Marcie McCauley

Some of the pitches I’ve made-to review or discuss these new and forthcoming works-will likely land after I publish this, but I would be pleased to review all of these books, which are roughly listed in publication order.

If we’ve worked together previously, let me know your time-frame, and if you’re interested in working together for the first time, please share your rate information and specifics about your revision schedule. (This is only the third time I’ve posted a list like this: it worked well, but I’m not considering it a regular feature here yet.)

Sophia Lambton published this novel under her auspices at the crepuscular press. Her pitch revealed that she’d taken a peek at my reading preferences and she tailored the email in such a way that I was drawn into her passion for the story quickly.
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Manuel Astur’s Of Saints and Miracles from New Vessel Press is “a sensual portrayal of an outcast’s struggle to survive in a chaotic world of both tragedy and magical splendor” in translation by Claire Wadie.
REVIEW SPACE SECURED.

Suzette Mayr’s The Sleeping Car Porter from Coach House Books has already been listed for the Giller Prize. As I’m familiar with her backlist, I’m particularly keen to cover this novel in the context of her body of work.
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Ramona Emerson’s Shutter is a debut mystery from Soho Press, which also recently released the third novel in Marcie Rendon’s Cash Blackbear series; these Indigenous mystery novels would fit perfectly on the shelf next to Thomas King’s mystery series featuring Thumps DreadfulWater. Entertaining but quietly informative too.
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Randall Kenan’s Black Folk Could Fly is likely to end up on my list of favourite reads for this year. Discovering his work a few years ago, I pitched to review If I Had Two Wings, and then took the opportunity to read through his backlist, which is fantastic. W.W. Norton.
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Eric Dupont’s earlier fiction has impressed me and made me laugh out loud. I pitched to review Rosa’s Very Own Personal Revolution, in translation by Peter McCambridge, before I even read it, and it did not disappoint. The latest in QC Fiction‘s voice-driven and expectation-shattering line.
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Paul Sunga’s new novel from Goose Lane is Because of Nothing at All, which Sharon Bala describes as a “thoroughly absorbing read: a deep dive into capitalism and foreign aid that lays bare the limits of the latter, in the face of the former, and the absurdities of both.”
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Michelle Sinclair’s Almost Visible is a debut novel that explores “cultural and personal memory…[and] reflects on what can happen when a lonely person intervenes in another person’s life.” An epigraph from Simone Weil suggests this will be an interesting read from Baraka Books.
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Nicholas Herring’s Some Hellish from Goose Lane has already appeared on a literary prizelist. With a comparison to David Adams Richards on the cover, this is likely to veer towards the melancholic, but just leafing through the vivid writing and detail looks to balance that out.
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Also from Goose Lane, Gary Saunders’ Earthkeeping fits with the climate crisis and nature reading I’ve done in recent years. Because he has published many volumes in this sector, I’m keen to experience Saunders’ latest.
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Tomson Highway’s Laughing with the Trickster would have landed on my stack even without a reason. I’ve grown to love trickster stories, Highway is one of my MustReadEverything authors, and I’ve listened to so many of the Massey Lectures that I’m starting to think I should make a project of reading through the gaps. Anansi.
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As a sucker for a good love story, my interest in Sarah L. Taggart’s Pacifique was immediate and pressing. I’m expecting this to be somewhat unsettling but clever. Another provocative read from Coach House Books, it seems.
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Reviewing Larissa Lai’s The Lost Century was my first commissioned work. The ARC took longer than expected to arrive, which made me anxious and, then, I could tell within a few pages that I was going to need tiiiiime for this one: every detail counts but the prose seems effortless and the structure organic. Sometimes it’s more challenging to review a novel that I have really loved, but that’s a terrific problem to have. Arsenal Pulp.
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When I pitched to review Graeme Macrae Brunet’s Case Study, published by Biblioasis, it was before it had been listed for the Booker and before I’d read any of his other books. On a library browse, now some years in the past, I’d read a chunk of his debut novel (short-listed for the Booker more than five years ago) and loved it…in short, I was looking for an excuse to read his backlist.
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Ariane Lessard’s School for Girls (translated by Frances Pope) looks deliciously creepy. A couple of other books from QC Fiction have eerie-ed me out, so this one, which is openly identified as “disturbing” will probably scare the bejeebies out of me.
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Emily Saso’s Nine Dash Line from Freehand Books is a follow-up The Weather Inside, which I liked a lot. Jan Wong calls this both lyrical and mystical and it’ll add a new feather in my reading cap, as I don’t believe I’ve read another novel set in the South China Sea.
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Also from Freehand Books, Barbara Joan Scott’s The Taste of Hunger tells the story of a 15-year-old Ukrainian immigrant trapped in an unhappy marriage in 1920s Saskatchewan. Perhaps because I am in a very different kind of marriage myself, I gravitate towards stories about unhappy ones, so this intrigues me greatly.
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Mikka Jacobsen’s essay collection Modern Fables is blurbed by Suzette Mayr (see above) who calls them wicked. Also from Freehand Books.
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Marie Hélène Poitras’ strange novel Sing, Nightingale (in translation by Rhonda Mullins, whose translations always pull me close) is a loose hair down the back of my shirt. I both want to and dread reading it (partly due to the description of it being like Peter Greenaway meeting Angela Carter, with talk of secrets and revenge). Coach House Books.
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Some of the pitches I’ve made-to review or discuss these new and forthcoming works-will likely land after I publish this, but I would be pleased to review all of these books; if we’ve worked together previously, let me know your time-frame, and if you’re interested in working together for the first time, please share your rate information and specifics about your revision schedule. This is only the second time I’ve posted a list like this: it worked well, but I’m not considering it a regular feature here yet.)

