Linda Little Interview Follow-Up

Stephen Parrish sent in some great questions that I have passed along to our author interviewees. Here are Linda Little's responses. When I have all the answers in, I'll pull them together into one post for easier reference.


Have the authors had any experience with grant applications? If so, what goes into writing a good one and where can one learn how to writing a winning proposal?

You can get feedback on your NS grant application from the arts office. Wait at least two weeks from the day you receive notification then phone. They can tell you the strengths or weaknesses as reported by the jury.

First and foremost I think it is imperative to remember that where the arts are concerned we live in a world of scarce resources. Your chance of getting a creation grant is (last time I looked so this may not be accurate now) about 15-20%. Meaning, statistically speaking, you could expect to be successful one time out of five or six. These are not fantastic odds. DO NOT SET YOURSELF UP TO BE DEPENDENT UPON GETTING A GRANT.

Arts grants are for working artists. Does your application leave the jury with the confidence that you are a working writer? Do you have a writer's resume that shows you have been at this a while? A few publications are useful -- something to show someone chose your work out of a stack of others. Does the quality of your work indicate that you have been working on this seriously? Do you have a clear idea of what you intend to write?

When I write up my "project description" I imagine the book finished. I answer the question, "What is this book about?" Not - there's this cowboy and he settles in Nova Scotia and he has this deed and... But - this is a book about solitude. This is a book about the space between an individual and those around him. First paint the big picture then hone in. Cass sees in his half-sister an ability to paint disparate fragments into a unified whole, into a story.

For NS grants, the jury reads binders full of applications. The most experienced applicants are often the ones who have the best idea of what they are trying to do and how to go about doing it. This invariably comes through in the application.

Keep at it. The successful writers are the ones that don't quit even when any reasonable person would. The more you write the better you get, the more you understand the craft the stronger your application. Finally, nothing works like a little luck. Remember when you don't get a grant bad luck plays a role. Remember when you do get one that good luck has played a role. Don't quit your day job.

Good luck!

What is her relationship with her agent? Personal, business, distant, close? What should it be? What if it's not what she thinks it should be?

Relationships with agents are as varied as the people who are in them. What would you like your relationship to be?

Some people rely very heavily on their agents for friendship and support. Some people have a relationship that is all business. Some people have very specific expectations of their agent, others expect them to be magicians.

For myself, I like to keep in mind that my agent gets paid when I do. I expect him to get the most possible out of my manuscript in the marketplace. The better he does this, the more he is paid.

Remember an agent does not make or control the marketplace, he works in it. I do not expect him to do work he will not be paid for -- he is not my therapist, my mother, my best friend, my whipping boy. I like my agent, enjoy his company, learn a lot from him. This is great but not essential. I trust my agent. This is crucial. I only know what he tells me. He controls the fate of my work.

I'm fond of small presses, but I'm fond of money, too. What advice would she give to someone whose book is being evaluated as "wonderful but not for us" at the big houses?

Big houses tend to have more resources for editorial assistance, promotion, access to bigger markets and larger audiences, sell more books. If a large house says they're not publishing your manuscript there is no problem because what they publish is up to them and not up to you.

Do you have more than one offer? If so, lucky you! Look at the offers you've got, think about what you want, pick the one that offers most of that.
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Thank you, Linda and Stephen!

Colleen

Interview with Linda Little, Part II

Today's post continues my interview with Linda Little and focusses on the stuff we writers are dying to hear: how other writers have become successful.
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Tell us about your path to publication.

When I sent my first manuscript out, I didn’t have an agent and didn’t need one. It’s good to remember that agents are looking for work they can sell – not work they love. They know a lot about literature, a lot about markets, a lot about the possibilities that exist.

But even the big publishing houses still accept unsolicited manuscripts. When you have a full-length manuscript, you can do simultaneous submissions although the chances of getting a big publisher on a first novel is, again statistically, very low.

I sent my book proposal for my first book off to the seven small publishing houses and two of them responded quite quickly that they wanted to see the full manuscript. Then it took ten months before anyone read it. Once the editor at Goose Lane read it, it was only about a month before they offered to publish it. After the offer to publish, it took about 18 months before it was ready for release.

For the second novel, I thought I would see if I could get an agent to make sure I did everything I could for my book. To find my agent I applied to three prospective agents with query letters and all three agreed to read my ms. Based on the ms, two called me on the phone to talk about it and to talk about representing me. The third agent, who was not interested, sent me a refusal letter. I chose from the two interested agents based on the conversations we had.

As a writer, you have every right to expect that an agent will have read your book and be able to talk about it before they give you an offer of representation. They shouldn’t agree to take you on just because you’ve won an award.

Don’t send and wait. Send and write. Keep going.

Did you focus on Canadian agents or did you approach American agents as well?

