Greetings from somewhere cloudy

Hi all — I’m slowly getting back into the swing of providing regular updates here, but I should be honest with you that I’ve been battling exhaustion and burnout over the past couple of months. It’s not pretty: in-between forgetting a lot of things, tackling overdue quotidian tasks comes with frustration and resentment. My energy and focus have been more or less on my day job, with good reason. I was also somewhat ironically prolific over the Xmas break, having done a complete read-through of Book Three for revision notes, as well as putting together a very personal essay which ties the story together of my murdered uncle’s stolen guitar.

So yes, “productive”, but I’m paying for it currently, along with the dividends of the not-so-good things from 2022 (ie my mother was hospitalized for several months).

I’m going to leave you with a wonderful song from Jenny Hval that I have been trying not to mainline every moment I can, owing to the fact that the piece has a strong emotional impact on me. Perhaps it’s the reflective and speculative nature of the (gorgeous) lyrics. In any case, I hope to see you soon.

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The Big December Update

It’s been a year…however, I’m going to save the reflection for when I have the time to do so (!).

I’m so happy that RADIOLAND was recently chosen as a top music pick from CBC Books, especially to see myself listed with my friend (and well-respected music journalist) Michael Barclay and his thorough history of Canadian music from 2000-2005, HEARTS ON FIRE. Talk about good company.

I should also let you know that my publisher is celebrating their 40th anniversary and is offering a 40% discount on their complete catalogue until the end of December. Yes, that includes RADIOLAND and my debut novel THE SOCIETY OF EXPERIENCE — however, I’d like to also add that it also includes works from friends/authors Andrew Wilmot, A.G. Pasquella, Dani Couture, Daniel Scott Tyson, Sofi Papamarko, James Lindsay and D.D. Miller. Seeing as this is holiday-adjacent, this 40% discount is well-timed.

As I’ve mentioned, it’s been a year. I want to thank everyone who has supported my writing. Your support has been felt.

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The Big November Update

Holy cow, what a month. I’m sitting here at a sports bar (using their wifi) half-exhausted from everything that’s transpired since my last post here.

me at the launch

The launch for RADIOLAND went great and was well attended!

You can stream my interview with CBC Toronto’s Gill Deacon to assess whether I made any sense (I think I did, though I was very nervous being on live radio).

Speaking of radio interviews, I just completed a wonderful interview with Jamie Tennant for CFMU’s Get Lit. It’s not going to be available until mid-December, but I’ll let y’all know when that happens!

Last but not least…I have a giveaway of sorts. For my launch I decided to do something special and had custom guitar picks made, which I distributed to those who purchased my book. Guess what? I have some left over! So, while quantities last (I’ve never typed that before and it feels weird), if you get in touch and provide a photo of your copy of RADIOLAND (or proof of purchase) I will mail you one of these! Seriously! You can either DM via Twitter (@heymattcahill) or you can email me (matt at mattcahill dot ca).

I’m planning on taking a little time off to regroup (and catch up on my reading!) but I’m planning on getting back into Book Three in December and hopefully deliver the goods in 2023. Take care, and thanks for popping by!

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September Update

Regular visitors have probably been frustrated with the lack of updates here. So have I. The truth is that I’ve been swamped with doing the finishing touches on Radioland…and taking care of an ailing parent. I cannot express how exhausting the last while has been, on so many personal levels.

The good news is that, as of Friday, I signed-off on the last of the changes to the manuscript. It is, for all intents and purposes, out of my hands…which is both satisfying and frightening.

I finally have had time to update my website as well as post an update here (and add Radioland to the sidebar links). My next task is to gird myself for publicity, which I’m both excited for…and intimidated af. If there’s one thing I need to work on it’s getting out of my Writer Head and speaking about the book so that someone who isn’t in my head can understand what it’s actually about, which would be easier if I hadn’t written a fairly complex novel. There are worse problems.

Also…

(CBC Books 2022 fall fiction picks)

I should mention that Radioland was picked as one of CBC Books fall fiction titles!

Anyhoo, I hope to be here more regularly.

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Radioland: Cover Reveal and Pre-Order!

Hello all,

It’s been a time-and-a-half to get to this point, so it’s with a mixture of relief and exhaustion that I’m able to share the cover for my next novel, Radioland.

book cover for Radioland, my next novel

Nice, eh? The cover is by designer extraordinaire Ingrid Paulson.

This book has taken a lot work, and I can’t wait for you all to read it. Here’s another thing: it’s now available for pre-order, which means that you can order it now, and when it’s released (currently looking like October) it will get shipped to you ASAP then. Presales are also cool b/c they can build interest from stores, retailers, etc, so there’s that too. I trust you to do the right thing.

