August 5th, 2011
Mentions
Just FYI, the current print editions of Quill and Quire and Fashion both have little bits about The Big Dream. They aren’t reviews, just mentions that the book is coming out in the fall–though the one in *Fashion* does call the stories “Coupland-esque,” which is rather nice. But it’s also just nice to know they know, you know?
July 11th, 2011
Hello, Canada!!
Hey guys, I’m back. I went to England for 11 days of mainly awesomeness and a little bit of rain and projectile vomiting. I’m planning a massive post on the subject (Rose-colour Reviews England) but that will take some time, so I just wanted to check in and say hi!
Also wanted to let you all know that I did a guest post at the wonderful site Canadian Bookshelf all about my new book, in case you are interested.
And I have a reading coming up on August 8 to launch the summer fiction issue of Fiddlehead (if you follow that link, you can also get a sneak peak at a few of the stories in the journal, including mine. If you don’t make it to every or any reading of mine well, that’s understandable, but I urge you to consider this one, as I’ll be reading with Mark Jarman and Leon Rooke, two of Canada’s very greatest short-story greats, and likely a couple other awesome people besides. And it’s at the Dora Keogh pub, a delightful place to be, so you can’t really go wrong.
Stay tuned for detailed descriptions about old buildings, scones, and rail service in jolly old England!
June 11th, 2011
What I’m Doing Tomorrow
Just a reminder that I’ll be reading in St. Catherine’s tomorrow (Sunday) afternoon at 3pm, in the fine fine company of short-story-ist Carolyn Black and poet Jacob McArthur Mooney. This reading is part of 31 days of reading in June in the Niagara reading, as part of the Niagara Literary Arts Festival, a very very cool endeavour.
If you can join us tomorrow, please follow the link and scroll down to June 12 for more details. If you can’t make it tomorrow, click the link and scroll through the many options of awesomeness to see what else you might enjoy. There’s tonnes of good stuff!
May 24th, 2011
New York Was Great…
is a song by the The Raveonettes that you should really listen to–it’s great!
My own experiences in the big city weren’t quite great, but were certainly very good, although by the time we were taxiing down the runway I had worked myself to such a state of anxiety that any scenario in which I did not actually die would have qualified as passable.
Despite the title of this blog, I can be a little pessimistic sometimes.
But really, when I am in such a state of terror over presenting my book to a giant group of strangers, it is helpful to be reminded that I am so lucky to have support and encouragement from my publisher to do it, and indeed, a book at all to present.
And of course, the strangers were perfectly lovely, warm and open and very excited about books–an excellent group of people to spend an evening with. Also, whoever had catered the event made these little chocolate-chip cookie/brownie hybrids that I hope someday to marry.
I did have some other obstacles that were harder to look in the brightside of, but I did try. Like when I got prescribed the wrong medication and had a reaction in the form of a hideous empurpling rash over my entire body right before the event, I was…somewhat dismayed. Also itchy. But I can be grateful that the rash mysteriously disappeared from my face within 24 hours, though it lingered itchily on the rest of me.
And when I had to abandon my lovely, expensive dress that I’d specially purchased for the occasion, in favour of something that covered every inch of my now-hideous body (including a man’s shirt with cuffs that covered my hands) it turned out to be a blessing in disguise, because New York was way colder than Toronto, and I wouldn’t have wanted to be out in that sleeveless dress, anyway.
And when my hotel failed to give me my 3:45 am wakeup call, it turned out I really enjoyed that extra 15 minutes of sleep until my backup alarm went off, and would’ve just been bored at the airport during that extra time anyway.
Of course, the best part of the event was all the other wonderful writers who presented their work, and gave me so much to think about (and read!) What’s really lucky about my life is how much time I get to spend with fascinating people, talking about books.
Or maybe the best thing was being greeted at the airport at home with flowers and party hats to celebrate my birthday.
In all events, I’m a lucky person.
AND as you can see in this last shot, the rash is nearly gone from my arms now (but don’t look at my ankles–blech).
I hope you had a really great holiday weekend too!
May 19th, 2011
Upcomings
I use this post title a lot, but everything that is not now is upcoming, so the upcoming occurs a lot. Sorry, that’s an awful sentence; I’ve been ill. Hopefully to be better soon. Here’s what’s going on!
Ok, this one actually is from now, but also upcoming–I answered question 5 of The Devil’s Engine on Thirsty blog, and have a few more answers in the pipeline. This is a discussion of Biblioasis’s short-story authors about stories and their writing, so if interested, please read and stay tuned.
I’m reading at the Niagara Literary Arts Festival on June 12 (scroll down to that date to see the listing), in the fine company of Carolyn Black and Jacob McArthur Mooney. If you should be in St. Catherines that afternoon, please check us out.
My story, “Dream Inc.”, is forthcoming in The Fiddlehead‘s summer fiction issue. Rest assured, I’ll let you know when it’s available!