I stuck to agents in Canada because I’m Canadian and this is where I live and this is how we do things. I don’t know anything about the American market.

A bit of advice I can give is that at some point you have to start looking at your manuscript – your baby – as a commodity. Agents and publishers work in a marketplace and it’s a completely different world. If you think of it as a good in a marketplace, you’ll know what they need of you. They don’t ask, ‘Is this good?’ They ask, ‘Can I sell it.’ And you want them to ask that, otherwise they won’t be in business in ten years and you want them to be in business in ten years.

Your first book, Strong Hollow, won the Cunard First Book Award in 2002 and was short listed for many others. What was that like – winning an award for your first book and what doors, if any did it open for you?

They don’t open the doors you might think.

I was just thrilled to get a nomination for a national award, for the Raddall Award. Totally thrilled. The thing about an award – and I’ve been on all sides, as juror, as nominee as winner – you have a bunch of books and specific people come with their choices and depending upon who’s on the jury will determine who wins. You can win the Giller and not the Raddall. You can’t put books in order of how good they are. Long after awards come and go, the book is left.

There are books you read and ‘Oh!,’ you think. ‘I can never write like that. If I kill someone, can I write like that?’ And the gun’s loaded. You must love your book. You can’t say one is better than another.

I can tell you the moment I cried was the moment I got the published book in the mail and unwrapped it and held it in my hands. I can look at them and say, ‘These are things I did in my life.’

Your second book, Scotch River, won this year’s Thomas Head Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award and the Dartmouth Book Award for Fiction and made it to the 2006 Globe & Mail Best Book List. How important is it for honours like these to be available for writers?

It’s great for publicity. Few books are mentioned of the hundreds that come out so, if you can get your book publicised, that’s great. If you can get your book to poke its head above the others.

What does the publisher do for promotion?

I don’t quite get the publisher’s job, but generally, they get you invited to events to talk about your book.

What’s your writing process? Do you write every day?

I don’t write and work at the same time. I do each in seasons. For me, it’s a long way from River John to Scotch River so, when I get there I want to stay for a few months. When it’s writing season, I write from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. and from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m.

It’s no secret that writing is a damn hard way to earn a living and that, in fact, many very good writers aren’t able to. Can you talk a little bit about your experience earning a living as a writer in Nova Scotia?

I don’t make a living from writing. It’s extraordinarily unlikely to be able to do so. You might as well buy a lottery ticket.

It takes a long time to write and the financial recompense is very low. If a person is going to be in it for the long haul, it’s responsible to figure out what you need to do financially.

I used to work at the Nova Scotia Museum during the summer. Now I teach at the Agricultural College during the fall. I teach how to write academic papers and a course on Atlantic Canadian Literature.

Do you sense that this is any different than for writers in other parts of the country or in the U.S.?

It is. I have no idea how they do it in Toronto – it’s so expensive to live there. It’s easier here because the cost of living is lower.

Have you begun thinking about or writing another book?

Yes, I have. The Alleged Third Novel, as I call it, is a work of historical fiction. We’ll see what becomes of it.

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Many thanks to Linda for taking the time to speak with me. If you have any questions for Linda, please send them and I'll forward them along to her.


Have a great writing day!


Colleen

Interview with Linda Little, Part I

As promised, here is the interview with Linda Little, author of the recent award-winning Scotch River and her award-winning first novel, Strong Hollow.

Linda generously shared her journey to publication as well as the realities of being a published author as she was gearing up for the River John Literary Festival. I hope you find her story as fascinating and helpful as I did.


What brought you from Hawkesbury, Ontario to River John, NS?

The story isn’t in what brought me from Hawkesbury to River John, but what brought me from St. John’s to River John. Remember that assumption we used to have that after high school you’d leave home -- instead of living in your parent’s basement until you were 35 like now? After high school, I went to university in Kingston [Ontario] and then to university in Newfoundland for my second degree. Both in history. I waited five years for spring to arrive and when it didn’t I went looking for it. Newfoundland is an amazing place, but the weather? Holey moley.

When and how did you discover you were a writer?

Don’t really know. It’s part of the mystery of writing. About ten years after I left school and was in recovery from reading, I read a memoir by Timothy Findlay called Inside Memory and discovered that I wanted the bits between the chapters. As soon as I’d start to get interested in something, he’d change topics. I realized that you could make the bits between chapters up and I started to write as a hobby.

What path did your writing take on the way to writing your first novel?

In 1998 or 97, the Canada Council had a grant program you could apply for without having any thing published. A friend who was a writer said we should apply so I did with no expectations whatsoever. When I got it, I was able to take time away from contract work and wrote what I thought were short stories. I had to come to terms with the fact that I was writing a novel. I wrote full-time for six months and part time for twelve. Strong Hollow was published in 2001 by Goose Lane.

