Wow--it's been a busy spring! February saw the long-awaited release of Vanished In Vallarta, third in the Bradford Fairfax comic mystery series. For fans of Brad and Zach, I can tell you that the fourth book, Bon Ton Roulez, has been finished for some time, while a fifth book, Havana Club (a prequel to the series) is in the works. Look for both of those over the next two years, with additional books set in Palm Springs, San Francisco and Toronto to follow.
As well, March saw the publication of Pumpkin Eater, sequel to my Lambda Award-winning Lake On The Mountain, and second in the Dan Sharp series. If Bradford Fairfax is the happy me then Dan Sharp is the dark side of my personality. I an currently editing the third book, The Jade Butterfly, scheduled for a spring 2015 release. The fourth book, After The Horses, is also in the works.
I hope that's enough reading for you! Oh, and by the way, I'd love to hear from people who enjoy my books, so drop me a line or find me on Facebook.
SPRING 2014
WHERE DO CHARACTERS COME FROM?
Readers often ask where I get my characters. The truth is, I don't know. While I may steal a visual from life once in a while--a nice head of a hair, a good jaw line--I don't use real people when it comes to personality. Nor are they all some version of me. If I made a list of what my character Dan Sharp and I have in common, it wouldn't be long. I am not a single dad, a private eye, or a kid from the wrong side of the tracks. Nor did I ever sell my body for sex, though I have slept on a park bench.
Growing up in Sudbury, as Dan I and did, there was no small share of potential characters: boys whose fathers were alcoholics; a girl named Shirley who had a boy's haircut and wore dungarees and came to school looking alternately frightened and angry; another girl named Pelka, whose father emigrated from Yugoslavia and who drank battery acid to try to kill himself. I knew that world and mingled with it every day at school. I never thought any of them odd--merely interesting or dull, dangerous or friendly. Nor did I ever look down on any of them.
On the other hand, like Dan, there is a little of the sleuth in me. I recall Miss Kristakos, my grade three teacher, who had polio and limped, and who I secretly followed home one day to find out where she lived so I could surprise her with a drawing of Daisy Duck the next day. Or Rex, my best friend of two months, who had no father and whose mother was so poor all she could afford to serve when I came to lunch was Kraft Dinner, which I refused as politely as I could. Rex vanished as suddenly as he appeared. The adult me still wonders how I could trace him to learn how his life turned out, as would Dan.
While I'm not Dan, I admire him and like to spend time in his company. That's why I write about him. I've had an easier life than he has, and that's one of the reasons I admire him, because he upholds principles despite the difficulties they sometimes cause him. If I knew him, I would be proud to call him my friend. I hope he would say the same of me.
THAT FEELS GOOD!
Now I know what it feels like to win something that has meaning for me. Thanks to the folks at the Lambda Literary Awards, I am the recipient of a beautiful crystal tablet inscribed with my name and the title of my most recent book: LAKE ON THE MOUNTAIN. It's meaningful to me for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that the award is juried by my peers, people who know what it takes to labour over words in an attempt to create something meaningful and beautiful, inspiring and wise. When I got home, I put it on my mantlepiece to remind me why so many of us continue to write even when the rewards and the acknowledgements are few and far between. That's why I'm so grateful for this particular award.
The ceremony, held in New York on June 3, was an uplifting celebration of talent and labour, as well as a testament to the perseverance of the LGBT community itself. We need no reminder that this community has had more than its fair share of fights to exist and prosper. I'm grateful to have been so honoured and hope I can continue to do what I love while contributing to the community in return.
LAMMIES, THE ACROBAT AND MARY WALSH GOES BOMBALISTIC
Wow, it was quite a day. First off came news of my Lambda Award nomination for Lake On The Mountain. (Yay, thanks!) Ceremonies in New York in June. Then I met up with poet/novelist Jim Nason at a fun and funky west end bar, No One Writes To The Colonel, for the launch of The Acrobat, an online zine from the hard-working folks at Tightrope Books, promising fabulous visual, aural and written art, and put together with a lot of love and enthusiasm. As if that weren't enough, writer Keith Garebian and I took in Mary Walsh's bombalistic Dancing With Rage at the Panasonic. All Canadian, All The Time, this is comedy at its best, as Mary tromps through her favourite characters and gives Canadian politics its comeuppance. ("I don't like political jokes anymore," Marg Delahunty laments. "I've seen too many of them elected.") Marg's search for the love child she gave up decades ago takes her to Ottawa, where she faces her fears that it might just turn out to be that "crypto-nazi" Stephen Harper. I'm with Marg when she laments that things get soft in middle age. Marg is referring to her body; I'm referring to my cultural heroes. I doubt Mary Walsh will ever get soft. As we say in the Maritimes, "She got some mout' on her, that girl!"
