20 Writerly Questions for… Ami McKay

Ami McKay's work has aired on CBC radio's Maritime Magazine, This Morning, OutFront, and The Sunday Edition. Her documentary, Daughter of Family G, won an Excellence in Journalism Meallion at the 2003 Atlantic Journalism Awarsd. When she moved with her family to Scots Bay, Nova Scotia, she learned that their new home was once known as the birth house. It inspired her to write the bestseller, The Birth House. Her latest book is The Virgin Cure.

How would you summarize your book in one sentence? A Dickens meets Wharton meets the Brothers Grimm tale in which a girl on the streets of 1870's New York struggles to beat the odds.

How long did it take you to write this book? Three years (although quite a lot of that time was devoted to research.)

Where is your favorite place to write? In the loft of my barn in Nova Scotia.

How do you choose your characters’ names? I collect names from archives and gravestones and then mix and match them to suit the story.

How many drafts do you go through? Too many to count.

If there was one book you wish you had written what would it be? I can't think of a book I'd like to have written word for word, but the premise of Nabokv's "The Real Life of Sebastian Knight" is absolutely brilliant and I wish I'd thought of it first.

If your book were to become a movie, who would you like to see star in it? A yet to be discovered actress as Moth, and Maggie Gyllenhaal as Dr. Sadie.

What’s your favourite city in the world? NYC

If you could talk to any writer living or dead who would it be, and what would you ask? Shakespeare. "Did you, or didn't you?"

Do you listen to music while you write? If so, what kind? As I'm working on a novel, I create a playlist for the story and characters. The playlist for The Virgin Curehas a lot of music from the time period on it - mostly Civil War era songs and Stephen Foster tunes, like "Slumber My Darling" and "Hard Times Come Again No More."

Who is the first person who gets to you read your manuscript? My husband.

Do you have a guilty pleasure read? Not really. I don't think reading should bring on guilt. I can read just about anything and get something from it - the manual for a computer game or even the back of a cereal box can suck me in, bringing on all kinds of questions. Someone, somewhere took the time to write that copy and I often wonder what that person's life is like. Do they believe in the product? Do they use it, eat it, consume it, etc.? Do they enjoy their work?

What’s on your nightstand right now? The Immortal Life of Hennrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

What is the first book you remember reading? The Secret Garden.

Did you always want to be a writer? No, between the ages of 5-15, I thought I'd end up singing on a Broadway stage.

What do you drink or eat while you write? Green tea, popcorn, clementines, raw almonds and dark chocolate.

Typewriter, laptop, or pen & paper? I always begin with a fountain pen on paper, then I type what's on those pages into my laptop so I can move things around and edit the story.

What did you do immediately after hearing that you were being published for the very first time? I stood in the middle of my kitchen and jumped up and down. Then I called my mom.

How do you decide which narrative point of view to write from? I make an initial decision knowing that it may not be the right one and start writing. As the story unfolds, I try writing a portion of it (usually the first few pages) from different points of view. Then I read a few pages of each version out loud to see which one feels the strongest and has the best cadence.

What is the best gift someone could give a writer? Patience. Knowing that the person I love most in the world has the patience to deal with my being distracted, (day in and day out) by the world I'm building on the page means everything to me.

Tell It To The Trees

Thanks to Anita Rau Badami's newest novel, I have a dirty house! Instead of cleaning up this weekend, I was stuck to the couch madly reading Tell it to the Trees. I have been a big fan of Badami's since her first novel, Tamarind Mem. Her previous (and timely) work, Can You Hear the Nightbird Call? was a book that both Dave and I share as one of our favourites. So I have eagerly been waiting to cracking open her new one.

What I enjoy most about Badami's writing style is that she does not seem to be afraid to tackle the big subjects using real characters with cracks and crevices in their personalities. Tell it to the Trees continues in the same vein. The Dharma family is a second or third generation immigrant family originally from southern India. The now dead grandfather, J.D., moved his family to a remote community in the backwoods of B.C., much to the chagrin of his unhappy wife, Akka, and son, Vikram. J.D. supposedly dies in a drunken stupor in a snowstorm. This sets the scene for the family's unhappiness. Vikram is now a man with two children: Varsha from his first (and also dead) wife Helen, and Hemant. He is currently married to Suman, who he met in India.

