Writing News

Things have been . . . busy here. Nothing unusual in that; but things are more than usually busy right now, and I'll be glad when the end of July comes and things stabilise. A bit. I hope. One of the July projects is working with a local teacher—the wonderful Debi Hamson—at a summer camp she's running; I'll be helping a group of children to write a book. I'm looking forward to it very much, and talked with Debi today about some of the details. We're both very excited about the possibilities. No, it won't be a ghost story. . . .

However, I have been able to do some writing, and am pleased to say that my story 'Flu Season' will be appearing in Subterranean Online, either late this year or early next. It's a subtly nasty story (I think), a bit different to what I usually write. Also appearing in Subterranean Online—in the Summer 2009 issue—is my review of John Harwood's The Séance. I thought that his first novel, 2005's The Ghost Writer, was excellent, and am pleased to say that his second novel more than fulfills the promise in his International Horror Guild Award-winning first book. I hope to have more reviews in SO; watch this space.

Another story, 'The Haunted House in Etobicoke', will be appearing in Exotic Gothic 3, edited by Danel Olson and published by Ash-Tree Press in fall 2009. It is, as the movies have it, 'based on a true story', a tale told me by my paternal grandmother about a reporter knocking on her door late in 1969, thinking that recent supernatural activities reported in the Toronto papers had taken place at my grandparents' house. They'd taken place—allegedly—at a house down the road, and when I visited my grandparents as a child I used to go and stand in front of the 'haunted' house, and wonder what secrets it concealed.

Yesterday—Canada Day (or Dominion Day, as it was known in my youth)—I received the news that my story 'Of the Origin of the Hound of the Baskervilles' will be appearing in Gaslight Grotesque, the sequel to last year's very well-received Gaslight Grimoire. The story was a good deal of fun to write, and I'm looking forward to this second volume of 'Dark Tales of Sherlock Holmes'.

Carry On Round the Horne with Hancock

Last Christmas we gave Tim an iPod, and due to technical difficulties which, quite frankly, I don't understand, Tim couldn't upload anything to the device through his own computer. As I'd given Christopher an iPod the Christmas before, and he had quite a lot of music and audio files on his own computer, he simply uploaded it all to Tim's, which was fine with everyone. However, not long after the New Year, Tim was scrolling through his iPod library and discovered something called Round the Horne: specifically, dozens of episodes of the BBC radio series from the 1960s, which Christopher had transferred, by the miracle of modern technology, from a number of cassette tapes to his iPod.

We knew Tim had discovered the shows because he was going about the house convulsed with laughter, listening to them over and over and repeating huge chunks of dialogue to us at every opportunity. It's not hard to see what appealed; even forty years on the shows are fresh and funny, full of witty dialogue, wonderful recurring characters, memorable catchphrases, and the sort of skilled playing by veteran actors (in the picture above we have, from left to right, Hugh Paddick, Kenneth Williams, Kenneth Horne, Betty Marsden, and BBC announcer Douglas Smith) that one associates with classic British comedy. Before long Tim could pick out who was who, replicate accents and voices, even sing along with close harmony group the Fraser Hayes Four (who provided a serious musical interlude on each show; if you see Tim at World Fantasy in San Jose, ask him to do 'Alexander's Ragtime Band'). It wasn't long before Christopher pointed out that if Tim liked Round the Horne (which he obviously did), he'd probably also enjoy Hancock's Half Hour, a number of episodes of which were also on his iPod. . . .

And thus it was that Tim discovered Tony Hancock (l), ably supported by both Kenneth Williams and Sid James (r). Round the Horne maintained first place in his affections; but he enjoyed the Hancock episodes as well, and sought out a few of the television shows courtesy of YouTube. Kenneth Williams remained his favourite actor, and various of his Round the Horne creations - Gruntfuttock, Julian, Rambling Syd, Dr. Chou-En Ginsburg, M.A. (failed) - were heard about the house at all hours, and at the drop of a hat.