You can read more about Radioland on the publisher’s site (where you can also pre-order it): Wolsak & Wynn

You can also bug your local independent bookstore or local library to order it for you.

You can also pre-order it from these folks, too:

Amazon

Chapters/Indigo

Barnes & Noble

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Running

From my mid-20s until my mid-30s I played recreational soccer with friends. it’s a game I played as a kid, but because my family moved a lot, there wasn’t a lot of experience with it until a friend from college suggested we put together a pickup team, with stragglers from school, work, and wherever. It’s a sport that I adore playing, and could easily play every day of my life. It is not, however, a sport that is everlasting for everyone.

First came those of us with pre-existing injuries. One regular, Jason, who was a new father, admitted that he wanted to spend what was left of his deteriorating ankle (hello, soccer) playing with his son, and not with a bunch of strangers on dodgy community fields. Can’t blame him. The second wave, perhaps the most widely experienced, came when we entered our 30s; people settled down, got married, streamlined their careers, started families, bought houses. That nearly did it. I was still organizing pickup soccer past my mid-30s with a ragtag membership of acquaintances and friends-of-friends. Injuries happened. I sprained my ankle something fierce, which meant there was no one to organize the games while I was in rehab; another of us, Erik, received a concussion due to an accidental running-into with another player.

By the age of 40 everything had changed. The only soccer to be had was through privately run recreational sports organizations, which can be fun in terms of meeting new people, but dear god let me tell you this: no one wants to play a soccer match at 10pm on a Sunday night.

I turned to running, as I missed the workout. I bought an introductory pair of running shoes and started by going around a few blocks of where I lived. I remember sitting on the front steps of my house, sweating and heaving, and having our neighbour, Mrs. Fu, look at me and comment “If you did that more often you probably wouldn’t be so tired.” Thanks. I measured my distance first in city blocks. And, gradually, I measured it in kilometres. I remember feeling that 2 kilometres was ridiculously long; as well, the challenge of what goes on in your head when you’re running: the anxious thoughts about whether I could finish what I started.

Everything changed once I was able to get to 5k.

But first, let me make something clear: I’m not into gadgets, I don’t wear headphones, I don’t bother with biofeedback gizmos on my wrist. I look at my analog watch when I start, and then look at it when I’m done. I measure the distances of my runs by using Google Maps on my laptop. When I tell some people this they look at me as if I was talking about living in a shed without an outhouse. For me, there is an experiential quality about running: I get to see, hear, smell, feel the world around me — good and bad. The last thing I need is to be listening to a podcast about unsolved murders.

It took me at least 2 years to get to 5k, and I should say that I wasn’t on any sort of schedule to do so. I just listened to my body, and pushed when I thought I was ready, not unlike how someone decides to add another 10lbs to their squat bar at the gym. The increments can take months, and the nice thing about starting out running is that you’re not really competing with anyone (yet), so there’s no pressure to “achieve” much. Once I hit 5k, I was able to get to 10k within a few months. And once I hit 10k it was like standing on a fucking mountaintop.

This is a good juncture to mention that not everyone, younger or older, can do this. Running can tax your body in ways that are not always healthy. And not everyone’s bodies are able to be pushed hard. Some people’s bodies are not able to be pushed, period. I mention this because I would hate for someone to read this and feel that, because they aren’t able to run, that this makes their experience of life any less. I’m just using my legs because I got ’em, and they work, for now. Running is also easier for white people than it is for racialized people; and it’s easier for men than it is for women. And by easier I mean you are less likely to be physically or sexually targeted. In other words, I’m writing this from a place of privilege.

I started joining races in 2015. The psychological complexity of being in a corral of other runners is fraught. I find the complexity of running in any sort of competitive context to be fascinating: watching your pace, staying within respectful distance of others, passing and being passed by others, not getting freaked out when you think you’ve hit the 3k mark only to pass a sign saying 2k; oh yeah, and not breathing like you’re being chased by a dog. I’ve done 10k, 8k, 5k, and a half marathon (which I did, kinda stupidly, only ten days after a cyclist collided into me and fractured a few ribs).

Running, for me, is a through line to body awareness. I don’t feel like a brain floating in a jar when I’m running. I can audit my body when I’m running, interrogating what it is that’s feeling tired if I’m worriedI can’t finish. I get to experience the outdoor world, and be part of it in an intense way that can sometimes feel profound. I can be alone with my thoughts. It can also be a way to set precedents for working with self-doubt (hello, half marathon). To be frank there’s also some gross aspects to the body awareness part; for example, learning to predict your bowel movements after eating a meal so that you aren’t finding yourself experiencing GI pain in the middle of your race. And I won’t get into all the bloody mess that happens with blisters on your feet.