Suman is clearly depressed and desperate. Vikram is both physically and verbally abusive of her and the children. She tries her best to please him but of course nothing is every good enough. Her only support is in Akka, her mother-in-law, who encourages her to leave but can not do much else to help as she suffers from unknown medical conditions.

Varsha is thirteen years old. Her mother Helen died in a car accident when she was younger and she desperately wants to make sure that Suman will not "abondon" her either. She manipulates both Suman and Hemant but also clearly loves them.

The family continues to stumble their way around each other, doing their best to avoid or deflect Vikram's rages and violence. Until Anu enters the picture. Anu is also Indian but has lived a much more modern and liberal lifestyle. She rents the cottage so that she can take some time to write, something she has always wanted to do. Anu is a breath of fresh air for the family. She brings the support and modern voice that Suman craves. She also recognizes Varsha for the troubled 13 year-old that she is.

The novel opens to police searching the family's backyard for Anu's remains, after she went missing in a snowstorm. Anymore details and I will give to much of the story away. Suffice to say that Badami has done an excellent job of exploring some very tough issues: learned behaviour in children, abusive families, issues that occur when living in a remote community, and the trouble with family secrets. I have lots of questions that I am looking forward to asking Badami about this novel when she comes to Waterloo on November 16th. For more information on her event with us click HERE.

- Bronwyn

The Virgin Cure

Like many Canadian women, I adored Ami McKay's first book, The Birth House, immensely. So (also like said Canadian women), I have been waiting with bated breath to see what yarn Ami would spin next. Her newest book, The Virgin Cure, releases next week on October 25th, but I got to crack open an advance copy last week.

The novel takes place in the tenement housing on the Lower East Side of Manhattan during the early 1870's. Moth is a "girl from the lowest part of Chrystie Street, born to a slum-house mystic, and the man who broke her heart." The summer that Moth turns 12, her mother sells her to a wealthy woman as her companion. Moth thinks that she may have it made as the carriage takes her away from the squalor and poverty that is Chrystie street and pulls her closer to the wealth of the Upper West Side. However Mrs. Wentworth deflates Moth's hopes of a better life with the first of many beatings and bizarre punishments.

After fleeing from the indentured servitude, Moth ends up in the wild world of Bowery. She discovers a world of pickpockets, beggars, sideshow freaks and prostitutes. Eventually she is taken in by Miss Everett, the owner of a brothel called "The Infant School." Again Moth is attracted to a warm bed, a full belly, and the promise of a better life. Through her new friendship with Dr. Sadie, a female physician that takes care of the brothel's girls, Moth begins to question the world around her. At the same time she begins to hear rumours of a "virgin cure", for men to rid themselves of syphilis.

I found Moth's resilience and determination to live a life that she could call her own admirable and inspiring. Her journey through New York's underbelly of the time kept me reading long after I should have turned out the light. McKay has created a well-rounded character who is both strong and innocent, wise and hopeful.

Dr. Sadie's character is based on McKay's great-great-great-grandmother, one of the few female doctors during that time period. Dr. Sadie (both in the book and in life) cared for city's poor and

destitute children. Her character in the novel shows a strong woman who did not let her education or wealthier background stand in the way of her determination to offer physical and psychological care to poor women and children. She tries in many different ways to convince Moth to give up her life in the brothel. It seems that Moth was the child she never had.

Another aspect of the novel that I appreciated, was little tidbits and sidebars throughout the book that explain the customs of the day. For example: an advertisement for Dr. Godfrey's cordial, instructions for hair work crafting, descriptions of a lady's gown, and so on. This was something that McKay used in The Birth House as well. It brings the time period to life in a memorable way.

I am looking forward to asking McKay if she collects this information while doing her research for the book, or if she makes them up as she is writing the novel. To that end McKay will be joined by Wayne Johnston and Anita Rau Badami for one of our final fall events at the Princess Cinema on November 16th. Click HERE for more information.

