C.S. Starr's Blog, page 4

On Remembrance Day

My Granny’s oldest brother Alistair was twenty-two when his plane was shot down over France and he was killed. The year was 1943. He was the pilot on a Lancaster Bomber, the same type of plane my Grandfather and my Granny’s brother served on. My grandfather was a navigator, and my other great-uncle a tail-gunner, one of the most dangerous places to be in the air. Both survived the war and lived into fairly old age.

I was twenty-two when I visited the aviation museum in Ottawa with Granny, and my then boyfriend and now husband. Eight years later, I’m not entirely sure how we ended up there; neither of us are particularly fond of planes, and I’d been when I was fifteen or sixteen. Still though, that day on my spring break in February, we bundled up, climbed in her Jetta and headed there.

When I think of remembering, I think of Granny, who had to be eighty one at that point, climbing up the narrow stairs to peer in the windows at the bomber, the very type of plane that the most important men in her life had trusted their lives to. I know she’d been before too; she was an avid museum goer and since my older crop of cousins were boys I’m fairly confident that they probably had taken her there a time or two. I’ll never forget the way the heavy respect she had for a war that changed her life in a million ways looked on her face that afternoon as she poked around, taking note of where they all would have sat, her brothers and her late husband.

My Granny adored her older brother. Sixty years after his death, her voice still carried an almost child-like admiration for him when she’d remember. I don’t know much about him, except that there were six or seven years between him and his twin siblings, and that he was a tall, blond, handsome guy that grew up in what is now one of the U of Toronto residences houses a stone’s throw from Bloor and Avenue. I don’t know if he went to university like my grandfather did before the war, or if he had a girlfriend, or what he liked, besides skiing, because everyone in Granny’s family seemed to like skiing, and there are pictures of that. I know that my granny and her mother rattled around the big house with the brothers at war, and that they struggled with losing him greatly, because it was the kind of struggle that didn’t fade. It was the kind my grandmother held onto her entire life.

Twenty-two. Flying a plane, over France in 1943. That’s where Alistair Ritch’s story came to an end. There would be no family, no job, no coming home and trying to make sense of it all, no watching his siblings start families of their own and his mother pass away. No retirement. No challenging slip into dementia like his younger brother faced in his old age.

Nothing but a war, youthful morals, and a sense of responsibility.

 

 

 

 

So I Guess I’m Really an Author Now.

The Oxford Dictionary defines an author as:

a writer of a book, article, or document.


someone who writes books as a profession.


 an originator of a plan or idea.

As of today, I officially fit this definition ( it’s a secondary profession, but I have sold some copies!).

It’s an exciting day, one that, five years ago, I’m not sure I would have ever imagined happening. My adorable husband has clicked on my Amazon link about a zillion times and keeps saying things like, “I can’t believe it’s really there!” Five years ago, I never would have self-published, and, being in Canada, I’m not sure I would have ever found a home for Campbell. Publishing is a really small industry here, and even if you’re successful, it’s a much smaller measure than most more populated areas. I maybe would have completed a manuscript and tried to get some agents to look at it while I desperately tried to leverage my publishing experience to get noticed. It would have taken a lot of time and effort, and I have no idea if it would have been successful or really depressing. I know firsthand how subjective taste can be, and, honestly, I’m not sure my ego would have been strong enough to withstand several rounds of batterings before I decided I probably wasn’t cut out to be an author. I have a fairly demanding day job, and writing is something I do because I love it, and I’m pretty sure shopping mine around and being rejected would have killed the love pretty quickly.

What’s changed since then?

A hell of a lot.

E-readers became affordable. Authors like Amanda Hocking gained notoriety. Scrivener was invented. Twitter blew up. Fifty Shades of Grey happened. I think for a lot of people (myself five years ago, for example), self-publishing was a route reserved for people who couldn’t get an agent, or a contract, or hadn’t written something worthy of being read.

Simply put, it’s not anymore.

I’m not saying I won’t (and haven’t) had to defend my decision, but, as a first-time genre fiction author that knows how the industry operates, I have no doubt that I made the right choice. And let’s face it, by self-publishing, I’m actually in very good company.

Self-publishing is a lot of work. I’d never short sell it and say it hasn’t been. I’ve been lucky to have a hell of a lot of support along the way from both conventional and unusual sources. I’ve done a lot of Googling. I’ve spent hours removing wayward tabs, and blinking at fonts. Days second-guessing my ideas and character motivations, and worrying about what people might think of the world I’ve invented. I’ve spent a good chunk of change on creating this book too, countless woman hours aside.

I also know it’s not for every project.

This is the part of the post where I ask you a favour. Because I’m publishing this on my own (though this likely wouldn’t change if I was with a small press), the marketing and publicity is all on me. I’m okay with that, because I can ask you for assistance.

If you read Campbell, please, please leave a review where you purchased it. I’m not going to ask you to leave a positive review, just an honest one. Amazon reviews will help me get a wide audience to see my book (right now, I’m floating in the soup cans if you look me up).


If you’re active in social media, be it Facebook, or Twitter, Tumblr or Goodreads or whatever floats your boat, share it around, even if you hate dystopian fiction, or books, or reading, because someone you connect with might be really into it, and that would help me out a lot.


If you have friends that like to read, or belong to active online communities, please pass along a link. Again, if you don’t want to/plan on reading it, no problem. As I said above, taste is subjective, but maybe sound of your friends would really dig my book.

If you genuinely want to read it, but can’t afford to buy Campbell, get in touch with me, and we’ll figure something out. I would never want to feel like I was being exclusionary by charging for my book (though I do hope you buy it). If you are considering sacrificing anything but a cup of Starbucks coffee to buy this book, let me know.

Now, the links. On Smashwords and Amazon (I think), you can read a portion of the book without purchasing it if you want to try before you buy.

Facebook Author Page

Goodreads Author Page

Twitter

Amazon Product Page

Smashwords (distributor for iBooks, Kobo, Nook: The ISBN listed here will eventually take you to the listings on these sites if you don’t want to buy from Smashwords).

I’m going to do a print version that will be available on Amazon (I’m super excited for the print book, despite having bought a Kindle this summer), and I’ll make sure to let you know when that’s up for purchase.

I’m also aiming to have West, the second book in the series, available on February 8th, 2014.

When you’re (hopefully) reading Campbell, you might notice the dedication at the front. I wasn’t sure I’d ever post an explanation, but I think it’s worth sharing.

While I was writing Campbell, as when I do anything that’s moderately creative, I thought a lot about my granny. We’re fairly sure she was dyslexic, and her mother pulled her out of traditional school and sent her to art school when she was around fourteen. She loved to read. She’d read anything that landed in front of her. Almost all of the age-inappropriate reading I did was on account of her. She knew, and she didn’t care, because she was just happy I was reading, because reading was such an important part of her life. I remember her calling me when I was in university to ask me what novels I was reading so she could read them too if she hadn’t already.