J. D. Kurtness’ Aquariums from Dundurn Press. This 2019 novel, in a fresh translation by Pablo Strauss (whose work with Christiane Vadnais’ Fauna knocked off my proverbial socks), confronts the climate crisis in the context of marine biology. A trusted reading friend has urged me to push this one to the top of my stack.
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Also from Dundurn (their pocket-sized Rare Machines imprint), Eve Lemieux’s Like Animals (also translated from the French, this time by Cayman Rock) is a debut novel with a Montreal setting, inspired by “people who haven’t learned to love gently”.
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Another novel in translation from the French, this time from QC Fiction, Vincent Brault’s The Ghost of Suzuko (translated by Benjamin Hedley), also considers love and loss in an urban setting, this time Tokyo. There’s a mention of taxidermy, which has great symbolic potential (along with a squirm factor, of course).
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Elise Levine’s Say This, from Biblioasis, has strong appeal because I really enjoyed her debut stories and debut novel, years ago (Driving Men Mad and Requests & Dedications). I’m curious to see how her style and voice have developed since then. Lisa Moore blurbs this volume, two novellas, as “immersive, hyper-vivid and true.”
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Updated September 1/22: Review space secured

And speaking of shorter forms, Alex Pugsley’s Shimmer is out now from Biblioasis. I’m interested to see how much of his previous book was Aubrey and how much was the author (I reviewed Aubrey McKee for PRISM international a couple of years ago.) It’s a challenge that I particularly enjoy, capturing the flavour and intent of a collection of short stories.
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Dawn Promislow’s Wan is published by Freehand Books and blurbed by Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer, which immediately piques my interest. “A masterpiece…beautiful, painterly, sublime, and sonically exquisite.” That’s high praise. I’ve read few South African writers, so I am keen to explore Promislow’s writing in that context.
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Bookish memoirs: I love the idea of them. Marius Kociejowski’s A Factotum in the Book Trade, from Biblioasis, is no exception. This is one that I’ve pitched and, if it doesn’t land, I’m determined to try again and find a match. I’ve read widely in this sector and excited to see how this particular memoir fits into the puzzle of antiquarian bookselling narratives.
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From Goose Lane, Margaret Sweatman’s sixth book, The Gunsmith’s Daughter, is a coming-of-age story set in 1970s Manitoba. Based on Mr. Jones, I’m anticipating carefully selected historical details in combination with strong storytelling and emotional heft.
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Because I have followed her career closely, from earliest days, I was immediately interested to hear that Farzana Doctor has published a book of poems, You Still Look the Same, with Freehand Books. Viewed in the broader context of her writing, I’m eager to explore the way that familiar themes and preoccupations surface in a different form; I’m not equipped to analyze or contemplate this work as a volume of verse. That’s for the poets!
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Phew, you can hear the recoil of many of a reviewer in response to the summary of K.S. Covert’s debut novel from Dundurn, The Petting Zoo: all the talk of vaccines and masks, gloves and isolation. But in the context of post-apocalyptic CanLit and post-pandemic lit, there’s much to discuss.
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Len & Cub: A Queer History by Meredith J. Batt and Dusty Green, from Goose Lane, immediately appeals. It’s partly because of the abundance of visual material: there are so many expressive and evocative photographs in this volume. It’s also because the New Brunswick setting caught my eye; as much as I’ve tried to increase the amount of Atlantic Canadian reading in my stacks, New Brunswick’s stories remain in the minority, and here is an historical volume to address that gap.
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Everything about Sharon English’s novel Night in the World, from Freehand, intrigues me. I really loved Uncomfortably Numb back in 2002: authentic and heartfelt, with a particular way of bridging the specific and universal that spoke to me. Just leafing through this volume, I want to start reading right away, as a reader. But my experience with this setting and these themes makes it irresistible as a reviewer.
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Updated September 1/22: Review space secured

Another which excites me tremendously, too, is Andrew Hunter’s It Was Dark There All the Time: Sophia Burthen and the Legacy of Slavery in Canada, from Goose Lane, because last year I read a few dozen books about the legacy of slavery in the U.S. and Canada, none of which took quite the same approach as this volume. The cover blurb from Lawrence Hill increases my interest too: “Thoroughly researched, self-reflexive, soulful.”
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Updated September 1/22: Review space secured

Many of the pitches I’ve made-to review or discuss these new and forthcoming works-have landed. I would be pleased to review the other works as well; if we’ve worked together previously, let me know your time-frame, and if you’re interested in working together for the first time, please share your rate and revision schedule.

