Starting Fresh, Again
Publication, graduation, and (mostly) staying sane
Dear Reader,
Most of the time what my writing career looks like is me at my desk—not at a café because the music is too loud, or at the library because other people’s keyboards are too loud, or the patio of my own apartment because the residential traffic is too loud—trying to cultivate perfect silence and lull my brain into a semi dream state where words drift from out of limbo in groups called sentences that take on meaning as they fall against each other on the page. I write by hand in numbered notebooks for the early drafts because seeing the digital word count makes me itch inside my head and the light from the laptop screen eventually hurts my eyes. Creating a Word document feels official and decisive, sharp enough to chop up a project before it has grown a functioning heart or a decent pair of lungs—much too audacious an act for the weird fragility that trails me as I write.
Basically, I’m particular. I let myself be—why not? Every so often the particularity leads to a finished product (a book), which in turn leads to my writing career looking briefly different than me emerging mid-morning from my bedroom/office with a weighted blanket around my shoulders to shove a granola bar down my throat and refill my mug of tea. I get to do things like go out in public and read from my book—in this case, Cicada Summer, a novel just published by W. W. Norton & Co.—and talk with other authors about all things literature.
At my book launch, I was joined by Carleigh Baker, whose strange and brilliant short story collection Last Woman came out from McClelland & Stewart in March of this year. The talk was moderated by Genki Ferguson, of whose novel Satellite Love I have long been a fan. With a book backdrop and green velvet couch provided by the dreamy bookshop Upstart & Crow on Granville Island, we were bound for success. And we had it, I think—the success. I at least laughed a lot and felt that my ramblings were understood by the attendees. We discussed the genesis behind Cicada Summer’s odd structure (it’s a short story collection surrounded by a frame narrative, ultimately making it a novel); certain literary influences (Michael Ondaatje, Miriam Toews…); our strategies for tackling difficult world events in our writing, like the pandemic and climate crisis; our feelings about genre; and which story in Cicada Summer is a revamped version of something I wrote in high school.
After the event, I walked home along the seawall, feeling elated and smart and cultured, and then feeling progressively less of those things until I felt downright awful and pretty sad, which I interpret as the inevitable blues after a happy, exciting life event is done with, finished for good.
I will never again launch my second book! I hope a few people will read it and feel that the reading was time well spent. I hope there are more books ahead of me in my future, so I can do the song and dance of publication again.
I try to remain grateful for every experience I’m able to have as a writer. The reality is that most of my days are filled with things that are not writing in order to keep me fed and housed. For the last six months I have worked as a part-time elementary school librarian, but I am very fortunately moving on to high school in the fall; and for the last two years I have been completing my Master of Library and Information Studies degree at UBC. In fact, I just graduated!
I have promised myself I will never go back to school again (I have a number of degrees now, and it’s getting silly), but who’s to say! It’s hard for me not to be learning; I find it a worthwhile way to spend this time of being alive.
With love,
E
Writing Updates:
My second novel, Cicada Summer, was officially published on June 18th, 2024 by W. W. Norton & Co. Purchase the book here if you live in Canada, and here if you live in the United States.
Cicada Summer is also an audiobook! It’s narrated by Bailey Carr and distributed by Audible, available here.
Cicada Summer received a starred review in the Quill and Quire. The author, Jean Marc Ah-Sen, does a beautiful job untangling the structural and metafictional aspects of the novel, comparing it to Italo Calvino’s If On a Winter’s Night a Traveler.
My debut novel, Tear (Invisible Publishing, 2022), will be translated into Italian and published in Italy by Ischìre.
Events and Workshops:
BOOK LAUNCH AND CONVERSATION WITH BEN BERMAN GHAN
When: Wednesday, July 10th, 6-8pm
Where: Massy Arts Society, 23 East Pender Street, Vancouver
What: I will be reading from my novel, Cicada Summer, and discussing bookish, writerly things with Ben Berman Ghan, who is coming in from Calgary with his strange and mesmerizing debut novel, The Years Shall Run Like Rabbits, from Wolsak & Wynn. Come hang, come chat!
CREATIVE WRITING CLASS: THE QUEER SURREAL
When: Saturday, August 3rd, 1-3pm
Where: Vancouver Public Library, Central Branch
What: Ever been closeted? Ever used art as an escape or psychological rinse? This creative writing class will investigate how using fantasy and surrealism in your literary practice can open avenues of self-discovery, and how the unfortunate act of repressing one’s sexual orientation can be fuel for imagining anew, and queering, the world.
What I’ve Been Reading (and Loving):
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead (2009), a novel by Olga Tokarczuk, translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones
Helpmeet (2022), a novella by Naben Ruthnum
A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life (2021), an essay collection by George Saunders
What I’ve Been Watching (and Loving):
I Saw the TV Glow (2024), a film directed by Jane Schoenbrun
Downsizing (2017), a film directed by Alexander Payne
True Detective, Season 1 (2014), a TV series created by Nic Pizzolatto and directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga