CANSCAIP News Summer 2018 V2

Volume 40 Number 3 Summer 2018 ISSN0708-594X IN THIS ISSUE • I=>?@ABCD=E MGB?HH= MCG@JG= • CLGD?H MGCKGN MHO@?DGL LHC>B?H – Linda Granfield • A CHLHX?G>D@= @Y JG=H> LB== – Louise Dennys • C?D>DCGL W?D>D=E – Karen Krossing • ‘FGD? DHGLD=Eb’ – Sylvia McNicoll Plus all of our regular features Logo variation by Martha Newbigging Introducing... Maureen McGowan By Bev Katz Rosenbaum Maureen McGowan’s route to children’s writing was not quite typical, which totally befits a writer whose main theme in her MG and YA novels is figuring out one’s role in the world. Maureen came to writing after a successful financial career and came up in the writing world via the commercial adult fiction route. Over cider on a Toronto patio on one of the first nice Spring days in Toronto—we’ve been doing such things for fifteen years, since I inquired on a Yahoo writing group if any Torontonians were interested in getting together IRL—Maureen told me that when she chose her first career, she put earning a living at a higher priority than what she wanted to do. “Starting university during a depression may have coloured my choices,” she says wryly. II JKL IMN 1990L, and she worked in Silicon She is still a “craft junkie” and admits she can often Valley, during the beginnings of little known get stalled while second-guessing her instincts. technologies such as the ‘world wide web’ and (Who can relate?!) ‘graphic user interfaces’. “Much as I didn’t love I was interested to know if Maureen thought accounting,” Maureen says, “I did carve out a place coming up in the popular adult fiction world, she in it, in an exciting environment.” saw the writing/publishing business differently But when she returned to Canada, she knew than some of our Canadian children’s writing she wanted to do something more creative, or at colleagues. Before answering, she noted that least creative adjacent, and toyed although she came from that with the idea of starting an online “…it’s the best time in world, she never published in that craft retail business. “Think Etsy. I history to be an author. market. She wrote several adult wish I’d thought of Etsy,” she says Authors have more manuscripts and won some large ruefully. “But I abandoned my less- opportunities to take writing contests, including the good-than-Etsy idea when I control of their careers RWA’s Golden Heart (twice!) and realized how expensive shipping the Amazon Breakout Novel than before. Some are was in Canada compared to the writing contest, and signed with a going with small digital U.S. Then a friend asked me to help US-based agent. But she didn’t out with her hedge fund publishers or publishing on manage to sell until she started to management company and I ended their own.” write for children. up as CFO and part owner. That “Yes,” she says thoughtfully, “I do experience was short-lived and stressful, but it think that because I learned about the industry gave me the financial flexibility to reinvent myself through a genre fiction lens, I see the writing/ once it was over.” publishing business a little differently than some The reinvention process involved signing up for of my children’s fiction colleagues. There are a lot a number of drawing and painting classes, of reasons to be pessimistic about publishing including a ‘How to Write a Romance Novel’ class these days, given all the recent changes in the at Ryerson. She chose that course not because she industry, but on the other hand, it’s the best time had a huge desire to write romance—she hadn’t in history to be an author. Authors have more even read a book in that genre at the time!—but opportunities to take control of their careers than because it was the only novel writing class that before. Some are going with small digital term that didn’t require a work in progress to publishers or publishing on their own.” register! “I totally credit that Ryerson course for my Ih INijL kl mMnopiNh’L JinInhq and self- writing career,” she says. “Not only did it give me publishing, Maureen says, “There’s a fairly strongly the basic tools and courage to write fiction, I also held belief in the children’s writers community met my critique partners in the class, two of whom that self-publishing isn’t a viable option, but this I still work with today, nearly fourteen years later.” might have to do with price point. The publisher Maureen’s formal training didn’t stop with the of my Dust Chronicles series priced my e-books Ryerson class. She took many more classes and competitively, and the trilogy sells very well in attended many writing conferences before writing both the e-book and the digital audio formats. and publishing. She wanted to be sure that when Maybe the major