One night last week, while Christopher was a school board meeting, I thought that Tim would probably enjoy watching the 2000 movie Cor, Blimey!. Although the thrust (ooh, Matron!) of the film is the relationship between Sid James and Barbara Windsor, stars of the cheeky( and much loved) Carry On comedy films, Kenneth Williams (superbly played by Adam Godley) is one of the main supporting characters, and I wondered what Tim would make of seeing Williams (and James, to an extent) played by others in a film. The movie opens at Pinewood Studios in 1964, as a young dresser arrives for her first day on the job. In the studio she stops in front of framed pictures of the real Williams and James, which then change into photographs of the actors playing them in the film. 'The actor playing Sid James looks more like him than the actor playing Kenneth Williams does' said Tim critically; but as soon as the actors playing Williams and James appeared, he was transfixed (James is played in the film by Geoffrey Hutchings). 'He sounds just like Sid James!' said Tim approvingly, of Hutchings, and he said the same of Godley as Kenneth Williams. He hasn't yet seen any of the Carry On films, but I have a feeling it's only a matter of time.

Tonight we watched Kenneth Williams: Fantabulosa!, a 2006 TV movie about Williams's life, largely drawn from his diaries (published posthumously). It stars Michael Sheen as Williams, and is by turns hilarious and horrifying, showing as does an immensely gifted but intensely conflicted man whose death (due to an overdose of barbituates) in 1988 was probably suicide (although a merciful coroner returned an open verdict). Perhaps the highlight of the movie, for Tim, was a scene which shows a recording of an episode of Round the Horne; the look on his face was priceless as he realised what it was, and saw Stephen Critchlow (as Kenneth Horne), Guy Henry (as Hugh Paddick), and Sheen launch into a 'Julian and Sandy' skit ('That's really from one of the episodes!' said Tim in a whisper; compare the picture of Sheen and Henry above with the picture of Paddick and Williams at the top of the piece). By the end of the film, though - which ends (apart from a brief coda) with the final words of the final entry of Williams's diary, written on the day he died: 'Oh, what's the bloody point?' - Tim was thoughtful. 'He was a lonely man, wasn't he?' he said after; then, 'If I had a time machine, I'd like to go back and meet Kenneth Williams.' I don't know whether Williams would be pleased or not to know that he has a fan in someone who was born in another country, eleven years after he (Williams) died; I'd like to think he would be. I expect we'll be hearing a lot more Round the Horne in these parts; I console myself with the thought that there are a lot worse things Tim could be listening to. . . .

Got it Covered

After a bit of lull between turning in the stories for Northwest Passages and doing the proofing, there's been a fair bit of action on the book front in recent days. First and foremost was my first look at the cover image, and to say that I was knocked out by it would be an understatement. I didn't really think that the final treatment would be an embossed skull dripping blood, but when I got my first look at the cover it exceeded all my expectations. Credit where it's due: the cover is the work of Stephen H. Segal, and I also want to thank Sean Wallace for letting me have some input into it, which I gather isn't always the case with authors and their book covers. Since I can't draw a straight line, my input was pretty much limited to 'Could the cabin be a little more prominent?' - and lo and behold, in the version you see at right, it is. Frustrated artists of the world, unite! I think it's elegant, restrained, and yet arresting, and strikes the perfect note. Even Tim - who at eleven is at that hard to impress age - was taken with it. 'It looks just like a real book!' he said; then gave me a big hug and said 'I'm so proud of you.' Which is really the best critical response I could hope to get. The book will be published in October, in an edition of 3000 hardcover copies and a smaller leather-bound, limited run, and will be premiering at the World Fantasy Convention in San Jose, California.

In other writing news, I was exceedingly pleased to learn last week that Subterranean Online has purchased one of my stories: 'Flu Season', which will appear in late 2009 / early 2010 (which is of course flu season, although I can't help thinking it's fairly timely at the moment). I've got another story under consideration with an editor, three more stories to write pretty sharpish for other markets, and an invite to sub to another anthology. So I'll have to keep those plot ideas coming for a little while yet.

