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. :)

Weirdness Journal Entry #4: The Lightning Bottles Part 2

This blog is turning into a full-time weirdness journal. I think that's okay. 

[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.]

Today's entry has to do with Marissa Stapley again! (Refresh your memory here.) The TL;DR is that I asked this writer I admire, Marissa, to blurb ITWBHB and she said yes and then she asked me to blurb her book, The Lightning Bottles, and when I read it I found that there were a number of intriguing similarities between her book and mine—themes, settings, very abstract but particular ideas—and that both books were set to be released this coming fall around the same time. I mentioned this to her as I was reading and we had a delightful conversation about synchronicities. 

Okay, so on Tuesday, at supper, Sully was like, "Hey Mom, you keep saying this word, blurb. What does it mean?" And I was like, "It's um—oh, here..." I was standing next to the bookcase so I reached out and grabbed a random book. I pointed to the blurb on the cover. "This is a blurb," I said. "It's a quote from an author saying how much they liked this book."

He nodded, satisfied, and I went to put the book back on the shelf—but right before I did the name of the author who'd written that blurb on the front caught my eye.

Marissa Stapley strikes again!

How is she doing this??

So I had a little chuckle. Maybe a whole guffaw. My family stared at me blankly. "Marissa, again!" I said. They didn't really get it. 

It's fine. 

But literally one hour later, Marissa emailed me to tell me that her publisher had changed her pub date: The Lightning Bottles is now coming out on September 24, the same day as my book. 

Wacky!

If you're not impressed by any of this, that's okay. I am impressed. That's why I'm keeping track.

Also, this is the book I randomly pulled off the bookshelf.

It's called Mitzi Bytes, by Kerry Clare. And here's a little bonus thing: I became Instagram friends with Kerry just a couple of weeks ago, not connecting her name in my head with this book I've owned for quite some time now (it came out in 2017 or something like that). I think we should all take this as a sign that it's time for us to read (or reread) Mitzi Bytes. 

Okay? Deal.

Weirdness Journal Entry #3: The Lightning Bottles

Welp, time for another entry in the weirdness journal! 

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 the one and only Marissa Stapley. 

So about a month ago I was sitting in a coffee shop staring at my computer screen (I spend so much of my time doing this, much less of it actually typing things). I’d been tasked by my Canadian publisher with the daunting job of finding some Canadian authors to blurb this book (most of the endorsements I’d already obtained were from American authors, because, to this point, most of my author life has been States-centric). I'd been putting it off—I’d already used up all of my bravery on the American authors!—but that day I realized I couldn’t any longer. I needed to just do it, already. I consoled myself: these people don’t know who you are, and if they feel offended by your presence in their email inbox, they can just delete you and will forget about you within five minutes.

One of these emails went to Marissa Stapley, and I felt especially apologetic as I hit send on that one. Authors often talk about how success in the literary world is a moving target, but Marissa is one of those people who has, in my humble opinion, quantifiably achieved it. She was the first Canadian author to have a book selected for Reese Witherspoon’s book club! She is critically-acclaimed, she is New York Times-bestselling, she is multiple-times optioned for TV!

I felt sheepish, asking if she wanted to read my book, is what I’m saying. But a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do, and this girl did it (applause). Much to my delight, Marissa graciously emailed back quickly and said she’d take a look, so I sent the book over before I could second guess myself anymore. 

Hurdle one, down.

I was even more delighted when Marissa emailed again, only a few days later to say that she was halfway through, was enjoying the book, and wondered if I might read and blurb her upcoming novel(!!!), The Lightning Bottles, set to publish exactly one week before mine. 

I tried, sort of, to feign nonchalance. I said I would love to, with maybe one too many exclamation points (playing it cool is for cool people). 

Okay, so here’s where it gets strange.

Marissa had her publisher send over the ARC and when it arrived I opened it immediately, settled in on my couch with a blanket and a playlist of 90s grunge music. I had only a vague idea of what the book was about; I knew it was set in the 90s and followed the story of a fictitious alt-rock band, which was all I needed to know to be very excited about it (the intersection of literature and music is my happiest place, and the 90s might be my favorite decade). It felt lucky, to get the chance to read this book early.

