Beverly Stone: Vulgar

Meet Beverley Stone, all-around awesome person. For the next few weeks, she'll be blogging about life as an author, with the same warm and honest humanity that defines her novel No Beautiful Shore. Settle in and enjoy a peek into the mind of a very talented writer.

Narcissism and the Single Novelist
IV. Provocative

Honestly and truly, send her an email.

At the end of the day I check the email address for my website. Most of the time there is nothing but spam, but sometimes someone writes me a nice note, or has a question, and I get to discuss No Beautiful Shore with a reader. A lovely thing, feedback.

Except sometimes, it’s not so lovely. A reader who shall remain nameless, but who we will call for the purposes of this blog, Mrs. Pickle-Up-Posterior (“PUP”), wrote me to tell me that she would not keep my book in her home, as it was a piece of vulgar trash.

Ouch. Gratuitous criticism goes right to your guts and settles down there, burning and making you feel vulnerable. It hurt for days, weeks. I wrote PUP back to say that I was sorry that I had disappointed her.

No Beautiful Shore is kind of like The Shipping News meets Last Exit to Brooklyn. I meant it to be that way, in all of its raw, uncomfortable, vulgar glory, but I still feel bad that I enraged PUP.

Oh well, at least she will remember my name. She will have to since she will never, ever buy another thing I write as long as she has breath in her body, or something like that.



Want more on Bev? Visit her website at www.beverleystone.com

Beverly Stone: Scattered

Meet Beverley Stone, all-around awesome person. For the next few weeks, she'll be blogging about life as an author, with the same warm and honest humanity that defines her novel No Beautiful Shore. Settle in and enjoy a peek into the mind of a very talented writer.

Narcissism and the Single Novelist
III. Provocative

The intrepid Beverley Stone.

I have the attention span of a small rodent. Focusing on one thing for any length of time makes me fidgety. I am sure that, back in the day when I would have had 18 children to protect from wolves or to keep from falling over wharves, this would have been a benefit. But as a writer, not so much.

I have trouble staying in one character’s head for a very long time. It gets claustrophobic in there, with all the little fragment of thoughts, so I have to jump out and into another head. Because of this, I can’t write in chapters, but little fragments of single point-of-view that strung together make a whole (or will make a whole, when I am done).

Take for example, the New Story, still very much in draft. The first crack at it was written from alternating first person points-of view between the two narrators. In draft two, I have stuck the stories together into two chucks – same story told from two different perspectives.

I may take it all apart again at some point, if I can only get myself focused enough to concentrate on the story.


Want more on Bev? Visit her website at www.beverleystone.com

Beverly Stone: Provocative

Meet Beverley Stone, all-around awesome person. For the next few weeks, she'll be blogging about life as an author, with the same warm and honest humanity that defines her novel No Beautiful Shore. Settle in and enjoy a peek into the mind of a very talented writer.

Narcissism and the Single Novelist
II. Provocative

No updo.

First of all, I have to say thanks to Bryan for enhancing my credibility by posting the only glam shot I have ever had taken with my hair “swept into an updo,” directly above the blog entry where I say I never do such things. In case you are wondering, I got myself all titivated off (as my people say) to attend the Book Lovers Ball, 2008. I decided that I would wear my vintage 1960’s cocktail fit-out and go as Holly Golightly. However, upon examining my wrinkles in the mirror, I realized that I couldn’t pull it off, even if I could find one of those fancy cigarette holders. I decided to go as Gladys Golightly, Holly’s older sister, who had her own money for the powder room, and would never, ever have abandoned Cat to the streets of NYC. Gladys -- practical, responsible, and unfairly excluded from the story by that Capote fellow. Perhaps I will write my own novel from Glad’s point-of-view: Breakfast at Zellers.

Bryan has given me what I think are some pretty confining terms for this blog. I have been told that I can neither swear not slur others, but otherwise the sky is the limit. Well, fahooie on Cormorant Books, I say.

See that was provocative. I ask myself, why am I like this? Where does this desire to show people that they are not the boss of me come from? I am four-years old on some fundamental emotional level. Saying or doing things to chafe at people’s comfort level is not a wining quality in an employee, spouse or blog writer. I do, as a friend of mine pointed out, really enjoy saying things to bother people.

It’s not that I set out to be an irritant, but it is a gift. I read back what I have written sometimes, and I think, ‘My Lord, Beverley. Don’t be writing that.’ (read this statement as if it was said by your mom, because I am channeling mine here). It’s not that I start with that goal in mind, but my characters make some unconventional, uncomfortable choices, as does Janice in No Beautiful Shore. Unlike a character in a Hollywood romance, she stays with the man she doesn’t love, mostly because she is scared. I think that is what people do in real life – they are too scared to make changes.

So when I am not consumed by the black dogs of doubt, I am overwhelmed by the desire to say things that shock people. I’d apologize, but that would be insincere.

I like being a bit of an excrement disturber. Notice that I did not say the vulgar word for excrement that starts with an “s”, and I promise you, I would not, even if my mouth was full of it. I am all about colouring inside the lines. And I never, ever wear my hair in an updo either.



