Yes, you can get published
The setting was the big, cavernous auditorium at the Lakeshore Campus of Humber College in westend Toronto. I was there to join a panel of authors who were to deliver “success stories” on having their books published following their attendance at a Humber School for Writers Summer Workshop.
My invitation came from Antanas Sileika, director of the School for Writers. I attended the week-long Workshop two years ago. As a non-fiction writer, I wanted to see what I could learn about writing fiction. I learned a lot about creating narrative, setting dramatic scenes, writing dialogue, and establishing character roles.
There were seven of us on the panel. A remarkable number, considering that five had not previously published.
All were good, though some were too long. Most offered check lists of writerly techniques. Do your research. Don’t get frustrated by rejection. Go for a small press if you can’t get a big press.
I decided to use what I’d learned at my Summer Workshop to tell a story. About a non-fiction writer who wants to write a historical novel, set partly in a country (Scotland) he’s never visited. So he does a ton of research, reads a lot of books, and realizes he’ll have to go there.
He likes the works of a Scottish historian Michael Fry. So he phones up Fry, tells him he is coming to Edinburgh, and asks if they can meet. They do, and Fry — over a nice lunch and a pricy bottle of wine – agrees to read the guy’s first two chapters. A month later, Frey’s comments come back, offering lots of great historical advice.
Then the guy hears about Humber, decides to attend the Summer Workshop, and is teamed up with Guy Vanderheage, one of Canada’s greatest novelists. It’s a great week. After, he realizes he’s learned he can make his non-fiction a lot more appealing by borrowing from the novelist’s techniques of creating narrative, conflict, and suspense.
Armed with these new tools, he rewrites his latest non-fiction bit and promptly gets it published. I’m talking about my book, Scott Joplin and the Age of Ragtime, published this Spring by McFarland, a U.S. house.
Our host Antanas Sileika told the crowd of this year’s students (many doctors and lawyers among them) that he was blown away by my story of Michael Fry. He said he always advises students that the last thing one writer does is to ask another writer to read their work. They won’t do it! Maybe I’ve proven him wrong, at least this time.
I wish I had more space to talk about the other six presentations.
Cathy Ostlere spoke sensitively of her seven year struggle to cope with the death of her brother, drowned when he was sailing the Atlantic, and write her memoir of that tragic time, LOST (Key Porter). She was fortunate to be recommended to a leading agent, who negotiated a good package for her. Cathy’s now at work on a second book, a young adult novel of religious and racial strife in India, a country with which she has some familiarity.
I also liked the talk given by Sharon Kirsch, whose love of animals brought her to the writing of What Species (New Star), a book about the strange breeds of animals encountered by the first white settlers of North America. Like many authors, she had a series of rejections from various agents and publishers, but persevered, and won a contract with a B.C. publisher that specializes in nature books. It pays to know your niche!
Carol Helfenstein, a onetime farm wife, spoke of her book Why Not? (Brucedale Press) about how she and her husband took over a country weekly newspaper. Monika Lee told of the frustrations of getting poetry published, and how she found a publisher for Gravity Loves the Body (SWOP Press).
Madelaine Moore had amusing anecdotes about her career as a writer of feminist erotica, the latest being Wild Card (Black Lace/Random House). And Adrian White offered good advice in telling us of his new mystery novel Bethesda (Loon in a Balloon).
I’ll look forward to the alumni of this year’s Workshop giving their success stories in another year or two.