-Bronwyn

Brian Francis is one to watch...

After a huge hit with his first novel Fruit, Brian Francis has set a high bar with Natural Order and he clears it effortlessly. This novel is a generational tale set in small town Ontario, where as a young girl, Joyce has fallen for Freddy a neighbourhood boy who stands out for his love of Broadway and his effusive personality. In today's world Freddy would get on about as well as anyone, however in the 1950's he couldn't reveal who he was and leaves Balsden, Ontario as soon as he can.

As an elderly woman in a nursing home, Joyce is forced (by a secret in Freddy's past) to come to terms with her son John who more recently has died after a "sudden illness" in 1980's Toronto. This forces Joyce to traverse her unexamined early life, and the circumstances of both her childhood friend and her son, each who have struggled as gay men in different and less easier times.

The triumph in Natural Order is the interior character of Joyce, who while in her 80's has had to square attitudes born of her time with the reality that time is running out. While befriending a gay volunteer in her nursing home, Joyce's character and the novel reveal how one person who believes herself a failure reconciles her life with those she loved.

Natural Order in wonderfully nuanced and Francis makes sure that every character bears the weight of their time. It would have been easy to make any main character in Natural Order a sociopolitical stalking horse, but the author took the harder road here, and Natural Order succeeds because of it. This is a solid and assured second effort from a writer to watch.

- David

Brian Francis and Marina Endicott will be at the store for a free event on November 3rd, starting at 7pm. For more information click HERE.

Words Worth Eating with Nan Forler & Peter Etril Snyder

Our Words Worth Eating event series are some of our favourite events to organize and partake in. We love working with Nick and Nat at Uptown 21. The food is always incredible and the atmosphere is so much fun. We celebrated the release of Winterberries and Apple Blossoms on October 12th with Nan Forler and Peter Etril Snyder. If these pictures whet your appetite, then call the restaurant to reserve seating. We are doing the event all over again on November 23rd! You can reach Uptown 21 at 519-883-1100. There are only a handful of seats left.

Copies of Winterberries & Apple Blossoms on display.
Each ticket includes a copy of the book.

The first course - an amazing salad that gave one patron "an out-of-this-world-experience"!

Acclaimed children's author, Nan Forler
with illustrator and celebrated painter, Peter Etril Snyder.

Pumpkin soup with pickled beet garnish - delicious!

Everyone enjoying the food and company.

Main course of pork shanks, warm potato salad and Nick's award-winning sauerkraut.
The menu was inspired by the traditional Mennonite culture depicted in the book.

And the grande finale: Apple pie and Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp.
Nick froze summer strawberries and rhubarb back in June in preparation for this event.
The desserts were from recipes included in Winterberries and Apple Blossoms.

First Words: The Little Shadows by Marina Endicott

A summer evening. Moths dance in the lights outside the opera house.

A girl in a white dress slides into a seat on the aisle beside her father. The hall is crowded, many standing at the back. Ladies exclaim over the playbill while men, heads bent together, talk about the war. An older, greying soldier sits with his kind-faced wife. Her big black boot tucks out of sight behind his leg.

The curtain sways, curling along its bottom edge in a velvet wave, swept not by wind or the weight of the moon but by a company assembling backstage.

In the enfolding darkness of the wings, Aurora reaches out her hand on one side to find Clover's thin one; on the other Bella's small and strong. Their warm clasps stills her trembling.

Silver-shelled footlights snap a scalloped arc of light onto the main curtain. Fresh red velvet: crimson lake, bright blood, the colour of love. Murmurs cease as the violins come creaking into tune, their mild excitable cacophony resolving into sense and meaning, into A, the one note they all seek. In the audience, silence falls. The cessation of visiting, the folding of programmes, the last adjustment to the seats.

Tips of shoes show beneath the bobble-fringe - a quiet rumpus, that must be the girls.

The band master taps his stand.

It is about to start.