Murder on the Red River and Girl Gone Missing by Marcie R. Rendon are reissues of her Cash Blackbear mysteries centred on the White Earth Anishinaabe Nation from Soho Press. As with Thomas King’s Dreadfulwater mystery series, the dialogue and scene-work here (at a glance) look very interesting.
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Updated March 1/22: Review space secured
Updated September 1/22: Feature space secured

Also from Soho, Fuminori Nakamura’s The Thief (translated from the Japanese by Satoko Izumo and Stephen Coates) to assist in a review of My Annihilation (translated by Sam Bett and just published). This has proven to be a deceptively simple story about a pickpocket that’s slid into character-driven commentary on class and corruption.

Patrick McCabe’s Poguemahone, from Biblioasis. Presumably they needed a hefty tome for the other end of the bookshelf that sports Lucy Ellman’s Ducks, Newport (they’re her Canadian publisher). I’m new to McCabe and this is an excellent reason to explore his backlist. Am I intimidated? Yup, but I’ll sharpen my pencil. MAY 3, 2022
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Kristjana Gunnars’ The Scent of Light is a reissue of five of her novella-length works. I’ve already read, and absolutely love, Kazim Ali’s introduction, because when I first read Gunnars (three of the five books only), I did not have the vocabulary to articulate what I admired and warmed to and Ali says it all so astutely, so gracefully. “They are themselves alive. And in them a reader comes to life.” MAY 2022 Coach House
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Updated March 1/22: Review space tentatively secured.
Updated: March 22/22: Review space secured.

Anne Lardeux’s The Second Substance (translated from the French by Pablo Strauss) is described as “often funny, sometimes raunchy, consistently surprising, never flinching.” It’s also the “debut of a Québec literary firebrand” with a character from an Agnes Varda film and inspired by the writing of Anne Boyer. Due in JUNE 2022 from Coach House. (Review to come.)

Also from Coach House, launching this week, Kim Fu’s debut story collection Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century. I found her debut novel captivating, so I am eager to explore her short work. Also, her acknowledgements are warm and funny, and I like that,
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Updated March 1/22: Review space secured

A second novel by Victoria Hetherington from Dundurn Press (the Rare Machines imprint), Autonomy. Even though I’ve not read their debut novel, the blurb from Michael Redhill piques my interest. Set in 2035, I’m also curious to see how it fits with some of the speculative fiction I read last year for my feature on writers confronting the climate crisis.
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Updated: March 22/22: Review space secured.

Already available in the U.K., the American edition of Sarah Moss’ The Fell is due March 1st from Macmillan (FSG). I’ve been steadily reading through Moss for a feature that will consider this new “pandemic novel” in the wider context of her work. At first, I wondered how relevant the early works would be…turns out there are many fascinating connections. (Feature to come.)

Stéfanie Clermont’s The Music Game (translated from the French by J.C. Sutcliffe) is a story of three women in Montréal’s east end in the 2010’s seeking to “define their identities, sexualities and political commitments.” As if that wasn’t enough to intrigue me, it’s also a novel in stories. Launching next week from Biblioasis. (Review to come, May-ish)

S.J. Sindu’s debut novel Marriage of a Thousand Lies was a finalist for the Lambda and her follow-up Blue-Skinned Gods got a lot of buzz and a snazzy cover blurb from Roxane Gay. The content of her stories varies but what remains consistent is her ambition, simmering beneath a focus on identity and relationships. (Review to come.)

This second volume of Marlon James’ Dark Star trilogy is a doorstopper and I had not yet read the first volume from 2019. Technically, that doesn’t matter, for these are companion novels, but James has done so much research and is attending to so many matters, small and large, that I needed that familiarity to appreciate the complexity of his work. (Review to come.)

This is an experiment for me, a way to draw attention to new and forthcoming works that I’m reviewing or would like to review. Sometimes even a successful pitch doesn’t pan out: production schedules change or a publisher’s shipping options don’t satisfy a publication’s needs (e.g. books don’t arrive as originally promised). And books coverage has declined in recent years, so editors can place only a limited number of reviews. Sometimes release dates don’t coincide with a review’s planned issues, for editors who strive to publish in concert with publication dates. Sometimes there’s a pandemic. Things happen!

If this proves useful or interesting, I’ll continue the experiment and share the accumulated works every few weeks.

Sometimes I resist endings. Even in these days of binge-watching, I occasionally leave the final episode of a long-running TV series unwatched.

So this series of books, spiralling around the concept of a final interview, isn’t one to which I’ve naturally gravitated.

But because I found the Ursula K. Le Guin volume thoroughly enjoyable, and because she and Toni Morrison are both authors on my MustReadEverything lists, I braced myself for the sense of an ending, and picked up this book.

