What I get out of CANSCAIP
Writers seem to be of two types: the extreme introverts who hate attending any kind of function or getting together with anyone; and the heavy partying types, Hemingway for example, who crave getting together with other likewise engaged individuals.
Deb Loughead, by her own admission, likes to hole away and just write––while I’m more a party person. CANSCAIP brought us together. One pre-meeting dinner I was lamenting how my son was going away so far to study film at Confederation College in Thunder Bay and Deb told me all about her son Ben, a homebody like Craig, and how he loved the film program there and how great the people were. She made me comfortable with the idea, not an easy task, and we became good friends.
Since then we’ve spent weeks in Sudbury touring schools. We’ve shared agents. We’ve shared heartaches and triumphs. We’ve both been treasurer, vice-president and president of CANSCAIP. I think I talked Deb into those jobs. And we still remain friends!
We continue to discuss our projects and give each other contact information. We’re both published abroad because of our friendship and exchange of information. I feel Crush. Candy. Corpse landed at the perfect publisher, Lorimer, because of Deb and my agent. In fact our socializing could be called networking although we always share lots of laughs and laments when we get together.
Here we are sharing a great signing together. We each sold about 20 books at Chapters Queensway. I expected to split our buyers in half but I remember one moment when I was introducing my new historical fiction Revenge on the Fly to a mom and her young reader, when Deb spontaneously interjected, as though she had just thought of it, that she bet this new book would win an award. Sale made.
I would talk about her books after, before or between my own and say how much I enjoyed them. (I wrote an endorsement for the back blurb of Time and Again). The truth is we met lots of book lovers and they could easily buy one of each of our titles. So they did.
We spent a whole Sunday afternoon talking up our titles together in between exchanging shop and family tidbits.
Signings can be painful for the sole author with having to explain plots and inspirations for our books and where the bathroom is. Deb and I had a great time.
Thank your Kristin Knowles at Chapters, Queensway. And thank you CANSCAIP!
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