Reading is an amazing form of escape. My grandmother lost a daughter to mental illness when she would have been in her early sixties, around the same time I was born. I never knew my Aunt Margot personally, only from the stories my grandmother and my mom shared about her, perhaps in an attempt to keep her close when she was anything but. I know she was an actress, who caused quite a stir by going naked in a 70s production of Hair, much to my family court judge grandfather’s chagrin. I know she moved to Nova Scotia to take up with some hippie in the late seventies, and my mother fell in love with the province on a visit, which resulted in my parents moving there a few years before I was born.

If that hadn’t happened, my life would have been completely altered. I never would have met my husband. There’s a good chance I might not have been born.

When Margot, who opted to go by her middle name, Lucy at that point, went off medication, she wasn’t the same. I know it was one of my granny’s biggest regrets, not being able to help her, to watch her grow into a happier version of herself through medication and treatment, but it didn’t happen. One by one, she disowned everyone in my family, leaving my mother to the end.

Thirty years later, Mom still has the same phone number on the off chance she might pick up a phone to call her. All attempts to track her down have come up short. She doesn’t know my grandmother died in 2007.

While she’s named for my aunt, the main character in Campbell, Lucy, doesn’t have much in common with the stories I’ve heard about her. This was fairly deliberate. I wanted to find a way though, perhaps a small one, to honor my granny for instilling a love of reading, and eventually writing in me. She taught me to truly appreciate every story (and she had a lot of them), and as a form of gratitude for that gift, I wanted to give one to her in return, and ensure that, even though we might never know where Margot is or how her life story has turned out, she’ll live on in this small way.

I hope you enjoy Campbell. I’ll very much look forward to hearing your thoughts.

CS

Campbell: Cover and Blurb Reveal!

I’m getting insanely close to releasing my first book. The weird tabs have been removed, I’ve checked my files on every possible e-reader platform, tweaked the font colours on the cover a million times, and I’ve finally written a blurb that I hope will make people want to read my book.

It’s strange to think about really and truly putting it out there for consumption. It’s an exciting, gut-wrenching feeling. I’m reminded of the the famous Hemingway quote:

“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”

The typewriter has evolved into the laptop, but the quote is a classic. It’s scary, putting something out there that you’ve entirely imagined. Though the people in my life have been insanely supportive (both in words and acts), I find myself downplaying the huge accomplishment is is, having actually written and produced a book. It’s not that I don’t know it’s a mammoth task; I play a small part in producing books on a daily basis at my job, but it feels odd when it comes to my own project, almost like bragging, to talk about it. A number of people have asked me if I’m going to throw a book launch, and to be honest, I feel undeserving of such pomp and circumstance, which bothers me because if it was anyone else, I’d wholeheartedly support them celebrating their accomplishment.

A friend posted this video on Facebook the other day, and it sums up perfectly the way women apologize for things far more than men do. It’s not that I’ve been apologizing for writing a book, but I’m not sure I know how to respond to the attention that comes with it. It’s meant a lot to me when the people I’ve shared it with so far have said they enjoy reading it, so I’m hopeful I’ll figure out how to be modestly enthusiastic about sharing my story.

Onto the sharing:

I’ll be putting my book up for sale on Amazon, and through a distribution site called Smashwords, which sends files out to iBooks, Kobo, Barnes and Noble, and a number of smaller e-book distributors. My e-book release date is November 8th, and I’ll post links to all the sources once I have them. I’ll also be doing a print version through KDP, which will be available on Amazon sometime in the near future. I’ll keep you posted about where things are available. If you don’t have an e-reader, but you have a smartphone, you can download any number of readers (Kindle, Kobo, or iBooks) and check it out that way.

Summing up around 100k words in under 200 for the websites and the inside of the book was probably harder than plotting and writing Campbell, and the two books that will follow it. A blurb, which takes the place of back cover copy in e-books is possibly the one chance an author has to hook readers. Here goes nothing:

It’s been ten years since a virus wiped out the adult population. Across the world, opportunistic kids worked to reestablish order through the creation of uneasy, fractured territories.

A decade later, the rules are changing.

Desperate to stop his western territory from coming apart at the seams, Connor Wilde sends his oldest confidante to negotiate with the leader of Campbell, a swelling northern empire.

Tal Bauman isn’t expecting her to be so impossible.

Or intriguing. Or beautiful.

He’s also not expecting their negotiations to leave them both fighting for survival in a part of the world neither are familiar with.

Spanning a dystopian North American landscape, Campbell is the story of two unlikely companions who find themselves reevaluating their loyalties, beliefs, and futures.

And, after much contemplation, here is the cover!

 

So there you have it! I hope you’ll check Campbell out once it publishes!

Keeping the Balls in the Air.

I’m actually a little embarrassed to see how long it’s been since I wrote a post here. Life has been a little chaotic to say the least. I seem to be juggling a lot of balls at the moment, with varying degrees of success, and the blog one got dropped. It’s an important ball, but one I know I can add back into the rotation when I have a few minutes, so I don’t feel too badly about it.

When September hit, I felt the reset button that is probably implanted in most of us after years of education and back to schools begin itching to be hit. Because I work in educational publishing, for me, September signals a return to education too, albeit a very different one than for most people. I travel a lot this time of year, which I enjoy, but also takes a lot of preparation, time and effort, in order to ensure that my time is well spent, and so that I can still do what needs to be done in my limited amount of time in the office.

With fall, I also made a decision to put the summer behind me, and form some new habits. I started running again, stretching my route out to 5k, which doesn’t seem like much to some of the hardcore runners I know, but for me, is pretty good. My aim is to do it consistently, 4-5 times a week, and so far, I’ve been doing a good job of that. For those of you that have been following for a while know, my husband and I are trying to get pregnant, and while it can be a really daunting process, running feels like a productive way to get my body in better shape. In addition, I also started seeing a fertility acupuncturist, who, after two sessions, has already begun making a big difference in the way my body is functioning, so I feel good about that (if you want more information on fertility acupuncture, drop me a line). I’ve also made a concerted effort to reduce my gluten intake, which has made a HUGE difference in the way I feel and the amount of energy I have. If you’re looking to make a fairly easy lifestyle change that you’ll feel almost instantly, I challenge you to try a couple of weeks of no or low gluten.

In August, I decided to take a trip to Los Angeles in October, and spent most of September counting the days until I got on the plane. I’m fortunate to have a fantastic group of friends there, cobbled together through various writing and social media adventures, and while we don’t see each other often enough due to geography and life, it was fantastic catching up with them, and taking a bit of time to decompress. I’m the baby of my group of friends out there, and it’s incredibly inspirational to watch them juggle their families and lives with such ease. It’s also really great to have a group of people outside your day-to-day folks that sometimes know more about your weird things than the people you spend most of your time. I will say with wholehearted enthusiasm that the best part about stumbling into the writing community I began in is the people I’ve taken out of it. I’ve been lucky to meet a lot of amazing people, both in person and online who have become a great support net for me in so many ways beyond writing.