The collection (for it’s not actually a single, final interview) begins with a 1986 interview with Donald M. Suggs Jr, via River Styx, in 1986. More than thirty years ago, and there is Toni Morrison is saying something that still needs saying today:

“The idea of ideological slaughter of the other is chewing up everybody’s intelligence. People are making the most unbelievable statements about the other based on that kind of insistence that the person who disagrees with you fundamentally can’t exist. These are political statements as well as biological and everything else. The hierarchy being established is what’s problematic.”

Of course, since then, Morrison has written so much about Others and Othering that she is recognized as an authority on the subject. It’s interesting to reflect, however, on her having worked on this theme throughout her career. It’s also inspirational, urging us to revisit, to reconsider, to reevaluate how we manage and navigate disagreement, both on and off the page.

And, in case we needed another reminder of the hard work that being a writer requires, a 1987 interview with Charlayne Hunter-Gault on PBS Newshour offers this: “Serious writers write things that compel them, new challenges, new situations, and a new landscape that they have not been in before.”

She issues this regarding Beloved (“Capturing a Mother’s ‘compulsion’ to Nurture”), which reminds me that I should reread. Here’s a comment from a later essay which nudges me even further towards that reread: “I hadn’t felt that—it must have been a combination of happiness and something else. And it was then that I wrote Beloved. It was all like a flood when I wrote that book.”

Another element which really struck me, given one specific slant of Othering that frequently occurs, is her support of and excitement about the work that younger writers were and would do. In The Salon Interview by Zia Jaffrey for Salon on February 3, 1998, she shares this hopeful view:

“They will write infinitely better than I do. They will write of all sorts of things that no one writer can ever touch. They will be stronger, and they will be delicious to read. But part of that availability and accessibility is because six or seven black women writers, among whom I am one, have already been there and tilled the soil.”

Reminding readers of the reciprocal relations between generations, yes, but simultaneously reminding us that her work was truly pivotal in creating a space for Black women writers in the American literary landscape.

Her accomplishments did not, however, give her permission to slack. In the National Visionary Leadership Project Video Interview with Camille O Cosby on November 5, 2004, she elaborates on the idea of being a serious writer. “I’m just trying to look at something without blinking, to see what it was like, or it could have been like, and how that had something to do with the way we live now. Novels are always inquiries for me.”

Also of interest, particularly given my recent reading of Lennie Goodings’ memoir about working in the publishing industry, was Morrison’s experience editing. She was a powerful force on that scene, but even there she faced some limitations.

Despite her support of the novelist Leon Forrest’s work, for instance, after she insisted on publishing a few books (three, I believe) that were not commercially successful, she faced censure. “Now that they did not let me keep on publishing—books that weren’t making any money. Although at one time in publishing you could do that…”

One last quotation, which explores how revision intersects with reading and rereading: “I think one of the reasons I’m so thrilled with writing is because it is an act of reading for me at the same time, which is why my revisions are so sustained. Because I’m reading it. I’m there. Intimacy is extremely important to me and I want it to be extremely important to the readers, too.”

It’s a challenge for me, daily, to keep my focus on writing rather than reading. When I need encouragement, I’ll think about this way of reframing the process. And perhaps I’ll work on another few pages of revision, rather than reading another few pages of someone else’s revisions.

Great stuff for writers.

Toni Morrison. The Last Interview. Ed. Nikki Giovanni. New York: Melville House, 2020.

When it comes to point-of-view work, my enduring favourite is Ursula K. LeGuin’s Steering the Craft, but she takes only a few pages to cover the topic; Lisa Zeidner’s booklength treatment is warranted. As a key aspect of characterization, the questions raised and explored here could vault your creative work from competent to self-assured.

The emphasis is on the exploring, however; Zeidner presents and discusses examples more than she directs. This requires a substantial commitment; readers (writers) must actively participate in her process. It’s not until the very end of the book, for instance, that there are any exercises or instruction sets.

Writers who prefer a checklist approach might be frustrated by this immersion approach, and beginners who have not read widely might be overwhelmed by the number of quotations and references to accomplished writers’ novels and stories. And, like Stephen King’s On Writing, the book concludes with an awesome bibliography, which could serve as a reading list.

Experienced writers, however, might long for some references to genre works (The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood and Shirley Jackson’s famous story—these are as close as she gets) and more unconventional selections (although it’s refreshing to see Percival Everett and Kevin Kwan and there are some 2019 works, including a New Yorker story—you can probably guess which one).

Zeidner’s clarity and cohesion are remarkable, however. One of her basic premises is that readers can dislike/mistrust the characters but must like/trust their author; with that, the focus shifts to how to build and maintain the trust between reader and author. Content-wise, this is a valid position; Zeidner takes it one step further and chooses illustrative and pertinent extracts to build trust with her readers too.

She also holds that questions of authenticity and appropriation are largely point-of-view questions; it’s a simple and sensible statement that opens up possibilities for problem-solving and revision. She stands at the edge of the culture wars, surveys the battlefield, and encourages readers to explore that concept independently.

