November 16th, 2018

Indignities

This is a post about indignities I have suffered in my life as a professional writer. I have been keeping this post going for a while, adding to it occasionally, then going back and deleting or mitigating stuff, forever adding to the header apology to the tune of I KNOW I’m privileged, ok? I know I’m lucky to have my work even considered worth reading by anyone at all, to have my voice heard in any space, and that there are so many who don’t get that opportunity. To complain, as a writer, about being treated rudely, about being occasionally silenced or ignored, when I am so often treated with generosity and listened to thoughtfully, is that just whiny jerkdom?

Yes. But if I acknowledge that I am sometimes whiny, can the world also acknowledge that people shouldn’t be rude to me, or waste my time, or aggressively push me to work for no money? I’m going to say all of the above is true, and until the world pays up on its side of the bargain, I’m very very very occasionally going to whine.

1) Once I wrote a piece for a journal that then emailed to ask me for my SIN so they could send payment. I know very well that there is no reason anyone needs a SIN to pay me but to keep the piece I called to give it. When I called the number it turned out to be some dude’s cell # and he was surprised to hear from me. I told him my SIN, which I assume he wrote on his hand. A few months later I got an email accusing me of having not provided my SIN–the email didn’t even entertain the notion that the publication could have lost it. This time I just emailed it because I didn’t want to talk to that guy again. All told it was a year before I got paid. The amount? $25.

2) Several times I’ve been on festival panels or included in other events with authors I was really excited to meet. I had read their books and genuinely admired them. Some of these folks have been extremely gracious and lovely and generous but some of them have shut me down COLD. The impression I have gotten was that they were saving all their energy for their fans in the audience, but I thought it was funny that it never occurred to them that they could have fans among their fellow authors too. I also thought it might be nice to be gracious to be even people who aren’t your fans.

3) There was a period where I was earning freelance money above the threshold for charging GST (this was before HST) so I had a business number and a separate tax account and had to charge GST on all my freelance work–this is the law. One journal told me they “didn’t have budget” for taxes and simply didn’t pay it. Many other journals seemed baffled that GST even existed for creative work–I guess not a lot of creative writers earn above the threshold (most of my freelance income came from other areas)–but only one flat-out refused to pay it. Imagine trying that in a store! I had to pay it out of my own pocket, of course.

4) I once showed up for an in-person interview when I was travelling on a tight schedule for readings. When I got into the journalist’s office, he announced, “I didn’t read your book, but I wanted to give you a chance at the coverage anyway.” Basically, he was giving me the opportunity to talk awkwardly about my work with no questions while a stranger stared me. Lucky duck.

5) More than once, someone has agreed on my behalf that I’ll do readings or to do guest writing or similar things without telling me until a few days before. These things never involved payment, of course, and I couldn’t get out of them without embarrassing all involved. I did them. I was very tired.

6) A friend of an acquaintance once asked me to blurb his book because he already had some male blurbers and needed a woman to balance them out. He told me he hadn’t read my work but his friend told him it was good. I passed.

7) Someone once took the time to write me an email about how bad my book was based solely on the text on the Amazon buy page. The email was longer than said text. A good friend had to talk me out of writing back to tell him how stupid this was.

8) A literary festival I was invited to read at once couldn’t (or wouldn’t, I now wonder) order my books for their on-site bookstore. They told me I could bring books to the festival and the bookstore would sell them on consignment, but when I got there it was clear that the bookstore staff was not set up to keep consignment money separate–if they sold any of my books, they were going to keep the money or it was going to be a giant mess. To make a reasonable stack in the display took 5-6 books–so more than $100, a lot of money to me then (ok, and now) so I chose to just keep the books in my backpack and if anyone wanted one they could buy them directly from me. One woman did ask me, after my event, where she could by my book. I started to take one out of my bag for her and she *backed away*. This one is a sort of 2-for-1 indignity.

9) I once contributed work to anthology for free because I was told the anthology was being sold for charity. Later I got an email announcing the launch party that said explicitly that those contributors on that email couldn’t come, because the venue was small and other more fabulous contributors like x, y, and z were coming, and we could see what a bind they were in! I did not dispute that x, y, and z were much more fabulous than I, but was aware that there are a) bigger venues and b) nicer ways to word that email.

10) So many times, someone has come to one of my readings (often very late–I can see you!) and then, in the Q&A, asked a question about their own self as if the event had not taken place.

11) When I was teaching creative writing in high schools, my students refused to learn my name and always addressed me as “Miss.” I told them they were welcome to call me Ms. Rosenblum or Rebecca, I told them I didn’t identify by my marital status, I told them it’s disrespectful to call someone a name they don’t identify by–no dice. Even the good students that seemed to like me–Miss. It made me feel like a scullery maid.