THIRD DAN SHARP TITLE CONTRACTED FOR 2015!
HAPPY NEW YOU!
Here's looking forward to another great year!
My 2012 was rounded out by two trips to Havana, the first in January and then again this December. Both trips spawned book ideas, as well as articles on the lamentable state of LGBT rights in Cuba and on the country's outstanding success with its literacy drive. Fans of Bradford Fairfax will be pleased to know there is a series prequel in the works that has the intrepid Brad traveling to Havana. I've also been working on a literary novel that takes place during the Cuban revolution. Last month I visited several historic sites that feature large in both books, including the stunning Hotel Nacional de Cuba, now a World Heritage site, set on Taganana Hill overlooking the Malecon.
In November, I was in Palm Springs following a fun- and adventure-filled drive down the coast from San Francisco (yes, I was there the night the Giants won the World Series, in case you're a fan), where I was a featured writer at the Authors' Village during PS Pride. A great event!
Earlier in the fall, I learned from my new publisher that my first Dan Sharp mystery, Lake On The Mountain, was consistently one of Dundurn's top-selling ebooks. Thanks to those of you who made that happen! And just a reminder that Dan Sharp will return in Pumpkin Eater in spring 2014.
Last year I also had the pleasure of being a featured blogger on Unvailed.com, a site dedicated to the pursuit of ideas and the unfettered imagination. I hope to continue contributing to the site in future.
And finally, I just heard that a poem I wrote about the James Dean film Rebel Without A Cause has been selected for an upcoming collection entitled I Found It At The Movies, to be edited by Ruth Roach Pierson and published by Guernica Editions.
PALM SPRINGS PRIDE
Howdy, all!
I finally made it to Palm Springs. I'll be featured in the Author's Village Sat, Nov 3 (1 pm) and Sun, Nov 4 (3 pm.) Drop by and say hello!
Weather is glorious (as always.) Can't wait to meet some of my favourite writers, including Michael Nava, author of the Henry Rios series.
This event is hosted, as always, by the generosity of Q Trading.
High Tea and Anti-Launch
PUMPKIN EATER
BOOKENDS
Cable Me Fabulous
It was my week to be a star on cable TV, thanks to the exposure generated by my book, Lake On The Mountain. There it was, the first day of spring, and I found myself a guest on daytime Toronto, Rogers' morning talk show. Host Val Cole was gracious and very comfortable to chat with, which was fortunate as this was a live seven-minute segment with no rehearsal! I managed to be both conscious and alert the entire time as we chatted up the book, so good for me.
Later that week, my house was taken over by funny gal Liz Stembridge and crew (of one, but what the heck!) from the show foQus with Deb Pearce. (Those Rogers folks have got to get it together with their upper and lower case issues.) Liz was a one-woman riot in a very small space (my living room.) While discussing the book and the recent interest from SONY Pictures, we also managed to come up with a small but telling cameo for Liz, should I by any chance get to write, direct and cast the film. (Hey, you never know! If you're curious, it involves Liz wearing an old housedress and swinging a couple of cats by the tail. Animal rights people, back down. They'll be rubber cats!)
And finally (or maybe not), I got to spout my stuff at Sleuth of Baker Street, Toronto's renowned mystery specialty bookstore, newly located at 907 Millwood Ave. There, amid the works of every great mystery author, not to mention several of Sherlock Holmes's deerstalker caps, I got to chat with Justine Lewkowicz, the intrepid host of Bookends. Fortunately, this is an edited show, as I blew my very first question: How do you know when to reveal the clues in a mystery? For me, it's a purely intuitive process, so I didn't have an answer. Turns out that was my answer. Things loosened up and got a bit easier after that. I'm a writer, after all, so I like to think about what I'm saying before I say it, but once I start I can just keep rolling along.
Jeffrey Round is a Toronto novelist and filmmaker. His most recent book is the mystery-thriller Lake On The Mountain, from Dundurn Books. Visit: www.jeffreyround.com.
When SONY Pictures Comes Calling...
Recently I got a bit of exciting news. One morning, early, I found a nondescript email sitting in my in-box. It was so nondescript that I almost overlooked it. It turned out to be from a producer's assistant at SONY Pictures. He was inquiring about the film rights to my new novel, Lake On The Mountain, published last month by Dundurn Press.
My first inclination was to think it a joke. It was too soon after publication for anyone even to have heard of it, I thought, but on re-reading the note it seemed genuine enough. Besides, it's a good book with a solid storyline. Why should it be so hard to believe that someone might want to turn it into a film?