It’s useful to understand that many aspects of storytelling which appear to be trends in the present-day can be studied in a historical context. For example, she does discuss Gone Girl’s unreliable narration (a predictable but recognizable example), but she also traces the pattern back to Lawrence Sterne and through Mark Twain, to explain that it’s not new to question a narrator’s objectivity.

Her style feels proper though not formal, and occasionally she slips in a cozier way of talking (like describing an excerpt in the first person as being a pull-up-a-chair style) and she made me laugh with this: “DFW is so famous that his initials alone are enough to identify him, as if he’s an airport. Once you’re that influential as a writer, your tones and trends are just in the air, like the flu.”

Beyond the expected chapter headings, she also considers Childhood and Animal perspectives and there is a chapter on “Thinking Like a Camera” about Point of View in Fiction Versus Film. The content is on-topic but still relevant, so that even if none of those situations applies to your own work, these chapters are still interesting in the broader context of crafting.

When it comes to universal advice—the kind of truisms you expect to find in books about writing—I like the way she expresses herself: “In order to write, you have to believe that no matter how many other books are on your shelf, the story you tell is yours and yours alone.”

When it comes to specific suggestions, with concrete application, I find them sparky and practical: “Each new match the character strikes leaves the character and the reader in a meaningless cloud of smoke.” This is how she describes the sensation of a first-draft or unpolished scene in dialogue, punctuated with gestures that do not relate to the characters, only feel like filler. Later, in the Exercises section, one of the suggestions is as follows: “Find a cliched stage direction in your story—a raised eyebrow or hands on hips—and try to find a gesture that is actually revealing about the character.”

Although not a volume I’d expect to revisit frequently, Zeidner’s Who Says? provides a detailed and informed examination of a topic that deserves more consideration.

Very good stuff for writers.

Lisa Zeidner. Who Says? Mastering Point of View in Fiction. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2021.

Porter states clearly, straight off, that he’s not writing a how-to volume, but “readers will find some references to craft” and “inspiring accounts of vocational dedication”. There are twenty-one creatives included—from MacArthur “genius” Fellowship recipients to best-selling authors—covering about a century of African-American writers at work and including about a dozen women (including Zora Neale Hurston and Martha Southgate). Porter identifies specific essays as being dedicated to the discussion of craft, but throughout readers can benefit from experience and knowledge about the writing life.

As an element of pure pleasure, I thrilled to the talk of reading and libraries in these pieces. To Richard Wright’s daring escapade to gain access to borrowed books, for instance—the way that he recognized his boss in the character of George F. Babbitt in Sinclair Lewis’ Main Street. How he found his mother’s suffering reflected in Dreiser’s novels (Jennie Gerhardt and Sister Carrie). And, even on this matter, there are hints of craft: “The plots and stories in the novels did not interest me so much as the point of view revealed.”

I also warmed to the idea of Terry McMillan discovering Black writers via a textbook called Dark Symphony: Negro Literature in America (particularly Countee Cullen, Langston Hughes, Ann Petry, Zora Neale Hurston, Ralph Ellison, Jean Toomer, Richard Writer and James Baldwin): “To discover that our lives held as much significance and importance as our white counterparts was more than gratifying, it was exhilarating.” This originally appeared as an introduction to a collection of works by Black writers, and Porter includes a second piece pulled from that volume, its prefacing piece by John Edgar Wideman. This kind of attention to detail underscores the idea of community and the value of a sense of belonging.

There are ample opportunities in this volume to consider one’s inspiration to create, an artist’s priorities in the creation process, and the different avenues that different writers and poets travel to explore this terrain. In Gayl Jones’ 1988 essay “About My Work” for instance, she notes:

“I notice people more than landscape. I notice voices.
I think people more than events affect/impact on my creativity.”

This kind of commentary invites readers to consider their own priorities when it comes to observation and what impacts their writing. (I notice people, too, and voices, but events impact my creativity more than individuals.)

Zora Neale Hurston, too, is more caught up in observing people than landscapes. She begins her 1950 essay “What White Publishers Won’t Print” like this:

“I have been amazed by the Anglo-Saxon’s lack of curiosity about the internal lives and emotions of the Negroes, and for that matter, any non-Anglo-Saxon peoples within our borders, above the class of unskilled labor.”

In other words, she’s noticed that we all have blind spots. What an opportunity to explore our own blind spots as individual writers, to consider why certain stories are told and retold while others remain untold or rarely told. To explore the question of perspective and point-of-view and how writers might approach these stories.

Charles Johnson’s contribution is primarily an outline for his notable 1990 novel, Middle Passage—but it’s preceded by a single page of musings on his writer’s notebooks. “I save everything, it’s shameless,” he admits. In just a few paragraphs, he describes his evolving notetaking habits over the years, frequency and content, as well as specific process elements that have contributed to the success of his fiction throughout his career.

This is the kind of volume that I can imagine picking off the shelf across a span of years, sometimes finding one essay more meaningful than another. It’s not a reference text like The Chicago Manual of Style, but it’s a reference of another sort.