12) Every time someone who has ever promised to pay me by x date and then when I enquired at x + 2 weeks why I hadn’t been paid, acted like I was being kind of grabby or like it was weird that just because they said that date, that I would have counted on it as a fact??

13) The several times I’ve mentioned to a male writer I just met that I liked his work. They engaged immediately, asked follow-up questions, and seemed very friendly. As soon as I had run out of praise and thought to move on to another topic of literary conversation, the fellows saw someone over my shoulder they had to talk to asap. I’ve learned–don’t lead with flattery, even if it’s true. See if the writer can act like a person first. Also sorry: it’s not all dudes, but it’s always dudes.

14) The time I got left at the train station going to a festival, the time I got locked out of an event space, and especially the time the event space double-booked AND THE ORGANIZERS MADE US GO AHEAD ANYWAY.

15) Solicited submissions rejected by form letter or silence. Obvs, I’m not expecting an automatic yes, but if we’re colleagues enough that you can hit me up personally for work, you can also reject it personally.

16) Doing a commissioned piece AND all the editorial work before being told a person I didn’t even know was involved in the process had rejected it. When I tried to end the relationship on a cordial note despite some decidedly uncordial feelings, I of course received silence. Grr.

17) The time I was shortlisted for a prize and told a) I could not come to the prize announcement because there wasn’t enough room and b) only the winner would be notified–they didn’t even want to email me a second time to tell me who won if it wasn’t me. I found out who won by googling it, eventually.

18) Once an editor got in touch to ask me if I would be interviewed for a journal. When I agreed, he said an interviewer would be in touch. What I got was a note saying in order to make this a “collaborative” process, I should come with some questions and then answer them.

19) All the times the stage for readers has been to high to step onto wearing a skirt.

20) The time there was a chocolate fountain at a formal event for writers. Nope. That was mean.

December 10th, 2017

Lists and one more reading

Lists: I’m a huge fan of inclusive and exhaustive lists like, say 1000 Things We Like (which somehow got away from me this year but is coming BACK in 2018, I swear). I love including, adding, having lots, inviting everyone in. I’m less cool with the actual main function of lists, which is to both include and exclude. Witness those horrible grade 3 lists of “cool girls,” which my having gone to a tiny country school with only two other girls in my grade did not allow me to dodge. Who was on those lists? I do not know; not me.

So I’m slightly uncomfortable with lists, overall. They are as subjective as anything else–one man’s #1 is another man’s #754345–but in a context like reviews, the subjective at least gets limited to the matter at hand. Oh, I don’t know–I’m viewing things rather darkly these days. I keep trying to write a year-end post but crying so I never finish it, so this is what you get instead. Lucky you.

Which is all a rather confusing way of saying, So Much Love made the Globe 100 best books of 2017 list and that’s lovely. It’s actually on the Quill and Quire list as well, though that’s not online at the moment.

I also contributed to a list! The very smart Stacey May Fowles asked contributors to the Open Book Best Books of the Year list to define best however we liked, and I defined it as the tough, wise, and beautiful short stories in Cynthia Flood’s new collection from Biblioasis What Can You Do.

Needless to say, there’s tonnes of other great stuff I had nothing to do with on all three lists and you should read them all and probably pick a bunch of books to read from there. BUT in the meantime, I’m doing my last reading of 2017 tomorrow night, so maybe you should also come to that! It’s The Common Reading Series 8pm December 11 at the Belljar Cafe. I’ll be reading with the lovely and talented Mark Sampson and Cornelia Hoogland.

Following that, I do have a couple other literary irons in the fire that I could work on until the end of the year. I might even finish that year-end post sans weeping. I might just bake things and read. I’ll keep you posted as the situation develops.

October 31st, 2017

Readings this week

Just in case you feel like we don’t spend enough time together, here’s where you can catch me this week…

Wednesday night, 6-8pm, I’ll be an opening reader at Ben McNally Books along with the talented Emily Saso and the also talented Mark Sampson in support of Daniel Griffin‘s exciting new novel Two Roads Home. Can’t wait to hear everyone read and see Daniel’s new book!

Saturday afternoon from 1:30 to 2:50pm Wild Writers Festival in Waterloo as part of their fiction panel hosted by Claire Tacon, along with Lori McNulty, Alicia Elliot and Trevor Corkum. I’ve loved the Wild Writers Festival since it got started, and I’m thrilled to be participating–can’t wait!

October 16th, 2017

An exciting weekend ahead

I had a month off between exciting book-related travels, and I thought I was going to use that time in part to write exciting non-book-related blog posts, but instead I recovered from the previously mentioned sinus infection, re-started trying to write a new book and slept…a lot. Sleep is really great, I recommend it. And now, here we are again, with me about to get back on the road with #somuchlove2017 No complaints here, but it does seem like a bit of a whirlwind! Anyway, here’s what’s coming up!