When I bought my first pair of “I’m taking this seriously” running shoes at a local shop, I mentioned to the owner how I used to play soccer but had no one to play with anymore, thus my interest in running. He told me he had heard that a lot from other soccer veterans, and in that moment I felt heard and seen (though I realized after it was also saying good-bye to soccer in many ways). It wasn’t a big gesture he made, and while I wouldn’t say I felt part of a club (not that I would want to be in one), nonetheless I felt part of a kinship. I’m 51 years old now, and I’m faster than I was when I was 45; I push myself, and yet I also keep myself from pushing so hard that I endanger my body from being able to meet day-to-day needs. There is a quotidian aspect to body awareness that comes with running that I deeply appreciate: knowing when to push, knowing when to give other people space, knowing when to back off, and knowing when to give everything you’ve got in your engine in the dying moments when you see the finish line.

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Writing Life Update, Late-November Edition

I’ve been putting some of the final touches on Radioland, and while I’m still convinced it’s going to be one of those books that is ultimately ripped out of my hands by my publisher, I’m happy with how this second round of revisions is coming along. Part of me just wants to walk away from it. It’s been five years, and that is a long time to work on something that is as dark and introspective as Radioland is. I’m confident that I’ve pulled it off, but there’s another part of me that wants to make sure that every. single. section. works. Ugh.

Book Three is looking to be sent out to publishers in early 2022, and at that point I will publicly reveal the title, and spill a little bit about what it’s about. Keeping the title and details secret is just a bit of prudence on my part; I think it’s natural for any writer to want to protect their works-in-progress from the possibility of someone else riffing on their material before it’s released, and I realize that this is probably a little bit of paranoia on my part.

And there’s a Book Four, folks. Yes. I’ve barely sketched it out, but I can tell you that it has good bones. I look forward to falling into its hole come December.

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Writing Adv*ce: Constraints

Someone who is new-ish to writing is liable to want to have every option open to them when it comes to writing — this applies equally to fiction, creative non-fiction, and poetry. Get out of my way, this writer says to themselves as they roll up their sleeves, and just let me get to it. And there’s nothing inherently wrong with this ethos (most writing advice tbh is Janus-faced, in that the opposite could equally be true depending upon the context of the individual in question); writing can be (and often is) liberating.

But here’s the thing (because why else would I be writing this in my spare time if there wasn’t a point): sometimes having all the options open to you will have the opposite effect of liberty — it can incongruously create its own roadblock by virtue of being, well, too open-ended. If there are no boundaries it can often feel as if we are tasked with filling an abyss which might lead to a sense of paralysis. Do I write about this? Wait…what about that? The question of what you write about (or the angle you choose to write about it from) can be intimidating if there are no rules, no guardrails, no ceiling and no floor.

When I took part in a week-long writing intensive many years ago, which incorporated fiction and poetry writing, the end goal was for each of us to write a sestina. What’s that? It’s a form of poetry that carries with it very specific rules for how it is to be constructed and it is a massive. pain. in the. ass. Without exception, every person in my group — poet, non-poet, or (like me) something in-between — saw each day that approached the assignment deadline with a sense of dread. The sentiment could be summed as: this is bullshit. As in, this is bullshit, I should be free to write whatever and however I want. What is more freeing than Art, after all!? And yet, when I sat my ass down and began to work out how I would construct my sestina, which I admit was painful, I was also struck by how the constraint of the sestina form forced me to be very specific and focused on what it was that I was doing. Lo and behold, I ended up writing something I never thought I would’ve pulled off — and managed to impress the instructor in the process. It was an inspirational step forward to me, not just as an artist but as someone who reflects on the hows and whys of human behaviour.

A few weeks ago, a documentary was released on the band The Velvet Underground. Its director, Todd Haynes, an artist in his own right, set his own constraints on the project. Rather than having a bunch of present-day intellectuals and music nobility reflecting on the influence of the Velvets (ie how many music documentaries are constructed) he insisted on maintaining temporal and situational context in his choice of subject by only presenting people who were there at the time and place that the events unfold. For example, when the Velvets set out on an ill-fated tour of California he doesn’t interview anyone who was not part of that tour. No Warhol. No Jonathan Richman. Just whatever archival footage was available and/or surviving members of the band and entourage to speak to their experience. It makes for a fascinating and immediate way of telling the story without it being a nostalgic love-in or overly biased hagiography. You should see it.

What are other ways in which we might use constraints to help us focus? How about a police procedural with no police? A mystery told from the sole vantage point of a security camera? A poem expressing your current feelings but using excerpts/fragments from your teenage journals?

Constraints can guide and inform an artist’s work. Note I say can. Sometimes it’s good to go-for-broke and blow the doors off whatever it is you want to get off your chest without care for form. But whatever you do don’t forget that form itself can allow you, if counter-intuitively, to transcend your inner biases and intellectual confines.

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