Recording and Transcript of Author Talk with Jeremy John
About the Event
On November 1, 2021, Jes of WritingCommunity.ca interviewed Jeremy John, author of Robert’s Hill (or The Time I Pooped My Snowsuit) and Other Christmas Stories (Dundurn Press, 2021). At the end of this interview, Jes announced details for the next Northern Ontario Book Fair. This event is part of our Author Talks series. If you are an author and want to be interviewed, please visit our Author Talks page and click on the application link.
About the Book
Robert’s Hill (or The Time I Pooped My Snowsuit) and Other Christmas Stories is the perfect collection for Christmas in the real world. No talking snowman or cute woodland animal who saves Christmas (actually, there is a pigeon who steps in and saves the big day). This selection of heart-warming tales is about the true magic of the season: receiving the ultimate gift only to break it immediately; playing drinking games while watching a holiday special; getting divorced over what seemed like the perfect present. Robert’s Hill even settles the debate on which is the greatest Christmas movie ever made (that’s not it) and finally explains how the candy cane was invented (no one really knows, so why not make it up?). This collection will be enjoyed by everyone or, at least, anyone who still loves Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, misses the toys they had as a kid, and thinks pooping your snowsuit is funny.
About the Author
Jeremy John is currently ranked as the sixty-second most famous person from Brantford, Ontario. (Look it up. There are a lot.) Jeremy’s career in broadcasting has included co-hosting shows on 680 NEWS, KiSS FM, and Breakfast Television. Jeremy lives in Sudbury, Ontario.
Recording of Author Talk
Transcript
JES: Welcome everybody to the author talk with Jeremy John. My name is Jessica Trudel. I am Co-founder of WritingCommunity.ca and we host these author talks three times per year. Tonight our guest is Jeremy John. He is the author of Robert’s Hill (or The Time I Pooped My Snowsuit) and Other Christmas Stories coming out with Dundurn Press this month, and we are really glad to have him here with us. And welcome, Jeremy.
JEREMY: Thank you very much. Thank you very much. The title sounds even funnier when other people have to say it.
JES: laughs I was really worried I was going to mess that up, but I got it.
JEREMY: It is a little long. Lots of conversations with marketing. It is a little long, a little unwieldy, but you can’t deny that it’s memorable.
JES: It absolutely is, but if you don’t mind, I will refer to it as Robert’s Hill from here on out.
JEREMY: That’s okay. laughs
JES: laughs Alright, so Jeremy. First, tell us a little bit about yourself, where you’re from, that sort of thing.
JEREMY: Oh okay. So originally from Brantford, Ontario, Southwestern, Ontario and that’s actually where Robert’s Hill is. And spent many times in many years in radio and television. Moved around a bunch. I got to work in Wasaga Beach. Got to work in Toronto, Ontario. Got to work in London, Ontario, Winnipeg, Manitoba, in radio here in Sudbury, and then found my way sort of backwards fell into publishing some stories that I had sitting around. And I’m so very very excited that what we’ve been working on with Dundurn Press for about a year and a bit now is going to hit shelves in nine days.
JES: Very exciting. So nine days… What date does that fall on?
JEREMY: So November 9th then
JES: November 9th. Perfect. And I understand you’ve been promoting this. You have kind of a planned promotion schedule and Wordstock is involved?
JEREMY: Yeah so we’re lucky enough to be doing lots of stuff. So Wordstock Sudbury is of course Sudbury’s premier literary festival. Happens this weekend and I’ve been lucky enough to be invited to be on the short but sweet panels, so the short story authors panel on Saturday from 1 to 2. I’ll be there and having some fun. And we’ve also been able to do lots of nice things about the book in the last little while. Got to talk to my hometown newspaper and talk a little bit about that. And we’ve got some fun stuff coming up with local television and local radio as well. So really looking forward to it.
JES: So this is a collection of short stories I believe, correct?
JEREMY: Yeah, exactly. Some extremely short, all of eight to ten pages, some about double that, but they’ve all come together in what I’ll admit is kind of a strange way in my family that we have a long standing tradition on Boxing Day. I read a new story to the entire family and sometimes we gather around the tree, sometimes sitting at the dinner table waiting for the pie to come out of the oven, but I always do a new story every year for my family at Boxing Day and this has been the collection of some of our favorites over the few years. And they’ve been tidied up a bit and fixed up a bit and put together from the folks at Dundurn Press.
JES: So are they all Christmas stories or are they a mixed bag?
