After getting “ hooked on the fiction of Alistair MacLeod and Michael Crummey,” Samuel Thomas Martin enrolled in the MA in Creative Writing program at the University of Toronto, where he worked with David Adams Richards. A few months after arriving in his new home, St. John’s, Newfoundland, he submitted a manuscript of This Ramshackle Tabernacle to Breakwater Books, and the entire staff were immediately excited by this original new voice. Click here to read more about This Ramshackle Tabernacle.
Cake-less in Toronto
Imagine this: in one week you have to write three major exams that literally determine your academic future, you have to pack for a long trip you haven’t had any time to look forward to because of said exams, and you have to edit the final proofs on the manuscript of your first book.
Flash forward one week to a sunny beach in Tarragona, Spain—the day I sun burned my eyes reading Michael Winter’s This All Happened between hours of floating in the cool Mediterranean. Okay, that’s enough nirvana for those who spent the spring in St. John’s, taking their daily dose of Vitamin D to ward off the effects of the RDF (rain, drizzle, and fog).
So click the Main Menu and select “Friday June 11, 2010.” That’s when I got to see the premier copy of my first-ever book, This Ramshackle Tabernacle—a collection of stories already well-reviewed by award-winning authors Jessica Grant and David Adams Richards!
Though I didn’t get the shipping truck’s tracking number and stalk its progress on the web (as a writer friend of mine did when his book was first published), I did spend most of a week wandering aimlessly around St. John’s, trying to keep my head in academic work (yes, I passed my exams), and dropping into bookstores to find the exact place on the shelf where my book will someday sit. My days of stalking St. John’s bookstores, looking for a ghost book that is not there, are now over and that is crazy exciting!
It’s a good feeling to be on this side of that week of exams, packing madness, and editing. Almost as good as the slices of chocolate cake I consumed at Breakwater Books the day I picked up my first ten copies. Almost. That cake was really good! I wonder if all authors get cake at their publishers. Probably not. So, for all that I once dreamed of placing my book with a big publisher and experiencing a first run like Yann Martel’s Life of Pi, for now I’m tickled as mainlander on my first iceberg tour!
And McClelland & Stewart? For now, I like to think of them as “Cake-less in Toronto.”
- Samuel Thomas Martin
Martin’s book launches tonight, in St. John’s, Newfoundland, at The Ship. 7-9, featuring live music by Mike Minor.
Related posts:
Twitter
Great post! I’m looking forward to reading the book.
I like this feature a lot — more posts like this from new writers, please! Those of us languishing in big-city Toronto need to hear more from you wonderfully talented Newfoundlanders.
Trish: It’s a plan. I have Lynn Coady writing one for me now. It’s a fun way to promote new books! (or in Lynn’s case, re-released books.)
Congratulations Sam! I couldn’t be more proud of you!