Michael Gray Kimber, son of award-winning writer, editor, and broadcasterStephen Kimber, is an ambitious twenty-six year old on a job hunt and an emerging writer with manuscript(s) to shop, looking to ”survive his 20s to become an adult.” His quest has summoned tidal waves of attention to his website, Colony of Losers, which is getting upwards of 10,000+ visits a week and praise from critics, authors, literary types, mental health advocates, and anybody who is or has been painfully twenty-something. What started as a cathartic series of blog posts about a quarter-life crisis — from the nowhere world of post-university, pre-career – has turned into something better followed than many magazines.
“This is fearless writing. Heart wide open. Cut to the bone. A powerful aching voice — but ah the light, the love, the want … I think you will find you are speaking for many.”
- Shandi Mitchell, multi-award-winning, Commonwealth Prize finalist.
“Michael Kimber’s Colony of Losers is a compellingly honest take on twenty-something life in a style reminiscent of the best of Douglas Coupland. Kimber allows readers to draw their own conclusions and to find something of themselves in his struggles.”
- Journalist and co-author of Atlantic Canada’s 100 Greatest Books, Trevor Adams
“Michael Kimber knows we’re all losers. Instead of being ashamed, he wants us readers to revel in it. Colony of Losers is a first person narrative of hope and desperation, fuelled by mental illness and the effects of an undefined generation. He’ll have you in stitches and tug at your heart strings all in a single sentence. ”
- Shannon Webb-Campbell, award-winning writer, journalist and photographer.
Mid-summer, in 2010, Kimber focused writing, serially, The Cure. What Halifax Magazine calls “An honest, haunting and hilarious story of his nervous breakdown and the first love, friends and family that helped him get through it.”
Here’s a clip from him pitching it to publishers at this year’s Word on the Street in Halifax:
Through Colony of Losers, Kimber is putting his heart on his sleeve to get his name in editors’ Rolodexes, and ”hopes to get attention for his novel, For Four, encourage magazines to give him freelance work and find an employer who will make all his dreams come true.”
He’s got a commendable drive, and that’s all it takes to get there: grabbing the wheel and hitting the gas. The rest of it, talent, luck, money, whatever it is we think we need, that all plays catchup when someone’s got this guy’s heart and vision. If you want someone to listen you’ve got to shout, if you want to make a splash, you have to throw the rock in the river. Kimber’s done all that and it’s worked: he has 10,000 visitors a week, from his hometown of Halifax, to Saudi Arabia, to New York Times bestselling author Johnathan Lethem, and now me, up past midnight, getting to know the guy through his website, and through some pretty amazing spoken-word hip-hop YouTube clips I’d normally not bat an eye at, but are, for a lack of a more pretentious analysis, plain cool. Deft. (Click Here to watch an example.) He’s got my eye on him, wishing him all the best.
Here’s one more plug for his site. Listen to this aphorism-laden passage:
Salty Ink: What is Colony of Losers all about and how did it get started?
Michael Gray Kimber: Colony of Losers is a about my panicked fall into adulthood. It’s about the time between having a degree and becoming a responsible adult. About the falling on your face to figure out who you are. It’s that heart thumping panic that comes from the realization that no one is going to give me a future and I didn’t know how to make it for myself. It’s about going to Yoga and having a beautiful woman fart in your mouth to show you the joy of life. In November 2009, I suffered a breakdown and fell into insomnia and an anxiety driven mental spiral. The origins of Colony of Losers can be traced back to March 28th, 2010. That day I lost my job and almost lost my girlfriend. The Colony of Losers: my family, my friends and my first love got me through the toughest times of my life. I got used to being helped and the worst thing you can do to people you love is make them feel needed rather than wanted. I did that to my first love. March 28th was the day I realized I had to save myself. If I wanted to be a writer I had to make that happen on my own. If I wanted to be good to her I had to take responsibility for my actions. That day I began writing Colony of Losers. That day I remembered who I was.
Salty Ink: How have you attracted so much attention of your website, or did it just happen?
Michael Gray Kimber: Right now C.O.L is averaging 10,000 views a week. It started with Facebook and my mother as my only fan. I did a lot of crazy shit. Such as beginning a flame war on Halifaxlocals to spread word of the blog, where I picked a fight with myself, posing as a foul mouthed anarchist with an axe he wanted to grind against my face. A lot has been blind luck such as finding my illustrator Peter Diamond in that thread. His amazing work took what I was doing to a new level. Or the realization of how talented a photographer and videographer my best friend Patrick Campbell actually was. He’s helped me create viral campaigns to spread word of the Colony and been my go to tech geek.
When I began the “Cure” in July, my mental health series, things went to another level and word began to spread like “crazy.” A lot of people saw themselves in what I was writing.
The rest is boring carpal tunnel inducing work. I joined Opensalon.com and added two thousand people as friends in the span of a week. I send those people emails when I have an important blog and have to add each person manually. Apparently this is how they stop spamming unless like me you are obsessive compulsive and more than a little patient.
As I result I have claw hands and a lot of fans in the States. Some claw hands, a pinch of amazing friends, a little ridiculous and you got my recipe for success.
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lol the onlky kid who has ever suffered…..(tear)