JEREMY: No, all Christmas stories for this particular one. They all kind of have to do with the same sort of ideas of Christmas: of tradition, of family, of nostalgia. As the title might give away they’re not particularly serious, they’re not particularly heavyweight stuff. They tend to be a little fun. Whenever you put the word poop in a title, it usually kind of sets that up.
JES: For sure. Did you ever consider publishing this as like a traditional memoir as opposed to a collection of stories?
JEREMY: We had talked a little bit about what it could look like. I don’t know if it would ever take on the approach of a memoir or a full novel. Most of them are pretty good little bite sized slices of fun is I think a good way to put it. A dear friend of mine described it as like drinking hot chocolate you know it warms you up inside, it’s sweet, it gives you exactly what you need. It may not exactly be good for you,
JES: laughs
JEREMY: It may not exactly be gourmet, but it gives you exactly what you need. And sometimes you just need a hot cup of cocoa.
JES: That’s very true, very true. Especially in Northern Ontario. laughs
JEREMY: Exactly exactly.
JES: So how did your relationship with Dundurn Press start? Did you query them in a traditional sort of fashion or did you already have an established relationship with them?
JEREMY: I…it was one of those 12 degrees of separation things where when Covid hit like lots of people I got laid off and had to find some temporary work some online work some remote work and ended up working with a company called FreeConference.com to do some writing for their blogs. A friend of a friend of a friend knew someone at FreeConference who knew someone at Dundurn and really just asked for an introduction. I was lucky enough to put a couple of my stories onto the FreeConference.com they do a like a Youtube channel for Christmas and someone at Dundurn liked the stories enough to make an introduction. And we got to talk and the rest is history.
JES: Was that your first–
JEREMY: Far from the traditional route.
JES: Right. laughs So is that your first thought of publishing was them approaching you or was had your family been saying, “Hey you should publish these stories” for a while?
JEREMY: I…people have always said that. Most times I just took it that they were being nice because they’re family, but it’s something I’ve always wanted to do and something I talked a little bit about with some friends in the business. It is a particularly difficult task for the marketing department to to sell a Christmas-only story that’s designed to be read aloud, designed for kids and grown-ups. It’s a very niche thing that the marketing department has to do, so personally I’m wishing them the best of luck
BOTH: laughs
JEREMY: But I can understand why a lot of people wouldn’t want to take on something like that.
JES: For sure. Okay. So the stories are kid-friendly, too?
JEREMY: Most stories are kid-friendly, so in going back to where the origins came from you know I’ve written these over the last 35 years so our family has changed considerably over those years. We’ve you know some of them started as kids and now have their own kids so some are written for specific children. So things like Merry Christmas Mister Baggins which is a a nice little touching story about a young son and a father on a long car ride listening to J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and they bond over that. So that one’s a great one to reach for the kids, especially because you get to do parts of The Hobbit and you know do Smaug’s voice and fun things like that. And then there’s things like the Pigeon King Saves Christmas which was a request by one of my children when they were little that they wanted a story about a pigeon and it should save Christmas so that’s what I came up with. So those ones definitely the kids will enjoy it. I hope somebody shares that with their little ones on on Christmas day or on Boxing day. Things like The Christmas Divorce that one maybe that’s just for the grown-ups. The Twelve Shots of Christmas like it’s about binge drinking. Again maybe you want to pre-read that one before you share it with the kids. So yeah it’s a little something for everyone in there hopefully.
JES: Gotcha. I gotcha. So don’t just hand the book over to your kids and… laughs
JEREMY: Yeah unless you’re gonna highlight the very read the pigeon and the Robert’s Hill. Robert’s Hill everyone likes because everyone thinks poop in your snow suit is funny right.
JES: Of course. laughs Potty humour is always a winner right?
JEREMY: It you go with what they like right you go with the winners and you you stick to what you know.
JES: laughs For sure. So what was the writing process like? You said you were kind of pre-wrote a lot of these stories and shared them over the years. Did you kind of have to rewrite them when it came time to the publishing? Like did you have to kind of rethink them because it was now more than just for the family or
JEREMY: Very much so. And it was also more than just me reading it out loud you know. When when I performed it for lack of a better term to my families and family and friends, I knew where I wanted to emphasize certain things and you write differently than you read, so most things I for lack of a better word translated from how I would say it to how I would read it. A few things one thing was written specifically for the book, The Christmas Divorce. Ironically my family hasn’t heard yet.
JES: Ooh. laughs
JEREMY: They’ll have to laughs they have to buy like everybody else.
JES: Ooh. laughs
JEREMY: So that one was specifically written for that and a few of them have been tidied up a bit punched up a bit and formatted of course to make them fit into that system. But yeah so it was very interesting to take it from something was just in my dad’s living room on Boxing day and and now get to to show it to everybody.
