I saw the post on Facebook and could not believe my eyes; yet they weren’t deceiving me. Jenny Holiday and Farah Heron were guests at gritLIT, a long-running literary festival in Hamilton, ON. Just forty minutes down the road from me, and my blog editor bff, Maria.
gritLIT. gritLIT! A literary festival I consider going to every year and look at the lineup and think, wow, yeah no. I volunteered with a literary festival for the better part of 10 years and so I know that even when the event descriptions sound out of my league, it’s usually just fancy words and the real-time event is down to Earth. But still, gritLIT’s schedules were historically intimidating to me. Upon further reading I saw that the Q&A was brought to us by the perseverance of the festival’s youth committee.
You know, I suddenly have a lot of faith in the future of this planet.
If you aren’t familiar with my history of Romance at Canadian literary festivals, you can read all about how I burst into tears in front of Zoe York here.
Editor Maria (a.k.a. Maria) and I bought our tickets, logged the event into our calendars, changed the log because I told her the wrong date, got in the car on that rainy Saturday morning and hit the road!
Upon entering the venue, right away we were welcomed with a big smile and, “You can head on over to the registration desk there, and the Romance event is in the room right behind it!” At that Maria and I looked down: I had crafted us tote bags with the text “To read Romance is a pleasure, but not a guilty one” and clearly they were effective at getting the point across! So we burst out in delighted laughter, checked in and, with 10 minutes to spare, entered the book room hosted by Epic Books.
I admit that I had perused the wares on Instagram before we arrived and so wasn’t shocked, but I was nonetheless THRILLED to see Farah’s new release Jana Goes Wild on the table two weeks early! Maria and I piled up our book purchases into tall towers and headed to the checkout, where we had an epic (pun intended) conversation with the store owner (whose name I have forgotten, my sincere apologies), about publishers and book-ordering and Romance and stickers and bookmarks and literary festivals. Loudly. Joyously. 11/10: would do again.
Then we hauled down the hall and slid into second-row seats just before the room filled up and conversation got started. After a thoughtful and delighted introduction by gritLIT board member Aurora Ruiz-Gutierrez, our attention turned to Books Etc. reviewer and host extraordinaire Kayley Stewart, and Romance authors extraordinaire Farah Heron and Jenny Holiday.
There was glee, there were readings, there was talk about tropes, and publisher pressure, and the experience of seeing someone like yourself star in a Romance, and the journey to published author, and how reading Romance is a pleasure BUT NOT A GUILTY ONE!!!! Excellent, amazing, fabulous! And THEN the conversation went into a deep dive about what it’s like to be a Canadian Romance author in the CanLit world. One of my favourite topics! Oh my heart!
I knew this, but most Canadian readers don’t: the Canadian publishing industry is very small, mostly because although in terms of space Canada is enormous, our population is tiny. Approximately 40 million people live here. For perspective, there are approximately 335 million people living in the United States of America. Our economy is smaller, and that influences our book publishing AND sales capabilities. And up until recently, that petite publishing industry in Canada was not including Romance in its acquisitions.
And so, like many (all?!) internationally-successful CanLit Romance authors, Jenny and Farah’s careers largely take place in the U.S.
But that is changing. Because we, the readers in Canada, looked around at all the nice bookish events that our neighbours have and said “Why can’t we have nice things, too?!”
And that’s really the point of this post, and of the Index. Readers hold the power. Our book buying habits, our library requests, our ereading habits, our bookish event-attendance habits, our bookish merch buying habits, and our reviews influence what comes next.
I want CanLit to make sure Romance, and all genre fiction, has a spot at the table. Making a concentrated effort to find and support Canadian Romance authors and Romance authors who live in Canada, and tell other readers about them, is the strongest way I can contribute to this goal.
And now look at me, going to Romance events at Canadian literary festivals! PLURAL! I am clearly not the only person who noticed the glaring hole in programming at literary events. And since I know it’s my money that talks, I do my best to pay up, to show up, to share the event information, and to talk about it after. I want more.
If you’re with me so far, you understand that what we readers buy, borrow and review matters. All of those statistics get tallied up by the booksellers and the publishers, the agents, the event hosts, the journalists, the awards. And that means you also understand that making an effort to read Canadian makes a difference.
***
Important Side Note: Now, imagine what influence we readers have if we make an effort to ensure we buy, borrow, and review books that aren’t always about white hetero couples in their twenties who live in New York City with post-secondary education, financial stability, whose bodies function without assistance and can easily be clothed stylishly at the mall?
***
Post-Q&A, which I estimated was attended by 40 people—success!— Maria and I dutifully filled out the festival surveys because the results help with future programming and to fuel funding, and made our way to the book signing room. THE BOOK SIGNING ROOM! Maria and I lined up then hauled our hauls onto the signing table (why yes I did bring some books from home, thanks for asking), excitedly yelled (me, it was me who yelled) “WE ARE MARIA AND CATHERINE” because we are also members of Northern Heat, the fan group on Facebook co-hosted by Jenny, Farah and Jackie Lau, another Romance author extraordinaire, and then proceeded to have awesome conversations about why the FUCK these books in a series aren’t the same size/graphic style (change in publishers/Wal-Mart wanted it/trends changed), the pressure to spell a fan’s name correctly, having no fucks left to give (I turned old in March, and have been telling Maria that she’s got a lot to look forward to when it’s her turn), ARCs and promo book copies and what to do with them (they look great on my shelves, just saying), and got some fabulous group photos.
We headed back to the car equipped with complimentary coffee and tea, new SIGNED PERSONALIZED THE AUTHORS TOUCHED THIS OMG books, unloaded all the things, and wandered across the road to take some touristy photos with the city of Hamilton sign, then got the heck out of one-way-street-construction-land for lunch at one of my family’s all-time favourite restaurants, Hutch’s On The Beach. We picnicked in the car, in the rain, with a watery view of Lake Ontario, recalling our Best Day Ever while eating hot, crisp battered fish and hand-cut fresh fries. With ketchup and tartar sauce, though not mixed together.
And it was about then that I remembered telling Farah that I love her books, but not why, and had no recollection of saying anything at all to Jenny about how much I love hers. AHHHHH! Do-over! But seriously, the conversations were thrilling, and hopefully the stacks of books I asked them to sign and personalize for me demonstrated my enthusiasm for their storytelling. Here are my posts about Mermaid Inn and The Chai Factor for your pleasure.
My heartfelt thanks to gritLIT, to gritLIT’s youth committee, to Jenny Holiday and Farah Heron and to Editor Maria for making the efforts to provide a wonderful day out.
Best Day Ever!
Love from Steeltown, Lake Ontario & with fish and chips,
Catherine
@CanLitRomance
P.S. Just know that Editor Maria is an amazing editor. So amazing that I accept all the changes without reading them. And then I become chaos incarnate and make more changes and post all the things without sending the piece back to her, so all mistakes are a thousand per cent mine.
P.P.S. And gritLIT, if you do make that Romance writing workshop happen next year, count me in!!
P.P.P.S. If you’ve got $2 just sitting around collecting dust, I would love a ko-fi to help cover the website hosting expenses.
HEA Canada: A CanLit Romance Hub 