Want more on Bev? Visit her website at www.beverleystone.com

Beverley Stone: Narcissism and the Single Novelist Part I

Meet Beverley Stone, all-around awesome person. For the next few weeks, she'll be blogging about life as an author, with the same warm and honest humanity that defines her novel No Beautiful Shore. Settle in and enjoy a peek into the mind of a very talented writer.

Narcissism and the Single Novelist
I. Doubtful

Smile!

When Bryan asked me to blog for Cormorant, I cringed and said, maybe later, very busy, etc. Unlike the authors that Mr. Harper knows, I do not go to galas each night of the week and spend my days getting my hair swept into an updo and my nails painted chartreuse. I work in an office with nice people, nine to five, Monday to Friday. Not much happens in my daily life to blog about.

But as a writer, I like to think that if my days are outwardly boring; I have a “rich inner life,” as the artsy types say. The thing that most people ask me about (other than is my writing autobiographical) is how does a story take form? What is happening in your head as you write? Since not much happens on the outside, I thought I’d tell you what’s happening on the inside.

Here goes. Topic one: bone-crushing doubt.

Doubt – and I think someone else said this first – is the black lung disease of writers. The act of booting up the computer triggers it at a cellular level. I think, for me, it might be terminal.

I am working on something new and I am fighting with my doubts every step of the way. How will I find a publisher now that capitalism is on its knees, begging for handouts? Do I have anything even vaguely interesting to say? Mostly, I think that I am wasting my time and that of others – people like yourself, who might otherwise be boiling pasta or cleaning out under the bathroom sink instead of trolling online for narcissistic blogs by unknown, Canadian writers.

It takes a lot of effort to move that doubt aside some days, as it stands like a needy cat in front of your computer screen. The truth is though, it’s just not relevant to the story, so you have to make yourself chase it away. You can’t think about who will publish or who will read the story. That’s the outside world pressing in, which I think can’t be much help in an honest day’s writing.


Want more on Bev? Visit her website at www.beverleystone.com

The Soul of All Great Designs, Words Alive Literary Festival

Neil Bissoondath at La Maison Anglaise

For those of you in Quebec City, Neil Bissoondath will be appearing in support his fantastic new novel The Soul of All Great Designs at La Maison Anglaise. Go and see him - he's an outstanding, extremely intelligent speaker who never fails to be interesting.

For more info on the event, visit the website of La Maison Anglaise.




Words Alive Literary Festival

September 21st is the second annual Words Alive Literary Festival in Sharon, Ontario.

Cormorant authors Beverly Stone (No Beautiful Shore) and Peter Unwin (The Wolf's Head) are guests at the festival.

If you can make it out, do so - it promises to be a very literary day, and all at the cost of $4.

Jeffrey Round reviews No Beautiful Shore, Other Men's Sons

From time to time we'll be posting reviews of our titles. Standard, right?

Not quite.

What makes our reviews special is that they'll be written by other Cormorant authors, offering a perspective you won't get from your typical book review.

Generously providing us with our inaugural reviews is Jeffrey Round, author of The P-Town Murders. Without any further ado, here's Jeff:

The intrepid Jeffrey Round

No Beautiful Shore
By Beverly Stone

Jeff: God, I love a woman who can swear! And Beverley Stone is right up there with the best of them. This beautiful, disturbing book is one of the most honest tales of contemporary Newfoundland I’ve come across. Part-Trailer Park Boys and part-Thelma and Louise, it’s an account of teenagers Bride Marsh and Wanda Stuckless’s attempt to leave out-port Newfoundland for life in Toronto, a challenge much bigger than it sounds. Bride is the sexy one who gets hit on by men, while Wanda is the entrepreneurial tomboy who sells dope to make her passage ‘away.’ Both prove hindrances to their goal. A sharp blend of the comic and tragic, Stone’s story is filled with wisdom, insight and some very deft writing.



Other Men's Sons
By Michael Rowe

Jeff: Other Men’s Sons is the 2008 Randy Shilts Award-winning book of creative non-fiction by Torontonian Michael Rowe. The writing is intelligent and witty and the subjects varied—from the title essay about Michael and his partner’s attending the wedding of their "adopted" straight son (whom they met when he was 19), through an essay about a young woman who grew up in a supportive gay environment and had to learn to contend with other people’s homophobia, to the story of Pvt. Barry Winchell, murdered by a fellow soldier when it was discovered Winchell was dating a transsexual. Each of these pieces is insightful and beautifully written but, perhaps best of all, the book is uplifting despite its sometimes tragic themes.

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Thanks, Jeff! If you'd like to read more of his reviews, blog, and other projects, check out his official site.

Coming soon: A Q&A with Kathlyn Bradshaw, author of the fantastic upcoming horror-mystery, The Frankenstein Murders.

Author Blogs

For your reading pleasure, we present blogs from four Cormorant authors:

The Wallflower Confessions
by Beverley Stone, author of No Beautiful Shore:

Recreating Eden
by Mary Soderstrom, author of The Violets of Usambara

Zoe Whittall
by Zoe Whittall, author of Bottle Rocket Hearts

A Writer's Half-Life
by Jeffrey Round, author of The P-Town Murders:


Go on, have a gander. A goose even.

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Next up: The Eden Mills Writers' Festival! Stay tuned for a take on the proceedings as only the Cormorant crew can deliver.