JES: For sure. So what was the process like working with the the publisher? Like how far back are we going when all this started?
JEREMY: We’re going back I’m gonna say about 14 months maybe 15 months. Which I did not realize was a very short period of time in the world of publishing.
JES: It is.
JEREMY: I was lucky enough to have the folks at Dundurn be extremely understanding. They were very kind with giving me exact requirements for exact dates. So I needed to know I needed to have this many cover edited by this date and this decided by this date, so that was wonderful for me because like most people I leave things to the last minute so I really needed those at those hard deadlines. And it was a fascinating process to go through because not only did I get to deal with people when it came to graphics and things like book cover design and the conversations there. But the marketing department and editing for me was was a fascinating time. I had not realized how the minutia that went into it and I was honoured that someone on the other end of the computer had to spend that much time thinking about something I wrote. I’ll give you an example. In The Twelve Shots of Christmas it’s about a family and I mentioned the the younger sons age, and one of the editors did the math on what would happen when the older son got married and came back with his fiance if they would be too old to be returning to the house. And I never would have thought that someone could have put that much thought into something that I wrote and said how old is the older brother when he returns to the house. I had never even considered it but I had to go back do some changing, fix some math, and realize that that the the older son could come back and enjoy himself. And once we got that part done, then we tackled what was a surprisingly long conversation about the title.
JES: laughs
JEREMY: Which I know we’re trying to just call it Robert’s Hill but for me it was fascinating because the story in my family, which has been around and I’ve told at least 20 years now, so the story was always Robert’s Hill, and my family would refer to it as “the time you pooped your snowsuit”, and I would say, “No, it’s Robert’s Hill,” and they would say, “Yeah yeah that one about the time you pooped your snowsuit.” And then when we decided on using a story in the collection as the title for the collection, you know I asked Dundurn what sticks out for you and they said, “Well, we really like the one about the time you pooped your snowsuit.” I said, You mean Robert’s Hill?” and they said, “Yeah the one about when you pooed in your snow suit.” so when we finally agreed with that overly long Robert’s Hill (or The Time I Pooed My Snowsuit) and Other Christmas Stories it then took another step because it then goes to editing who explains that, and again try to picture this from my world, as strange as it sounds to you, I spent months on this. Pooed is grammatically incorrect. Pooped is what the word is.
JES: Right.
JEREMY: So after about a dozen or so emails I found myself going I can’t believe this is the kind of stuff we have to talk about.
JES: laughs
JEREMY: I can’t believe someone’s getting paid to email me about pooed versus pooped. So that’s how we ended up with Robert’s Hill (or The Time I Pooped My Snowsuit).
JES: I’m a professional editor so I’ve had those kind of conversations with people. Not specifically about pooped, but laughs you’d be surprised.
JEREMY: I learned a lot, there’s no question about it. Beyond the pooped-pooed thing I learned a lot and the editing folks were very very kind.
JES: Yeah. I like to focus on developmental editing over proofreading for that very reason, because I don’t have the patience for those conversations.
JEREMY: If that’s what you got to do, that’s the conversation you have to have, and the fact that someone paid, regardless of whether it was their job or not, the fact that someone paid so much attention to one to my stories really really meant a lot.
JES: Yes, that’s true. It is an honour when you know there is such a competitive industry right, and that the people in the industry are willing to take that time, put that effort in, for your stories.
JEREMY: Yeah. For sure. The level of care and and insight that they gave me went far beyond whatever their professional requirements were no question.
JES: For sure. Did you model your like your collection… do you have a favorite collection that you kind of modeled it after? Like do you have somebody that you kind of follow and are a fan of?
JEREMY: Not well not particularly. And I hate to pull out anybody’s names because it I would never put my name in the same sentence as someone like Stuart McLean, but there’s no question that I’m a huge Stuart McLean and all of us are we’re just Canadians and we love good stories and that guy did it better than everybody else. So I wouldn’t hasten to put my name with anybody else’s in the same story but when it comes to Canadian storytellers there are no one like Stuart McLean. And I don’t just mean how good he was but the amount of great content that man could crank out on a regular basis is absolutely astonishing how good that guy could make a story and how often he could write a story.
JES: Sure very prolific writers out there.
JEREMY: Yeah, and you know every new album has a couple of songs on it that aren’t going to be hits, but I don’t know of any story that Stuart wrote that I never that I heard that didn’t grab you the entire time.
JES: My favorite some of my favorite not Canadian but Jack London. I always loved reading his short stories.
JEREMY: Mm-hmm. As strange–
JES: How To Start a Fire when I was a kid.