Something else that’s been filling my time is preparing Campbell for publication. I knew self-publishing would be a massive job, because I see first-hand on a daily basis how many people are involved with the process. Being my own publisher, formatter, and critic has been a big job, but one I’ve really enjoyed. I’ve had a few setbacks, but I really believe that it is important not to define yourself by setbacks, but rather how you move past them, and I think I’ve done so in a way I’m proud of. I just booked my editor for book two as well, which means no end in sight to juggling this ball!

I’m planning to publish in late October. My next post, which I’m hoping to get out this (long) weekend will be my cover reveal, which I’m very excited to share with you all!

Until then, I’d like your help. I’m looking for a few bits of information:

 - Do you read book blogs? If so, which ones?

 - If you don’t read book blogs, how do you discover new books?

 - Can you think of a time when a book/product has been well-marketed enough to make you take notice?

Thanks so much, and happy Thanksgiving!

A Trip to the End of the (North American-Centric) World.

I very, very rarely tell people I’m from Toronto when I travel. It’s never felt wholly accurate, even though I’ve lived there for around seven years, have a house there, and have no intentions on leaving any time soon. Any explanations about my home are always prefaced in some way, like “Oh, I’m from Nova Scotia, but I live in Toronto”, or “I’m from Toronto, but really Nova Scotia.”

I’m not alone in this. Very rarely are people who live in Toronto ever actually from Toronto.

When I’m in Toronto, the explanation is a little different. It’s more like “I’m from Nova Scotia, but my parents are from Toronto.”

I don’t really get it either.

Being a Maritimer is a strange thing, especially when you live away. I’m the first to jump on the “everyone should go there, it’s God’s country” train, but I’m also the first to begrudge the lifestyle in many conversations too. I’d be lying if I didn’t say that when I see my paystubs and the taxes I pay out and will likely never collect back, I do get a bit twitchy about the seasonal employment racket, and the people I know on social assistance that really don’t need to be that I’m basically funding every two weeks. In the next breath though, I’d say that the lack of opportunities on the east coast bother me, and that I know that a system of enabling does nothing to help those trapped in it get ahead in any significant way, and the paternal way central Canada treats the east coast is really to blame. Branch plant economy, blah, blah, blah.

Anyway, I’m in Newfoundland at a conference for a few days. The last time I was here, it was February, and water almost poured over my knee high Hunter rainboots on this one really deep intersection. My feet had never been so cold, and while things looked pretty, sort of, I didn’t get all the hype, but I knew I’d be coming back in August, so I made myself a promise that I’d see enough things to make a decision. Being from Nova Scotia (Canada’s Ocean Playground, if you will) I’m a tough critic of beautiful coastlines and picturesque lighthouses. As no one from the office ever gets to go great places when the weather is nice, I felt pretty lucky as I packed my stuff up on Friday, knowing I’d still have a few good hours of daylight at the end of each work day to go check things out. And check things out I have.

It always takes me a least a day to sink into the east coast, to stop looking suspiciously at everyone that holds the door for me, or people who smile at me just to be nice. I’m sure when I get off the plane, I’m wearing my “don’t fucking talk to me” Toronto mask, and people are probably scared, or confused, and that’s why they’re so nice off the bat.

People stop to let you cross the road here, regardless of if there’s a crosswalk. They smile, and you’re forced to smile back or look like a total dick. They let you merge in traffic without making it harder than it should be. Sometimes they make smalltalk, just for the sake of making small talk. Sometimes they’re curious about you and ask questions that someone in Toronto would never ask a stranger, like “What are you doing in town?” It makes it impossible to crawl into your shell as you can in some of the larger cities in Canada *cough* Toronto, where you could go days without really having any sort of personal interactions with anyone, if you so chose.

My trip to Newfoundland came at a good time. I’d found myself crampy and sad, as I determined month two of trying post-miscarriage was unsuccessful, and the slew of pregnancy announcements that seem to fill my Facebook feed every day felt even a little harder to take than usual. I found myself, as I have from dark time to time, wanting something, someone to blame for what happened, even if it’s me, and angry when I come up empty-handed. Getting up the gall to try again has been a challenge for both of us, and me holding on to residual anger and stressing about things that are completely and utterly outside my control hasn’t been helping me feel good about getting back on the wagon.

I needed a little time alone. A bit of time to work through the anger. One of the gifts (or curses) that I’m blessed with is an almost humbling sense of self-awareness, which is often times useful, but sometimes just leaves me angry with myself for reacting fairly normally to a situation. I know I’m entitled to my feelings, but I don’t like when they interfere with my day-to-day life, or leave me feeling absent in what should be an enjoyable moment of my life.

I spent Sunday driving around part of the Avalon Peninsula, to places with names like Witless bay, Burnt Cove, and Ferryland, popping in and out of tiny roads that led to spectacular views of strange islands with sheep just out of reach, and craggy coastlines so lovely that they make my heart ache for some reason. After checking into my hotel, I did a quick google map check and saw that it was about 2k to Signal Hill. I pulled on my running shoes and headed up.

It was a tough walk, that felt a little too symbolic in places. I hadn’t had dinner yet, and the bagel I’d snoffed down while waiting for my rental car didn’t really sustain me for the hike up. I took deep, striding steps, eager to close the distance between where I was, and the hill, but every time I was sure I could take a quick short cut, I found myself mistaken, and was forced to backtrack a few times, along rough gravel paths.

When I made it to the top, I felt like I had a small mental break, or perhaps a moment of clarity when I looked over the edge and took in the near endless sea, stretched out in front of me. I’d come a long way to see the end of the world, but it wasn’t the end at all. There was a massive park below, with loads of hiking trails (and blueberries, as I would discover the next day). I sat on the edge of the wall and watched silently for a few minutes and felt small. So small.

A tiny part of a much bigger picture. But a part of it nonetheless. And I knew, that if I was going to get through the next hour, the next day, the next six months, I was going to have to stop being so angry at nothing, because, in the much, much grander, bluer, endless scheme of things, holding on so tightly to something that wasn’t meant to be wasn’t helping anything. It wasn’t going to make anything better.

And I wasn’t alone there. Sure, I didn’t know anyone, and wasn’t really interested in making masses of new friends, but as I looked around, I saw that there were lots of people sitting on the edge of the world contemplating things. Things I’d never know about. Things that could have been, and probably were, in some cases, a lot worse than my shit.

I thought about how amazing the last year of my life has been. All the things I’ve seen and experienced, all the great moments with fantastic people, and all the parts of myself I’ve discovered, and I realized something that I’m sure I wouldn’t have if life had turned out differently. I wouldn’t have written almost three books. I probably wouldn’t have gone to Italy, or Newfoundland, or the bar with these amazing drinks in Toronto on Saturday.