And finally: watched the Vancouver Canucks in the opening game of round two of the Stanley Cup Playoffs tonight, defeating the Chicago Black Hawks 5 - 3 (after squandering a three goal lead in the third period). Note to the 'Nucks: don't do that again, guys. My nerves won't take it.

Another Week, Another Update

I've read my share of introductions and forewords over the years, but in the last few months have been a bit more intimately involved with them, as it were. First off there was the matter of being the subject of an introduction, which was odd, to say the least (still can't get used to seeing myself referred to as 'Roden'). Hard on the heels of that came the writing of my first introduction, for Peter Bell's collection The Light of the World, due out later this year from Ex Occidente Press. Now I'm set to write another one, for Simon Kurt Unsworth's first collection, Black Dogs and Lost Places, due out in September from Ghostwriter Publications. I'm looking forward to the new assignment, and to Simon's collection, which I'm sure will be the first of many.

Not much to report on the Northwest Passages front, except that everything appears to be ticking along, and now it's a lot of hurry up and wait (I expect). I've had a few writers express a willingness to provide a cover blurb for the book, and here's the first one, from World Fantasy Award-winner Zoran Zivkovic, who writes 'Barbara Roden's first collection was a voyage of fascinating discoveries for me. I thoroughly enjoyed every story in it, every new territory. She is indeed a master storyteller.' And here's a snippet from the introduction, by Michael Dirda: 'Northwest Passages is Barbara Roden’s first collection, all but one of the stories having been written during the last three or four years. Yet, as I’ve emphasized, the collection avoids even the least hint of sameyness. One looks forward to each successive story with eagerness, never quite sure what to expect. Yet they all fit unobtrusively together as ten facets of a single and singularly elegant imagination.'

A note about the pictures: the top one, showing the road through the trees, was taken many years ago on the road up to one of the two cabins I describe in my story 'Northwest Passage'. The other one, probably taken at around the same time (c. 1980), shows the cabin in which, in the story, the two boys are living. Known as 'the Bowes cabin' (after the prospector who built it sometime around the Second World War), it's where we generally stayed on our trips to the area: no electricity, no heat (beyond what the fireplace and wood stove provided), and only cold running water piped out of a nearby spring, it was basic living at its most, well, basic. And yes, that's a skull on the wall, to the right of the door and the small window.

More Writing News

Hard on the heels of hearing that John Joseph Adams will be reprinting my story 'Endless Night' in his vampire anthology By Blood We Live, I've heard from John that he's taking my story 'The Things That Shall Come Upon Them'—originally published in Gaslight Grimoire—for his reprint anthology The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, due out from Night Shade later this year. There's information about it on the Night Shade site, but if you drop by Amazon.com you can get a look at the cover. I'm at work on two new Sherlock Holmes adventures; watch this space for further details.

I've had my first jacket blurb for Northwest Passages; World Fantasy Award-winner Zoran Zivkovic has written 'Barbara Roden's first collection was a voyage of fascinating discoveries for me. I thoroughly enjoyed every story in it, every new territory. She is indeed a master storyteller.'

Rejections, I've Had a Few . . .

And so has any other writer who's sent his or her work off for consideration; one of the reasons why writing isn't for the thin-skinned. After all, you've slaved over your creation, made it the best you can, sent it off into the world convinced others will love it as much as you do, and the response is a letter informing you that your work does not meet the editor's requirements at this time (or something along those lines). On any list rating life's enjoyable experiences, getting a rejection letter would be nowhere near the top. The best you can do is learn from them: what was it about your work that didn't make it a fit for this particular editor or venue? Then you have to chalk it up to experience, file it away, and get on with something else.