Breath in --

The Little Shadows revolves around three sisters in the world of vaudeville before and during the First World War:

Aurora, the eldest and most beautiful, who is sixteen when the book opens; thoughtful Clover, a year younger; and the youngest sister, joyous headstrong sprite Bella. The girls, overseen by their fond but barely coping Mama, set out to make their living as a singing act after the untimely death of their father. They begin with little besides youth and hope, but Marina Endicott’s genius is to show how the three girls slowly and steadily evolve into true artists even as they navigate their way to adulthood among a cast of extraordinary characters – some of them charming charlatans, some of them unpredictable eccentrics, and

some of them just ordinary-seeming humans with magical gifts.

With her gorgeous prose and extraordinary insight, Endicott lures us onto the brightly lit stage and then into the little shadows that lurk behind the curtain, and reveals how the art of vaudeville -- in all its variety, madness, melodrama, hilarity and sorrow -- echoes the art of life itself.

Kid Reviewed: The Popularity Papers by Amy Ignatow

This book is about two girls, Julie Graham-Chang and Lydia Goldblatt, who are planning to start Juniour High as popular girls. They start observing the other girls in their 5th grade class and begin experimenting to find the key to being at the top of the social order.

First they try to dye Lydia's hair. Unfortunately they use bleach instead of hair dye and Lydia ends up getting a bald spot. She has to keep using her other hair to cover up the bald spot. They also try dressing fancy, but are informed by their teacher that they are dressed inappropriately. You should read this to see the other ways that they try to become popular.

This book made me feel happy because it was very funny. I am excited to read the other books in this series because this book made me laugh. I also loved the illustrations - the book is designed like a graphic novel with notes back and forth between the two friends. It felt like a scrapbook and a diary at the same time. This book is soooo good!

- by Makilda Addico

If you know a child that would like to review a kid's book for us, please email Bronwyn or Erica.

Best Crime Writers Around...

Words Worth Books is delighted to welcome to Waterloo two veteran Canadian crime writers who after nurturing classic mystery series for years, have turned to standalone work, each with truly fine results. Peter Robinson and Maureen Jennings have put aside their beloved signature characters for the moment (Alan Banks and William Murdoch, respectively) and have penned a couple of great books.

Maureen Jennings' Season of Darkness opens with the murder of a British land girl in 1940. It was the job of land girls to arrange to cultivate every possible part of England during the war. Elsie Bates has been left for dead on a country road, shot by a German Luger.
Britain is recovering from the defeat at Dunkirk and dark days are upon her. The small town deputy inspector Tom Tyler has a serious crime on his hands and his job is complicated by a scared populace, a German internment camp nearby and the arrival of an old lover from the Continent.

Peter Robinson has put together a beauty of a novel.

This tale of obsession also has roots in World War Two. Before the Poison tells of Hollywood film score veteran Chris Lo

we, who returns to his native England after the death of his beloved wife. He wants only to grieve privately and work on music he considers more worthy. He buys a isolated house outside Yorkshire and becomes interested in a former inhabitant of the house who decades earlier, was put to death for the murder of her husband. Chris becomes interested in Grace Fox's story and the more he finds out, the more convinced he becomes that she was innocent of the murder. Threads of his own life abound and Robinson weaves everything together seamlessly.

Along with bestseller Linwoood Barclay, we promise an evening of unparalleled talent at the shop on Tuesday, October 18.

A Serious Case of Medium-ness!

The Magnificent 12: The Call by Michael Grant

Mack MacAvoy suffers from a serious case of medium-ness. He has medium grades, medium looks, medium parents, and a medium school with a severe side of the bullies. Mack’s favourite hobby is to provoke bullies and then flee from them. This is surprising considering his long list of fears and phobias.

And then one day things change for Mack and he will never be medium again! A three-thousand-year-old man, Grimluk, appears to tell Mack that he is one of the Magnificent 12. It is up to Mack to track down eleven other 12 year olds to stop the evil force that is going to eat up the world. Mack must battle the wicked Princess Ereskigal…

This series will have boys (and parents) laughing at Mack’s hilarious escapades and quest. In some ways this book reminded me of early Gordon Korman books that I read in grade 5, however Mack is a character and in a situation that is totally original. Good for a laugh and especially good for reluctant boy readers.

- Bronwyn