Why yes, that is a half lobster tail. Good eye.

I wouldn’t have given up any of those experiences, because I don’t know what the end version of myself looks like, but she’s certainly a sum of all of those experiences. Good and bad. Whatever happens on this crazy, fucked up journey, it’s me on the ride, not the version that’s five months pregnant.

I found myself wanting a picture to commemorate the moment, so maybe when I felt shitty the next time (because I’m not naive enough to think there won’t be a next time), I’d have something to remember the moment by, and I looked around for someone to assist me, since I’m terrible at selfies and I didn’t really want a selfie. My eyes settled on a stout man, all alone a few feet from me, who looked like he’d come up to contemplate something too. I asked him, and he responded in his most polite Newfoundlandese that he’d of course help me out.

It took about ten minutes for him to take the picture, and we both laughed several times while he tried. His fingers weren’t the kind that work a cell phone touch screen so well, and every time he kept trying to take it, he’d hit another button by mistake. Several hilarious shadow photos of he and I that could have been interpreted any number of ways were the result. Finally though, after I positioned his hand for the third time or so, we made it happen.

Even though my hair is everywhere and I’m smiling like a crazy person, I like it. As my photographer let me know, Cape Spear is on my shoulder. That was an important part of the shot to him.

The colours are brighter here. Reds pop with greens, and  the contrast between sea and sky is so precise that it’s impossible not to notice it. In Newfoundland, they take it to brave new heights, painting houses exciting colours, and incorporating as many primary colours into their world as they can. The effect isn’t as garish as I’ve described it. It gives an almost urgent look to things that you don’t get many other places. You can see the contrasts. They’re important. The grey areas can get tricky.

I haven’t taken many shots of Jellybean Row Houses, but here are some examples.

As I hiked down, I felt lighter (thanks, super self-awareness!), and that feeling has stuck with me for the past couple of days. I drove up Signal Hill last night, feeling the urge to see it again, and since I’d bailed on the hike, I decided to head down the hill in front, on a steep precarious path which had no symbolic meaning beyond the fact that I was ill-prepared for it in flip flops (which was, perhaps symbolic in some area, but I didn’t give it to much thought). Someone nice showed me where I could find some blueberries. I gasped a couple of times at the view, which at around seven was shadowed in all these amazing ways.

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Today, I went to Cape Spear, which was only about twenty minutes outside St. John’s, along a road cut right through scraggly pines and pointy rocks. It’s the eastern most tip of North America; the literal end of the world, at least from a North American perspective:

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So that’s it. My trip to the sort of end of the world.

Newfoundland, you’re on my highly recommended list.

Why We Should All Pay Attention to Russia.

I have a confession to make.

I don’t give a crap about the Olympics. The last time I remember paying attention to the Olympics in anything but a passing way was when I was in grade six and my teacher had a bit of an obsession with the games, and forced us to do all these assignments based on them. I’m not sure if that quashed my interest, or if I would have always been disinterested in them, even if my exposure had been less intense at a young age.

I don’t come from a family that’s really into sports. I don’t ever remember my Dad ever watching hockey, or baseball, or anything else, and the only thing I recall Mom watching involved horse jumping, but not usually at the Olympics. Maybe at the Olympics. There was a lot of horse jumping on TV when I was kid.

I grew up without cable. CBC was one of three channels we got, and because of this, I probably should have been into the Olympics, since it was 1/3 of the programming available for two weeks or so, every two years. Instead, I grew up watching a lot of political satire, like The Royal Canadian Air Farce, and This Hour Has 22 Minutes. I also watched 60 Minutes religiously with Dad, and most of the other sort of Canadian current affair shows like The Fifth Estate.

The first time I remember learning that I was half Jewish, I was about five or six, and I remember Dad pulling me aside after Sunday school one day (I went to a Baptist Sunday School for a lot of years because most of my friends went, it was free, it probably gave my parents a break for a bit on Sundays, and was about a ten min walk from my house), and explaining to me that he, and kind of by proximity, me, were not exactly like the kids and adults that I spent most Sundays singing ridiculous songs about Jesus with. He went on to explain that Jesus, like him, had been a Jew to begin with, and that it was an important part of who I was.

I didn’t really understand at the time. It’s not like there are a lot of Jews in rural Nova Scotia (my dad is non-practicing), and since I am, in fact, the unofficial half, it’s not as though technically it was something that did much in the way of defining me as a kid since I had no idea what any of it meant, besides the bit mentions that Jews got in Sunday School, which usually weren’t very positive.

It wasn’t until later, when I became a voracious reader that I began to understand a bit more what the heritage on my father’s side of the family entailed. I read The Diary of Anne Frank when I was nine or so, and watched Schindler’s List when I was eleven, and from there, I began to put the pieces together. These were the days without the internet, so it took a long time. As I became older, my dad became more interested in explaining the bits and pieces he knew from growing up; his father died when he was he was in his early teens, and his mother, a convert, never made many attempts to involve her family in their faith, having gone through a fairly terrible divorce with her Jewish husband when my dad was only six.

I know very little about my grandfather, but the pieces I do know about feel important. I know that he was born in Poland and emigrated to Canada with his family in the early twenties when he was five or six. I know he changed his family name from Stern to Starr to pursue a semi-pro boxing career without the stigma of a very Jewish last name following him around in a time when antisemitism was rampant . I know he owned one of Toronto’s largest taxi companies for a while, and was regarded quite poorly by his employees because of his frugality (I found an interview with one of them online years ago). I know he owned a flop hotel at some point in the forties and gave his youngest sister the money for dental school, but made her work in his colourful establishment to pay him back. I know he instilled the importance of owning property in his children (my father has told me this). I know that he chose to name each of his children an Old Testament name. I know he opted for his children not to receive their inheritance until they were fifty so they’d have to work hard to make something of themselves. I know he’s buried in one of the Jewish cemeteries in Toronto.

I know, when he died, he left half of everything he had to Israel.

Despite not being an official Jew, I’ve always felt a strong connection with that side of my heritage.

Why is this important, in the context of Russia?

My grandfather’s family left Poland over a dispute over a family business. The side that ‘won’ the dispute no longer exists.

In so many cases, we don’t choose to be what we are. We just are. You can’t change your heritage any more than you can change your sexual orientation. I can ‘pretend’ that my father isn’t Jewish, but it would be a huge disservice to the generations of people before me; people that worked hard, people that overcame tremendous obstacles so I could be the person I am today. I’m proud of my heritage. I’d never deny it.

It’s not the 1930s, however, and my life isn’t on the line. No one’s asking me to register, give up all my belongings, or get on a train.

