Live radio today

I'm on live radio at CHMR today at 1 p.m. with the wonderful Judy Gough. Should be an enjoyable hour for me because I don't have a clue what she'll ask, and Judy just happens to be a former student of mine, going back three years or so. I love the unpredictability of the situation.

Locally (St. John's, Newfoundland), you can tune in to 93.5. Online you can hear it at chmr.ca, aliant 825 or cable 942.


Here's the online link: http://www.mun.ca/chmr/main.html

Gerard

A Week in the Life

A moment with the publisher.

A week ago, I was racing against the ticking clock to finish the last essays for the semester. Including revised essays and some makeup essays, I had about 120 to grade in just under four days. The first day, I got only five done, so the bulk was done in three days. That's almost 40 essays a day. To put that in perspective, I can, on a very good day, grade somewhere between 12 and 20, usually closer to the former.

On top of that, I couldn't sleep. It was mostly the adrenaline rush, and the less sleep I got, the more my brain compensated, allowing me to get nearly all the essays done and passed back to my students by Wednesday morning, but there was still a stack of about twenty or so that needed to be done before I could begin final tabulation--always a joy, but at least Excel lately has made that task easier.

So, working on less than two hours sleep in nearly three days, I went home Wednesday afternoon, intent on napping for an hour. Didn't happen. The wheels kept on turning. The thoughts pinged off the walls of my brain and kept me staring at the ceiling. Around 3:30 p.m., I got up and started thumbing through my copy of Moonlight Sketches for an excerpt to read at the book launch. The good thing about not getting any sleep, I was impervious to nervousness.

Of course, in the run-up to this state of affairs in the days before, I could be seen putting up posters all over campus, sending out (and responding to) dozens of emails. Then, on Tuesday, I received a call from my publisher saying the books had arrived from the printer and I could come see them. Seizing a propitious moment when I would have been taking a short break from grading anyway, I visited my book--which, for a short, obnoxious time, I was referring to as "The Precious." I was so thrilled by the look and feel of the book in my grubby little hands that I received an energy boost, but it was nearly impossible to focus on finishing those essays. Tick-tock, tick-tock. That was Tuesday afternoon.

By Wednesday evening, I was like a zombie--but an excited zombie. To put it in perspective, I have been writing, in one form or another, since the early 1990s. There were a few earnest years of simply putting pen to paper (literarlly, since computerization had not infiltrated the masses just yet), trying to figure out if I really was a writer and what kind of writer I would be. I won't go into detail here--not right now--about what the answers to those question were and how I actually decided that, yes, I could do this. Suffice to say, I had plenty of encouragement from editors at places like Random House, New York, as well as major American magazines. I felt, for the longest time, all I had to do was keep on going and the magic would happen. Hard work reaps great rewards, I believed.

Reading from "Fish of the Damned."

So I kept writing and writing. One novel manuscript, then another and then another. You get the picture. It really wasn't until I started writing and submitting short stories that I began to see a crack in the darkness. In 1998, I published my first short story--remember, I didn't write any short stories up until then, and I don't really count the ones I wrote as an undergrad, one of which actually found its way into the student MESS magazine (a feat I didn't truly appreciate, I admit, because the story was semi-autobiographical and therefore felt like cheating). In 1999, I won an arts and letters "Honourable Mention" award for an excerpt from my novel-in-progress and in 2000, that same novel won the Percy Janes First Novel Award for an unpublished first manuscript.

I was on my way, right? Lots of interest. Publishers and agents took me seriously. To this day, I have never received one of those nasty rejection letters that some people get. They've always been encouraging, always pointing out the strengths in my writing. They rarely mentioned any weaknesses, other than the fact that they didn't want to publish it. A couple of agents came extremely close to signing me and one publisher kicked the tires for nearly two whole years, in which time I re-wrote that prize-winning manuscript several times in an effort to get it published. I began my Ph.D. program in 2000 and gradually I was consumed by the doctoral monster--classes, seminars, an endless stream of gigantic essays to write, studying dozens upon dozens of books in preparation for comprehensive exams, and then, of course, there was the giganto-thesis--"me manifesto" as I called it. Somewhere along the way, my writing career had taken a backseat to life. And by that I mean that it was dead in the water, having never arrived.