April 25th, 2011
Just wanted to mention
…that my article on advice columns (one of my favourite things) is in the April Issue of Aggregation Magazine.
Also, thanks to all who voted on my author photo–much appreciated! If you haven’t yet but still want to, please view the photos and post your favourite in the comments on that post by noonish tomorrow, at which point I hope to wrap things up. Interestingly: *all* of the photos have a reasonable number of votes.
Ok, that’s it for now!
April 21st, 2011
Rebecca’s author photo–you can vote!
So sometimes being a writer in my own little way is pretty much the best thing on earth, because it gives me license to do strange projects in the name of art, and to enlist others. Last weekend, I got to do my dream photo-shoot, which was me on a bus, being semi-serious, semi-goofball. Thanks–so much–to Dave Kemp for humouring me in this endeavour. It was as fun as I thought it would be–maybe more.
Here (below) are the links to my top 5 pictures (selected with J and the photographer’s help). What is your favourite? I can actually keep two, to use in different situations if I want, so it’s ok if you declare a tie:
Selection 1
Selection 2
Selection 3
Selection 4
Selection 5
April 20th, 2011
Interview on Open Book
I’m still super-frazzled and stressed, with nothing interesting to say. However, before it all went downhill I did an interview with the very insightful Angela Hibbs for Open Book. You might want to read it either because you miss the days when I used to be coherent, or because you want to see examples excellent literary interview questions. I was truly delighted by the level of depth in the questions; I only hope my answers live up to them.
April 12th, 2011
What’s this book about?
Bookstore employees, librarians, students and teachers answer this question with aplomb–accurately, succintly, and without hestitation–but I think anyone who has actually written and published a book knows how baffling it is. Something 200 pages, or even less, full of people and places and thoughts and ideas, is not easy to sum up. Even if there is in fact a spy, a grim police investigator, a hooker with a heart of gold, and a car chase through the Andes, the guy who spent a year or two of his life writing it is not going to say, “Classic spy novel,” and leave it at that. Once you’ve spent hours and days and weeks poring over the minutiae of the characters’ lives, you’ll never be able to boil them down to quick descriptors–they are far too human and complex and difficult and weird and…oh, if you really want to know, why not read the book?
Basically, when someone asks me what my book is about (either one), I am extremely tempted to say, “Everything.” Because though the characters and situations in the stories are deeply specific, unique, and definite, the book itself represents my way of seeing the world: what I think is important, worth noticing, worth dismissing, funny, strange, exciting, stupid, boring, and/or cool. A book is a world view because a book is by its nature a microcosm: what get left in versus ignored constitutes what the writer sees as important.
I can’t say for sure, having not gotten very far down the road yet, but I think this might be more pronounced in writers early in their careers. You have so many years (nearly 30, in my case) to work up to your first book and then–well, most people’s first books aren’t satires of European governance. First books are usually very personal, which is not at all to say autobiographical (though many are, of course): you can tell who people are through what they care about, just as easily as through what they’ve done.
And all this is to say: I’m having trouble coming up with a decent summary of The Big Dream. I had this problem with *Once* too–it took me months *after* the book came out to work up a competent summary of what one might expect in reading it. This necessity shouldn’t have taken me by surprise–I wouldn’t read anything that had offered no clue what it was about. But it’s only being on the inside that has shown me how hard it is to offer that clue.
So, here’s what I’ve come up with so far–what do you think? Sure, I’d like people to want to read the book after reading this paragraph, but even more important is that they have some sense of what they would experience if they did. After all, there are people in the world who would just *hate* this book, based on who they are and what they want when they read–they might as well be able to flag an inappropriate choice from the outset and not get involved. So, do you think this gives you a clue?
The Big Dream is a collection of short stories about life at the Canadian offices of Dream Inc., an American lifestyle-magazine publisher. In a tough market, the staff is struggling to do their jobs well–or even to keep them. But they’re also trying to have friends, to be good parents and good children, to eat lunch and answer the phone and be happy. The Big Dream is a book about how life doesn’t stop on company time. It’s about how the “dream job” and dream life that is supposed to accompany it do not necessarily happen, but the joys and sorrows and sandwiches of waking life are more than enough to occupy our minds and hearts. The Big Dream is a book not about jobs, but about the people who have them.
March 12th, 2011
Variosky
A few random things I’ve been meaning to tell you:
–The Santa Fe Writers Project followed up that review of my book with an interview with Sheila Lamb which was lots of fun (for me, anyway).
–I’ll be reading at the first edition reading series in Perth, Ontario, on April 8. My fellow readers will be Tish Cohen and Mark Sampson
–I finally saw the And Also Sharks book trailer, which is hilarious and brilliant, and it makes the fact that I don’t own that book yet all the more distressing
–At 2am tonight, you need to spring your clocks forward an hour, which means you probably need to confirm your brunch plans for tomorrow