It would be complete and utter bullshit to say that no one saw Hitler coming. By 1936, the Holocaust was more or less in full-swing. Removing the signs didn’t mean it wasn’t happening. The first concentration camp opened just a little over a month after the Olympics in Berlin.

I’ve been following the Olympics in Russia this summer. With things like Facebook and Twitter, it’s impossible not to. It’s also impossible not to see the parallels between antisemitism and the anti-gay sentiment Russia is spewing out at the moment. If you’re not following this, here’s Russia’s anti-gay law in plain English. It’s deliberately obtuse, and my guess is that it’s like this in order to give the government greater freedom to treat it however the hell they want. It’s a slippery slope, as history has shown us, and hell, even as Russia has shown us, as a month or so after they put the first law on the books, they followed up with one allowing tourists suspected of being gay to be detained for up to 14 days. One day you’re backpedaling and restricting adoptions to straight couples, and the next you’re creating special places for people to live so they don’t infect the general population with their sexual orientation.

I think the world needs to take a stand here, and the IOC needs to step up. Absolutely. Will it happen? It doesn’t look like it.

But here’s the thing. It’s more than the fucking Olympics.

This is the face that Russia is putting forth to the world. Even Hitler toned it down to keep the Olympics, removing most of the antisemitic propaganda from Berlin and allowing Jewish and half-Jewish athletes to compete for Germany (how kind of him, right?). If Putin is willing to let the world in on what he’s doing, what do you think is happening behind Russia’s boarders? The Olympics are a couple of weeks. Maybe Russia rainbow-washes things, puts on a nice face for the world, but they’ve already made their stance very public.

For a region of the world long known for their opaque politics (Sputnik, anyone?), this should be taken seriously.

And after February comes and goes, what happens to the gay/trans community in Russia? Do we all move onto the next flash in the pan cause? I hope not. If Russia’s throwing the cards down to the international community, giving no shits about trade embargoes or anything of the sort, it says one of two things:

Russia means business


Russia thinks the world gives not a shit about homosexuals

Both possibilities are grim. Personally, I think Russia is gambling on the latter. They’re not exactly in the best economic condition, and certainly not prepared to become the next Cuba, and I don’t think the world is too interested in moving into the next phase of the cold war (with Putin’s politics and the way they’re being received, I’m not sure it ever ended).

I’ve been trying to think of how I’d like to personally respond to this. I like raising awareness, and rambling on on my blog, sure, but it’s all sort of like screaming into a vacuum. It might make me feel better, but the results aren’t exactly there.

I’ve decided to email the Canadian ambassador in Russia. I’m not sure this is the right person to email, but I’m not really sure my MP  will be too reactionary at this stage. Here’s my email:

___________________________________________________________________________________________________

As a Canadian citizen, I’m extremely proud of Canada’s position on equality for people of all sexual orientations within Canada. I’m straight, but a number of my family and friends are gay, and I support them in having the same rights and freedoms that I have.

I hope the Canadian government will take a similar stance abroad as they do at home, and not support Russia’s anti-gay law, by turning a blind eye to it. This needs to go beyond the Olympics, and there should be consequences. If we do not act, history is bound to repeat itself, and the persecution in Russia, with its striking parallels to the holocaust is something that is worthy of worldwide attention.

I hope Canada will boycott the Olympics and lead the charge against this great travesty in Russia. Otherwise, we’re doomed to repeat the same mistakes we made turning Jews away during the Holocaust. Turning a blind eye to this is unforgivable. I hope, as Canada’s representation, my representation in Russia, you will take every step to ensure that you are part of the solution instead of complacent in the problem.

Sincerely,

Caroline Starr

Toronto, Ontario

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

If anyone out there has any other organizations that I can email, or petitions I can sign, please feel free to link below.

Here’s a great post my cousin-in-law wrote on the issue.

PS. Go Iceland

Cover It Up.

Never judge a book by its cover.

Anyone that’s actually read a book, or chosen one without the benefit of reading reviews or word of mouth praise knows this is bull. I’ve bought a ton of books based on the cover, usually in the remaindering bin at my local big box bookstore.

What can I say? I’ll read almost anything, and I’m kind of cheap. I’m also drawn to a pretty cover.

When I first started writing, I looked forward to the point where I’d think about covers and that I’d somehow have a great clear vision as to what I wanted it to look like, because I was so personally invested in my story, and blah, blah, blah.

I’ve been through several rounds of edits. I can probably recite certain passages of my book my heart. When I think about what I imagine it looking like at the end of this process, I still come up short. Covers are like art. What I like in art is very different from what Matt likes in art, and it’s probably different from what a lot of people who I hope will buy my book like in art.

I know more than the average schmuck off the street about covers, because I have to think about them for work. Luckily for me, perhaps, covers aren’t as important as what is inside most of the textbooks I work on. A good cover is important, but it mostly has to be non-offensive and represent the market I’m hoping to succeed in in a way that’s fairly obvious.

Which, come to think of it, is probably a good rule of thumb in a general sense.

Here’s what I know:

I don’t really like Serif fonts.
I want something that ages well, although I know people in the eighties probably thought neon and leg warmers were going to be around forever, so that’s kind of a moot point.
I need elements that can be carried through the three books in the series.

When I decided I was going to self-publish, it was important to me that I work with people that I liked, but also who I knew I could be upfront with about what I wanted. I wanted people who would be invested in my project, and who, importantly, liked it. I’ve been very lucky to find that in both an editor and a designer.

I met Ellissa at work when I first started out in publishing. She’s freelance now, but we both went through the same book publishing program (she was out the year before me), and I’d seen a lot of her work on books over the years, both inside and out, and I’ve liked it. Ellissa is also very easy to talk to, and when she offered to read the book and save me the trouble of preparing a cover brief, I was over the moon.

We sat down during the worst flood Toronto has had in years and chatted about what I wanted while my dog whined about the thunder. When she came back after reading the book with initial ideas, they meshed very well with what the my prereaders had mentioned when I asked them what they envisioned the cover looking like.

The first book in my series (of three) is Campbell. It’s the story of a world ten years after a mysterious virus changed society in a way it will never recover from, and the struggles of those left behind to come to terms with the fact that the world they live in is theirs, and the choices they make, good and bad, have long-term affects on everything they touch. It’s a story of unlikely connections, friendships, and alliances, betrayal, identity development and deconstruction, guerrilla politics, crippling self-awareness, and unexpected consequences.

Campbell takes place in a world where the oldest person is twenty-two. It takes place in a few locations throughout North America, but the heart of the story is really in southern Alberta. A lot of the story takes place in a farm. The kind of farm where people feel welcome to drop in. The kind where there’s always food in the kitchen and the lights stay on late into the night. Ellissa and I both agree that food and agriculture are central to the story, so that should be represented. It’s a place that feels like home, in a sense that it’s familiar, but can also be stifling when you’re young and eager to see the world beyond what you’ve become accustomed to.