So last Wednesday night was like a dream--all the more so because I was severely overworked and underslept. But I was giddy, as was evidenced by the fact that I surely hugged everyone in the room. But it was genuine affection on my part, and I assume on theirs, because of both the weight and the levity of the moment. It was a time for celebraing, and it felt like it wasn't just a celebration of my book or even necessarily of me, but of the very idea of perseverance in order to fulfill one's dream, what has been a part of me for so long--and denied me for so long--it begins to feel like a destiny and a quest. And, to be perfectly melodramatic about it, it was like finally pulling the sword from the stone.

Talking. Talking. Talking. My favorite part.

I have no idea how many people were there, but the room was packed. The first people I saw when I walked in were my brother-in-law, Matt (who bought me my first  computer a long time ago, as a loan that I ultimately repaid) and his wife Jenn, who are always very supportive of my writing, always have been. There was Helene Staveley and her husband Brian, sitting in the big chairs like guests at a fancy party--which they were. And, of course, my publisher and her assistant, Donna Francis and Pam Dooley (who started working there less than two weeks earlier), were selling books and keeping things runnings smoothly. Those were the early-comers I remember. Then, suddenly the room was filling up--I next saw my old professor, Roberta Buchanan and her friend, followed by my very dear friend of nearly twenty years, Allison and her husband Stephen. My friend Mike Heffernan, a fine author himself who introduced me that night, as well as the cover artist Darren Whalen. Then came my sister-in-law Katherine and her partner, then writers Jessica Grant, Chad Pelley, Russell Wangersky and Sam Martin, then one of my former students, Carla, Kayla and then Megan, and then another and then another and another. I was utterly shocked to see so many students there from the past twelve years (shout-out to the amazing Jo-Ann!). My wedding day notwithstanding, it was the most gratifying day of my life. I could easily list everyone who was there--I remember you all. I remember a moment with each and every one of you.

Throughout the night, I had three thoughts that I distinctly recall a week later. One was that I felt like Bilbo Baggins and now would be a perfectly good time to disappear and go off on some big adventure. The other was that I had some notion of what it feels like to attend your own funeral, with all those faces from the past, people just showing up to say they thought of you, remembered you, and wished you well. Not everyone gets to have that experience, and, morbid as it sounds, I treasure it.

The other thought, of course, was that I was the richest man in town, just like George Bailey in my favorite Christmas-themed movie, It's a Wonderful Life. After years of paying my dues, keeping my head down, doing good work and trying my best to help anyone I could in any way they asked, I felt like it was all coming back to me. There were moments of darkness in those years before I published, times when I wondered why I even did it and what the reward was. Now I can see it. It's not about the book; it's not about how many you sell or whether you win any awards or get great reviews. This was a chance to bring together my friends, some family, former students who were now my friends and even some family and colleagues whom I consider to be my good and treasured friends. I felt like Sandra Bullock on the night of the Oscars, asking: "Did I really do something to deserve this, or did I just wear y'all out?" It was a fantastic night.

I didn't sleep that night. I was all wound up, talking nonstop to my amazing wife about what it was all like, about what surprised me most, about who I was glad to see. It turns out that I was glad to see everyone. The line-up for the book signing was long. I was eager to talk to each and every person who had bought a book and wanted me to sign it--but also there were people whom I know (because they were students, mostly) didn't have the money to buy a book, and just wanted to show up and show support, which I dearly appreciated. But I had a connection with nearly everyone in that room. Every one of them knew what this night meant to me--some were more aware than others, of course. My good friend Wendy put it in pespective when she half-jokingly said, "I've had this date circled on my calendar since 1994."

Since last Wednesday, I've made an attempt to get life back to some sort of normal. There've been papers to grade and literally hundreds of emails to answer. I'm almost through them all. There was an interview with Weekend Arts Magazine's Angela Antle a couple of days after the launch. It wasn't my first CBC interview, but it was my first one in which I talked about my own writing, about a book I'd published. To me, it was like appearing on Oprah's post-Oscar show the day after the Oscars ceremony. There's no feeling quite like it.