publishers price e-books a little she did write something, it was a work of quality. CANSCAIP NEWS 2 SUMMER 2018 too high, and then mistakenly conclude that YA asked her why her heroine was so emotionally and MG readers don’t read e-books.” closed off. “When I started to explore what On the plus side of traditional publishing, happened to her when she was a teen,” Maureen Maureen acknowledges that the says, “My critique partners both experience of working with a good said, ‘Write that book instead!’” editor and publisher is invaluable. This was just as The Hunger Games “Writers who self-publish can hire was blowing up, and reading that great editors, copy editors, book made Maureen realize that proofreaders, cover designers, and YA fiction was no longer as juvenile publicists, but it’s hard to know as it was when she was a teen. “I’d what to expect from them if you’ve always assumed,” she says, “that never been through the process. writing for children and teens And without any gatekeepers, it’s would mean toning down my voice hard to self-evaluate whether or and ideas, but The Hunger Games not you’re ready to be published— made me realize that notion was and reader reviews on Amazon and wrong. I decided it made sense to Goodreads can be brutal. But,” she transform my adult urban fantasy adds, “it’s been empowering to see idea into a book about my heroine authors I know who always as a teen.” appeared successful with multiple At the time, Maureen had also books each year, but who couldn’t been contemplating an unrelated make a living on the midlist with idea that had sparked when the their publishers, now earning many eruption of a volcano in Iceland times more than they used to by disrupted air travel and leveraging their out-of-print communications. That disaster backlists and selling their new work made her wonder what would without the middlemen.” happen if something similar It was the strictures of writing happened on a more catastrophic for the commercial, adult, genre scale. She melded the two ideas world that eventually proved and the result was Deviants, which frustrating for Maureen. “You can was quickly followed by two more write a young adult novel with books, Compliance and Glory. The dystopian, horror, sci-fi, fantasy and trio became the Dust Chronicles romantic elements,” she says, “but series, which was published by one in the adult world, you would have of Amazon’s publishing arm to pick one of those things. Everyone wants to imprints, Skyscape. know which shelf the book goes on.” (For anyone who is confused, releasing a book Maureen was actually working on an idea for an with one of Amazon’s own publishing imprints is adult urban fantasy series about a woman with not the same as self-publishing with Amazon. As closed-off emotions who lived in a society where with any other traditional publisher, one has to she had to hide the truth about who she really was submit a manuscript, which goes through all the and what she could do when her critique partners CANSCAIP NEWS 3 SUMMER 2018 usual traditional publishing hoops before one gets was an adventurous retelling of Cinderella. To test a traditional type publishing contract.) the boundaries of creative control,” Maureen Publishing with Amazon proved a mostly recalls, “I asked you if there could be ninjas. I was wonderful experience. As with their self- mostly joking, but you said, ‘Sure!’ Quite honestly, publishing authors, “Their philosophy is that the that moment was a huge spark for some of the author is the customer,” Maureen explains. “They concepts in Cinderella: Ninja Warrior. Even want you to be happy.” The timing of Maureen’s though I’d been joking, I immediately saw a scene 2012 release of Deviants was not ideal, as shortly in my mind with Cinderella and her stepsisters after she signed her contract, the being attacked by ninjas dropping big box bookstores boycotted all from trees in the forest.” Amazon books. However, Amazon Maureen made the choice of proved it could do well by their having all the stories’ paths lead to authors strictly with electronic a traditional (romance-wise) happy sales. They are still actively ending. “My feeling was that promoting the trilogy, six years fairytales promised something. I later. They recently ran a Bookbub did get some pushback for that,” ad for it, Maureen says, “and it still she admits. “But in all paths of sells very well.” both books, the princess was Before Deviants, Maureen had always the one to save herself, written and published a couple of adventure-wise.” middle grade novels, a duo of The packager ended up selling choose-your-own-path fairytales the series to Silver Dolphin Books.

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