I'm in the somewhat odd position of having to write rejection letters, something I discussed in a previous post here ('Editing Part One', March 2008). One thing I didn't touch on then was something I see fairly often in submissions, usually from beginner writers, or those not overly familiar with the genre. This is the dreaded Conveniently Discovered Missing Link, which ties up the loose ends and ambiguities of the tale with all the thoroughness and efficiency of a Boy Scout intent on getting his Knot-Tying badge. You'll know them when you see them: they usually come after a point where the story has naturally concluded, and take the form of a conveniently-discovered letter, or newspaper article, or diary, or written confession, which connects all the dots of the story in such a ruthlessly clinical manner that any sense of mystery or wonder shrivels and dies on the page before your very eyes. CDMLs are not, by the way, restricted to the ends of stories, although they grate more there; you often find them in the middle, at the point where the protagonist is trying to sort out what's going on, and makes a trip to the local library where—what do you know!—he or she discovers a wealth of old papers which explain all manner of previously inexplicable plot points. Another common CDML is the garrulous old neighbour who remembers the folks who used to live there, yes indeed, and a terrible story it was, too; got hushed up, didn't make it into the papers, but I recall every detail as if it were yesterday—come in and have a cup of tea and I'll tell you all about it. . . . For what it's worth, I was guilty of this myself in a story I completed recently, introducing a chatty neighbour who filled in a lot of blanks in the story for the somewhat clueless protagonist (thus ignoring my advice to others of 'trust the reader'). I liked the scene but wasn't entirely happy with it, and when a friend to whom I sent the story put his finger on what was wrong (thanks, Jim!) I knew what I had to do, and despatched the neighbour and her tale into that realm labelled 'seemed like a good idea at the time'.

Which brings me, rather neatly I think, to my recent writing. In addition to the story mentioned above (which is now complete), I've been working on another tale, this one set near Ashcroft, and involving a small piece of family history. It also tackles the idea of 'true' ghost stories, and what it is that makes so many of them unsatisfactory: it's all very well to read of someone being frightened in the night by a misty grey figure standing at the foot of the bed, but we want to know more than that. Who is the figure? Why does it return? What happens to it, and how? Think of how unsatisfactory a read Perceval Landon's 'Thurnley Abbey' would be if all we had of the story was the apparition showing up in the bedroom, without the buildup or any sort of explanation after. I'm trying to fill in enough background detail so that readers can make a stab at puzzling out what 'really' happened, while at the same time not over-explaining matters. Time will tell if I succeed in walking this fine line. On the cards after that are two more Holmes stories for different venues, and I'm looking forward to returning to that world where it is always 1895 (although someone needs to change the calendar, I think). First up, however, is a story for Exotic Gothic 3. After venturing to the Prairies and Antarctica for my first two EG stories, I'll be staying closer to home for the third one, which is set in British Columbia. It's a beautiful and mysterious part of the world, sadly underrepresented in weird fiction, and I'm trying to remedy that situation, one story at a time.

Teachers Who Inspire

I'm sure we all have them: teachers who loom large in our memory, long after the classes are over, and we have made our ways in the world, and you'd think that the days of chalk boards and dreary afternoons and tests were a thing of the past. Yet every now and then I find myself thinking of teachers who made a difference, and four names come crowding to the forefront of my memory.

First off is Mrs. Martin, my grade one teacher at Harry Eburne Elementary (long since closed) in Richmond, B.C. Every student should have a grade one teacher as wise, warm, and kind as Mrs. Martin, who followed my progress through the school even after I left her class, and who must have seen something in me that wasn't apparent when I was six, because she presented me, before I left the school three years later, with a hardback copy of Madeline l'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time. It was, in retrospect, not necessarily a book you'd give to a nine-year-old, but it was a good choice, because I loved the book, and it opened up a whole new world of reading that wasn't even hinted at in the Nancy Drew titles I was then reading.

