The Fatted Calf Blues machine is starting to roll and there seems to be a lot of elements I have been juggling to promote the book.  

I did an interview on the CBC Radio One Charlottetown afternoon show Main Street with Matt Rainnie.  This was my second interview with Matt and I think it turned out well.  Matt is very friendly and laid back and knows how to put his interviewees at ease.  All the same, I have a tough time listening to myself (like many people do, I think) and find it's easy to be self-critical when I hear how I stumbled over some answers or felt I could have been more concise.  I could also hear the nervousness in my voice (which tends to pitch a bit higher under stress). Before going into the studio, I sat in the car and listened to Jian Ghomeshi on Q interviewing Leonard Cohen.  I can only hope that someday I can approximate the Cohen’s eloquence and wisdom. 

While I was in Charlottetown I saw copies of Fatted Calf Blues on the shelves of The Bookmark. It made this whole experience all the more real for me like nothing else has so far.  I also saw posters for my upcoming book launch at the Confederation Centre Library on April 23rd (Canada Book Day) at 7:00 pm.  I have to admit I'm feeling nervous about it.  First of all, I'm wondering how many people will show up even though there has been a bit publicity so far with the CBC interview and a nice mention in The Buzz. Thelma and I put together a media release and faxed and emailed it to various newspapers, radio and TV stations.  No responses yet, but hopefully something will happen closer to the time.

I'm also constantly working out in my head what to say at the launch, what points I want to make about the stories, the process of writing them and getting them into a book, how PEI has helped shape my writing, etc.  Also, I keep changing my mind about which story or stories to read.  One long one or maybe a couple of the shorter ones? Thankfully I have decided to limit myself to 20 minutes, so that should help me decide closer to the time.  The one thing I am looking forward to is the food.  Thelma and her mom will be making sandwiches and baking brownies, cheesecake squares and cookies.  

Thelma and I also put together a small promotional video of me reading a postcard story called Elephant Rock, at North Cape (where the story takes place).  It was fairly chilly the day we shot the video. We did two takes of me reading the story with different backgrounds and then Thelma shot some footage of North Cape.  When we watched it all at home, it was obvious that we couldn't use the audio, so I recorded the story on Garageband.

When it came time to mix the video with the audio, the elements didn't all sync up as well as we would have hoped.  In fact, if it weren't for Thelma's editing skills (she is by far the Thelma Schoonmaker  of home made videos) it would look a lot worse than it does.  As it is, I think it has a kind of rough charm all it's own.  We had a few issues with finding the proper format in which to save it (again solved by Thelma's resourcefulness) and will be uploading it (as soon as we can access some hi-speed) onto Facebook (as a virtual launch) and on YouTube.  I doubt that it will go as wildly viral as the performance by Susan Boyle on Britain's Got Talent, but I do hope it garners some modest attention and helps promote the book.

Putting together the video seems to me symbolic of the whole promotional effort for the book. There are a lot of elements to sync up, all of which Thelma and I have been doing to the best of our ability, but what it all adds up to in the end owes as much to luck as anything else.

I recently submitted an ad to The Buzz, Prince Edward Island’s arts and entertainment newspaper, to promote my upcoming book launch at the Confederation Centre Library on April 23rd. In the ad I referred to myself as "Island writer, Steven Mayoff."  It made me wonder if I had the right to call myself such.  I'm not from the Island, although I have been living here since 2001.  I have been writing since high school, but it wasn't until I moved to PEI that I focused on my writing in earnest and began to send out work on a regular basis.  I believe I can say with all sincerity that I came to PEI to establish myself as a writer.

But anyone who lives here knows that if you weren't actually born on the Island you will always be considered "from away", no matter how long you live here.  I suppose I could have used the phrase "Resident Island Writer", but that seems to undermine the commitment I've made by moving to PEI as the place where I am establishing my identity as a writer.  The interesting thing is that I am quite content with my "from away" status, even though I expect to live on PEI for the rest of my life.  I believe a writer should be something of an outsider and that part of his/her integrity benefits from being on the outside looking in.  In a way this made PEI the perfect place in which to launch my writing career.  You could say I feel very much at home being from away.

There is no denying how much PEI has influenced my work.  The moment I moved here I was struck by the beautiful landscape and immediately began incorporating it in stories and poems.  In my upcoming collection, Fatted Calf Blues, the stories have both rural and urban settings.  The first story, The Most Important Man In The World, is set on a streetcar in Toronto.  The sense of isolation in the streetcar proves to be a crucible for extreme human behaviour.  Living on an island is a bit like that.  In fact, isolation seems to be a factor in most of my stories, both urban and rural. Perhaps an argument can be made that everyone on PEI -- those from "here" and those from "away" -- have something of the "outsider" in them. In that case I feel justified in wearing the title of "Island Writer" and will continue to do so with pride.  

A couple of days ago it was my birthday. Having a birthday in February is a double-edged sword.  On the one hand, it's a nice break in what is arguably the most depressing month of the year.  On the other hand, if birthdays depress you then you feel just that bit deeper in the hole.  It is not that getting a year older depresses me, but around this time I'm not at my best.  I feel I'm in some kind of creative, emotional and even spiritual deep-freeze, a period of stasis where my life has come to a standstill. The new year never really starts for me until March or April.

This year, I'm happy to say, has been an exception for the most part. Preparations for my upcoming book are keeping me busy and I've been trying to come up with creative ideas for promoting it.  Also, I'm working on revising a novel, so there has been a lot to occupy my thoughts with little time to feel sorry for myself.

The icing on the birthday cake, so to speak, came actually the day before the big event when I received a phone call saying I had won the One-Page Screenplay Contest  I had entered in 2008.  The contest is a continuing one put on by WILDsound  in Toronto.  The winner gets their screenplay made into a short film that is posted on the WILDsound web site and shown at some film festivals.  I was also interviewed for the WILDsound podcast.