How do all of these things translate into a cover?  I’ll let you know when I figure it out.

What do you look for in a cover? Are there any things that would turn you off, or dissuade you from reading a book based on the cover?

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

In my Google adventures, here are a couple of cover collections which I liked. What do you think?

Penguin did this cool street art reissues of some classics, which I liked.

Image 17 on this Huff Po list has some appeal, for some reason, although the faded treatment would be a better fit for the second book in the series.

Why I’m Self-Publishing.

When I turned 28, I made a resolution. I told myself that I’d publish a book by the time I was 30.

I turned 30 last Sunday. I celebrated with a new tattoo, not by publishing a book.

I don’t see this as a failure, since I’m working through my final copy edits and have a designer working on a cover. The book is coming. Hopefully in August.

Since most people that I interact with on a daily basis might not know I write fiction, as well as this quirky blog, I should start from the beginning.

Four years ago, I fell in love with a fandom. I’m not going to tell you which fandom; those of you who know, know, and those of you who don’t could probably find out if you wanted to. It’s not important. What is important is that within that fandom, I found a lot of things that I had no idea I was missing. I found some of my favourite people, I found an outlet for a hobby that I’d long put on the back burner for less ambitious pursuits. Most importantly, perhaps, found a borrowed audience. Readers.

I wrote a lot of fanfiction, some of it good, some of it really embarrassing, and all of it educational. Very little of it resembled the source material in any way. I experimented with tense, first person vs. third person perspective, male vs. female voice, various genres, all within a fairly snuggly, safe environment. With readers. Readers that stroked my ego, and let me know when I’d done something that didn’t sit well with them. It’s not necessarily an author’s job to pander to readers, but often times, when a reader is invested in a story, they have their limits; things they will accept. A pain threshold if you will. I’m sure if you think about things you’ve read, you have one too. We all do.

I reached this point, after doing a lot of fanfiction where I felt like I was at a crossroads. I liked writing for readers, but even though I wasn’t writing to the source material, I felt penned in, and even though I’d pushed every limit of characters being in character, I outgrew my sandbox. I started writing original fiction and posting it on my fan fiction wordpress blog, in the hopes that some people would trust me enough after finding my writing through the fandom to take a chance on a free bit of original writing.

Some did. Most didn’t. The ones that did liked what I was doing. I continued on. Those projects sit in various draft forms, and I’m optimistic that eventually I’ll get back to them, and they’ll be great. I’m optimistic about that because you told me I should be.

Writing is a most contradictory occupation. You’re forced to be solitary, yet it’s necessary to promote yourself, and even though you do what you do in isolation, it’s important to have your ego stroked now and then.  Those of you that have stroked my ego over the years, and continue to stroke my ego (and you know who you are), I am forever in your debt. If you’re ever in Toronto, I’ll buy you a drink.

Those of you that have helped me with Campbell? You can stay at my house and I’ll make you breakfast. I’m looking at you, Jo.

I’ve worked in publishing for five and a half years in the educational sphere, and I love it. I love a bunch of things about it, but in relation to this, I love that it’s not trade publishing and I’m able to separate my occupation from my avocation and remain passionate about both within a similar industry. The end of the industry that I’m employed in is very different from the part that I’m looking to embark in with my own writing.

During my years in publishing, the industry has changed in ways I never expected. When I started writing my own stories about three and a half years ago, I never imagined that I’d be writing this post. I figured if I ever cranked out something that I felt was fit for public consumption, I’d go the only route that existed. I’d query publishers, or find an agent, and I’d hope for the best.

Things changed. I’ve had a front row seat (from my relatively safe branch of the industry) to mortar and brick bookstores falling to Amazon, small presses vanishing, new presses forming, big presses merging, Amanda Hocking, E.L James and 50 Shades of Grey, the birth of Kindle, Kobo, iBooks. I’ve read blogs, followed writers who transitioned from publishing with big houses to publishing their own stuff, and watched an industry begin what will be the biggest transition since the invention of the printing press.

As a writer (I guess I can call myself that now), it’s been exhilarating and terrifying.

Through my fandom experience, I had the distinct pleasure of befriending Elizabeth Hunter. I had the honour of helping her with her first book, which has charted on the top lists on Amazon several times. Elizabeth is a prolific writer, much like myself, and when we both decided to tell our own stories, we spent a great deal of time debating traditional vs. self-publishing over google chat, late into the night for me (since she’s in California). At that time, I wasn’t sure about self-publishing. It seemed like a big risk, and everything I’d heard about it made me wary. I figured if I self-published, people would question my choice. Everything I’d heard about self-publishing left me thinking it was a route authors that couldn’t traditionally publish went. It seemed almost defeatist to consider.

Elizabeth is braver than I am. She didn’t try for a traditional publishing deal and just went for it. Invested in her project herself and let her story do the rest.

And it worked for her.

After that, I started paying more attention to self-publishing, and tried to imagine if it was a route I could imagine myself taking. After some more time, and a couple more drafts of books, I started a project that excited me so much that I found myself dreaming about it and writing snippets of dialogue on my phone when they’d pop into my head, sometimes in the middle of the night. I started talking about it to Matt, and then writing it, and it came fast. It felt right. The response I got from the people that read my draft chapters was very enthusiastic.

I decided I’d self publish it. Here’s why:

I write genre fiction. The books that I’ve written that will likely make up my first few publications are about zombies and dystopian scenarios. The book I’m publishing qualifies under the New Adult/Dystopian banner. This means that I’m unlikely to win any awards for my writing from any literary boards, and anything I publish wouldn’t get much of a marketing push in the traditional market from a publisher.


I’m a first-time author without many marketable distinguishing characteristics, meaning I’m not someone famous’ cousin, I don’t have a reality show, and I’m not writing soft porn for housewives. If I was fortunate enough to find an agent, and sign with even a mid-to-large size house, I’m still going to be almost completely responsible for finding my own book a home. I’d have some help in the editing and production department, but trade publishing is a perilous trade, and marketing budgets are shoestring unless you’re E.L. James, or Stephanie Meyer.


I’m Canadian. I love being Canadian. Canadian publishing is hit or miss in the best of economic circumstances, and with all the industry transition, it feels shakier than ever. If I were to sign with a Canadian press, it would be great, because Canadian presses do great fiction, but again, as a first-time author, no one is going to pay for me to get placement at bookstores in Canada or the US, or pay for me to have adds on the subway like this one, because I’m not writing erotica. I would also get no exposure to the US market, which is 10x the size of the Canadian one. From my previous writing, the majority of people who read my stuff are American. I don’t have a huge pre-built audience, but I hope it’s a start.


I know people in the industry, and I know and respect the steps necessary to produce a product that I feel is a good reflection of my profession. After five and a half years at a well-respected house, I have enough connections that when I decided to think about self-publishing, within five minutes, I knew exactly who my first-picks were to help me do a professional job. I chose people whose work I’d seen firsthand for years, and who I knew would respect my vision for my project, and help me do a professional-level job and put out something that I felt reflected my respect for the industry.


