Cool Rocks on the beach when the water has retreated

A year ago, give or take a few days now, The Dad Rock That Made Me a Woman, my first book, was published. There’s not really a roadmap for this, although I’m sure everyone who has ever done it will have advice, and thoughts, and things of that nature. There were certainly so many who helped and offered guidance to me, and I’m grateful for them. There are also so many people to thank, to receive their props and flowers, and I will do my best to mention them here in no specific order. If it helps, you’re welcome to imagine it’s in order, and the structure is by any metric you please. Maybe the names I list will be by height, or order of appearance in the world. Maybe it’s by their net worth, or their wealth in cool rocks found on the beach when the water has retreated away from the shore. Let your conscience be your guide on this, and then we will all be correct in our own way.

I have learned so much in writing a book. I have learned that it takes discipline, and that I like to write in a way that borders on obsessive. I get an itch if the morning has come, and I’m not writing yet. I think about words and sentences and ideas, and I think about how nice it will to sit and work them out on the page. There on my computer behind the bookshelves in the corner, the light not yet on because it’s only 6:15 am and I don’t start writing until 6:30. I learned that some people loved my book, that it helped people felt seen and understood. I learned that people will cross personal boundaries if you don’t set them, and it’s why I don’t respond to DMs on Instagram that much anymore. I learned that one essay in my book is “anemic” in contrast to the others from an otherwise glowing review. I learned that men don’t like how I write about music, or how I write at all. One wrote me to say that I don’t write about the chords when I write about music, it’s always just about feelings. I wanted to reply and say “what do you think the chords are for, if not pulling on the heart?” But I didn’t. I have leaned people will support you if you ask them, and that you need to put yourself out there, no matter how hard it is and how bad it feels sometimes.

I learned you have to ask for what you want. So here we are. I want to come and read in your town, if you think they’ll have me. I want to speak at events that are relevant to me and my work. I want to lecture at your school, or speak to students about writing or anything at all. I want to be on panels at literary festivals. This is awkward and challenging for me to do because I don’t like asking for things, but it’s worth putting out there that this is what I love to do. I’m good at it too, which I think helps. My only hope is that if you want me to come and do these things, that there is payment for my time. Sometimes, people think they’re doing you a favour by asking you to prepare to read at a thing, or speak to groups of people, without considering how much work and effort goes into doing such things.

Now to the thank-you section. Thank you to my partner Alysha Haugen, who I refer to as Lysh because that’s the nickname I first knew her as. She heard the book come together, in half-finished essays I read aloud when she had just woken up and hadn't drunk nearly enough coffee to listen to my sad sack memories. She heard me mutter and swear at myself, and make toast for myself and the dog at 6 am, and gave helpful notes and offered support all throughout. This is actually the first name in order of importance, by any metric you choose because that’s how it works when you’re in love. There’s a whole essay about how Lysh and I met and fell in love in the book, and you should read it there. It’s also about the song “Car” by Built to Spill, which you can listen to while you read for the immersive experience.

Thanks to Jessica Hopper, who is a legend in the field and a tremendous uplifter of people. I wanted to write “voices” so badly, but I think people is a much more accurate word, and sometimes using “voices” to refer to people feels a little reductive. Like a writer is only a voice if they are someone who exists outside the boundaries of famous men and women who are established in their lives. I grew up reading Jessica in music magazines I stole from the shelves at work or the book store on Main Street with the cheap packs of Players Light. She DM’d me on Twitter on a random afternoon and asked me to submit a book proposal to the American Music Series, and I’ve been working on this book for long enough that it reaches back to when being on Twitter was good for my career.

Thanks also to Hanif Abdurraqib, who offered guidance on the first book I pitched, that was arguably terrible but everyone involved was still very supportive of my bad idea. He took an hour out of his day to talk to me on the phone about my work and ideas, and laughed when I said the press had given me a copy of his book proposal for Go Ahead In The Rain to use for guidance. Thanks to his books as well, that changed my life upon reading them, that have quite obviously been an inspiration on my own work.

Thanks to my friend Emma Healey, who barely knew me when she offered words of wisdom and guidance when I mentioned I was trying to be a writer. I was helping a friend move out of her house, and we were getting some shit out of a small and very full garage, and Emma was someone I knew as “Emma From Toronto” who used to call in to the Best Show on WFMU, and so I thought she was famous. I still do. Later that day, she wrote me a 2-page email about writing grants I could apply to, and when most people heard I wanted to be a writer, they responded like when a child says they want to travel to the moon. I was a former construction worker turned transsexual who tried to kill herself at least once and then fled to Toronto and smoked cigarettes outside the coffee shop. Also, I was in my 30s, and had no education. Who was I to want to be a writer? Emma didn’t care about any of that shit, she just offered support, and we became friends because that’s what happens in cramped garages sometimes. We’re reading together at an event this month for our friend Jeff Miller’s book launch, and you should come.