I am also trying to book live readings to promote Fatted Calf Blues.  I will be having a book launch in Charlottetown on April 23 and so far have two readings in Montreal in May and two in Hamilton in June. The details for these readings are posted on the home page of this web site and on my FCB Facebook group page.  

Things seem to be happening fast and I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel a tad overwhelmed at times, but I look out my window and see the frozen white expanse of Foxley River and think that in a few months I'll hear that tell-tale crack when the ice starts to break.  In the meantime, an early thaw seems to be taking place even closer to home.

This past week I attended the inaugural SeaWords Writing Workshop, which was sponsored by UPEI and the L.M. Montgomery Institute as a way of celebrating the 100th anniversary of the publication of Anne of Green Gables. The theme of the workshop was "Canada's Women Writers" and this theme held true in the choice of faculty. Writers Anne Simpson and Carol Bruneau led us budding wordsmiths in group and one-to-one sessions. Usually workshop groups are divided by genre (fiction, poetry, non-fiction, etc.), so it was not only refreshing but stimulating to have mixed groups of fiction writers and poets. I brought an excerpt of my novel, but since I also write poetry, I was interested in seeing how poetry influences prose and vice versa. I was in Anne's group and since she is a poet and novelist herself, she kept referring to this cross-pollination during our group sessions. In fact i had once taken a poetry workshop with Anne and came out of it with two publishable poems, so I was eager to see what would happen with fiction. I can't say I came out with a publishable piece, but it did change drastically in the rewrites I did during the week and I know what I have to do to get it into a publishable state. 

Playwright and novelist Ann-Marie MacDonald was a guest speaker who first wanted to know why we were at this workshop and engaged us in a lively discussion on why we were motivated to write. While she spoke candidly about her journey as a writer, she also expressed curiosity about us. A natural performer, she was very charming and entertaining. 

One of the things that attracted me to this workshop was the opportunity to meet Jackie Kaiser, a Toronto literary agent with Westwood Creative Artists, who spoke to us at length about various aspects of the publishing business. The cliched image of an agent as hard-nosed and cold-blooded doesn't seem to fit Jackie. Although I probably wouldn't want to go toe-to-toe with her in a high-stakes negotiating session, she proved to be very personable and approachable. She even gave all of us her business card. Jackie has much experience behind her as an editor at Penguin Canada. Even though we had a week, there was so much information to impart it seemed as if there was not enough time. We were asked to write "cover letters" as if we were going to submit our work to a publisher. Jackie critiqued some of the letters, which was helpful. But I would have also been interested if she'd gone through some of our stories and given us an agents perspective on our work. As an added bonus we also met and spoke with Lynn Henry, an editor at House of Anansi Press. Most interesting was her explanation of the various structures of novels and how she helps a writer find the best one to tell his story. 

I should also mention that the organizer of the SeaWords Workshop was Amy Kelly. This is not a job to be taken lightly and Amy did an amazing job. I know this because as far as I could see everything ran like clockwork. And if there were problems, I wasn't aware of them. That's when you know an organizer is doing the job right.

But the theme of "Canada's Women Writers" wasn't restricted to the faculty. Out of the 11 writers participating in the workshop only myself and one other were in possession of X and Y chromosomes. Not surprising, since the majority of readers are women; it only stands to reason that they would also aspire to create the books as well. 

The workshop took place at Shaw's Hotel, Canada's oldest family-operated inn. Lunches and snacks were included in the cost of the workshop tuition and they fed us very well. The faculty stayed in the hotel's cottages and some of the participants stayed in the rooms. I live a 60 minute drive from Brackley Beach and since things got started at 9:00 a.m. commuting wasn't practical for me. As beautiful as the hotel looked, I wasn't able to afford it as my accommodation and so opted to stay at the nearby Windsong Farm Bed & Breakfast. Proprietors Cindy and Alan are from Alberta and come to PEI to run the B&B in July and August. They are a friendly couple who showed great interest in the fact that I am a writer and wanted to know all about the workshop. Throughout the week the delicious cooked breakfasts included pancakes, waffles, fried eggs, quiche and french toast and always started with Cindy's freshly baked muffins and scones. Guests all ate at the same table and a general atmosphere of friendly chatter made for a terrific way to start the day. As I don't drive and the walk to the workshop would have taken me around 45 or 50 minutes (which I was perfectly willing to do) Alan generously offered to drive me every morning. Now that's customer service, folks! If you are ever in Brackley Beach, PEI I would heartily recommend staying at Windsong Farm.

And if the SeaWords Writing Workshop goes for a second year in 2009 I recommend you sign up as early as possible.  

Today is the 7th anniversary of Thelma and I coming to to live on PEI. We found ourselves in Charlottetown for the day and ended up having lunch at Italian eatery, Sirenella. Thelma had been there many years ago and this was my first time. The decor and atmosphere reminded us of when we were in Florence (way back in 2003). We both had the special, which was fettucine with prosciutto and mushrooms in a cream sauce. Very delish!

Walking back to the car, we noticed a crowd near Province House (home of the provincial legislature and The Birthplace of Canadian Confederation) and remembered that it was a rally to bring attention to the plight of PEI farmers. Some speeches were made by politicians and farmers, but the best part was an impromptu protest song in which all the crowd got to join in by chanting "May Day! May Day! May Day!"

In 2001, when Thelma and I first moved here, my goal was to focus solely on my writing. It is fitting, then, to have a very nice profile of myself published in this month's Buzz (PEI's arts and entertainment newspaper) as reminder of how far I have come as a writer (and how far I still have to go) since making this island my home.