Weirdness Journal Entry #5: Jocey!

What, you thought we could go more than a few weeks without an entry in the Weirdness Journal? Silly you. 

[In case you’re just joining us now, the weirdness journal is a collection of all of the strange synchronicities and oddities surrounding the writing and publishing of my upcoming novel, I Think We’ve Been Here Before, a book which, incidentally, is about synchronicities and oddities and which has been absolutely mired in them from its conception. The story was born out of a billion conversations with a couple of good friends about synchronicities and quantum entanglement and deja vu, and it has felt as though the simple act of writing about these things has acted as a lightning rod, but for a different sort of energy, attracting all manner of strange coincidences and eerie fortuities. Like, one day I was working on the part of the book that’s about a girl desperately trying to make it home from Berlin to her family as the world is ending, and worrying that she won’t be able to get there in time, grappling with how to spend the rest of her life and not waste the whole thing wishing she was somewhere she can’t get to, and later that morning someone (who knew nothing of this book) sent me a Voxtrot song they thought I would like, called Berlin, Without Return. The first line: Do you spend your whole life trying to get back home? Weirdly specific, Voxtrot! Anyway. That’s not what this entry is about. This entry is about Jocey.]

When Valencia and Valentine released, my friends Theresa and Brad threw my book launch party at their little stationery shop, The Paper Umbrella—oh! I went off searching for a bit of context for anyone who's new here so you'll understand how wonderful these people are and I came across this old video that I made for their blog years ago when they had a Valentine's Day letter-writing contest. (Be warned, the video was made with my old point-and-shoot digital camera, but I think their amazingness still shows through!)

It's off topic but aren't they just the cutest family? Isn't it the cutest shop?

ANYWAY. 

The actual point is that Brad and Theresa threw me a book launch party at their stationery shop and they had to bring my books in for the event. Now, because Theresa is such an absolute sunbeam, she made friends with the lady at Lake Union's Canadian book distributer, which was, at the time, Thomas Allen & Son. I went into the shop one day to talk logistics and Theresa was gushing about this lady, whose name was Jocey. 

"She's just so lovely!" Theresa told me. "She's going to come to your launch party!"

Now, if you are unfamiliar with the book industry, here's a thing: launch parties are generally, usually, thrown by the author themselves. It's not like the book launch parties in the movies, where the agent is there and the editor is there, and it's a fancy venue and everything's paid for by the publisher, and covered by several journalists. Those kinds of parties are reserved for a very select few. So to have Jocey from the distribution company come all the way to Regina for my book launch party made me feel pretty special. 

The launch was great, all my friends and family showed up, and Jocey was, indeed, there. She gave me some sage advice about the book industry (including PLR payments, thanks Jocey!), and we stayed in touch after. She was also involved in the distribution of Sorry I Missed You, and had begun to make some great inroads with indie bookstores across Western Canada when the pandemic hit and shut everything down. I think it was about that time that Thomas Allen & Son shut down too, and their client list was taken over by Firefly Books. When I saw the news, I felt sad. I'd really loved having Jocey in my corner. I thought, I probably won't even meet the people who distribute my next book, let alone know they'll do sweet things like randomly texting me pictures of my book in bookstores in Calgary just because they know it'll make me happy.

(Then again, little did I know at that point that my Canadian rights would end up going to Radiant—so even if Thomas Allen lived on, and even if Jocey continued to work there, I wouldn't be able to work with her again anyway.)

Okay so.

Last night, I went to a book launch party for Courtney Bates-Hardy's new poetry collection, Anatomical Venus (here!). It was a very lovely night, and my Canadian publishers were there and so was the person who is designing the cover for the Canadian edition of I Think We've Been Here Before (shout out Tania Wolk!) A very bookish night. My publisher told me that they'd just pitched my book to their sales team, and everyone was excited. A little boost of confidence for me, and I went home all full of fizz. 

And when I got home? A message was waiting for me from none other than Jocey, with lots of exclamation marks, letting me know that she just so happened to be in that sales meeting where my book was pitched. 

Wouldn't you know it? She works for Manda Group now, and they are the distributor for Radiant Press. Somehow, completely unexpectedly, she's back in my corner once again. I'm so happy, and quite amazed. 

Is it a small world? Or is it a magical one? 

Bonus weird: I scrolled up a little in my messages with Jocey and there were a bunch of pictures she'd taken at my book launch, and in two out of the nine, who's front and centre but...Courtney Bates-Hardy, who you'll remember from four paragraphs ago. This is funny because when I ran into Courtney a month ago, we remarked on how it had been such a long time since we'd seen each other, and I said I thought the last time I saw her was probably at her last book launch back in 2016. But nope! Here's proof that the last time I saw her was at mine, in 2019. Glad that's settled. Thanks again, Jocey. :)