AND OUT AS A LIONESS

The old (pre-climate change) maxim has it that if March comes in like a lion, it will go out as a lamb. Well, as March is International Women's Month, I say let March come in and come out like a lioness!

To that end, I say let's get after the Federal Government and give them a piece of our collective minds about their cynical "health initiative" for women in poor countries that somehow doesn't include access to contraception and abortion.

While we're at, let's get after the various levels of government to include money in their upcoming budgets for day care and sexual assault prevention programs. At the local level, make sure you support your neighbourhood women's bookstore, drop in centre and other grassroots feminist organizations.

And when March end, keep that lioness spirit going for the rest of the year!

http://www.un.org/en/events/womensday/

THE NEXT BIG THING!

I was asked by my friend and fellow scribe Richard Scarsbrook to participate in "The Next Big Thing" project. TNBT is a way for wordsmiths to promote upcoming work. Basically, a writer answers ten questions about a new work and then get other writers to do the same. It's sort a online literary chain letter, only way cooler. Or something like that ;) So without further ado, here are my Next Big Thing Q & A's:

What is your working title of your book?


Women’s Hours

Where did the idea come from for the book?


I was going through some of my various short stories and realized that many were about women and their various relationships, so I thought I should write more pieces that fit into that general theme and voila... a short story collection!

What genre does your book fall under?

Literary short fiction


Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?


Since it’s a collection of short stories, I would imagine that any film would be made up of four or five vignettes. For one of the 20-something break-up vignettes, I’d choose Lena Dunham to play the female protagonist.

And I'd choose Robert Pattinson to play the jerky boyfriend who deserves to be dumped.

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

Women's Hours is a short story collection, which explores the various relationships of female protagonists.


Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

Don’t know yet. I need to finish it first!


How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?


Well, as I’m still writing it, the answer is complicated. Several of the stories were written as stand-alones over five years ago. I only started to think of them as a collection a few months ago. I’m guessing it will take me about year to write the additional stories. Or maybe less, if a book contract suddenly appears on the horizon.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

I’m lightyears away from Alice Munro’s stratosphere of talent and skill. However, if I were to put on my marketing and puffery hat, the work could be considered in the vein of a youthful urban-oriented Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage.


Who or what inspired you to write this book?


I’m also working on a young adult novel, which is a long, long, long way from being finished. When I was writing my first novel, Fortune Cookie, I wrote short stories when I wasn’t getting anymore on the book. I thought that working on a short collection at the same time would help me feel less frustrated with my slowish progress on the new YA book.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

Most of the stories are very short, so they can be read on transit, on a coffee breaks or in the bathroom. Several of them are funny. Or at least, I think so.

And now check out The Next Big Things of these wonderful writers.

Danila Botha

Sonia Di Placido

Kristyn Dunnion

Kathryn Mockler

Carolina Smart

I'VE READ THIS STORY BEFORE

Note: This post was originally written for and posted on the wonderful and now-defunct Shebytches blog in July 2009. Since it's a fave, I thought I'd give it a second life.

Much as I like to claim I’m only 29, I was actually born in the “Swinging Sixties” — that progressive era when it was perfectly acceptable to fire a woman just for being pregnant. My own mother lost her job when she was five months pregnant with me because her position interessante ("interesting or delicate condition") had become visible, and it was no longer proper for her to be "seen". Two months prior, my mother had been due for a raise and was denied it on the grounds that she would soon be resigning on account of "her condition".

Ironically, when my mother was very close to her delivery date, her former employer was in desperate need of her services. Mum had been the only native English speaker in the Montreal office, and the company president was coming from Toronto for some high-powered meetings. My heavily pregnant mother was temporarily re-engaged, so she could transcribe the meeting notes. The proceedings were even filmed for television news. After giving birth to me and then my sister a year later, Mum took advantage of her "delicate conditions" and went back to school to get her BA, MA and PhD.

Earlier in the '60s, my mother had a summer job at an insurance agency. On a Thursday late into that summer, one of her co-workers (a recent immigrant) confided to some of the female staff that she would be away on the Friday because she was nine months pregnant. Her child would be born on the Saturday, and she had planned to be back working on the Monday. When the other women asked the mother-to-be why she had kept her pregnancy a secret, she said she feared losing her job, as she and her husband were dependent on the income. Unfortunately, someone ratted on the woman. She was called into the managers office and fired immediately. My mother can't recall the woman's name, but to this day, Mum is still haunted by the devastated look on her face.

Maternity leave benefits were first included in the Canadian unemployment insurance system in 1971. The program was expanded over the years and now includes parental leave for spouses, as well as for adoptive parents. So the sad stories of the '50s and '60s are supposed be relics of the past. Unfortunately it seems that, in 2009, some employers are using the "Recession Excuse" to flagrantly break the law and not re-hire women returning from their maternity leaves. It just goes to show that contemporary women must make themselves aware of our foremothers' breakthroughs and to guard against any and all attempts to "turn back the clock."

Check out my June 2011 piece on Shaun Smith's Fiction Craft!