Great stuff for writers.

Horace A. Porter. Dreaming Out Loud: African American Novelists at Work. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2015.

It’s simple, this volume’s cover, and I love it—the horizontal and vertical rulers of a typical word processing page visible on two sides, the title highlighted in yellow, followed by a subtitle with underlining and a strike-through (Notes A Report on Style). This is a process, it says. And Amitava Kumar invites reader into that process.

The publisher’s copy suggests that this book is, for academics, what Annie Dillard’s The Writing Life is for creative writers. Mentioning Dillard (and Stephen King) is sure to catch my interest, but Kumar’s book is neither as ruminative as Dillard’s nor as instructive as King’s: Kumar’s book is curious and provocative, serious in one moment and silly in the next.

One reason that I appreciate Kumar’s approach is his fondness for books about writing. Not all writers like to read about writing; even among that group, however, are writers who have been compelled to write about writing (perhaps nudged in that direction by an agent, publisher, employer, or a dwindling bank account). Some of the books I’ve written about here could have been written reluctantly too. Kumar’s not in that club.

Within a few pages, in a short piece titled “Running”, he writes: “There is a book of interviews with nonfiction writers—most of them would be described as journalists with a literary calling—that I consult often for what it has to offer in terms of advice about how to write a first paragraph, tips on organizing materials or interviewing, and advice on how to conduct research.” [He’s talking about The New Journalism, edited by Robert S. Boynton, and it pops up later in the volume on other occasions, too.]

I often revisit writing books when I am feeling stuck or unmotivated too, when I need assistance unravelling a snag in my routine. Amitava Kumar’s book, though, is one that I would pick up again to browse, or to reread. It’s not a reference book for me, although the two pages titled “Strunk and White” could refresh my thoughts on clarity. It’s more companionship for me, the kind of book I’d pick up to remind myself that some other people’s minds work in these strange, spirally patterns too.

Kumar is open to new ideas. (“A colleague of mine said that I should try the Pomodoro Technique,” he writes in “Kitchen Timer”.) He also returns to tried-and-true techniques: “I am in favor of naps,” he writes in “Sleep”. And in “Rules of Writing” he considers the kind of writing book he’d like to write:

“This book is about what works in writing and what doesn’t. It belongs to the genre of books by writers on writing. I love reading interviews with writers, particularly when they describe their work routines. I don’t want a lecture about the long lonely slog that resulted in a book; a small, useful tip will do just fine, thank you.”

There are many excerpts from the kinds of interviews he describes enjoying, scattered throughout these essays. In “Creative Writing”, he quotes Colson Whitehead: “Well, just because you are a good critic, it doesn’t mean you’re a god writer. They are two different skills—and it is great when a good critic is also a good critic [sic] but your average person might not be gifted in both areas.”

In the same essay, he describes having read Max Porter’s Grief is the Thing with Feathers recently, and he observes that “Porter’s book is marketed as a novel—and it is that, but is also a poem, a dream or hallucination, and an act of creative criticism”. It’s as though Kumar is in a constant, ongoing conversation with all the stories: I can relate to that.

He also writes from the perspective of a teacher, however; he first notes that Claudia Rankine’s Citizen (a multimedia volume of poetry) lists the names of Black men and women who have been killed in acts of police violence. He has incorporated this work in his teaching over the years, so that now he can also add that later editions of Citizen have different, longer lists—“In Memory of”. Experience adds another layer to these observations.

One of my favourite quotations, which Kumar cites in “Revising”, is from an interview with Jon Krakauer: “Writers often fail to appreciate that removing 5 percent of a book can make that book twice as good.” It’s something that he aims to keep in mind when he’s revising. It’s something that anyone revising would welcome hearing. It comes from a volume that Kumar refers to often, that New Journalism collection mentioned above. For some writer out there, Kumar’s book could be that kind of reliable source, constant companion.

Fine stuff for writers.

Amitava Kumar. Every Day I Write the Book: Notes on Style. Durham: Duke University Press, 2020.

Reading publishers’ memoirs is perhaps most relevant to writers who are approaching or navigating the publishing industry, but understanding more about the industry’s inner workings is useful at every stage of a writer’s career. Reading about Lennie Goodings’ experience with Virago will be of particular interest to women writers and to writers who admire and seek representation with small, independent publishers.

Though Virago is neither small, nor independent anymore; a view of that transformation, from an insider, is of real interest to those writers who are also Virago readers. Their Modern Classics series was one of my first dedicated reading projects (short of obsessing over specific authors and their oeuvres).

It has remained a cornerstone of their publishing house. “The Classics have been a solid part of our backlist income for years but the series is so, so much more important than its mere monetary value.” If you are considering a relationship with a specific publishing house, check out their long-term projects and how they reflect your own interests (in reading, as well as writing).

In Goodings’ memoir, we learn that Virago’s launch title, in September 1975, was Mary Chamberlain’s Fenwomen. It’s a 100-year-long history, told through the voices of the women who have inhabited a remote village in the Cambridgeshire Fens; the book, like Virago, aims to present “women’s everyday lives”, to prioritize the kinds of “stories previously not thought worth telling and recording”.