JEREMY: Yeah yeah. As strange as it may seem as I get for a guy who writes Christmas stories, I’m a huge Stephen King fan. I love Mister King’s work and looking at some of the endings of my stories, I’ll never be critical of the ending of his stories ever again because that’s tough.
JES: Well he must have some that are set over Christmas.
JEREMY: pauses Not that I’m aware of.
JES: I mean The Shining is in winter, I don’t know if Christmas.
JEREMY: Oh! Yeah good point. Good point. Yeah.
JES: It can be done.
JEREMY: Sure.
JES: I think just juxtaposing something that’s supposed to be joyful and sweet with something that’s terrifying is part of the the the art, right?
JEREMY: Yeah, no. If you can make those two things yeah.
JES: Sure same thing I mean it’s basically the the same that you did with your contrasting comedy with what’s sweet, and you know family-friendly with something that’s you know potty humour. laughs
JEREMY: laughs Yeah exactly. Pooping, pigeons, binge drinking — it’s all Christmas.
JES: For sure. laughs So do you have any other projects on the go? Any planned future ones after this?
JEREMY: Well that’s that’s further ahead than I like to let myself think, particularly because again this is the challenge for the marketing department is we have such a narrow window you know where we’ve essentially got we got to rip down the Halloween decorations to get the Christmas stuff up and sell in a very very short window, so best of luck to that team. And there’s been some little conversations about what could be next and if there could be something next. There’s a few stories that I’ve got sitting back that for one reason or another didn’t make the collection, so there’s an opportunity maybe to start a second one or make an expanded one. There’s also conversations about whether we could do something with specific individual stories in this case put the kids stories in one format and put the grown-up stories in another format. Marketing didn’t respond to my emails about making a pop-up book where the kid would be in the toboggan and you could pull the thing and the little poop would come in and out.
JES: laughs
JEREMY: I don’t know if they I don’t know if they didn’t get the email or didn’t respond to the email but that’s what I would I would love to see.
JES: I’m sure it’s on someone’s to-do list. laughs
JEREMY: laughs I can’t imagine that’s an easy thing to do, but I think it would be fantastic to make a pop-up book of Robert’s Hill.
JES: Oh man, there used to be pop-up books everywhere. That itself is nostalgia right there for Christmas. You used to see Christmas pop-up books everywhere.
JEREMY: Yeah and then and as a kid you’d have the you know the tab that made the dog’s tail wag or whatever it was. You’d play with that until the piece of paper ripped out and then it was done.
JES: Yeah. Yes, too true. laughs Yes, that’s true. I never got pop-up books for my kids for that very reason. They don’t last very long.
JEREMY: No no well hey then maybe that’s the shows of the how precious they are they only haven’t only got the pop-up book for so long.
JES: laughs So if you had to pick one story out of the the bunch as your favorite what would you say? When you recommend people read if nothing else.
JEREMY: That’s, okay, so my favorite versus the one I’d recommend or might be two different ones. So my favorite’s probably The Christmas Divorce because I’ve only read it for a handful of people and the folks at Dundurn, so it doesn’t have the it doesn’t have the wear that some of the other stories have had. I might be a little tired of telling the story about the time I put my snowsuit.
JES: laughs
JEREMY: However if you wanted a snapshot that was going to give you an idea of what all the stories are kind of about, that one would be it. And there’s a reason why we put that first in the list and there’s a reason why it’s got its name in the title of the book. It’s a delight to tell even though I’ve told it probably far too many times and I really hope people enjoy it. And if I may I’m amazed at how many times people will say they can relate to it. I one thing I did not expect was how many people would comment on posts saying, “Hey, it’s happened to all of us.”
JES: laughs
JEREMY: It hasn’t happened to all of us. It’s happened to more of us than I thought it did
JES: laughs
JEREMY: laughs But it’s kind of nice to see.
JES: For sure.
JEREMY: And very much the same thing, with that chance to relate, that I didn’t realize was Merry Christmas Mister Baggins the the family going on that long car ride on Christmas Eve I didn’t realize that no matter who you are if you’re the oldest or the youngest or the middle kid, for some reason we all think we had the worst seat in the car. For some reason we all think that everybody else had a better spot in the car even though as the middle kid I can tell you I always had the worst spot.
JES: laughs Well you know the middle kid neither has the authority nor the the baby factor so… tisks
JEREMY: You sound like a middle kid, Jes.
JES: No, I’m the baby. laughs
JEREMY: Oh! laughs You just understand your power.
JES: I know how to manipulate the situation.
JEREMY: Exactly.