One page in, I noticed a funny little coincidence: The first chapter of her book was set in Berlin. It caught my eye because the first chapter of my book is also set in Berlin. I laughed to myself. I mean, my book is set only half in Berlin; the other half is set in Canada, alternating back and forth, so it’s not exactly the same, but still. 

Interesting, I thought, that our books come out around the same time and both have Berlin in common.

By the end of the chapter, I’d noticed another little similarity: a major theme in Marissa’s book was, apparently, street art, which is true of my book as well. In both of our novels, there's a central question, a mystery, and street art is a thread woven throughout the entire novel pointing to or hinting at the answer.

Neat-o, I said to myself. And, considering these books are coming out at the same time, we might have been writing some of these scenes at the same time. Wild!

I turned the page—only to find that Chapter Two of Marissa's book, like mine, was set in Canada. Goosebumps! It was at this point that I got out a sticky note and a pen and started keeping track of all the little similarities. 

We both have a character named Petra! I scribbled. We both have… for the sake of keeping this spoiler-free I won’t go into anything else. :)

Our books are nothing alike on the surface—mine's about a rural Saskatchewan family facing the possible end of the world, hers is a portrait of a two-piece alt-rock band facing the possible end of their career/relationship, and yet...it's as though we were both drawing from the same invisible inspiration bucket, interpreting the very specific prompts in ways that would suit our respective novels. 

What does it mean? Don't say nothing. 

I generally don't think anything means nothing, but lately this feels extra true. I mean, I almost didn't reach out to Marissa in the first place. The chances of us writing these sister books at the same time, of them coming out at the same time, of them being this oddly same-but-not-same, of me getting to read an early copy of hers...? 

At the very least, it's weird enough for the weirdness journal.

And in any case, you should preorder Marissa's book. Like I said, it comes out the week before mine, and seems to be somewhat entangled with mine in a nerdy quantum physics kind of way. Plus, I LOVED IT. I've been thinking about it all week, and it's sent me off on several musical rabbit trails. Here, I'll make it easy for you; click on this:

Weirdness Journal Entry #2: The Little Free Library

I told someone the other day that there has been some weirdness following me since I started writing this most recent book, and it has amped up considerably since I handed in the final edits. They asked if I was keeping a journal of the weirdness, and I said I wasn't really, and they said I should. 

So I think I will, and what better place to keep a weirdness journal than right here?

And, I mean, I've already told you about the Mercury Cafe thing. So I guess that was entry #1. Consider this entry #2.

Okay, story time:

Just before Christmas, Lake Union sent me two boxes of advance reader copies to use for publicity. I can do whatever I want with them, but the point is to share them in such a way as to draw attention to I Think We've Been Here Before ahead of its release in creative ways: using them for giveaways on social media, sending them to book bloggers, things like that. It occurred to me that I should bring one to the Penny University, Regina's indie bookstore, and give it to the owner. You know, so she could read it and hopefully enjoy it and tell her customers about it and order it in. All that good stuff.

So I put a copy in my backpack one day when I was out running errands and stopped in at the Penny. I walked around, bought a book, and left without leaving mine there. 

Claaaasic Suzy. 

It was just too weird. I feel so awkward going up to people and telling them about my books. Marketing yourself online is uncomfortable enough as it is! And I know I'm supposed to just suck it up and do it, but that day I felt vulnerable and shy and I decided I'd wait for a braver day. 

A braver day did indeed come along, and I found myself, once again, at the Penny with that ARC in my backpack. But Annabel, the owner, wasn't working that day; it was some other guy I'd never met before. He was very nice, but I wasn't about to be like, "HEY I'M AN AUTHOR HERE IS MY BOOK DO YOU WANT IT?"

So I left, yet again, with the ARC in my backpack. Guess it wasn't a braver day, after all.

This happened...a few times. Which is kind of okay. I like going to Penny University. Wandering a bookstore is not a pain, not a chore. Buying a new book is a treat. I thought to myself each time, I am just a person much more suited to online self-promotion. It's very okay. 

Okay, SO.

This past Wednesday, I was working in a coffee shop downtown and when I went to pack up my laptop, I noticed that forgotten ARC still in my backpack. I felt that familiar rush of courage, and I thought, this is ridiculous. Today is the day. Besides, it was gorgeous outside—almost positive temperatures, only a little wind. I had some coffee left in my go cup. I thought to myself, I'm going to park a few blocks from Penny U, take a little walk down 13th, and get rid of this thing once and for all. 