When you’re preparing to sign a contract, consider how the publishing house’s values relate to your own. “I believe there are so many ways to make society change and there is no one right way: a better, fairer world for everyone will come with a multitude of forces, from grassroots to established institutions, sweep in the changes,” states Goodings. She discusses the difficulties faced, in terms of gaining publicity and access to top-tier authors, for example; she also discusses various criticisms from the feminist community, from members who disagreed with the choices Virago made in their efforts to make change. (For instance, many believe that they should have operated as a collective.)

A publishing house represents a variety of perspectives and it’s interesting and informative to learn how conflicts flared and were resolved (or, not) under the Virago roof. Goodings quotes Toni Morrison on the editorial relationship: “…if there is some trust, some willingness to listen, remarkable things can happen”. Morrison’s statement suggests she had some familiarity with how the relationship functioned when there was little or no trust, little or no willingness to listen.

Writers will encounter disagreement and conflict in their editorial relationship; learning how one publisher handles dissent and confrontation offers food for thought. Goodings writes: “What I feel strongly about is the way that radicals –and this applies to women as much as men—feel they can shout down a moderate view rather than accommodate it alongside their stance. Has anything changed?”

Having started with the press in 1978, shortly after it was founded, Goodings’ memoir also offers insight on how the landscape of feminist publishing changed over the decades. She talks about how, in the early days, Margaret Atwood’s novels appeared in paperback in the U.K. as Virago Modern Classics, becoming “one of the foundations and an enduring part of Virago’s success, financially and otherwise”.

She observes how many of the key writers at Virago were available to fit the bill as “celebrity feminists” which the media sought as representatives of social change, despite “all their contradictions”. And, how so many of them have extended their work well beyond their publisher’s roof—writers like Susie Orbach, Naomi Wolf, Margaret Atwood, Kate Mosse, Sandi Toksvig, J.K. Rowling, Asne Seierstad, Natasha Walter, Maya Angelou, Sarah Waters, Deborah Frances-White, and Jessica J. Lee—all active contributors to specific organizations promoting social change.  

And she describes the inimitable scene of the “marvellous opening-night party of authors, publishers, and book-sellers”, when Audre Lorde “broke through the talk and laughter with a long, angry speech about the outrageous lack of many women of colour on the committee”. As much as launching Virago was about striving to make change, there are always more injustices to right, more silenced and soft voices yet to amplify.

Goodings’ willingness to admit when she has misjudged and misstepped makes this a satisfying (if not always wholly engaging) read. It’s refreshing to see her acknowledge patterns that replay (and often frustrate) in this sector. For instance: “As publishers we do know that people hunger for ‘the next things’, but still we are more likely to be drawn to wanting to repeat a recent successful formula. I understand this and do it myself.”

When you are striving to land a publication deal, frustrated that queries are unanswered or unsuccessful, irritated by a sense of same-same when browsing the bestseller lists, remember that a publisher is only a person, a publishing house only a collection of people. If you’re lucky, you can work with one who still finds a kind of magic in this simple statement: “I see over and over again how books touch and change people’s lives.” If you can’t land a publication deal, consider reading some publishing memoirs. Look at things from another perspective. Think again.

Lennie Goodings. A Bite of the Apple: A Life with Books, Writers and Virago. Windsor: Biblioasis, 2020.

As Poets & Writers is my oldest-favouritest magazine about writing, my expectations for this volume were high. When I finally had a copy of it in my hands, the volume so thick and heavy, I was concerned that it would be a reprint of highlights from the periodical, but it’s super satisfying and current, exhaustive and substantive.

Because it’s intended for writers of all experience levels, you can dip in and out (i.e. experienced writers might want to focus on time management, or writers with a completed manuscript might turn directly to the section on agents and representation). But you can also read straight through, moving in a logical progression, from inspiration to craft, from education to publishing, from book deals to publicity and promotion.

There are essays interspersed, contributed by noteworthy and talented writers, on each key topic as well as additional pieces which recommend books for further reading. There is also a section of short chapters dedicated to some big-picture themes (money, time, happiness, family, respect, and the law), which are intended to be thought-provoking and clever. There’s one, for instance, by Charles Yu on the subject of the “Inner Writer”, which is presented as an interview and it’s hilarious.

The Poets & Writers Guide aspires to go the distance. Many books about writing consider the question of goals, for instance, but here the discussion is broken down into Educational Goals, Writing Goals, Publishing Goals, Financial Goals, Higher Goals. Each topic is considered in some detail, so that distinctions are clear, with enough information to invite personal reflection: concise and directed.

There are also textboxes with salient quotations (and throughout the chapters) that would make this a good volume for browsing too. Maybe you are seeking a temporary escape, rather than a dedicated project. This Annie Proulx quotation is one of my favourites: “You should write because you love the shape of stories and sentences and the creation of different words on a page. Writing comes from reading, and reading is the finest teacher of how to write.”

