Here is part 2 of our interview with author Don Sawyer. Read part 1 here.
PF: What was your first publication?
DS: Very first? A poem called Chuckie that appeared in The Fiddlehead in the winter of 1977. I still have the cheque: $5. They’ve been trying to figure out why their books don’t balance for 34 years. My first book was Tomorrow Is School and I Am Sick to the Heart Thinking About It, a non-fiction account of our first teaching experiences in a Newfoundland outport. That book is also available through you. Uh, Playfort.
PF: Describe a recent Canadian cultural experience that influenced your writing.
DS: It’s difficult to tease out any one incident. I have lived in Newfoundland outports and small BC native communities. I have given workshops in the Yukon and Northwest Territories. I have taught on reserves and at universities. I have managed CIDA projects in West Africa. I have canoed the Fraser River and climbed in the Selkirks. My wife and I took our honeymoon travelling from Windsor to Vancouver by train. I have seen suicides on reserves and on the Ambassador Bridge between Windsor and Detroit. I’ve seen my kids grow up in a multicultural society that has equipped them to work effectively in extraordinarily demanding cultural and social milieus. I’ve written a book for kids about Confederation, and I’ve worked with Secwepemc elders while writing a book about Shuswap communities for elementary grades. All of these are uniquely Canadian. And all of them affect who I am and what I write.
PF: What’s the best advice you’ve ever received as a writer?
DS: When Tomorrow Is School was published by Douglas and McIntyre, the first review (in the Vancouver Sun) panned it. I was devastated. Scotty McIntyre took me aside and told me two things: 1) If you accept the good reviews, you have to accept the bad ones. Better to not pay much attention to either, and 2) Writing a book is as close as a man can come to having a baby. After months of labour, you finally produce the manuscript. After careful and loving editing, it toddles out the door. Then it’s on its own. You’ve done your best and now you have to let it go.
PF: What advice do you have for writers who are trying to get published?
DS: The usual: be persistent. I’ve never been able to nail down the exact figure, but legend has it that John Grisham’s first novel A Time to Kill was rejected more than 40 times. (Which means that 40 editors have now either jumped from high buildings or been fired.) Editors, for the most part, are not particularly good at picking stuff to publish. That’s why they rely on established writers. You just have to be at the right place at the right time. (Oh, and have a really good piece of writing.) One other note: I’ve been published by big houses and small ones. My best sales have come with the smaller publishers. Like Playfort. They often take more time marketing your books, and they also may have specific niches (e.g. aboriginal schools) where they have established themselves. So I hope you take the hint and market the crap out of my books.
PF: Tell us about some other recent writing projects.
DS: I wrote two books for Highgate Press, Playfort’s Quickread imprint, that are very interesting. But then you know that.
PF: That’s not the point. The readers don’t.
DS: Oh, right. So anyway, they are novels for adult readers with low reading skills. I wrote three of these for the BC Ministry of Education several years ago, and they have proved very popular with ESL and adult education students, as well as in alternate high school programs. The two I finished last year are mysteries. The first is Hurricane on Grimm’s Island and the second Saving Farley’s Bog. The trick with these is to write a fully adult novel at a grade 3 reading level that is engaging and entertaining. (Sound easy? Try it sometime.)
And then I got involved with you a couple of years ago on the lunchbag project. Can I say that?
PF: Let’s keep it impersonal.
DS: (Sigh). OK, I got involved with Louise Wallace, the Playfort publisher, when we worked together on a labour of love, The Lunch Bag Chronicles. For years I drew pictures attached to jokes on my daughters’ lunch bags. They liked them so much, they brought them home, and eventually I had collected over 1,000 bags. We picked out a sample of these, combined them with a bit of narrative, and brought them out in book form about a year and a half ago. It’s a beautiful book, and it was a real pleasure to work with such a creative, collaborative team.
PF: You say Playfort is collaborative. How is that different from your experience with other publishers?
DS: The Playfort collective is a family of committed, talented people with expertise in every aspect of writing and publishing. There’s Harry, one of the most experienced editors in Canada. You’ve accepted manuscripts from best-selling authors such as Melanie Jackson. Otto, one of the most fantastic graphic artists anywhere. And you too, Louise.
PF: Uh-uh. Impersonal.
DS: Right. Well anyway, Louise, the publisher, comes up with remarkably creative marketing ideas. Then there’s Violet, our office manager, who anchors us with her hard work and quiet competence. And Christina, our brilliant 14-year-old young adult editor. What a team. What that means is that we bring all of the expertise necessary to take a book from creation to publication together under virtually one roof. We can be responsive and efficient. For example, I just sat down with Violet to do the final edit of Running. We had the whole thing done in a little over an hour. In most houses that would take months via email and with all the delays involved. As a writer I am involved in every aspect of the book’s production, from layout design and cover to marketing and promotion. I don’t feel like an outsider wondering what mysterious machinations are churning away in the bowels of the publisher’s office – or when it might finally spit out my finished book. We all work together and know the realities and constraints – as well as the possibilities – of operating a small publishing house in Canada. It’s fun.
Playfort Publishing would like to thank Don Sawyer for taking the time to answer our questions. His newest title, Running, is in the works right now and is expected to go to the printers in a few days.
