This is a long-overdue Extras column. I have a bunch of news to cover, a little bit of preachy writing to explain my absence earlier this year, and some fun stories about my writing life. News * If you’re in Toronto on October 7th, I’ll be joining Jill Yonit Goldberg as her guest at Queen Books in Leslieville, for the launch of her novel, After We Drowned. * I’m opening up some time towards one-on-one coaching. Book an hour with me, and tell me about your writing problems, whether it’s related to process, publishing or craft. * The big news: My novel, Everyone Can’t Be Wrong, is being published by Inanna Publications—due out in Fall 2026. If you follow me on Instagram, you’ve heard this already, but scroll down to read more about this novel’s long path to publication…. everything that could go wrong happened. The Preachy Bit (short, I promise) I was going to write this Extras column about the unexpected break I took earlier this year (I hope some of you noticed!) because I spent the time volunteering for grassroots political efforts here in Ontario. Much like writing the draft of a novel, it was a long effort that was unlikely to succeed, but we did it anyway. We got the results we expected, not the ones we wanted, and yet, there were still some surprising successes along the way. All in all, more fun than fuming about the state of things. I’m pretty new to any kind of political activism, but given these politically s****y times, I feel a lot better if I’m able to do something. As I’ve been telling everyone, I’d rather go down fighting. But I wanted to take this space to encourage people to get involved politically. Granted, it’s not always safe for everyone to do so—particularly if you are in the USA. But I know that there are more people who could get involved. As s****y and sometimes rigged as our political system is, as much as it is slow and messy and full of often stupid and terrible compromises, as much as we end up fighting for the loss of someone we don’t want as opposed to being inspired by someone we truly do want… this is where the decisions get made. Maybe that’s at a very local level. Maybe it’s just for an hour here and there. But if you can make space for it—and I know it’s hard enough to make space for writing, let alone politics—do more than just vote in elections. Do more than sign petitions. Get out and stump for a candidate, even if they aren’t your favourite but are preferable to the alternative. Volunteer to help other people vote. Get involved in the local issues that result in dumb decisions because there are five terrible people who showed up at the public meeting to complain about s**t. Be the sixth person, and stand up and explain why the complainers are wrong. Change happens between elections too. This often requires sustained effort over a long period of time, but fortunately, that can be spread out over many people. You don’t have to be Erin Brockovich (either the movie one played by Julia Roberts, or the real life one) and devote your entire existence to a cause; there are lots of ways you can help with far less of a time commitment. I know many people who use the idea of bearing witness to terrible things as a way of feeling like they are doing something. I’m not sure that this is particularly helpful. Finding out what is happening is no longer difficult; it’s now too easy, and that quickly turns into overwhelm, and then nothing changes. There are other ways to do something. Okay, preachy bit over. Fun Stories about my Writing Life First, if you didn’t hear the news earlier because you don’t follow me on instagram, you really should check out my insta. It’s a lot like this newsletter if you took out the warm fuzzy bits and made things visual. My upcoming novel, Everyone Can’t Be Wrong, had a long journey. It began as a short story that I wrote in 2011 or so, that I never quite knew what to do with. It’s been through a lot, so much so that it’s publishing journey could be called: Everything That Could Go Wrong Where the novel started * Around 2014 or so, a friend from my MFA suggested the original short story really wanted to be a novel. And so I signed up for a novel writing workshop with Gail Anderson-Dargatz, thinking I could get a draft done and really be in good shape for my upcoming MFA thesis. * Gail quickly pointed out that the idea I had, actually had no plot. * Together we worked through some scenes and came up with an outline that made a lot of sense on paper. I signed up for NaNoWriMo that year to help push through the novel, and it was right around the big final climax when I realized that this very sensible outline didn’t work. I mean, it worked but my characters had been fighting me on it the whole way through, and in the middle of the climax it was very clear that nope, this was all wrong. Still finished it because, it was nearly done anyway. * Started working on a whole new draft to submit as the first