JES: So is the collection more or less in chronological order? You mentioned like it happens over many years.
JEREMY: Yeah, so no. We jumped all over the place as far as how the stories are written. The idea was to put them together in an order that would give you a little bit of of everything, so there might be some silly humour, there might be something a little sweet, and there might be something touching, and then we’ll go right back to silly humour again. So we’re trying to mix it up so that hopefully every time you open it and pick one out you’ll find one you like.
JES: So are you saying that in the chronology of your life things, either got more funny or less funny laughs in the chronology of your life?
JEREMY: laughs There’s no question, ups and downs. Some ups and downs, but in this one we wanted to to try to give you a little bit of everything so if you only read three stories, you’d still get kind of the whole flavor of all the stories. I… it is only 148 pages, so I hope that everybody will be able to take them all in and enjoy them all.
JES: Gotcha. I never really thought about what you said about the the short marketing time for a Christmas storybook. When you first said that I was thinking you know books become old news quickly, but in this case it’s there really is a deadline on pushing this out there.
JEREMY: Yeah, on the 26th it’s going to be in a discount bin somewhere.
JES: Oh, man. laughs No pressure.
JEREMY: laughs Best of luck to the marketing department. Good luck and and… No it’s it’s very interesting as far as marketing goes because really no one wants to talk Christmas until we’re kind of in the mood and we had, I’m in Northern Ontario, I haven’t even seen snow yet so it’s one of those things that we kind of put off to the side thinking about Christmas or shopping and all that kind of stuff until it’s almost too late. So when you’re trying to sell books almost too late isn’t good for anybody. So we’re lucky to very happy to say that pre-sales pre-orders have been going very well and that we believe that the connection that we’ve got with Chapters Indigo Coles, this the book is exclusive to Chapters Indigo Coles, and we believe that with their help things will go very well. So we got our fingers crossed and we’re gonna do the best we can with the next 60 days.
JES: What sort of expectations did the publisher have for you to do some of the marketing?
JEREMY: We talked a lot about being able to use my past when in media and marketing in order to capitalize on things. The nice thing is that my absolute favorite part of writing them is being able to read them. The writing part could be quite labourious depending on how the story goes but right the reading and performing is always a joy to me I always enjoy it. So for them to be able to use that I think was a nice tool you know when marketing says, “Hey we can take someone and we can put them in front of an audience almost anywhere with almost any kind of audience you know grown-ups or kids or serious stuff or fun stuff, we can throw Jeremy in there almost anywhere.” I took that as a big compliment and I hope that they’re gonna get to use me lots. We’ve got lots of things that are tentative so hopefully lots of people will be hearing the stories from now till the 26th. But as soon as they happen we’re going to let WritingCommunity.ca know.
JES: Oh, awesome. Are a lot of those events I guess planned virtual or are there in-person ones now that things are sort of opening up?
JEREMY: Well see that’s the thing is it’s sort of opening up it’s everyone seems to be not quite sure what they’re allowed to do or not quite sure what they should do if they’re allowed to do it. So yeah it’s it seems to be a lot of that. I think I hope there’ll be lots of in-person stuff. Nothing is better than when you’ve got an audience and you’re there with the crowd. As much as I enjoy this, being there up on the you know and connecting with them live is wonderful you know when you get to say pooed snowsuit and you get that giggle that’s tons of fun.
JES: You don’t get to say pooed, you can only say pooped. laughs
JEREMY: Pooped, I’m sorry. laughs Spoken like a true editor. Pooped, not pooed. If you’ve learned nothing today kids it’s pooped to not pooed. Yeah the talking to that audience and being there nothing can quite top that, but there’s also the opportunity you know we can look at these things and these chances to connect virtually as an opportunity you know. I can I was lucky enough to read the schools in British Columbia. I was lucky enough to read the schools in London and Manitoba and I checked off schools all over the place. So I wouldn’t simply would not have been able to do that if I was trying to be there in person. So the fact that I can do it virtually, while not exactly the same, does give us some wonderful opportunities.
JES: For sure. Did you attend a lot of literary events pre-Covid? Like did you like going to author talks and readings and things like that?
JEREMY: I would… with the with kids and the age they are when I was you know when I when they were out and we were doing stuff like that it was always small stuff, so the Manitoba Children’s Festival, things like that were always a blast, but it was very rare that I would get to go something you know grown-up stuff. So I when we do get back to that world and hopefully soon I’m very much looking forward to it I’ve been looking forward to Wordstock Sudbury coming up this weekend. For a very very long time it’s going to be so nice to be out and about with people and safely enjoying our time.
JES: Are you part of any local writer’s groups where that you meet with like local writers?