Action Items, advice presented in circles apart from the text, are also browse-worthy and eye-catching. There are, for example, suggestions to visit pw.org/writers for recommendations (about movies, music, books, plays, activities, and philosophies, including “The Time is Now” newsletter—one of my favourites—although their website services are also considered in detail in an appendix). And #49 suggests that you count your rejections. “Note how they represent just one person’s opinion or judgement.”

For many years, Poets & Writers has been an excellent source of ideas and information from diverse authors and industry professionals. The gritty details here are useful, like the Valuing Your Time worksheet (courtesy of Amy Smith with contributions from Andrew Simonet and Aaron Lansman), the Submission Tracker sheet, a Publication Checklist, and a list of Eighty-four Agents Active on Twitter.

But just as helpful is the undercurrent of respectful and hopeful discourse. For a solitary writer (and many of us are more isolated than usual, with COVID restrictions in place to protect vulnerable individuals), the dimensions of this volume (literal and figurative) work to create a small community between two pages. This quotation by Luis Alberto Urrea is so encouraging and powerful: “Writing is on your side. Writing, story, poem, words, they need you if they are to survive. You are part of the life support system of story.”

In a similar vein, I appreciate the note of generosity and optimism, on which the book ends. Some might think it’s mawkish or insincere, but in a sector characterized more by rejection than acceptance, I receive it at face value, with gratitude: “Thank you for being a writer. Your writing is important. It is creative, generative, and the world needs more of it. We wish you the very best of luck with your writing and publishing. And now that we’re at the end, it’s time to get started. The end is just the beginning.”

Top-notch stuff for writers.

Kevin Larimer and Mary Gannon. The Poets & Writers Complete Guide to Being a Writer. New York: Simon & Schuster—Avid Reader Press, 2020.

Straight up, I’m a sucker for illustrated books like this. But I’ve also been disappointed on occasion, having found the accompanying narrative lacking. So when I picked up Storyville, I was cautiously enthusiastic: would the graphic content be forced to carry the bulk of the load? No need to worry: the balance is wholly satisfying.

The graphic style is somewhere between clip-arty and doodle-y, but not in the sense that anyone purchased a set of a thousand images and now has to fit them all into this book. Only at first glance do the images seem generic—they align neatly with the content. (There’s a beach umbrella with this Eugène Ionesco quotation, for instance: “A writer never has a vacation. For a writer, life consists of either writing or thinking about writing.”)

Full-page quotations, white text on a black background (with the white beach umbrella!) salt and pepper the book. For avid readers of books about writing, some of these will be familiar, but many of them are fresh, and drawn from a variety of genres and decades. They’re also positioned within the relevant chapters, integrated into the text, which gradually establishes into an air of authority.

The text is divided into four parts: The Fiction Writer, The Fiction Writing, The Plot, and The Revision. (Illustrated in the TOC with a pair of scissors cutting along a dotted line, with four letters floating above the paper—an E and a W, a J and a D, the illustrator’s and author’s initials—as if to prove that these simple images are carefully curated.) I appreciate the effort to keep it simple. When you get to this chapter, another set of TOCs follows the title page, which suggests that the book is designed to pull readers straight through and discourage dabblers.

Within “The Fiction Writing”, for instance, one of the segments is illustrated by a magician’s hat upended, with a rabbit peering out (one ear up, one ear down): “Surprise the Reader”. I appreciate the approach of surprise being something that the writer experiences too—”what brings us to the desk every day”—as well as more concrete advice from a craft perspective: “A surprise might be a robust verb, an unpredictable behavior by a character, an abrupt shift in time or place, a plot point that spins the action of the story off in a new directions, or an unexpected turn of events.”

Speaking of a pleasant surprise, I really appreciate the renaming of “writer’s block” as a natural step in the creative process (renamed “gestation”). Dufresne is not the first to take this approach, but he states it so confidently that it seems he could have been. Another happy surprise? Finding a page of dialogue from The Golden Girls on the theme of “writer’s block”! (Dorothy gets the biggest laugh, of course.) He’s also not the first to granularly break down the revision process (into rewriting, line editing, copy editing, and proofreading) but his suggestions are spot-on. This advice will be most helpful to emerging writers, but I appreciate the reminder that editing (like procrastinating, like gestating) is an essential part of the process.

There are two graphics which stand out for me. First, the “Story as Iceberg” page, which illustrates “The What?” as the 10% which shows above the surface of the water, with “The Why” lurking in the larger chunk of ice beneath, with “Lies, Secret, Family, Values, Beliefs, Culture, Dreams, Phobias, Heritage, Thoughts, Emotions, Motivation, Experience, Aspriations, and Childhood Traumas” lurking. And, furthermore, the last graphic, which I won’t spoil, because it simultaneously seemed both a basic and brilliant ending.

Really Good Stuff for Writers.

John Dufresne. Storyville: An Illustrated Guide to Writing Fiction. Illus. Evan Wondolowski. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2020.