At that point, unlike others who might have jumped up and down, then shouted from the rafters and quickly Facebooked all three-thousand of their closest friends, I did what any good WASP would do: I went into Shut Down Mode.
First things first, I told myself. I began to fold all the clothes lying scattered around my bedroom. (If you've seen my bedroom -- not that many of you have -- you'll know that entails a lot of work.) Then, once I'd obsessively folded and refolded everything, I went downstairs and washed my dishes till they squeaked. All that in order not to think about what I’d just read.
For me, Shut Down Mode occurs when emotions threaten to overwhelm. It "doesn’t do" to get too happy, too sad, too overjoyed, too…well, too anything. Think of the Queen of England. Have you ever heard her let out a really good belly laugh? Not bloody likely, though I’m sure she's dying to. It's not that I don't feel things. Or that Liz doesn't either, but we both find it necessary not to be seen to be Out of Control. Disaster could strike. And besides, we might look ridiculous.
I have a friend who once told me I needed to learn to celebrate my victories, small and large. "Because frankly," said he, with a tone that was all gloom and doom, "as a writer you probably won’t see too many of them." A good pessimist, he knew whereof he spoke.
I just shrugged. I didn't understand this "celebrate" mentality.
"You just go right on to the next thing as though nothing happened," he said. "Why not stop and enjoy it?"
"But what's the point of celebrating something that's already over?" said I, a good realist.
Of course, the truth is that stopping to celebrate would mean admitting I had an emotional attachment to the outcome, something both Sherlock Holmes and I won't easily admit to, if we admit to it at all. "Cry at the birth, Rejoice at the death," A.J.M. Smith advises with poetic whimsy in The Wisdom of Old Jellyroll. When it's over, it's over; let it go.
It would also be an admission that maybe nothing will come of this email inquiry from SONY. And I would have no control over that, either. Somewhere in my subconscious, I must have decided it's better not to get excited, lest that excitement later prove to have been misguided, like a beauty queen stripped of her crown for louche behaviour. If you don't care about the potential outcome, you can't be robbed of it when it turns out to be nothing.
I admit it's a pretty grim outlook, but it feels safe. And, as a result, my laundry gets done really well, when I bother to do it. Just in case, however, I've made one small concession, one celebratory gesture to acknowledge this episode. I have allowed myself, if only in my mind, to start casting the film. "Build it and they will come," right? Or in this case, the film corollary: "Cast it and they will shoot."
In the meantime, now that my clothes are folded into a reasonable semblance of order, I can get back to my writing -- the one place where I really am in control.
Jeffrey Round is a Toronto novelist and filmmaker. His most recent book, Lake On The Mountain, was published by Dundurn Books in January. Visit: www.jeffreyround.com.
Slow Down--Turtles Crossing: On the Perils of Publishing
Jan 11, 2012
The baby has arrived. (Yay!) Well, sort of (Boo!)
Yesterday, I got word that my newest book, Lake On The Mountain, was printed. Now all I have to do is wait for it to be delivered from the printers to Dundurn's warehouse--via turtle express. There are few industries where the adage "Hurry up and wait" applies more surely than in publishing.
Let me take you through the various steps (if you have the patience, that is...)
Year zero. First, you get this fantastic idea that already looks like a book in your head. It's brilliant. So brilliant, it burns a hole right through your brain. So now all you have to do is write it. Right? Sure, go ahead.
Year one. Writing a book can take time. A lot of time. And that time varies according to your expertise and dedication to the cause. My first book, A Cage of Bones, took me five years to finish. It's a coming out story that takes place in the fashion industry in Europe. (Nope, not a horror story, despite its title.) It was an industry I was familiar with, having worked there briefly before I started writing. The research was done, but learning to craft my story took a bit longer.
Year two: Being in a rush to get published ("Hurry up and wait!"), I started contacting agents before the book was finished. To put it politely, none of them had time for a first-time author knocking on their doors with an unfinished manuscript.
Year three. I had a messy but mostly coherent script. So I started contacting publishers instead ("Hurry up and wait!"), so sure was I that they would want my book. A word to the wise: selling an unfinished book is nearly impossible unless you're Stephen King.
Year four. I had exhausted every known publisher in Canada--seems no one wanted to take a chance on a newbie. ("Hurry up and...hmmm, give up? Never!") Time to start looking at international publishers.
Year five. Once I got a publisher interested (in England of all places--who would have thought the wide world would be interested in my book?), I still had to polish and revise the book to their satisfaction.
Year six. Only then was I offered the golden ring: a publishing contract. All of which took another year, and the publication date was still a year away, and all the time I was growing older...