JEREMY: All virtual stuff. As far as the Sudbury Writers Guild and things like that goes we’ve I’ve been since I’m fairly new to Sudbury, we’ve been doing everything online. I’m also lucky enough to have a bunch of friends who are also writers in several different ways. I’ve got some screenwriter friends and some amateur writers and some folks who are editing who’ve published in the past, so I’m lucky enough to have a nice little group of friends that I can always turn to and go what do you think, more of this, less of this, too much of this. It’s great to have those people who can give you that wonderfully frank feedback like your stuff is like hot chocolate it’s warm but you know not that good for you.
JES: Yeah. Did you do you have any advice for fellow busy parents and busy people trying to find time to or I should say make time to write?
JEREMY: Yeah. yeah. Find a time. If there was time left you would have found it, but make time to write. I really need to have everything done and squared away so you know I really have trouble sitting down at the laptop unless the dishes are done, so planning it out is wonderful and it also gives you something to to look forward to. If you know that you’ve got a Saturday morning from nine to noon and the coffee maker’s ready to go Saturday morning and the dishes are done and everybody’s taken care of and the kids are gonna get their cereal and everything’s gonna be fine, not only do you find that time or make that time to write but there’s a great feeling of the week where you know you’ve got those couple of hours coming up. So one of the things with Dundurn and giving me hard timelines is that I was able to schedule those times and go okay I know I need four hours right here to take care of this portion so I found I was very much looking forward to those opportunities to write in the future, so I wouldn’t just put it on the on the list of things I’m going to do someday, I’m going to finish that story or I’m going to edit that story, give yourself a hard timeline and get everything else out of the way so you can enjoy that time.
JES: For those who are in the chat room I still have a few more questions, but if you have a question for Jeremy now would be the time to type it into the chat so that I can pass that question along. Alright so for you did you I’m assuming because most your stories were pre-written that the editing process was more of a slog for you? Some people like writing more some people prefer editing. What was it for you?
JEREMY: I didn’t realize how the minutia of the editing right. So the first round I really didn’t mind at all because it was a back and forth about you know hey the character should do this or they did this earlier do you think they would need to do that again, it was those kinds of things. What the part that I found troublesome was I believe round three or four where you were no longer editing a document you were simply commenting back and forth where shouldn’t this comma be a semicolon and shouldn’t this semicolon be a period. It was it was those little tiny things where I kind of I really just wanted to go maybe you you guys are smarter anyways just whatever you think is right right
JES: Did you get to do that? Did you get to just tell them
JEREMY: laughs
JES: laughs you know what, or did you have to approve every change?
JEREMY: I well I I’m not the kind of person who wouldn’t insist on approving every single change anyways. I you know as much as I say as much as I say I would like to let go of control, Jes, there’s no way I actually would. But I did learn a lot. They were kind enough to explain things along the way where I would say shouldn’t it be a comma and then I would get a little tiny punctuation lesson in the next email about no and here’s why. laughs
JES: laughs Well you know next time next book are going to be so much better prepared.
JEREMY: Now I can’t write it, now I can’t write a darn thing because I’m so afraid going is it colon is it colon I don’t know which one’s the semicolon. My grammar and my punctuation is still horrible and I still just write like I’m saying it out loud and I’ve taught myself that I’m going to worry about that in the next step.
JES: Well conversational writing I think has its own merits. I personally like reading something that’s conversational and that they would say that that’s your narrative voice or narrative style so…
JEREMY: Never been accused of having a style, but I will take it. I also think it’s an opportunity too, when it’s through my voice or through the narrator’s voice that I can do all those things that I like to do which is not only talk about what’s happening in the story but the thoughts behind things and as they’re thinking. One of the stories that didn’t make the list is The Christmas Drunk — again maybe not one for the kids just saying just for you read the titles at least moms and dads — and what I liked about that one is that the narrator is literally having a conversation between his drunk mind and his sober mind as he stumbles around this grocery store and witnesses a Christmas miracle. I won’t give too much of it away but I like the idea that because of that narrative style you can get right in there and you can you can find out what’s going on in their mind.
JES: So I, it just occurred man it’s just probably should occur to me a lot earlier, maybe it’s a Monday night, but I’m guessing then not these are these are fictional stories. You mentioned kids coming back when they’re older so I kind of assumed they were all true stories, but maybe there’s some fiction ones in there as well.
JEREMY: Everything’s got got a little bit of truth in it and I appreciate you not asking if Robert’s Hill is a true story
JES: laughs
JEREMY: Not my favorite story to tell, but yeah everything’s got like a for lack of a better word it’s got it’s got a core of truth in it. As I’ve often quoted my dad always said that, “You should always tell the truth, always be honest, unless you can think of something better.”