So I drove to the Village, parked the car, and set off. 

It was such a nice day for a walk. I was in a great mood. And it felt like fate because as I walked up the steps to the Penny's front door, Annabel was just coming out of it.

"Well hi!" I said, feeling the weight of the ARC in my backpack.

"Hello!" she said. "Are you coming to the book signing this afternoon?" 

I thought of saying, "No, actually, I'm just here to drop something off for you!" 

Instead, I said, "I'm hoping to!" 

And then Annabel and I had a quick discussion about, of all things, book marketing. Not my book marketing, but book marketing in general. It came up because we were talking about the author whose book signing was that day and we had both noticed how great she is at book marketing (shout out to Victoria Koops). 

It could've been a very natural opener for me. 

"Speaking of marketing," I could've said. And then I could've just reached into my backpack and handed her the ARC. Did I do that? Nope!

So we finished talking about other people's books and she took off down 13th to meet someone for lunch. And that was that. I'd failed yet again!

It didn't dampen my good mood though. I'm used to being a coward. I took a spin through the bookstore, headed down 13th to the Paper Umbrella to say hi to Brad and/or Theresa (neither of whom ended up being in that day, rats), and then headed back to my car, which I thought I had left on Montague Street. 

Spoiler: no I hadn't. 

I frowned, confused. Maybe I had left it on Athol?

Nope.

Garnet?

No.

Cameron?

No. 

Robinson?

No. 

At this point, I was thinking my car had been stolen. It was just not anywhere. I cut through a back alley and paused, frowning at yet another slushy road without my car on it. I didn't even know which one it was at this point. I decided to head back to the Penny and retrace my steps a little more carefully. As I started off again, I noticed an adorable little Free Library on a lawn to my left. I thought to myself, why not make this trip worthwhile? I'm getting rid of this thing one way or another. I pulled Annabel's ARC out of my backpack. Sorry, Annabel, I thought to myself as I placed the book into the little wooden box. Maybe someday I'll get up the nerve to annoy booksellers face-to-face. Today, I'm just going to release this thing into the wild and see what happens. It's more my style, to just quietly leave a book somewhere and hope it accomplishes something on its own.

(Shh. Do you hear that? It's the sound of a hundred thousand sighing publicists.)

I carried on my way, feeling a sense of accomplishment. And when I got to the end of the block, like magic, there was my car! I'd parked, not on a side street, but right on 13th. How could I have forgotten that? Bizarre.

I drove home. I forgot about the ARC. 

The next day, I was sitting on my couch and my phone dinged with an Instagram notification. 

This is what I saw:

Yup. That Little Free Library? Annabel's. 

There is nothing left to say except: isn't that weird?

Weirdness Journal Entry #1: The Mercury Cafe

I have now been in Publishing World for seven or eight years, and in that time I’ve never met any of the Publishing World main characters in real life. I’ve never met my agent, for example, never met any of the people who work at the publishing house (or any of the other authors there, many of whom I have become very close to online). I’ve never met any of the people working behind the scenes doing foreign translations or marketing or film rights stuff. There are even people I only communicate with through other people; I've not shared so much as an email with them myself. It’s a very disembodied thing, happening over the phone and the internet, which can make it feel a little unreal. 

And it’s not just the publishing professionals with whom I’ve felt this disconnect; it’s the whole literary ecosystem. Lake Union, who published my first two books, is in the States, so obviously they market my books to American readers (and they do a VERY good job of that). That’s where my readers live, where the book clubs are who invite me to join them on Zoom. Like the agents and editors and publicists, I don’t really get to meet readers. I get lovely emails from them, and they tag me on Instagram, but I very rarely get to see them face to face.

People say, you’re an author! That’s so fun! And I’m like, Yes, very fun! But…I’m not actually sure any of it’s real. What I might be is the victim of an elaborate hoax. It might actually be quite embarrassing.

So last spring, when my agent, Victoria, and I started talking about my third book, I threw out kind of a weird idea: I said, I want to stay with Lake Union, because I love my editors there, I love the way they treat their authors, I love their cover design and marketing and communication and—well, many other things. I love Lake Union. 

But.