Next there is Mr. Hehn - first name Robert, I think, but I can't be sure - who was my grade five teacher at Hillcrest Elementary School in Victoria. He had a passion for English, and for language, and I will be forever in his debt because it was he who introduced me to Norton Juster's wondrous The Phantom Tollbooth, reading it to our class over a succession of afternoons, clearly delighting in the wordplay and the humour. He encouraged me to write a radio play for presentation to the class, the screenplay based on my then favourite TV show, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. The text of this play is now (perhaps mercifully) lost forever, but it was the first time a teacher had encouraged me to write something just because I wanted to, not because it was part of the class and would be marked. It was also Mr. Hehn who was responsible for our class doing a radio version of Conan Doyle's 'The Red-Headed League', and who promoted me to the part of Holmes when the girl originally cast in the part developed cold feet. Even though it was to be another two years before this particular seed took root, I trace my awareness of the Holmes stories back to my grade five year. When I moved to Ottawa the next year he wrote to me, several times, and while the letters are now lost, I well recall the delight of receiving them. Thank you.

Then there is Norm Claridge, my grade 9 and 10 Biology teacher at Hugh Boyd Junior Secondary School in Richmond. A less likely sciences student than me would be hard to find; but such was Mr. Claridge's passion for the subject, and his sense of humour, that he made even me fall in love with the subject matter, and understand it (the fact that he was wont to wander around the class with an iguana on his shoulder appealed to me; even then I appreciated the absurd). I spent many a happy lunch hour in his classroom, looking after the gerbils and snakes (not at the same time, of course), and to this day the smell of formaldehyde brings back happy memories. In addition to teaching the finer points of biology, he also instilled in his students the need for precision and detail, all of it conveyed with humour and passion. When I learned of his too-early death a few years ago I felt sorry for the students who would never have a chance to encounter his teaching, and was grateful that I'd known him.

Last - but certainly not least - is Mr. Harvey; Poona to those students brave enough to address him thus (he served in the British Army in Poona, India during World War II). He taught Literature at Steveston Senior Secondary School in Richmond during my grade 11 and 12 years, and I was more than happy to take the course, an elective: the students in it either had a burning passion for English Literature or were there because all the other courses for that block were full, and this was the only option. Poona introduced me to many of the delights of English literature, from the established classics (Shakespeare, the Cavalier poets, the Romantics) to less obvious highlights, such as the ghost fiction of A. J. Alan (he read us 'The Dream' and '17.45' during class; he was probably just about old enough to remember hearing them broadcast on the BBC in the late 1920s). He also encouraged me to go outside the box in my essays, cheerfully agreeing to let me write about, say, English detective/mystery fiction.

In 1981 I was able to go to England as part of a school trip, and Mr. Harvey was one of the guides. It was my first visit to England, and I was thrilled to be there; even more thrilled when, a few nights into the visit, Mr. Harvey took me and my friend Liz to see J. B. Priestley's play Dangerous Corners. In the interval he took us to the bar for drinks - I ordered a brandy, because I couldn't think what else to order (I was only 17, after all, and my knowledge of drinking came from movies and TV) - and then when the play was over he hailed a taxi outside the theatre and took us to Fortnum's Fountain for a late dinner: Welsh rarebit, tea, and chestnut meringues. It doesn't sound like much, but the surroundings, the elegance of the service, and the fact that it was so late in the evening all combined to make it a wonderful end to a truly magical night.

These days, I suppose, a male teacher taking two teenage female students to the theatre and then dinner - unchaperoned - would be little short of a scandal; at the very least, the teacher would be censured for lack of judgement. The record must state that Mr. Harvey was a perfect gentleman; if there was a hidden agenda to the evening then it remains so well and truly hidden that, almost thirty years later, I can't discern it. And I can't help feeling sorry for students who would be deprived of such a treat because - well, because it doesn't look right, or could be open to misinterpretation. That evening stands out as one of the best and most memorable in my life, and I thank Mr. Harvey for it.

Looking back over what I've written, I see that while all four of these individuals were fine teachers, so much of what I remember them for and what inspired me has little to do with the actual nuts and bolts of daily classroom life, and a good deal to do with them going above and beyond to identify my strengths, encourage me in my interests, and in so doing help me to become the person I am today. I was fortunate to have four such teachers, evenly spread throughout my school life; I can only hope that every student has at least one Mrs. Martin, Mr. Hehn, Mr. Claridge, or Poona, to inspire and guide them.