JES: laughs
JEREMY: So anytime I was trying to tell a story if I thought it was better that the character was taller or shorter or it was funnier that the the tobogganing hill was 15 feet as opposed to 5 feet, then I just made it 15 feet opposed to 5 feet, but every one of the stories has got something in it that I’m drawing from in real life. You know the example I use when I talk to when I get those questions from students is it’s about Merry Christmas Mister Baggins. You know while I did have long car rides to go see Grandma and Grandpa, my dad did have a station wagon with wood paneling and I did sit in the worst spot in the car that one spot in between the two it was like the half seat it was kind of in between the two because the big kid and the little kid got the nice seats, we didn’t listen to The Hobbit. We probably listened to the CBC and you know old Beatles records or Don McLean or Meatloaf Bat Out Of Hell or something like that on the ride. It was just I wanted to take my love of The Hobbit and that desire to to connect with my son at the time when he was very little and added it into the story, so. There’s always a little bit of truth in one in each of those and again thanks for not asking about Robert’s Hill.
JES: laughs Are you hinting that you want me to ask, because you’ve been bringing this up a lot.
JEREMY: I will tell you exactly again whenever I talk to students it is always the number one question. In fact when I talk to students and ask if there’s questions, I usually say I know what the first question is going to be. Did anyone like to ask the first question because we all know what it is and they ask and I always I’ll say the same thing to you Jes that I say to them which is that, “I like you and I respect you far too much to lie to you, so I’m just gonna say, ‘Next question.’”
JES: laughs Fair enough.
JEREMY: laughs
JES: Well if it makes you feel any better, nobody in the chat room has asked that question either.
JEREMY: laughs
JES: So you might have gotten the one crowd that is going to give you a reprieve on that question.
JEREMY: Grown-ups can be different. Someone pointed out to me one of the folks actually in Dundurn said, “You know it has to be true because no adult would ever admit to that if it didn’t actually happen.” No adult would ever say. “Oh yeah, I had a great idea. You know what would be funny?”
JES: Have you watched stand-up comedy, cause yeah. laughs
JEREMY: Yeah scoffs that’s a good point. That’s a good point. That’s it it’s a very tricky thing I think to write funny verses talk funny. You have so more you have so many more weapons at your disposal when you’re doing stand-up and I’ve been lucky enough to try my hand just once, but you’ve got everything around you that you’re able to making someone laugh when all it is is a word on the page I think is is really something special. I’m not saying I do it well, but I think the times when I’ve been sitting on the subway and actually chuckled to myself that’s a special piece of writing because it is very difficult to do.
JES: Yeah I very rarely laugh out loud while reading a book, but I remember all the times that I did.
JEREMY: Yeah.
JES: I could usually tell you those stories.
JEREMY: It is a very rare thing and a very tricky thing so if I even get a little out of somebody when they read Robert’s Hill, I’ll take it.
JES: For sure. I pause I just I completely blanked on the question I was going to ask you.
JEREMY: Don’t worry, don’t worry because we also get to talk a little bit we get to talk about the Northern Ontario Book Festival.
JES: Yes, yes that, but that’s going to come that’s going to come in a little bit.
JEREMY: Oh we still have to wait.
JES: You’ve got it you’ve got to build the suspense a little bit you see. laughs
JEREMY: Alright.
JES: I will say last call for those in the chat room if anyone has a question. Any question but that that question the one that we already covered.
JEREMY: laughs
JES: laughs I did have one more question that I wanted to ask but it completely left my brain and that’s okay because that is what live is all about.
JEREMY: Been there. I’ve done that many times.
JES: Yeah for sure. You did mention though that you used to be…what was it a traffic reporter?
JEREMY: I was lucky enough to do lots of different jobs. So I started in radio as a traffic reporter so just exactly what you think I flew around flew above Toronto in a tiny little plane in a little microphone and looked out the window and told people what the 401 and the 427 looked like that day. A fascinating job, learned a ton, met some really great people. And for me it was a great opportunity to connect with some some some wonderful folks in radio and really grow. So from that position I was able to do some sports reporting, I was able to do some reporting on the the music stations as well that were owned by Rogers at the time. And then that became a sports show in Toronto which did not last long which turned into a gig in London, Ontario and television. I was lucky enough to be on a channel for about four years and then spent a year in Wasaga Beach back in radio and then my tenure in Winnipeg at Breakfast Television for five years.
