Q + A with Rona Maynard, Author of Starter Dog

Rona Maynard is known for being a brilliant storyteller: someone who understands the many ways stories can bring people together. It’s the thread that weaves together so many of the different chapters in own life. She was the editor-in-chief of Chatelaine from 1994 to 2004. She is the author of the critically acclaimed memoir My Mother’s Daughter. And, next month, her latest book, Starter Dog: My Path to Joy, Belonging, and Loving This World, will hit the bookstore shelves. I recently had the opportunity to ask Rona a few questions—mostly about the stories behind her story-rich book. What follows are my questions and Rona’s beautiful, heartfelt responses.

I’m always fascinated to hear stories about how book ideas manage to find authors and how authors manage to find book ideas. Do you remember when and how you landed on this book idea? What made you realize that Starter Dog needed to be your next book?

Starter Dog: My Path to Joy, Belonging, and Loving This World by Rona Maynard

When Casey joined the family on Easter Sunday, 2015, I'd been struggling for years to get a second book off the ground. I couldn't find a shape in all the writing squirreled away on my hard drive. I had something to say--Important with a capital I--about walking away from a job that had once consumed and defined me, but it died on the page. A rescue mutt with a torn right ear and a lust for squirrels that nearly knocked me off my feet was not my notion of a worthy subject. Casey seemed much too silly to be anywhere close to Important, yet silliness became a gateway to a new way of seeing and feeling. Laughter knocked the hard edges off me. I stopped taking myself so damn seriously, and in this lighter, brighter state I noticed everyday wonders that presented themselves on my walks with Casey. He sniffed, I looked. I met my neighbors, watched murals come to life, watched a bee at work inside a coreopsis. (Now I can name that flower. I couldn't, before Casey.)

To paraphrase Mary Oliver, the world offered itself to my imagination. I couldn't not write about this awakening. So I started posting vignettes and photos on Facebook. People connected with them. They asked me for more. I'd never had so much fun writing as I did inside that little rectangle on Facebook, capturing whatever came to mind without obsessing over target readers, editorial mix or any of the things that constrained me while I ran a magazine. I didn't know or care what I was doing except sharing delight, one moment at a time.

It was Kim Pittaway, my successor at Chatelaine and now director of the MFA program in creative nonfiction at the University of King's College, who said I had the makings of a book. Little by little, I realized these vignettes were asking a question: What is Importance, anyway? Why should presenting a strategic plan matter more than my daily adventures with Casey? Mary Oliver wrote, "The world offers itself to your imagination." I'd been looking the other way. No longer. I became a neighbor among neighbors, an animal among animals.

In the early pages of Starter Dog, you recall what a joyous experience it was for you to settle into the process of writing your first memoir—My Mother’s Daughter—after so many years of helping other writers to polish their own prose. Was the process of writing Starter Dog similarly joyous for you? What moments will you remember when you think back on the time when you were writing this book?

With My Mother's Daughter, I had something to prove. I had the chops to tell a story of my own instead of polishing someone else's into shape. That thrilled me, as if I'd pulled a sword from a stone. It had always been mine, yet I had never grasped my own powers. With Starter Dog, I had nothing to prove. Writing parts of it made me smile, or even laugh out loud at the transporting silliness of canine joy, which became my own joy. And yet Starter Dog was much harder to write than my first book. For the longest time (years!) I couldn't find a conflict to build the story around. No conflict, no story to keep the reader turning the pages. My first book gave me a foil: my adoring, formidable, controlling mother. Casey wasn't much of a foil, no matter how much trouble he got into. I was writing joy, and it felt like pinning clouds to the page. I missed the clarity of writing about struggle. The book came into focus when I saw that the foil was my own lifelong focus on achievement, drilled into me by high-achieving parents and reinforced in the magazine business.

Would younger you have been capable of taking a “Casey’s eye view” of the world? Would you have been ready for his masterclass in paying attention and really noticing the day-to-day wonders of life? Or did you need to grow into a different version of yourself—or step into a different life stage—to be ready to learn from this teacher?

Some people naturally turn toward happiness like a plant toward the sun. I'm not one of those people. I have a tendency to look for what should be better instead of what's beautiful and special as it already is. I was perfectly cast as an editor but not as a human animal walking this earth. In those days of "We need another rewrite" and "Let's have another run at this layout," I wasn't open to happiness lessons. It's often said that an addict has to hit bottom before resolving to change. Well, in a way I was addicted—to the quest for perfection, as if such a thing exists. I had to get deeply uncomfortable with myself before I could consider another way to be. I also needed a firm push from my husband, who had always wanted a dog and sensed that a dog would inject some fun into our lives. Love makes you do the damnedest things--like say yes to a goofball dog when what you think you want is something Important with a capital I.