draft of my thesis. In the midst of this, we were going through infertility treatments, my cat died, we were renovating the house while living in it, I was teaching writing in addition to completing my MFA, and also my mother-in-law’s aggressive cancer came back, and she later died. I put off completing the first draft. * Eventually, I got back to the draft, sent it to my thesis advisor, late, and received comments back. By this point, I was pregnant and the need to finish renovating the house was dialled up to 11 because we had literal holes and rusty wires poking out of the walls, and also no complete bathrooms. Could I write while pregnant? Not really. * Didn’t finish the next draft until after my son was born, and more importantly, after we managed sleep training. As soon as my son was down for the night I would go straight to my desk to write. This was not so much dedication as it was terror at becoming one of those women who seemed to have a lot of potential but then became a mother and never did anything else. * Received comments on draft two (during the thesis process, these are less substantive comments) and then sent in draft three, which was the final draft for thesis purposes. Was entirely convinced by this point that I had completely missed the mark on what I had set out to write. Wrote my thesis advisor, Nancy Lee, a long email about how I was going to toss out this novel, it was clearly flawed from the start, but it’s okay, it can be the novel that taught me about writing novels. * Nancy kindly wrote me that she didn’t think I should throw it out, that there was a lot of good writing in it, but I was unconvinced. She had to encourage me, right? Then I got notes from the second reader, Kevin Chong, for my thesis. His comments about the book showed me that somehow, despite all the changes and rewrites, I’d accidentally written the book that I’d intended to write. Sending it out the first time * Full of confidence, I rewrote the novel with some not-very-substantive edits and sent it out to agents. In my heart of hearts, I knew the novel was not ready, but I also wanted it published ASAP and hoped no one would notice. * Several agents later, it was very clear that I had fooled no one except possibly myself: the novel was not ready. I’d heavily leaned on referrals to reach agents, so I had a lot of positive feedback, but ultimately, more people wanted to look at my next novel than this one * I began working with a story editor to try and fix the novel, and while I had a smart sounding plan to fix everything, I kept getting stuck. I just couldn’t finish it. Giving up * I decided to give up on the novel. Possibly not permanently, but also, I needed to allow it to be permanent. I was pregnant with my second child at the time, and part of me worried that after this baby was born, I would never go back to it, nor would I write anything else. But realistically, I wasn’t writing anything anyway. * Then my dad died, and a few months later my daughter was born, and who had time? * Then it was March 2020, and I was home with an infant and a 3 year old. There was no more time anymore. There was no childcare, no playdates, no playgrounds. There was cleaning, anxiety, meals to make and endless identical days. I regretted all the time I’d spent not being braver with the novel, all the time I’d had to write another draft that I’d wasted. * Once school and childcare resumed, I rewrote the novel again, and then talked through the structure with some other writers, and then re-wrote the novel again, and then rewrote the structure from a different character’s point of view and rewrote it again. * I’d finished that draft just before the deadline for the Harper Collins/UBC prize for Best New Fiction, so I sent it in for kicks, and took a break and started revising the novel again. Success * A few months later, I found out I was a finalist. * One of Canada’s top agents commented on my instagram about being a finalist. Thought to myself, there is no way this is a casual comment. Got in touch; they really wanted to see the book. * I didn’t win, but one of my awards from being a finalist was an editorial session with Harper Collins. Told the agent that I wanted to incorporate the feedback first and really make the book the best it could be before sending it. They were happy to wait until I was ready. * The editorial session was great. The editors really got the book, some of their comments reflected what I was working on anyway, other comments pointed out places where I could go a bit deeper, and overall, I felt pretty good about things. * Finished the rewrite—which I wrote by hand—transcribed everything, and send it off to the agent, began fantasizing about my new life as a Big Deal * Followed up with the agent, and set up a meeting, but they had to cancel at the last second due to a family emergency. After much persistence and back and forth with them, we set