There is a small part of me that doesn't want to let go of this feeling. But it's necessary to get on with normalcy, whatever that means. I do feel that my life has been changed forever. There are book signings coming up (April 30 at Coles bookstore, and a reading/signing at Chapters on May 15), another radio thingy on Saturday (this time live on CHMR, the local universty station) some invitations to literary festivals throughout the summer and fall, and various opportunities that come from having published a book. Next week, when I've finished grading final exams, I'll take a deep breath and look out through the window of my new favorite coffee shop on Water Street and try desperately to feel all this, to know that it happened and that good things will come from now on. I can stop trying now and just do and be what I've always been. That part of it is over.

The excited zombie in action.

But there's more to come--because I've got a novel almost finished, soon to be submitted to my publisher. Maybe next year, I can launch my first novel into the world. And you're all invited to the party, to do it all over again, as a celebration of life. Not just my life, but the ideals of perseverance, friendship andthe enjoyment of life itself.

It's all just one gigantic kick at the darkness, ain't it?

Thanks, all, for being there--not just physically but in other ways, too. I really do feel like the richest man in town.

And, oh yeah, I finally did sleep on Thursday night, perhaps the biggest triumph of my entire week.

Gerard


(All photos courtesy of my friend Helene Staveley. I'll post official photos, if there are any, when they become available.)

Tune in to see if it's a turkey drop or not...but, baby, if you've ever wondered...

This coming Saturday, April 16th, I'll be live on the air at 93.5FM CHMR at 1:00 p.m. Newfoundland time, talking to Judy Gough about my just-released short story collection, Moonlight Sketches.

Locally (St. John's, Newfoundland), you can tune in to 93.5. Online you can hear it at chmr.ca, aliant 825 or cable 942--or so I've been told.

Here's the online link:  http://www.mun.ca/chmr/main.html
Gerard

And, oh yeah...

First Interview

For those so inclined, and especially if you missed the book launch Wednesday night and had wanted to be there, here's the direct link for this morning's interview with CBC radio's Angela Antle. It includes an impromptu reading from the short story "The Darkness and Darcy Knight," a story about a young, idealistic American school teacher who finds himself in the backwoods of rural Newfoundland in the late 1990s.

The interview was a completely pleasurable experience, from start to finish. Angela Antle is the consummate professional, extremely likable and she has a way of getting you to spill your secrets...if only there was time to say it all. This is the first time I've been interviewed regarding Moonlight Sketches.

Enjoy!

Interview with Weekend Arts Magazine

Gerard

CBC Radio Interview

Tomorrow morning, I'll be talking with CBC radio's Angela Antle about the writing of Moonlight Sketches. If you're interested in knowing what inspired the madness, check it out. The interview airs at 8 a.m., Newfoundland Time.

Interview with Angela Antle

Book Launch Party!

At last, dear friends, a moment several years in the making: my first book (the first of many, I assure you) becomes a reality and in the manner of all auspicious events, there's a party! Come help me celebrate! There's food, drinks, frivolity, a reading and as many shenanigans as we can pack into a couple of hours. Meet me at the piano bar. And if you can play piano, you're especially welcome. :-)

Here's the official invite just posted by my publisher on Facebook.

(http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=161108180612265#!/event.php?eid=161108180612265)

Time Wednesday, April 6 · 6:00pm - 8:00pm

Location Bianca's, 171 Water Street
(In the banquet room, separate from the restaurant--just enter at the front, turn right, take three steps and you're there!)

Please join Killick Press/Creative Book Publishing as we celebrate the launch of our newest author, Gerard Collins. Hear the author read from his amazing debut short story collection "Moonlight Sketches," and get your copy signed.





Praise for "Moonlight Sketches"



"Here is outport Newfoundland like you’ve never seen it – or heard it: musical, broken-toothed, full of pathos and sly humour. Collins’ characters fall from innocence and... land on their feet, with their fists up. You will admire them. You will fear them. You will find you care most about those you fear. Moonlight Sketches is a work of extraordinary imagination and empathy."


Jessica Grant - author of "Come Thou Tortoise"



"Smart kid courts trouble with his bad-news friend. Beautiful woman aches to leave town. Things are not going well for Julia in university. Gerard Collins gets to the story. His writing is clean and unselfconscious."