I respect the industry. Because of this, I’m taking all the same steps that I put one of the books I work with at my press through. The only difference is, instead of a press making an investment in my story, I’m outlaying the money up front.


I understand how publishing financials work. I’m not going to get too into this point, but I’m optimistic that this decision is the best one for me on that front, at this point in time. That may change, but for now, it’s how I feel.

So that’s it. I hope you’ll follow me on this new, terrifying, exciting adventure. I’m going to be posting more ramblings about how things are going, and what I’m doing as things proceed. I’ll probably start posting book teasers too, and beg you to follow me on various social media platforms, including my new, terrifying Facebook author page. There’s not much there now, but I’ll be adding to it.

If you have any ideas for posts about the writing process or self-publishing, please feel free to make suggestions.

If you’re in a similar position as me, and you have any questions about what I’m doing, or why I’m doing it, or you’d like to shoot the breeze, please feel free to drop me a comment, or follow me on Twitter at @CS_Writes and tweet me.

Why I’m Embracing 30.

I hated turning 20. I remember my mom came up to visit, and I was an awful, grumpy person, really sad to give up that decade of teenagehood for horrifying adulthood.

I turn 30 on Sunday.

I’ve been breaking in 30 for the past few months in preparation. Saying I was 30 when people asked how old I was, mentally ticking silly things off the list I wanted to do before I turned thirty. The last one is a tattoo. I may go on Friday, just to sneak it in under the wire. I wanted to publish my book by the time I was thirty. I sent a second draft to my editor last night, so I’ll miss it by a little, but it’s in progress so I won’t be too hard on myself. It’s a strange birthday, 30, and I feel like me, like most people feel the need to create some sort of tally that marks off all the milestones on one’s way to adulthood that they’ve crossed.

University degree? Check.

Post University degree? Check.

Dog/Cat/Parrot? Check. Check.

Husband? Check.

Career? Check.

House? Check.

Baby? Ugh.

I watched this really great Ted Talk about a month ago, and it resonated with me in a lot of ways, because I felt like, by the presenter’s standards, I was doing okay too.

It’s tempting to get caught up in a list of things you’ve done, and write your twenties off as some sort of series of mile markers. For me, in theory, this should make me feel pretty good. Instead of this cut and dry list, I challenged myself to come up with another one, one that really spoke to the experience of the transition that takes place between adolescence and adulthood. We’re often taught that unless something is an accomplishment that we shouldn’t be proud of surviving it, but I feel quite the opposite. Mistakes should get just as much praise as accomplishments, possibly even more if you learn and grow from them.

Here are a list of things I’m proud of that I accomplished in my twenties, because I’ve learned I don’t want to repeat them in my thirties.

I doubted myself constantly. I’d like to say this won’t be a big part of my thirties, and I think I’ve worked past it a bit. Slowly, I’m learning to trust myself more, and learning that finding the confidence is half the battle when it comes to doing the right thing. The right thing is also often very subjective.

I did a job I didn’t want to do. By job, I mean about eight jobs. I slogged along at several retail jobs. I taught ESL. I worked at a front desk. I was a tour guide. I was a life guard. I did a lot of things. Each time I wrapped up at one of those jobs, I told myself with certainty that I’d find something I liked the next time. I learned that sometimes you have to try things to find out what you like. I never imagined myself doing my current job when I was 20. I didn’t even know it existed.

I lived somewhere I hated. Waterloo, Ontario. Sorry, anyone that’s from Waterloo. I hated living there, not because it’s a miserable place, but because I didn’t have any idea what I was doing there, and it was very hard to meet people, since I was slogging at the above jobs I didn’t want to do. I also had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. I knew though, after that experience that where you are can change your entire outcome on life, and since then, I’ve embraced geographical happiness in Toronto.

I had no idea what I wanted do to with my life. That happened a few times in my twenties. The first time was after I finished my first-year at university and had to start thinking about declaring a major. The second time was when I finished university and had no idea what came next. The third time was the year after that, after I took an ESL teaching detour to Japan for a year to escape the no idea notion and then had to come back to real life. Life is a long time. Sometimes I still don’t know what to do with my life, even though I’m doing it.

I hated my body. I’ve thought about this a lot lately, as I’ve worked through my anger issues with my body over my miscarriage in May, and reached an interesting and somewhat sad conclusion. I’m probably bound to always hate my body for one reason or another. I’ve never been at a weight where I felt I was happy, even though my weight has ranged around 30 pounds in my twenties, and since the year I turned twenty, I’ve known that I’d probably have infertility issues. I’m not sure what purpose hating your body has, but I’m sure I’m not the only woman that feels this way, and I don’t really know the best way to combat it. Maybe I’ll figure it out in the next decade.

I felt unlikable. Unlovable. This kind of goes along with the line below. My twenties have been a time of great transition with a lot of the important relationships in my life. I’ve walked away from friendships that weren’t working, I’ve blamed myself for what I now know are other people’s issues. I made things about me that weren’t.

I gave too many shits what other people thought about me. I let people hurt my feelings, intentionally or not way too often. Earlier this year, it was almost like a switch flicked in me, and I stopped caring so much. I still care a little, especially if you’re someone I love or care about, but I’m learning to trust myself more and that seems to give less weight to other people’s opinions.

My twenties weren’t all shitty lessons learned either. I’ve done some amazing things, learned some great things about myself that I’ll look forward to playing out in my next decade.

I lived in a foreign country for a year where I was a minority. I didn’t know at the time that it would shape my perspectives the way it did, but I feel like I’m a better person for it.

I wrote a book, or two. And in my thirties, perhaps I’ll actually publish one of them.

I fell in love with my partner a million times for a thousand different reasons. You don’t stay together in your twenties by staying the same. We’ve evolved together. I’m glad I stuck it out.

I became better at seeing the world through someone else’s eyes. I think in my earlier twenties I saw the world as a lot more black and white. I’m getting much better at putting myself in the shoes of others and being empathetic.

I visited places that I wanted to see. I’d like to do more of this in the next decade.

I learned to appreciate the unconditional love of an animal. God, I love my pets. When nothing is right in the world, they’re always awesome. I’ve learned much more from them than they have from me, although Sushi does know a lot of random words.

I learned the value of personal fulfillment. I stopped doing what other people thought was cool, and put energy into the things I loved. Writing, for one.

I realized that my parents were human. I have a million examples of this, but that’s not exactly fair to them. Let’s just say, I love them all the more for it.

I learned how to save money. I guess it helped that as I got into my late twenties, I actually had some money to save. I pay off my credit cards every month, and whenever I have extra dough, it goes onto my student loan. How responsible!

