The End of 2024

It’s been an eventful year, insofar as there seemed to be a lot going on and yet seems to have passed by quite quickly.

I’m happy to have completed revisions to my next novel, The Stars Align for Disco Santa, and passed it on to my agent (who I hope reads it soon, but he’s a busy man). Fingers crossed that in 2025 it does the rounds of publishers and finds a suitable home. Otherwise, as writing goes, it’s been liberating. As well as the novel, I’ve been seriously working on an essay about my uncle’s guitar and the sordid personal story surrounding that. As I might’ve mentioned previously, it’s the sort of personal essay that requires much more contemplation (not to mention exploring my own blind spots) than even a novel. There’s nowhere to hide with something like this, not when you’re writing about yourself. I’ve had essays published before — one of them made 2017 Best Canadian Essays — but it wasn’t nearly as vulnerable as this piece; there’s so much woodshedding (to use a guitar term) involved, and yet I’m happy with how it’s coming, even if it hurts to reach into the places it needs to go.

I also began in earnest on a fourth novel, which is coming along well. It takes place just a little bit in the future and seems to be drawing out a lot of my more philosophical thoughts about society and the erosion of democracy. The main character is a psychotherapist who finds herself immersed in an unspooling drama while attending a professional conference. It has a title, though I’m too superstitious to reveal that before it’s been vetted by my agent.

I had hand surgery in October, which was an emotional experience for me (speaking of unspooling), combined with the pressures of my work. The good news is that I’ve given myself a couple of weeks away from the office to let things coalesce. The trick, as I’ve touched on over at my professional blog, is not to overwork myself. In short, there’s no winner if I’m dead at the finish line.

For the new year, I see myself being a little more public-facing as a writer. I’ve been toying with the idea of facilitating a seminar for authors, focused on how to read for an audience. This is a long-brewing idea that I’ve kicking around for a few years now, inspired (if that’s the right word) by the fact that so few authors seem to know what to do when they’re reading their work for an audience, which ends up doing themselves and their work a disservice. If I can swing it I’d like to aim for the spring. It’s a way for me to give back to the community (I plan to make it pay-what-you-can just to cover costs, with whatever proceeds remaining going to a local charity).

Of course, politically and socially, there appears a storm approaching, and I don’t know what to do about that except to direct my powers as an artist toward addressing it in whatever way I can that might (if I can make a wish) allow people to understand how we got here, or at least put the spotlight on those who have done a better job of describing this better than I can.

I wish you, dear reader, the best for the new year. You have more power than you think you have, and I hope you find a way to channel it in such a way as to cut through the divisiveness of our time. I think community is important, and ultimately this concept is more powerful the more local and intimate its location.

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Another essay on essays

Since my last post’s featured essay was a little on the theoretical side, I thought I would share another critical piece on the contemporary essay, albeit one that will perhaps feel more grounded and less equivocal than Mitch Therieau’s. I happened upon this one courtesy of local-ish author, Nathan Whitlock.

In this piece for The Drift, Jackson Arn takes aim at Anchor Books’ publication of The Contemporary American Essay, stares upon its entrails, and tells us (not unconvincingly) about what’s wrong with the state of the contemporary essay. There’s a lot here I agree with, with some of the preciousness (and vagueness) of the current style taken to task.

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Something to read (February 2022 edition)

I’ve been thinking a lot about this piece by Mitch Therieau for the Chicago Review, called “Getting Personal”. It’s essentially a state-of-the-nation on the personal-critical essay, surveying where we’ve come since the latter part of the 20th century (starting with New Journalism) and bringing the reader to what might be termed “personal criticism”. Therieau’s piece defies easy summation (as you will see below), which is sort of the point, in a meta (though not conceited) way. Is there a crisis in the personal-critical essay? Yes, but it has less to do with the dominant style, which is ultimately downstream from the demands of the marketplace.

Along the way, Therieau makes use of indirect references to psychoanalysis, Marxism (neither of those in an overbearing way), feminist theory, as well as an overarching attempt to define where we’re at, which, to clumsily summarize, seems to be (here we go…) a pyretic hammering away with personal anecdote as a mimetic tool that risks exploiting the writer even though we know full-well that personal experience can only truly be secondary (and thus filtered) but what the hell let’s go out with a blaze of glory.

Anyways, it’s very good.

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