Kathleen Winter - author of "Annabel"



“A compelling collection with lasting images and an atmosphere you’ll feel as thick as a cloud around you. Collins excels in hooking his reader with a well-paced sense of impending tragedy, and in capturing the isolated moments that have built his convincing characters, many of whom having been wrung through the wringer of small-town mentality. Collins knows the recipe of his own work: when to add nuanced comedic relief to a dark story, and when to add a closing line that clangs like a gong.”


Chad Pelley - author of "Away from Everywhere"


I truly hope to see you there. Everyone is welcome.

Gerard

New Date for Moonlight Sketches

I keep forgetting that a bunch of you who read this blog aren't necessarily on my Facebook page. I announced yesterday that my short story collection, Moonlight Sketches, will now be available by April 1st. I had thought it was due today, but was recently informed otherwise. I guess just because you read it on Amazon don't make it so.

Thanks for all the interest in the book and the release date.  Details to come.

Gerard

Review

Got a great advance review of Moonlight Sketches from the Book Madam. It's a cool new website devoted to the love of books, Canadian books and authors in particular, many of whom are among the best in the world.

Check it out:

Book of the Month from Book Madam and Associates.

Gerard

What's in a Title?

I've actually lost sleep over this issue. I mean, I know it doesn't matter in the bigger scheme of things. I know things are tough all over and, if it helps any, I've lost way more sleep over Japan, Haiti, the Middle East and Libya lately than I have over the title of my blog. In fact, I'm still haunted by the fact that I woke up just before 3 a.m. last Thursday night, unable to sleep and turned on the TV just in time to see the Tsunami as it crashed ashore. It brings to mind that old adage about how a butterfly flapping its weeks can be felt across an ocean. Needless to say, though, I'm a sensitive lad and it doesn't take much to wreck a good night's sleep or an attempt at a moment's peace. When this semester is done, I seriously have to check into a) meditation, b) Reiki (again), c) a media cleanse or purge, or d) rehab.

Anyway, a case in point would be my blog title. I don't get many nights when I have two whole hours when I can justify tinkering with details such as what color the font should be on my blog. I don't even normally think about my blog until I'm actually blogging. But I redubbed it "Blood 'n Guts" Friday night because I was in love with it. Turns out I was merely having a Friday night fling because Saturday morning, I was feeling a great sense of regret. What have I done? Who/what did I sleep with last night? "Blood 'n Guts, Gerard? Really?" It seems my long-dead teenaged self enjoyed the idea, but my grownup self woke up the next day with the feeling that I really shouldn't have done that. Blood and Guts? I'm gettin' too old for this shit. Sorry. Had to say it. Apologies to Riggs and Murtagh.

Anyway, I'm going back to grassroots--dancin' with the one that brought me. The subtitle for a year or so now has been "A Kick at the Darkness," and that, me dears, is who I am. I've been on this whole authenticity kick for a couple of months, so I've decided I need to keep it real. Maybe "Blood 'n Guts" is catchier; after all, blood and guts roll off the tongue, don't they? (Don't imagine it; just agree with me.) But I care less for catchy than I do for something that reflects something about me, the (nearly) grownup me, the one with a sense of eternal, hopeless optimism, who thinks we can affect our world with the flap of a wing, the stroke of a pen, the click of a letter on the keyboard or the utterance of a thought.

It's a tribute to one of my favorite songs ever, written by Bruce Cockburn ("Lovers in a Dangerous Time") and one of my favorite lines from a song. Kicking at the darkness is what I do, what I feel most of us do. The night creeps in, the darkness threatens to swallow us, the violence, the terrorism, the tsunamis, the robberies and cruelty, the despotism and politicizing and commercialization of nearly every living, breathing thing--doesn't it all feel as if it can choke you sometimes? And yet we kick back, desperately, savagely, enraged at the audacity of the those who think they can control us--even if they're right. Death conquers all. Darkness takes no prisoners. But we can try, can't we? Through humour (thank you, Jon Stewart!). Through writing (thank you, authors). Through art. Through music. Through photography. Through surviving, day after day. And, yes, perhaps even though blogging and Tweeting and Facebooking and singing and smiling and avoiding the crack that would break your mama's back.

