Episode 5

On Men in Publishing, Books for Boys, and Pitching via Comps

This episode features Cormorant Books publisher Marc Cote, writer Barbara Radecki and our own Diane Terrana in a special panel discussing men in publishing and books for boys. We also have an opinion from Kathryn Willms on pitching with comps — her piece is also a modern agenting fable for our times.

We had a very small library in my junior school, so small in fact that on the first day back to school in grade 6, when I ran to see what new books had come in over the summer, I was disappointed that there were none. You see, my rate of reading had become almost exponential the year before, and in those final days in June just before holidays, I announced that I had read the whole library. Not that I thought anyone was listening. But apparently I was wrong.

The librarian, a woman who had already changed my life once and forever since I had entered Davenport Road Jr School as an ESL student in grade two (as a new Canadian I spoke with a West Indian accent and ESL was de rigeur in those days) asked what I’d do now, for this year, in the absence of new books. She had me hooked since she presented me with Charlotte’s Web, years earlier, as if on a platter.

“I suppose I could spend this year re-reading them all, a second time.” (No one had told me about Borges choosing only to re-read his favourite books after turning 40, but after turning 10, I could already see the value in doing it, because life already seemed cruel and the possibility of heartbreak lingered in corners I never noticed when I was younger and more naive.)

The librarian smiled and asked if I could come by the next day to visit during lunchtime. I said sure. When I arrived at noon, she locked the small room and we walked across the street. It was a bright day, full of promise, the kind of day you forget by Halloween, because Spring seems so far away again — though for many years snow was always an absurd highpoint on the second act of the school year.

“Do you know the middle school, Osler?” she asked.

Know it? My parents, having had 3 kids (soon there would be another, but we were unawares then), found the perfect house at a corner with a junior and middle school across the street on either side. They knew we’d all be close and safe until we completed grade 8. And as a bonus, we each got to go home for a hot lunch every day.

“I live across the street from it.” I said.

In a few minutes we were there, and we walked into the middle school library. Another woman welcomed us, and it seemed to me that that perhaps librarians were part of some ancient clandestine society, guardians of all knowledge, and that my visit had long been foretold. (I mean I was thinking like this and I hadn’t even read Tolkien, the Arthurian romances, or even Dune yet.)

They huddled and then surprised me with a card with my name typed on it. I could have fainted, or said, “O brave new world, that has such people in 't!” Or likely both — the speech, then fainting for dramatic effect. I mean that’s what I would do if I got a do-over. And did I mention that this new library was about 15 times the size of my school’s? I clasped the card and not knowing where to start, walked to the origin of the whole inner labyrinthine circle: A.

“This guy Asimov has written a lot of books,” I said. “Is he any good?” They nodded, and I grabbed 3 books.

“Start with 1,” one of them said. “You’re nearby.”

“True.” I said. I was back in 2 days. I timed it — I lived 90 seconds away. Soon I’d be at Bradbury.

I’ve often thought that if television was as good then as it is now, I for sure would have gone into TV. Our after school schedule was pretty horrific — The Flintstones, The Brady Bunch, My Three Sons, and Gilligan’s Island (some of which of these were in black and white, from the middle ages). Though on Saturdays there were awesome cartoons. There was nothing else — no video games (pong being a mere rumour), no Internet. There was Monopoly, and card games, but they involved negotiations with third parties. Books became the only and the easiest way to live other lives, to visit other worlds, and I was reading one per day for many years. That is, until I discovered repertory cinema and realized how close The Bloor Cinema was to my house, twenty or twenty-five minutes on bike.

But now I’m getting ahead of myself.

All this to say as I boy, I read with such joy and abandon that when Diane brought up the idea of a Boyz2Men panel, it immediately brought me back to that quiet sunny trek from one exhausted library to one of pure potential, to my first love, through which I somehow merited my first thousand and one loves.

If you like our podcast, please review it — we’re still new and growing, and your reviews will bring use new listeners. Thank you for listening!

— Sam

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