I learned that I have very strong opinions on things I never thought I’d care about. I never thought I’d consider myself a feminist, but I do. I never thought I’d feel really strongly about gay marriage. I do. I never thought I’d really care about the environment. I do.

I got better at sex. Thank God for that. Figuring out what you like and having the confidence to make it know is a pretty important developmental milestone in the bedroom.

I learned I was tougher than I thought. I’ve dealt with rejection. I’ve been frank about things that I never thought I would be. I’ve spoken my mind when it was safer and probably smarter not to. I lost a baby. Tough as nails.

There are probably lot of other things, and I’ll probably change my mind on a lot of things. A family member once told me that when she hit thirty, she felt like she was completely unfulfilled in her life and that there were a million things she felt were lacking.

And then, with a straight face, she told me she got over it. Accepted that that was her life.

I never want to feel like that, and I have the feeling it’s something a lot of women feel like when they hit my age. I think a lot of this is societal, and the notion of ticking off all the boxes and the personal value they bring to one’s life. I’m not sure I see the greatest value in the typical boxed material. I’d rather covet the lessons learned and the mistakes made and look for the value there. After all, the ticked boxes spawned from simpler beginnings. Every new beginning marks the end of something else. My twenties are ending, but I have an exciting new decade to look forward to, full of as many new, special things as I want to fill it with.

I’m not afraid to turn 30. I’m more afraid of cancer, and infertility, and losing my parents, and all the other things that might be on the horizon. Other things I have no control over. I worry about these things superficially, and I’m learning, slowly, to live each day.

Life marches on. Mine’s pretty great.

Some Thoughts on White Privilege and the Trayvon Martin Case.

I grew up in a small town in rural Nova Scotia. It’s an idyllic place if you’re passing through. If you take the time to dig a little deeper, it’s history is much like a lot of other small-towns on the east coast; sordid, unfair, and a little shocking.

Digby, Nova Scotia was incorporated in 1783, by a Sir Robert Digby. I don’t know anything about Robert Digby, besides the fact that his name stuck on the town he, and a group of United Empire Loyalists founded, and that there’s some sort of dedication well to him on the west side of town that I never paid much attention to.

I know more about the United Empire Loyalists because I made a point of knowing. My mother is distantly related to one of the families that settled in Weymouth, about a half-hour drive from where my parents live, and other members of my family settled in Ontario after the American Revolution. I know they were handsomely rewarded for their efforts during the American Revolution and given the best farmland in lots of places all over Canada for their efforts. They settled and thrived in lots of communities just like Digby, and bam, 130 years later, here I am.

Three kilometers outside Digby, Brindley Town, or Jordan Town, as it’s now called, was the land given to Black Loyalists for their loyalty to the British during the American Revolution, along with their freedom from slavery. It was to be one of the largest Black Loyalist communities in Nova Scotia, but the British government dragged their heels and by the time plots of land were actually issued, half the Black Loyalists had opted to go back to Africa when the opportunity arose. As was the norm, for the black people of the time who were promised great things, they were given the poorest land while the United Empire Loyalists were given the prime farmland around the area, and access to the rich seas, which eventually turned Digby into a prosperous fishing port.

White privilege is something so well-engrained in those that possess it that we’re oblivious to it until someone points it out to us, or we’re shocked into remembering by some unusual turn of events. I was oblivious to it until I moved to Japan for a year and people of a certain generation wouldn’t sit beside me on the train, even when the only empty seat was beside me. I was oblivious to it until the first time someone thought I was a hostess and solicited me for some seedy one-on-one time while I was waiting for the train one afternoon, because chances were, if you were a white woman in a non-tourist area in Japan, you were either an English teacher or a hostess.

A year without transparent white privilege is something everyone should be forced to experience. It’s nothing compared to a lifetime of it, but it does provide the tiniest bit of perspective when it comes to what it’s like to be on the outside without a chance of hell of ever changing it.

In the years since the American Revolution, I’d like to say things have improved for the descendents of the Black Loyalists in my hometown, but the systemic racism that was born well before I was has incredibly strong roots in the community. I remember getting looks in high school when I’d happen to be in close proximity to a friend that was not the same colour that I was, mostly from people a couple of generations older than me. I remember hearing about cops questioning kids for no reason, more often than not. I remember white kids fighting black kids in the parking lot outside the high school. I remember hearing stories about how it was much worse in the seventies.

This happened the year I went to university.

This happened in 2008.

I know both of the people victimized the the two stories above. I went to high school with the man who recently received the settlement, and although I haven’t been home for a while, I know exactly what the reactions would have been on both sides to the settlement, because there is a line, and there will probably always be a line of some sort in Digby. I think as millennials, we have this rather lofty idea that we’ve moved above all this, and that we’re all sunshine and rainbows, and holding hands looking to a greatly equal future full of more Cheerio commercials with adorable biracial children.

The thing about white privilege is that it’s good for those it benefits, and because of that, it’s a hard thing to really and truly give up. I’m not sure the system, as it stands, in both Canada and the world are capable of change. It’s hard to say that, but in my thirty years, I haven’t seen a single move forward to change it, and with the Zimmerman verdict yesterday, I’d say my grandmother, were she still alive, could probably say something similar. We’ve seen this story with different players many times since slavery was abolished. I wish Trayvon Martin was the last, but he won’t be.

Paula Deen is just the tip of the iceberg.

I balked at the lack of justice for Trayvon Martin yesterday, much the same as I’m sure most of the people in my life did. I felt disgust that justice (even though I’m not an American) seemed to be so blatantly ignored, when there was so much evidence there.

Then I remembered what happened to Brendan Clarke. Watch the video in the first link I posted. It took eleven years for him to get an apology. I have no idea what the circumstances were surrounding the attack pictured because I wasn’t there, but as far as I can see, he certainly wasn’t fighting back, or physically aggressive in any way.

It took 43 years for the Nova Scotia Government to apologize for moving the community of Africville.

We can all sit here and look down at Southern Americans for their racist attitudes and systemic faults. We can sit here with false pride about our wonderful cultural mosaic, but the examples I’ve listed are not even a drop in the bucket. We preach affirmative action, but at the end of the day, even though no one’s donning a white pointy cap anymore (at least not that I know), biases exist. Some are more blatant about it, like some of the kids I went to high school who made no secret about not liking black kids for any reason beyond skin colour (probably because that was how their parents felt), or like George Zimmerman, who carefully ticked off a list of biases and took a life, but at the end of the day, what’s worse? Zimmerman, or the smug prosecutor’s grin and statement about justice being served? Is it the racism so painfully obvious that it seems worth rioting over, like the verdict yesterday, or is it the hiring manager that doesn’t call back, and never gives a reason why they hired a white person?

Is it the entire layered system, so impossible to navigate for a person of color that they have no choice but to embrace the way they’re viewed and live their life by the standards and judgements others have presumptively made for them?

I don’t know.