Thanks to my friends who read and hosted events with me throughout all the cities I travelled to. Elamin Abdelmahmoud, Maris Kreizman, Luke O’Neil, Rax King, Thanks to Sadie Dupuis who understood when I had to cancel a few tour dates for personal reasons. I struggle with how much to share about it all, which is funny given my job is oversharing all my personal details because the facts aren’t mine. But suffice to say we didn’t make it to Philly or New Jersey yet, but I still plan to. A week ago, I saw my friend Augusta Koch play here in Toronto with her band Gladie, and I promised twice that I would come to Philly to do a reading, and to see the city. So now I’m promising you too. Thanks to Carvell Wallace and Yasi Salek for understanding that I wasn’t going to make it to California, as travelling into America as a Canadian trans woman felt like a daunting prospect. We did our events over zoom instead, and I was so grateful for any opportunity at all to speak and spend time with two people I have such great admiration of. I will come back to California too if you’ll have me.

Thanks to Sappyfest, and all my friends in Sackville, for letting me come and read at the festival last year. Thanks, most of all to my dear friends Ariel Sharratt, Mathias Kom (The Burning Hell), and Jimmy Kilpatrick (Shotgun Jimmy), who joined me on stage and played songs from the book as I read. I had a panic attack in the parking lot outside just before the event, in the same spot where I had eaten a breakfast sandwich an hour earlier, and I cried on stage twice. It was the best afternoon of my life. Thanks to my friend Julie Doiron for offering to let me sell her copy of my book at the event when I realized the box I had mailed ahead of time wouldn’t make it in time. Thanks also to dear friends Steven Lambke and Vin Cacchione (Caged Animals) for being my band in Fredericton, and for the burgers and conversation afterwards.

I have read around places in Toronto multiple times since the books release too, I’ve signed books and hosted events, and people have yet to tell me they’re sick of me, and so that feels like a win as well. Thanks to everyone who has read, who has come to events even though they’ve seen me read before. Who smiled in the audience and asked nice questions, or no questions at all, afterwards.

The book has been a success. That word has been used in emails when I have written and asked “so how are sales looking?” Success. Let’s, in the spirit of transparency around the nebulous idea of books and success and money, put numbers on the table. We printed 5000 copies of the book, and to date, I have sold over 4100 of those. That’s a lot of books, and certainly more than my imposter syndrome ever let me believe. I have earned out my advance, which was low because it’s an academic press and because I’m not a well known author, and it’s my first book. I have received two royalties checks, one bigger than the other, but both very real and in my bank account. I use them to pay my cell phone bill, and once to get buy-one-get-one Oreo blizzards from Dairy Queen on UberEATS. Success.

I have sold a lot of books, and when I tell people they all say the same thing, that it’s a good number, and that most people don’t sell as many as I have. I have not been listed as a bestseller anywhere but Amazon, which I tell myself I don’t care about at all. I have screenshots in a folder on my hard drive of the lists where I’m a bestseller on Amazon. This makes me feel like a failure, that I have sold enough books to be a best seller, but have I? I’m not entirely sure, and so I have not put “bestselling author” in my bio. I don’t feel ready, and it feels a little presumptuous. Sometimes I think bios are too long anyway, and sometimes I know that’s just creative jealousy and imposter syndrome talking. Success.

This is all to say that the book has been out and on shelves for a year now, and it is still selling and finding an audience, and I am so grateful for all of it. I worked very hard on it, and it’s nice to feel like that was worth it. I’m working on another book right now, a novel, and outlining a new book of non-fiction. And have the sketch of another novel too. I have a notebook with ideas and half-formed thoughts. I have an itch in me when I’m not writing, which I have never had with any other job, and so I think what I learned is that I found what I want to do through labour. This feels fitting for me, as someone who worked with my hands long before I typed with them. To know what I would like, and to learn to work and ask for it.

And so here at the end I want to thank everyone who reads, who shares, who tells people about my book or my newsletter or the podcasts I appear on. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart for responding with such warmth and tender support. There is no book without readers, and I’m so grateful for you all.

Success.