Saturday October 21, 4-5 pm, I’ll be on the So Much Forward panel at Bookfest Windsor with Eva Crocker and Heidi Jacobs

Sunday October 22, 2-3 pm, I’ll be on the Writing with Emotion panel at Stratford Writers Festival with Jennifer Robson and Deborah Cooke, moderated by Mark Medley. Here’s a short interview I did with the Stratford Fest folks.

Both festivals sound amazing, with tonnes of great readings, panels and other events–my only sadness is that with the two events being back to back, I can’t attend everything at both fests! On the other hand, I will have lots of train time for reading all the books I acquire, so that is a definite upside! Anyway, hope to see an friends in the area at these lovely festivals–can’t wait!

September 29th, 2017

WordFeast Fredericton

Today is PechaKucha Night at Markham Village Library so I’m already on to other things, but I want to flash back to the glorious 3 days I spent in New Brunswick last weekend for WordFeast Fredericton.

It was so great! I had never been a headliner before, so it was a bit terrifying to have three events scheduled in two days, but it was also amazing and exciting to be meeting readers in such a range of ways–a lecture on unlikeable characters Friday night, a workshop on characters and dialogue on Saturday afternoon, and a reading from So Much Love on Saturday night.

There’s a nice account of the Friday night lecture in The Aquinian, which is the student newspaper at St. Thomas University in Fredericton–there were a few other nice articles but unfortunately most of the newspapers in New Brunswick are behind a paywall so I can’t share them. There’s a great photo of me and Riel Nason enjoying a Q&A with Colleen Kitts-Goguen, and another of festival organizer and Fredericton Cultural Laureate and general mastermind Ian LeTourneau.

Everyone I encountered at the fest–reader, volunteer, director, organizer, writer, or just enjoyer of things literary–was so terribly kind and friendly. And Fredericton itself is the sweetest, prettiest little city–and I had the best weather for wandering around trying to get my bearings, going to the farmer’s market, walking on the walking bridge, being toured around by my cousins-in-law, and just generally enjoying every minute.

Sunday night I took the bus down to Moncton to spend the day with my dear friend Art (he is actually one of my husband’s oldest friends, and officiated at our wedding–Art is one of the bonuses I picked up in the marriage!) and his high-school scholars. In Art’s unique classroom, teenagers are meeting their considerable life challenges with literary theory and granola bars, and it was a truly edifying day for me–and hopefully for them. I did my best to make the world of writing and stories and publishing sound possible and interesting to their ears, and sometimes I think I succeeded. Certainly everyone made me feel welcomed and heard, and I tried to return the favour. It was an amazing experience.

And then a very tired me flew home! I’ve talked with other lit folks about what it takes to feel like a “real writer” and it’s different things on different days for different people, but having others take an interest in my work, getting to talk about it and explore it with other engaged readers, is a huge one for me, and this weekend was a great gift.

September 12th, 2017

So Much Love on the road this fall

I’ve been remiss getting my full fall tour dates up, and I still suspect I’ll add or change one or two of these…but here’s the basics. I would really love to see some friends at these events, or some friends of friends if you happen to know people in these cities. I haven’t been doing many readings this summer so I’m feeling a bit nervous since it all starts soon and intensely…I have a book-club dinner next week, which is exciting but nerve-wracking too, and then onward to…

September 22-24: Word Feast Fredericton I’ll be doing a lecture on one my favourite topics, unlikeable characters in Canadian literature and why we sort of like them (official title: Sorry Not Sorry) on the Friday evening, followed by a workshop on character and dialogue on the Saturday afternoon and a reading on the Saturday evenings. Whoo. Then I have Sunday off to frolic with my cousins-in-law who live in Fredericton and head down to Moncton to do some classroom visits on Monday… An intense but hopefully amazing weekend…

September 29: Pecha Kucha Night at the Markham Village Library will find me and my husband, the lovely and talented Mark Sampson presenting on life and love with another writer. There will be a number of other interesting presentations that evening, plus snacks and a bar! I hear tickets are going fast…

October 21: I’ll be presenting/reading at Bookfest Windsor! They don’t have my event on the website yet, but I’m thrilled to be headed back to Windsor, a bookish and surprisingly beautiful city.

October 22: I’m excited to be on a panel at the Stratford Writers Festival at 2pm with Jennifer Robson and Deborah Cooke, moderated by Mark Medley, entitled “Writing with Emotion.” I think I know something about that…I think…

November 4: I’ve been to the Wild Writers Festival in Waterloo, put on by my beloved New Quarterly a number of times as reader, but this will be my first time on stage. I’ll be on the fiction panel with Alicia Elliott, Trevor Corkum, and Lori McNulty. Yay!