JES: Okay. The reason I ask is because I wondered if your listeners when you were a traffic host appreciated you adding your flare of humour in there to the traffic report. laughs
JEREMY: laughs That is frowned upon usually and I’ve got and I got in trouble more than once for that. Very much it’s very much in all medias knowing your audience. So something that I joke that I could do on Kiss or on the sports station would be very different from the news station or CHFI the easy listening station, so for me as a young person it took longer than it should have but you really need to understand your audience. And the boss was lucky enough kind enough to explain those in no uncertain terms when I did and didn’t do the right joke for the right audience.
JES: Yeah I can’t tell a joke with a punch line to save my life, but I have a natural wit, but I too got in trouble a few times at work for saying something that was absolutely funny but at the wrong moment.
JEREMY: Yep exactly. Great great joke, wrong radio station. I think those were his exact words, “Great joke, wrong radio station.” And in fairness you know when you’re stuck in traffic and and you know apologize for the phrase pulling your hair out but when you’re stuck in traffic and pulling your hair out the last thing you want them is wasting time you really just want a way out you want a deal you want okay get off the 401 now and take Bayview.
JES: Very true. I guess that answers my last question, which I mean I was going to ask you how you lost your hair but now I know.
JEREMY: laughs Nineteen and went to an outdoor concert, saw The Tragically Hip and the next morning the top of my head was burned and I thought that’s strange and that was a big that was the beginning of the end.
JES: laughs Oh okay. So you saw The Tragically Hip and it was not inspired by anybody on stage.
JEREMY: Back then Gord had long hair.
JES: Oh okay.
JEREMY: No no it was that was was not the realization it was the beginning of the journey and then a friend at work said, “You’re not gonna win the war, you might as well go out on your terms.” I thought rude person he is and then a few days later thought you know he’s right. Got to fire it before it quits.
JES: Sounds like you had a few blunt people in your life that have given you sound advice.
JEREMY: laughs They can be very useful sometimes. They can be very very useful some of the some of my favorite people to bring stuff to you know it’s going to be brutal but it’s going to be honest.
JES: For sure. laughs Alright well that that’s going to wrap up my questions. I don’t see anything in the chat room. I’m going to leave the recording going though because we have an announcement to make regarding the Northern Ontario Book Fair and then after that announcement is over I will stop the recording and the people in the chat room will have a chance to turn on their mics and say hello and thank you and whatever else they want to say. And so first of all thank you everyone who’s here and everyone who is tuning in to the recording. If those of you who do not know the Northern Ontario Book Fair has been going on since 2017. It started under the Silverleaf Writers Guild banner in Timmins in 2017. That first year it was just two little consignment tables of books mostly by Timmins authors and from there it grew into featured authors in Sault Ste Marie, into a full-on trade show in Cobalt. And then unfortunately of course we had to take 2020 and 2021 off. So now myself and my business partner Vero, we are both based in Timmins, we’re rebooting the event for 2022. So the Northern Ontario Book Fair is going to reboot itself back where it started in Timmins, Ontario. The dates are August 20 and 21, 2022, so 20 21 22 should be easy to remember, and we are going to do it in Timmins. We have a partnership going with the Holiday Inn and with Desjardins Bank which are next door to each other in Timmins. So the workshops and the writer’s retreat aspects of the event are going to be held in the Holiday Inn, and the trade show aspect will be in the parking lot of Desjardin next door. It’s really exciting. We’re already talking to potential guest speakers and planning the workshops and all of that. There’s still tons of details yet to come, but do put those dates on your calendar for August 20 and 21, 2022.
JEREMY: Wonderful. Congratulations.
JES: Yes. Stay tuned to WritingCommunity.ca for additional updates. The Northern Ontario Book Fair page will be updated soon, and if you have any questions you can always reach out to us at info@writingcommunity.ca and we’d be happy to answer. And we’re also very active on Twitter and Facebook. There’s a lot of different ways to reach us so thank you for that.
JEREMY: August. I got to work on some summer stories.
JES: Yeah, yeah there’s going to be a there’s going to be a bargain on one of Jeremy’s books I think laughs at the summer book fair.
JEREMY: laughs Yep buy a snowblower or a book about Christmas.
JES: Actually, it’s a great time for people to buy books for Christmas presents for 2022, so tisks you never know.
JEREMY: Looking forward to it.
JES: Perfect. Well thank you, Jeremy, so much for being here. It was great to have you on as a guest and I was I knew it was going to be a fun time chatting with you, just I mean all I had to do was read the title of your book to know that it was going to be fun chatting with you, and hopefully we can do this again sometime.
JEREMY: Anytime. Thank you so much for the opportunity.