Ann Douglas is the author of 26 non-fiction books including, most recently, Navigating The Messy Middle: A Fiercely Honest and Wildly Encouraging Guide for Midlife Women (which was published in Canada last fall and will be published in the US on March 28, 2023. She is the “Midlife Reimagined” blogger for Psychology Today magazine. These days, she is trying to teach herself how to write her first novel.

Q & A with Lindsay Zier-Vogel, Author of LETTERS TO AMELIA

Lindsay Zier-Vogel, author of Letters to Amelia. Photo by Phillipa Croft.

I always love having the chance to get inside the head of another writer — and when that writer is a debut novelist, well, I have to say I find it all the more thrilling. I understand what’s involved in getting a non-fiction book out of your head and into the world, but imagining a novel into being? That seems like sheer magic to me.

I recently had the opportunity to chat with Lindsay Zier-Vogel about her own novel-writing process. I approached her after reading (and loving) her debut novel, Letters to Amelia, a few weeks ago. The novel is warm, kind, and entertaining. I sat down to read it one evening and realized, a couple of hours later, that I’d devoured most of the book in a single sitting and stayed up way past my bedtime. That’s how much I loved this book and I’m pretty sure you’ll love it, too.

Now on with my conversation with Lindsay….

ANN DOUGLAS: I love it when novelists allow themselves to go down research rabbits that transport their characters and their readers to a uniquely interesting place. Letters to Amelia invites the reader to tag along on a journey into the world of Amelia Earhart and the world of rare books. I don’t think I’ve ever read a novel that tackled one of these subjects, let alone both. Could you talk a bit about how these two things found their way into your novel? Were either or both long-standing interests of yours? (I kind of got the sense that they might have be.) By the way: I attended U of T, and I loved having a chance to revisit the Thomas Booker Rare Fish Library (the nickname the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library had circa 1985 — a nickname that apparently lives on today) via your book!

LINDSAY ZIER-VOGEL: I fell in love with Amelia Earhart’s story many, many years ago after reading a terrible biography about her. I was so taken by the parts of her story that aren’t just her disappearance—that she was a social worker in Boston in the ’20s, that she spent years in Toronto (where she fell in love with flying!), that she started a clothing line. Fast forward a few years and I was travelling by myself for the first time. I was lonely in a way I had never experienced before and didn’t speak much Spanish, so I couldn’t have a meaningful conversation with anyone about it. I didn’t feel like these restless feelings I was having were appropriate for postcards home, so I started writing letters to Amelia Earhart. It was safe—she was clearly never going to write back—and I could explore these new feelings I was having without feeling guilty about them. And then every few years, whenever I was experiencing feelings I didn’t quite understand, I’d write another batch of letters to her. A lot of them were published, and though none of them made it into the book proper, this idea of writing letters to Amelia was something I’d been playing around with since 2005.

I fell in love with the Fisher during grad school, where I’d spend hours researching Dora Mavor Moore for my MA thesis. When the idea of a book began to form, I knew I wanted Grace to be surrounded by boxes of documents and photographs and letters. Selfishly, I wanted to spend more time there, and see the inner workings of the library. I got an incredible backstage tour from the incredibly generous John Shoesmith, and it was even better than I could’ve imagined! There were a lot nerdy rare book scenes about book conservation that ended up on the cutting room floor.

ANN DOUGLAS: This is your debut novel. Could you talk about what writing this novel taught you about the novel-writing process and/or yourself? What did you learn as a result of writing this book?

LINDSAY ZIER-VOGEL: I took a bunch of running starts at novel writing before Letters to Amelia, and though it was hard to shelve these projects I spent so many years on, they were crucial for me to learn how to write a novel. Not a particularly efficient learning curve, but also, it turns out, critical. I’ve realized that my process involves writing really, really terrible drafts—I overwrite like no one’s business—and then I spend a lot of time editing, and finding the story in the scads of Word docs I’ve created. I also started working with a writing group—the Semi-Retired Hens—in the early stages of the novel, and both having their insight and feedback, and also reading and offering feedback on their works-in-progress, has made me such a stronger writer. I don’t know what I’d do without them!

ANN DOUGLAS: You are clearly someone who loves both writing and receiving letters. And you’re also an author who is very gifted when it comes to writing dialogue. Do you think there’s a connection between the two? Do letter writing and dialogue have something in common?

LINDSAY ZIER-VOGEL: What a compliment! Thank you! Letter writing is so internal and private, thoughts made concrete on the page, where dialogue is the opposite—external, and voiced—so I’m not sure they’re directly related for me. Letters are one-sided, where dialogue requires an immediate back-and-forth. But for me, letter writing and writing dialogue share a deep commitment to voice—mine, as the letter writer, or the characters in the case of dialogue. When I receive a letter, I can instantly hear the writer’s voice, and I hope, I can achieve the same thing for readers with my dialogue.