Kick at the Darkness. That's the new title. As God is my witness.

Is there a God?

And would She approve this message?

I'd like to think so. On both counts.

GC

Blood and Guts! Yeah, baby!

Okay, so yeah--the blog is now called "Blood 'n Guts." As my wife remarked just now, "It's a pretty drastic change from Moonlight Sketches." The former name was "more pastoral," she said. No argument there. But I want something else, something more visceral, more energetic, full of vigor and something with nuances--a title that greets you with a bloody handshake.

Of course, I liked "Moonlight Sketches"--it said a lot about what I was trying to do here. The problem was that I took it from the title of my book that's coming out soon. That kind of doubling up felt fine more than half a year ago when it seemed like the book was still, well, half a year away. But the closer the release date came on, the queasier I felt about it. It just felt redundant.

So here's where it comes from:

My hometown is a place called Placentia, which is a town below sea level (or just at sea level--I'm not sure which). But the water separating us from the "mainland" was called The Gut. As a kid, I was fascinated by how The Gut would lop with whitecaps on the windiest days when the tide was high and threatening to swamp us. I can recall riding in the backseat of my father's car, along the main road, with the seemingly insufficient breakwater made of logs doing its best to hold The Gut at bay, to keep it from spilling onto the road and submerging half the town in seawater. On the worst days, usually in winter, the waves would lop right over the breakwater and onto the road, and the salt spray would drift like spirits across the pavement and across to the other side. I would often have nightmares, literally, about trying to cross The Gut on foot, traversing the side of the road (or the bridge that joined us to Jerseyside) and fearing I was going to drown. (Above Photo by J.M. Smith)

So, as I was trying to come up with a title, the idea of "The Gut" took hold of my brain. I thought of simply calling the blog "The Gut" or "Gut Instinct" or something like that. Then I thought of "Blood and Guts," which became "Blood 'n Guts" and, ya know, I like it.

The new title suits my Gothic sensibilties, harkening back to the comic books I read as a kid, most featuring Weird War Tales or Dracula or Jonah Hex. Of course, it also describes the "blood and guts" movies that are a rite of passage for any serious fan of horror movies, which I was. Friday the Thirteenth. Halloween. Nightmare on Elm Street. That kind of thing. The schlockier the better. My tastes have changed quite a bit, but I still can't resist the odd Rob Zombie movie or whatever the latest horror flick is in the theatre. Mostly, though, the title is a nod to my darker side.

My fiction writing doesn't go that route--not usually, anyway--but my tales do tend to peer into the dark soul of humanity. I'm an optimistic by nature, but that doesn't keep me from going there where, perhaps one might be better off not looking at all. And that's the other part that makes me think the title fits--I like to look into the "guts" of things, how they work, what they're made of, what makes them do what they do.

Then there's the "blood" part--sometimes there will be blood. Sometimes, though, the blood is more metaphorical than phsyical, though it's often both. Again, there's the nod to my heritage. My stories in Moonlight Sketches aren't about my hometown--far from it, in fact. Sure, some stories (perhaps even all of them, on some level, conscious or unconscious) are influenced by my childhood growing up in a rural area that certainly had its share of darkness, like any small town. But most also take inspiration from the other places I've lived on this island and even beyond it. And yet it seems appropriate to me that I pay homage to where I come from--"blood" being a reference to the bloodlines, to heritage, to the things that make us what we are. It's a nod to the experiences that shape us all and particularly myself because, after all, lest you go thinking these stories are completely about you or about other people who shall not be named--they are mostly about me. They concern my own search for meaning in a chaotic world. I'm not even sure there is any meaning to it, of course, but I'll never know that for sure if I don't look into the guts of it, keeping in mind where and what I've come from and why I'm here.

Quite likely, I'll never know any of it anyway. But this blog is an attempt to uncover and discover, to decipher and explain, look into, and discern the world and myself, as well as all selfs. Quite selfish, you see.

So, yeah, blood 'n guts, baby! Hope you like the change, as I'm truly looking forward to a slightly different tone around here.

GC

Oh, yeah, and the awesome artwork above is from Darren Whalen and it's PROTECTED by the artist's copyright and Creative Publishers.