Miscellany #1

Writing Life: 20

Sometimes, when I’m developing ideas for newsletter posts, I come up with something that just isn’t quite enough for a whole story. This has happened a few times since I started this humble endeavour last April. So in a stroke of unparalleled genius, it struck me that I could string a few of those shorter ideas together to make a whole post. Yes, I know, brilliant idea isn’t it? So that’s what I’ve done. Assuming it might happen again sometime, I’ve gone with the title Miscellany #1.

So here are few updates on various fronts that, taken together, constitute an entire post. See what I mean?

Where are we on my upcoming novel?

I wrote an earlier and longer post about my ninth novel, A New Season, back in October (click here to read it), but we’ve moved a few more steps down the road since then, hence this brief update. First of all, we now have a publishing date! A New Season will be available in bookstores on Tuesday, August 29, 2023. I’m not suggesting you rearrange all of your end-of-summer vacation plans to accommodate the release of my new novel. No, I’m not recommending that at all. Nope. Not at all...

But to return to the question posed in the subtitle, I’ve now completed two rounds of edits working closely with my editor, Joe Lee. The novel is coming together. The manuscript has now moved on to the copy-editing phase, which should take about a month. Copy editing is essentially a final clean up of the manuscript along with fact-checking and continuity review to make sure I haven’t made any boneheaded errors that somehow slipped through the first two rounds of editing—it’s happened before. Copy editing should be finished by the first week of March, when the manuscript will then be sent to the production team to lay out what we call “first pages”—essentially, how the interior of the book will look.

I believe that around the same time, if not sooner, work will begin on cover design. That’s always an exciting stage, particularly if you’re like me and have no idea how this novel will be reflected through its cover art.

Oh, and I can now confirm that a certain famous Canadian rock star and all round nice guy will make a cameo appearance of sorts and play a supporting role in A New Season. At this early stage, I can’t reveal who it is, but I’ll give you the haziest of hints:

So with the manuscript now out of my hands, I’m already turning my feeble mind to my tenth novel. I have an idea that I’ve been developing and it feels as if it might just hold together as a novel. It’s still too early to share anything more about it at this stage. There’s plenty about it I just don’t yet know. When it makes sense, you’ll be the first to hear about it. In the meantime, I’ll be noodling—a technical literary term—the new idea more in the coming weeks until the copy edits come back for A New Season. I’ll certainly keep you posted on the various publishing thresholds yet to be crossed by A New Season.

A few shots depicting some of the themes running through A New Season, namely male friendship, Paris today and in the 1920s, and songwriting.

A second John Irving event!

If you’ve been with me here on Substack for a while, you’ll already know that last November the wonderful bookseller (Blue Heron Books) and my pal, Shelley Macbeth, asked me to introduce John Irving for his appearance at the Book Drunkard Festival in Uxbridge. It was an amazing experience—including having dinner with him afterwards—and you can read about it here.

Well, I must have passed the audition because John (I call him John, now) emailed me in early January to ask if I would not only introduce him but also interview him on stage for a January 17th event at Toronto’s Badminton and Racquet Club. Needless to say, I agreed… and fast. We worked together the week before the event to map out our conversation and it all seemed to work very well, or so the audience seemed to conclude.

John was warm and approachable, and shared some wonderful insights and stories. The audience—not to mention the interviewer—was rapt. And I managed to keep my heart rate down enough to ask questions in my normal voice, and still keep the evening moving along. I also met John's wife, Janet, about whom I'd heard so much. She was wonderful, too. Afterwards, my wife Nancy and I had dinner together with John and Janet, and our good friends Jane and Doug Gibson. (Doug edited my first six novels and remains a good friend, and Jane helped organize the event. So I had an inside track.) It was an evening I'll never forget.

In mid-question while interviewing John Irving.

In-person speaking gigs are coming back

I can feel the shift. For much of the past nearly three years, now, live book talks have all either been cancelled or moved to Zoom. But as we head into 2023, there are signs that we’re beginning to return to in-person events. I have several in the coming weeks, and recently did these two gigs to ease me back into live book talks. One was in Newmarket and the other in Mississauga, both on Toronto’s outskirts.

I can hear the Hinterland Who’s Who? commercial running in the background.

“Yes, the reclusive Canadian writer, seldom seen recently, is cautiously and carefully emerging from nearly three years of hibernation to step out again into the outside world. Yes, the familiar life of the working writer slowly returns.”

Forgive my crazed selfie-face. A couple less than crisp shots from my talk at the Mississauga Golf and Country Club with good friend and bookseller extraordinaire, Ian Elliot, owner of A Different Drummer Books in Burlington.

A talk and signing for about 100 members of the Newmarket Women’s Probus Club. Grant Campbell from Blue Heron Books in Uxbridge was on hand to sell.

I confess it felt good to be back in front of readers after such a long pandemic-induced hiatus. And it felt good to be wearing pants without an elastic waistband. (Okay, I lied. I still love my sweatpants, but you have to step up your sartorial game when you step out of the house.) I was lucky enough to have booksellers at both events—Blue Heron Books at the Newmarket event and A Different Drummer Books at the Mississauga event. They are two of our finest independent bookstores. I know we’re not out of the Covid woods, yet. But here’s hoping we’ll be even further along the path to “normal” when A New Season is released in August. It sure would be nice to be invited to some of the fall festivals. I’ve missed communing with audiences and fellow writers.

New Edition of Up and Down in bookstores February 7

Finally, a new edition of my third novel, Up and Down (2012), will be released this week on Tuesday, February 7 with a new cover design. I’ve always loved Up and Down and hope that this new edition will rekindle interest in the novel. If you haven’t read it yet, why not go for the new cover and give it a read? You can read the novel’s origin story here.

(l-r) The original version and the new edition, in bookstores Feb. 7, 2023.

Update: After I finished working on this post last week, I went downstairs and found a box from McClelland & Stewart/Penguin Random House waiting for me with the new edition of Up and Down.

A box just arrived with the new edition of Up and Down.

Opening up a box of your books, even a novel from 2012, is always a thrill. It never gets old.

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