Year seven. Happy endings! Despite everything, my book came out and sold very well at home and abroad. In fact, it's still selling more than a decade later. Was it worth the wait? You bet!
So this recent book (my sixth) was a bit of lark, all things considered. By now, having a track record and knowing how to structure a story, it takes me less time to create and sell my work. So only three years later, here I sit, waiting to hold my new book in my hand. Okay, I guess I can wait another week. In fact, I'll have to.
On The Runway
Dec 13, 2011
This week my newest book, Lake On The Mountain, is going to press. For a writer, that's the equivalent of being in a plane and taxiing down the runway. You're not quite airborne, but your seatbelt is snug and all the expectation is there.
The timing was propitious. Last month LOTM received a positive pre-review in Publisher's Weekly, the bible of the American publishing industry. A single glowing sentence from that review will now end up on the book's cover along with a blurb by Gail Bowen, one of Canada's most delightfully audacious writers and author of the highly successful Joanne Kilbourn mysteries. Both of these are great coups and the sort of thing writers and publishers dream of.
As with any journey, there's an anticipated place of arrival down the road. For me, as for most writers, that hoped-for destination is one of undying fame, financial success beyond my wildest dreams, and outrageous adulation from my readers. It's called "Dreamland." Few, if any, writers reach it in their lifetime, however, so in the meantime I've learned to enjoy the journey. Duty Free shopping, here I come.
Lake On The Mountain, the tale of a gay missing persons investigator and father of a teenage son, is a bit of a departure for me in one way, yet in another it's precisely where I've been heading for years. I intended it to be that rare, some would even say "apocryphal" animal, the literary-thriller.
Like most university-educated Canadians of my generation, I was raised to be a bit precious in my reading. Genre? Not for me. Nicht, nein, never. It was verboten! I sniffed my way through the romance section in bookstores. I didn't deign to crack open a mystery or a sci-fi book, what with all the wonderful CanLit novels to be read.
So how ironic to find myself the subject of genre discrimination. My first novel, A Cage of Bones, was refused by just about every publisher in Canada. Not because it wasn't well written or literary, but because it was in a genre barely acknowledged at the time: GayLit. In fact, I had to find a publisher outside the country to take it on. For all our literary affectations, Canadians were decidedly behind the times on that one. Not that I minded having a UK publisher first time out of the gate, however. They turned it into an international bestseller, something many Canadian publishers could not have done for me.
Learning I'd inadvertently become a genre writer made me see things differently. One day I picked up a copy of John LeCarre's The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, wondering if it would be even half as good as the film. In fact, it was terrific. But I was suspicious. Should I admit I'd read it? Should I worry it might influence my writing?
Since then I've come across a considerable number of genre books and writers I feel can hold their heads up to anything being written today. Not to mention the success they achieve. In fact, you're far less likely to die the death of a starving artist if you can write outside the literary arena than in.
Ironically, the snobbery I've faced over genre writing has been a double-edged sword. Some of the most blatant discrimination has come from genre-philes who refuse to accept that a literary writer could or should make the cross-over. Our territory—keep out, is how they seem to think of it.
One of my most telling experiences came when I participated in a mystery writers' seminar in New Orleans, not long after the publication of my satirical thriller, The P-Town Murders. I talked about the difference between writing mysteries and literary fiction. At the time, I was set to publish my literary novel, The Honey Locust. Set in the Bosnian War, THL had taken me more than a decade to finish. I'd struggled with it greatly and certainly didn't want to have to repeat the effort. "The formula for writing mysteries is easier," I confided to my genre-loving audience, who gasped.
Apparently the F-word is about the worst thing you can say to a genre writer. "Where is this formula? Can I buy it somewhere?" snarled one curmudgeonly old fellow, who turned out to be a seasoned American mystery author. "Try Walgreen's," I suggested. "Second shelf on the right."
In fact, all good writing is based on a formula. Agatha Christie used one and so did Shakespeare. If you want to argue with them, grab a Ouija board and do your best. I can't help you there.
In the meantime, here I sit on the runway, waiting for my fifth title to be released. I no longer worry whether my books are considered genre or literary or something as yet uncategorized. It's a book. And I believe it's the best one I've written. Years from now, I may still believe it. I know that because of how proud I am of it and how right it seems when I re-read it.
I can feel the plane lifting.
Nov 16, 2011
With a new book coming out, there’s always anticipation to see how it’s going to be received. I’m happy to say Lake On The Mountain, my literary-thriller from Dundurn, had a great start this month with a very positive review in Publishers Weekly. Publication is slated for end of January 2012. For those of you disappointed with the delayed publication of Vanished In Vallarta, third in the Bradford Fairfax mystery series, I hope this will more than make up for the wait.