When I began writing, I wrote a short story, Manhandling, that was published in an English magazine out of Montreal called Matrix. I had thought that getting something published would be evidence of whether I could write. As it turns out – you don’t think it. You wonder whether you can write the next thing. Like anything else that ever happens in life you never know if you’re doing the right thing. You don’t think: ‘Oh, I’ve written six books, I don’t have to worry, I know how to write. But, you haven’t written the seventh.’

After the first story, I wrote a little as a hobby. I’d write and send, write and send, and only get the tiniest little thing published in the tiniest little publications. I find it amazing that I was able to keep going, but it was enough – I think because I loved it and would do it anyway. I was doing it for itself.

As writers, we don’t know if our writing’s any good and we just want something, someone to tell us we are. You need to keep at it when the prospect of stopping looks worse than the prospect of keeping on. When the prospect of stopping looks better then you have to stop.

So, you advise writing short stories for publication?

It’s nice if you can get a little something so you can tell a publisher that somebody somewhere – not your mother – chose your work over a stack of others. Keep track of what you’ve sent where. I have a column that tells me what date I sent something and what date I got it back. Always have stuff out there so you’re in the game.

It’ good to remember that literary magazines publish only between three and four percent of what they receive so, statistically, it is extremely unlikely that anything you send them will be published. That means that when you get a story returned, it’s not a big deal. But when you get one published? That’s a big deal. That’s when you inflate balloons, and dance, and get a cake and eat the whole thing. Lap it up. Roll in it.

Always have something out and always watch the mail. When a story is returned, take it out of one envelope and stick it into the next. After I’ve sent a story out fifteen times and three years have gone by, I’ll have a look at it and think, ‘Oh, this sucks. No wonder it isn’t getting published.’ It’s an indication of where you’re at, of how your writing has grown. I don’t know how writing gets better over time, but it does.

I think I would have saved time had I taken advantage of workshops and mentorship programs earlier. I would have gotten better faster. But there is a danger in workshops. You’ll run into many writers who only write at workshops. You’ll see them at one and then at another months later and they haven’t written anything. If you are attending six workshops a year, that’s probably a bad idea, but a few well-placed workshops are very helpful.

Keep any eye out for little anthologies. It’ll shrink the amount of time it takes you to get better.

Do you read your books after they’ve been printed?

I don’t. There are so many other great books to read. But sometimes, when I’m looking for something for a class, I’ll read something from one of my books and I think: ‘You wrote that? How did that happen? Where did that come from?’

It’s only when the golden acorn is left in your palm that you can say, ‘I did that.’ It illuminates the mystery of the creation.

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Stay tuned for part II of the interview tomorrow as Linda discusses getting published and getting an agent.

Cheers!
Colleen

Read by the Sea Literary Festival

On Saturday I'll be heading to Read by the Sea, the eighth annual installment of what sounds like a really fun literary festival.

Authors Gary Blackwood, Don Hannah, Joan Clark. Pamela Hickman, Ami McKay, Freeman Patterson and Mark Oakley will read from their recent works then participate in brief interviews.


There is even an open mic event in the evening to give writers an opportunity to read their work aloud. It makes me sick just to think of doing so, but maybe I'll gather up my internal fortitude and throw my name into the ring. There are only eight spots available. I'll let you know.

The icing on the cake is that Linda Little has invited me to drop by and introduce myself. How could I resist? Linda is one of the founders of the event and the award winning author of Strong Hollows and Scotch River.


An interview with Linda and will be posted on July 30/31. She has some really worthwhile advice for us new writers. Very practical and encouraging.

Have a great weekend!

Colleen

Scotch River

I have an other Atlantic Book Award winner to share with you, Scotch River by Linda Little.

Her prose is dark and breathtaking.

One of the things I enjoy about this book is the entrance of Cass Hutt, rodeo cowboy, into the small fishing village of Scotch River NS. Placing someone so obviously from away into the lives of an extraordinarily dysfunctional family allows the author to show that sometimes the things that make us different are, indeed, that things that unite us.

Illiterate and nearly amnesiac Cass, with only a deed to an unknown bit of land to guide him, walks from Alberta to Nova Scotia searching for his identity and something to ground him after his rodeo partner dies.

He finds a cast of characters so unable to communicate with each other, they wrap themselves in pain and solitude, brandishing each as badges of honour. If Cass is to find himself, he has to be able to make sense of these people and discover his connection to them.

Here are the opening words:

"Cass Hutt could not feel the land beneath his feet. Stone-cold sober and reeling around on nothing as though his flesh speckled out into air, as though ghost legs propped him up. He pulled off his boots at night and ran his hands down his calves, feeling skin on skin, seeking to reassure himself..."

Read the first chapter and buy the book through Penguin Canada.

Or you can buy it here.

I hope you enjoy Linda's book as much as I did.

Colleen