Could we possibly, I asked her, hang on to the Canadian rights and sell those to a Canadian publisher? I even had one in mind: Radiant Press, an indie publisher right here in Regina. I met John Kennedy, the co-publisher of Radiant, at a Penny University event and had a brief conversation about publishing and marketing and creativity that was exciting to me, and I’d gone home and researched them a bit and felt very interested in working with them.

But also, and I didn’t say this to Victoria at the time, I’d long had this romantic idea of being an author who lived in the same city as their publisher—like every author in every movie, who writes in their New York apartment and then strolls down the street for an in-person meeting with their publishing team, who is VERY EXCITED ABOUT THIS BOOK! and leans across a table—a real table, with a good, solid cup of coffee on it—gesticulating wildly as they discuss cover design and marketing strategies and launch parties. I think I’ve grown out of my desire to actually live in New York, but I’ve developed a Canadian version of that daydream: I've pictured myself in Regina’s Cathedral Village, in the Mercury Cafe, in one of those bright red booths by the window, my editor across the table holding a cup of coffee and speaking in that Publishing World lingo I’ve grown so fond of but don't often get to use in my everyday life. 

This is the daydream I’ve been having for well over a year now. I’m not making this up. 

You’re thinking, Suzy, why would I think you’re making this up?

You’ll see. Hang on.

Victoria is wonderful. She is smart and industry-savvy and willing to try new things. Still, this plan made her pause. She warned me that holding back rights was a risky move, that most publishers wanted world rights, and that if I kept those rights and then couldn’t sell them, the book would simply not be released in Canada. 

At all.

So I paused too. For all of 30 seconds. 

And then I was like, “Let’s try it anyway.”

Because I had that vision, about the red booths and the coffee, about being part of the Canadian publishing ecosystem and meeting my readers and not feeling like I didn’t exist in my own country.

I should try to make a long story short, here, because a lot happened between this and the next thing. We sent the book off to Lake Union in...October? I think? 

We had a tentative offer in December; it came through while I was sitting in the school gymnasium waiting for Scarlett's Christmas concert to start.

The deal memo came in January, and I signed the contract in March—for world rights except Canada. It was official! We were going to try to sell the Canadian rights all by themselve. It was a bit leap-of-faithy, and pretty scary. What if Radiant didn't want my book? 

Then again: what if they did?

Ah, here's where I can shorten the long story a bit more: they did. 

Phew. Right? PHEW. 

I signed with them in November, a little over a year after sending the manuscript to Lake Union. (Publishing is nothing if not the actual slowest thing in the world.)

And then, in January of 2024, I got an email from Debra, the publisher at Radiant Press, and—I'm being 100% honest with you right now—in this email she asked me if I would like to meet up at the Mercury Cafe for coffee to discuss my book. 

It was only in that moment that I realized how weirdly specific my daydream had been, about meeting up with a publisher in one of the red booths at the Mercury Cafe. It's not like I live in a tiny village with one local watering hole, you know what I mean? There are many, many places to conduct business in Regina, Saskatchewan. But my brain was like, "THE FIFTIES DINER ON 13TH. THAT'LL BE IT." 

And it was.

Our meeting happened on Tuesday. I walked up to the Mercury, experiencing the oddest sense of deja vu, because it was just like in my daydream. And John was there, standing out front, and he turned to me and said, "Ah—Suzy?" 

And I said, "Yes, hello!" 

And we shook hands and he told me Debra would be there soon and we went into the diner and we stood there for a moment, surveying the space—tables and chairs to the left, the big red window booths to the right. John gestured at one of the booths, like he knew he was supposed to, and said, "Shall we sit here?"

Do you want to know what the weirdest thing about all of this is? My book, the one we met at the Mercury to discuss, is about a family who finds themselves at the end of the world. And as they face this completely unprecedented thing, they find that it feels like something they remember. And they keep having these moments of deja vu, these glitchy little things that happen that make it seem like they've seen into the future, but it doesn't feel to them like seeing the future, it feels like remembering it, like having a daydream and then having the daydream come true. 

So, I don't know, man. I'm having a weird time. You don't know the half of it.

ANYWAY.

The meeting was wonderful; it was exactly what I dreamed it would be, because of course it was. We sat in the big red booth for two and a half hours and I drank probably five cups of coffee. We talked about my book and about books in general and about cover design and marketing and launch parties and it felt collaborative and fun and New Yorky, but in a very Saskatchewany way. 

Life is so weird, isn't it?

Weird and good.