November 23: I’ll be back in Markham for a solo reading at the Markham Village Library

And that’s fall…hope to see you out there!

July 31st, 2017

Niceness and fall

My last post might have made it seem like So Much Love is being constantly inundated with reviews and criticism, but heading into its fifth month of life, that’s not really the case. There are still some nice mentions popping up here and there, though, which are fun to read and share, like getting to be on this summer reading list in The Star on Friday or Cathy Thinking Out Loud’s pairing So Much Love with White Sangria. Who knew? I love seeing my book resonating with folks in different ways…

I’m pretty much on hiatus from events until fall. Mark and I did a few things at the end of June/beginning of July while we were technically on vacation in the Maritimes because when else are we there and also, two books in one season in one marriage? Too lovely too resist. But otherwise I’ve largely had the summer off from literary events and will be good and energetized when I get back to them in September. Here’s a few that are scheduled–there’s more on the calendar later in fall but the September ones are a bit firmer and of more immediate concern with regard to your CLEARING YOUR SCHEDULE SO YOU CAN BE THERE. Anyways…

WordFeast Festival in Fredericton will be hosting me for a couple days. I will be giving a lecture on the evening of Friday September 22, following a reading by author Riel Nason. The next day, I’ll be giving a two hour workshop and that evening I’ll be reading from So Much Love as part of an evening of readings and music.

Closer to home, my husband Mark Sampson will be participating in a the PechaKucha Night on September 29 (tickets are free, but you still have to book them–click the link for the EventBrite page). PechaKucha I think means chitchat in Japanese and basically means a night of short, fun presentations on a bunch of interesting topics. Ours will be, natch, on the wonders of being married to a writer.

Somewhere in there I’m also doing a few private events–school visits, a book club–all of which I’m looking forward to! If you are in Markham or Fredericton, I hope you can come to one of these, or else one of the other Fall events, or invite me to something else–I love to go to stuff!

June 19th, 2017

Next we take the Maritimes

My husband, the writer and lovely human Mark Sampson and I drive to the Maritimes every other summer to visit friends and family, and since we both have books out this year, we are combining it with some readings, adding up to an adorably couply little tour. We’re actually a good pairing because my book is pretty dark while his latest novel The Slip is quite funny. So it’s a well-balanced evening of entertainment!

We kick off at Tidewater Books in Sackville, New Brunswick at 7pm, June 26. Invitation here. Followed by June 29, 6:30pm at the Confederation Centre Library in Charlottetown, invitation here. We wind up in Halifax at a booksellers’ conference, but that’s not open to the public so I won’t link it here. There may be one more Nova Scotia event, so please stay tuned…

If none of that works for you, I’ll be back in New Brunswick in the fall to take part in the delightfully named Word Feast Festival in Fredericton September 22-23; I’ll also be doing some school visits in Moncton on the 25th.

If you are an eastern type person, hope to see you at one of these events…

May 11th, 2017

The Slip by Mark Sampson

This is an exciting spring at my house–my book came out in March and now, on May 20, my husband Mark Sampson‘s third novel The Slip will be published by Dundurn Press. All the reviews–and there have already been some great ones in Publishers Weekly, Quill and Quire, and more–agree that it is funny and it really is, a fast and absurd but also somehow realistic take on how fast we can f up our lives in this age of the internet. I *could* be a little biased but with the above reviews on my side, I really don’t think I am. You should read it–in 9 more days!! And then you should come to the launch party on May 31, 6pm at Ben McNally Books, which promises to be a lot of fun!

Also nice, for the first time since we’ve met, Mark and I will have books out in the same season, which makes it a little easier for us to do events together. We’re starting out with Pongapalooza on May 16, where we will each captain ping-pong teams and attempt to lead them to victory in a bitter marital rivalry (this is a fundraiser for First Book Canada, actually). Then I’m taking a little breather from events but when we are out east, ostensibly on summer vacation, we’ll be doing at least one, reading at the Confederation Library in Charlottetown the evening of June 29, with a few more events possibly to come.

But my real point here is, yay Mark!

May 8th, 2017

IFOA with Kerry Clare and Amy Jones on Wednesday

I’m so very excited to be participating in IFOA Weekly this Wednesday May 10 at 7:30pm with Kerry Clare and Amy Jones, hosted by Sheniz Janmohamed. In anticipation, I did this interview for the IFOA blog. Good times! If you’re in Toronto and enjoy high-quality discussion of books, you should really join us Wednesday.

Other news about me/So Much Love in the world? Well, there’s this lovely interview with Joseph Planta on The Commentary, reviews in/on Ultra Violent Lit and a few other mentions thither and yon. I’m starting to think about a few events this summer and even into the fall and I’ve even been invited to a couple bookclubs, all of which I’m excited about.