Ann Douglas is the author of numerous books about parenting including, most recently, Happy Parents, Happy Kids and Parenting Through the Storm. These days, she is hard at work on a book for and about women at midlife.

Q & A with Kerry Clare, Author of WAITING FOR A STAR TO FALL

I’m a big fan of Kerry Clare’s. She’s not only an extremely talented writer: she’s also a very generous person—someone who is endlessly supportive of her fellow authors. So naturally I couldn’t resist the opportunity to help spread the word about Kerry’s brand new book, Waiting for a Star to Fall, which is being published today. (Congratulations, Kerry!)

I recently had the opportunity to chat with Kerry about her book. What follows are my questions and Kerry’s answers.

I remember seeing one of your Instagram Stories about how the idea for this novel came to you. Could you talk a bit about that — how you know when an idea has the potential to become a novel and, more specifically, a novel that you want to write?

Photo Credit: Stewart Lawler

KERRY CLARE: This novel began with a photo in the newspaper of a politician who’d just started spiralling into supposed downfall because he’d been accused of sexual misconduct from years before and also because it was an open secret that he’d been having relationships with women who were much younger than he was and worked in his office. He was trying to defend his character, and then a few days later this photo emerged of him…with a much younger woman who had worked for him, apparently his “on-again-off-again-girlfriend.” The photo confirmed a lot of what people had been saying.

And I was so struck by this woman as a character, and by her role in as a character in someone else’s story. That she was still so young and would not fully understand just how young how for years and years. I was curious about her. And the complicating factor too of who was I to deny this woman agency, to infantilize her—even though she was clearly making terrible choices.

I knew immediately that this would likely be a very good idea for a novel because there was so much room for wondering, for exploration, and because there was so much about the idea that I didn’t know yet. And then I proceeded to just think about the idea for a few months, doing so much work in my head before I’d put a word on paper. All of this was a sign for me that I had a lot of material to work with, and that I’d be able to stay engaged and interested as I wrote.

I’ve read enough of your work to know that feminism is very much baked into your writing, whether you’re writing fiction or non-fiction. Could you talk a bit about that—what it’s like to be a feminist and a writer in 2020?

KERRY CLARE: I have always been a feminist, probably because I was raised by parents who taught me that deserved a place at the table, a piece of the pie. (What a gift that kind of confidence is.) But it wasn’t until 2016 and 2017, those most peculiar years, that I started flying my feminist flag so fiercely. Previously, I had been more engaged with seeking a kind of synthesis of ideas. You can see this in my first book, the essay anthology The M Word, which is definitely feminist, but which also contains range of ideas and approaches to motherhood and womanhood. I am fascinated by how different and disparate ideas can live together side-by-side, because that’s what the world is…but I decided to become less polite and understanding in response to anti-feminism as a growing movement. (Not surprisingly, I was spending a lot of time on Twitter during this period.) Can you fight polarization with further polarization? I don’t think so. But as anti-feminist ideas began to creep towards normalization, I couldn’t help but become more vocal about my own ideas and experiences. Feminism has given me everything—my pie, my place at the table. I want those same things for my daughters and for everybody’s daughters.

It has been a really crummy, dispiriting few years to be someone who cares about and values women’s lives and experiences. And yet—last summer I had this epiphany that readers are going to look back on this era as a terrific time for feminist writing. Commercial novels like Jennifer Weiner’s Mrs. Everything, and Marissa Stapley’s The Last Resort, and Karma Brown’s Recipe for a Perfect Wife. Megan Gail Coles’ Small Game Hunting at the Local Coward Gun Club. Fiction by young Black Canadian women writers like Rebecca Fisseha, Zalika Reid-Benta, and Jane Igharo—where previously there had literally been none. Fiction by Indigenous writers like Tracey Lindberg, Cherie Dimaline, and Dawn Dumont. There is a fierceness and a rage in these books, a brilliant, furious energy—and these books are going to survive, outliving all those awful men seeking to control women’s minds and bodies.

I feel really grateful to be writing and reading in the company of these writers and these ideas. Books are ever my solace.

Give me your 30-second elevator pitch for Waiting for a Star to Fall. What would you say to someone who hasn’t heard a word about this book?

KERRY CLARE: Girl falls for charismatic and charming older guy, putting all her faith in him. When this faith proves misplaced, she has to re-evaluate their relationship, and her whole identity, really. This is a book about love, power, and the ways our society mythologizes mediocre men. Somebody called it “a beach read with teeth” and I adore that. Writing fun books that people love to read is what I aim for. And for the record, I think we need beach reads all year round. You don’t even need a beach.