I’ve been writing fiction since I could wield a pencil. Sure, I was an introvert, so sitting in the house writing was not a loss for me, but it’s impossible to avoid the fact that writing is an isolated endeavour. Also, technically, more affordable than skiing—just you and your weapon of choice, whether the pen, typewriter, or computer, and your imagination. Just you, unless, like Ellery Queen (the pseudonym for the writing team of Frederic Dannay and Manfred Bennington Lee) you get yourself a partner in crime.
So you join an organized mob like a writing class to get started, get your beak wet in the execution of magazines, plays or websites, and collude in fly-by-night writing circles in after-hour schools, hidden community halls, or fleeting conferences. Eventually the exhilaration fades, and the accomplices move on. You stalk the bookstores, repositioning your books so you can be caught read … handed. You litter the remote benches of suburban railway stations with your books’ postcards. Then wake up on a Scottish street bench after a book festival, more than slightly foxed. And then you know … what a girl really needs is a gang of her own. A big gang. A rock-steady gang with national street cred.
My gang is the Canadian Authors Association, founded in 1921 by Stephen Leacock, Pelham Edgar, and B.K. Sandwell—all proper gangsters in their own right. Who’s that then, you ask? The CAA is the association that works to protect the legal rights of authors and helps them connect, share and succeed. Their modus operandi is “Writers helping writers.” All wise guys and girls, to the letter.
The CAA are the folks that suggested to John Buchan, 1st Baron Tweedsmuir, the author of The Thirty-nine Steps and the Governor General of Canada in the late 1930s, that it would be super keen to launch the Governor General’s Literary Awards.
The CAA fights the rising menace of Ai (the casing for the acronym here is intentional because the artificial is big and the intelligence is minimal).
My gang delivers the goods with workshops in the craft of writing and in much-needed business skills for today’s writers. They advocate for copyright (so essential because of the threat of Ai), hustle members’ publications through the online book catalogue, CAA Members Events Listings, and collaborate at public events, such as Toronto’s The Word On The Street and Word Vancouver. Coincidentally, the 36th annual Word On The Street happens this weekend, September 27 and 28, at David Pecaut Square, Toronto. You don’t want to miss it! Here’s a map to help you find the CAA booth #D17. Tell them Bugsy says hello. He’ll drop by when he returns from Ballybeg.
So, whaddya talkin’ about? A bunch of writing hacks, eh?
CAA members volunteer as reviewers for the annual Whistler Independent Book Awards. They manage and review for our own annual Fred Kerner Book Award. The association maintains a list of English-language writing competitions for all genres.
Although we are over one hundred years old, modern online communications bring together the gang … uh, members from across the country, strengthening us more than ever. Originally isolated in our hoods … uh, city branches, today’s CAA uses the Circle.so digital platform. A writer in Campbell River, British Columbia, can conspire … uh, take part in a workshop or writing circle or just chat with writers in Hay River, Northwest Territories, High River, Alberta, Swan River, Manitoba, Deep River, Ontario, Trois-Rivières, Québec, or Bear River, Nova Scotia.
Laurier once said the twentieth century belongs to Canada—but the digital communications of the twenty-first century will further strengthen our gang. Our gang of Canadian writers. We are polite, but … watch out! Our pens are sharp!
~ Carole
As always, comments are welcomed below.
A note about Ai: did you notice the girl at the front of the picture has a boot on one foot and a strappy shoe on the other? Fashion crime? Or the weakness of Ai? I’m staking my bundle on human talent.
C.A. Logan Author 