Revised July 29, 2023
My debut novel, Dreaming Home, was edited by renowned Canadian writer, literary critic and editor, John Metcalf, and was published by Biblioasis June 2023.
This exceeds all my expectations. Biblioasis is a small publisher that has made a huge mark since it was founded in 2004 by Dan Wells and John Metcalf. By focusing on works of the highest literary caliber, Biblioasis has become one of Canada’s most prestigious small presses. Their list contains an array of heavy-hitting authors—many who have won or were short or longlisted for Canada’s top literary prizes. In 2019 Biblioasis went on to wider acclaim as the North American publisher of “Ducks, Newburyport,” a book which received rapturous press and was shortlisted for the UK’s prestigious Booker Prize. In 2022, they published “Case Study” by Graeme Macrae Burnet, which was longlisted for the Booker.
As for John, in addition to serving as the fiction editor at Biblioasis, he has an imprint there with his own stable of artists. He comes to this by having been a major force in Canadian literature for fifty years. He is an accomplished fiction writer in his own right. Of him, Alice Munro once wrote, “John Metcalf often comes as close to the baffling, painful comedy of human experience as a writer can get.” John is also an irascible literary critic and champion of the short form. Arguably his most lasting achievement is his mentorship of Canadian writers who have gone on to have major, award-winning literary careers—including my own mentor, Caroline Adderson.
In other words, to be among such company my book had better be damn good.
I’ve been assured that it is. First by Caroline, who worked with me for nine months to refine the manuscript. She helped me to abandon some very bad writing habits and encouraged me to link my previously published short stories. After initially resisting that idea, I threw myself into the project, stripping the old stories to the bone and writing new ones on top of them. Two completely original stories were created to flesh out the overarching narrative.
When John Metcalf got ahold of the resulting manuscript, he encouraged me to surrender to my inner novelist. I’ve always thought of myself as a short story writer. I love the form’s “singularity of effect,” the unitary narrative arc that gives short fiction its impact. This great strength is also its weakness. Confined to that narrow arc, characters and their actions are walled off in place and time. Time, then, has become my central obsession in fiction. That and human entanglements, of course.
The result is Dreaming Home—not so much a linked short story collection, but a short novel in six parts that traces the forty year history of a broken family. Though each section has the unitary arc of the short story, all are tightly integrated in a single narrative that relates, often with humor, the legacy of childhood trauma and its effects on one Texas family.
Texas looms large in the work. It is a place both I and the characters in the novel thought we left long ago, only to find it is always with us. In this regard, Dreaming Home is about the immigrant experience, which fosters a kind of double vision, one common to many Canadians in my adopted home.
Caroline Adderson and John Metcalf have both been incredibly collegial. To chat with these writers who have considered fiction so long and so deeply is, for me, the ultimate pleasure.
Production of the novel went swimmingly. Vanessa Stauffer, Managing Editor at Biblioasis, was amazingly solicitous. Though technically above my pay grade, she sought my opinion on the book’s format and cover designs by graphic artist, Ingrid Paulson. John Sweet’s copyedits were insightful and thorough. Five amazingly gifted writers agreed to write blurbs: Caroline Adderson, Lori Ostlund, Lydia Conklin, Caitlin Horrocks and Patrick Earl Ryan.
The beautiful books were printed in March and released on June 6. Dreaming Home has received favorable reviews in The New York Times and in Canada’s two largest newspapers, as well as in a handful of literary journals. In addition, it was included in prominent lists as a “best read” or “most anticipated.” The awards season approaches, so cross your fingers!!