Bibliographic 3.16: September/October scrapbook

Hello!

Before I start, I just wanted to highlight 2 upcoming events:

• I’m reading at Junction Reads at Type Books (in the Junction) next Sunday November 2 with Heather Birrell and Saad Omar Khan (I’m most excited to see the two of them read!). It starts at 6:30pm and will also be livestreamed if you want to watch online. Please register here if you’d like to get the livestream link.

• I’m having a conversation with Rebecca Hirsch Garcia to launch her new, debut novel OTHER EVOLUTIONS on Friday November 7 at Another Story Bookshop. Her new book is wonderful, please come out to learn more about it. (You don’t have to register, but you can here if you, like me, need calendar reminders)

So, yay!

Anyway. I need to figure out writing again. Lindsay and I were asked about our writing process a few times during our book tour, and my answer was always: make writing unintimidating. I talk about how I do a lot of writing on the Notes app on my phone because typing with my thumb tricks my brain into thinking that I’m doing something casually, easily. And then I can gather those bits into something more cohesive. But maybe I’ve revealed the secret too many times and my brain registers what I’m trying to do. You can’t pull a fast one on me THIS TIME! it tells me when I pull up the Notes app. So instead I make a to do list.

Writing a newsletter has also been a nice way to ease into writing. I love writing about my life! BUT, something has shifted and it’s been harder to do that too. What parts of my life do I want to write about? How do I want to parcel up my feelings and thoughts and lessons, in what format, how much, when?

These are things I’ve been thinking about, and all this thinking means the writing has translated into any format just yet. I also have been doing this long enough to know that it will find a way, and I can sense… things… bubbling so they’ll overflow soon enough, but I also know that I do have agency in this whole thing. Just get on with things!

I’m writing this in a cafe while my kid is doing a 2 hour pumpkin carving workshop. Two hours on a Sunday would be the perfect amount of time to write a newsletter. But then I decided to get my eyebrows threaded at the place next door, and of course there’s a mandatory Instagram scroll, and also I had to get caught up on some online banking admin, and now I have an hour left. This is where I get stuck on writing these days: which of these details are actually necessary to be included? None? All for “texture”? Or “context”? I’m not going to dwell on it, though, because the real question is can I get this newsletter written in the remaining time frame? Let’s see.

What I wanted this newsletter to be was a scrapbook of the last 4 tour stops that Lindsay and I did: Ottawa, Word on the Street, Waterloo, Innisfil. Each event was so different from the other, and such a joy.

Here we are in Ottawa at Octopus Books, the sweetest little bookstore in the Glebe with such a wonderful group of people.

We were on a panel at Word on the Street with the wonderful Catalina Margulis and moderated by Arpita Ghosal. A bucket list item to do something for WOTS, an event I’ve been attending for over 20 years!

Waterloo! One thing I’ve learned is that libraries are so good at event planning: it’s always so smooth and organized, and walking into a big, bright library is exciting in its own special way. Lindsay and I were really vibing this night, it was great.

We closed out this tour at the ideaLab in Innisfil (another flawless library event!) and Mark got these wonderful photos of Lindsay and I. It was such a nice end to the tour, to 11 stops. I’ll remember this forever. Everything I say in this newsletter applies but I’ll reiterate: MAKE THINGS WITH YOUR FRIENDS.

ALSO in addition to the book stuff, Emily and I threw an All The Feels Karaoke Bookstore Karaoke event for Jennifer Whiteford and it was also so much fun. We loved curating a karaoke night and cake specifically to this wonderful book.

It’s just about pick up time from the workshop. Choosing the photos to include and uploading them here took longer than I expected. BTS details! Anyway, I’m going to dive into a period of not overthinking my writing, so we’re just going to go with this draft.

I hope you’re all doing well, and I appreciate you reading these words, in whatever format they are, always. How are you doing?

xoxo Teri