The (CanL)It Crowd with Terese Svoboda
I first heard of Terese Svoboda from Terese herself. She reached out to me about this funny little series of mine that explores (and sure, even interrogates) the koan of CanLit through the lens of literary community and citizenship. Terese was interested in contributing to the discussion, which was great. But I wasn’t sure who she was, exactly. We had a mutual writer friend in common, but beyond that, I was unfamiliar with Terese’s work.
As it turned out, this was kinda Terese’s point. This is what Terese wanted to write about. As a recent immigrant from the U.S. to Victoria, Terese arrived in Canada as a relatively unknown author.
The thing is, I said myself when I first read Terese’s email, I don’t really have an open submission policy for this series—not out of any desire to curate or gatekeep, but simply because I have limited time and have already issued enough invitations to keep me busy for a while. As soon as I thought that though—that I don’t want to curate or gatekeep and I’ve already issued invitations—I felt a whack of contradiction. A slap of hypocrisy. I mean, isn’t an invitation-only policy gatekeeping? And as someone who is familiar with exclusion myself, doesn’t the mere thought of knowingly doing that to someone else make me burn with shame?
I may not be able to host everyone on this series—I am one person with limited resources—but I am open to considering interesting perspectives from new-to-me authors. I replied to Terese’s email then and there. I told her I’d love to receive a submission from her. Then, I Googled Terese. What I found blew me away.
How had I not heard of her?
Terese has over twenty books and a slew of awards under her belt, including a Guggenheim and an O. Henry. As I learned more about her, (and crucially, read some of her work), I was struck by the familiar sense of overwhelming wonder and humility that comes with feeling the immensity of how little I know. (I am sure many other readers experience this sensation regularly. It can be unsettling but is overall, exhilarating.) I was reminded of how I need to remain vigilant as a conscious consumer and remember that what is put in front of me most often and prominently is not all that’s out there. It’s not even (necessarily) the best of what’s out there.
I was reminded how important it is that I stay curious and keep myself open, not because a writer I’ve never heard of may turn out to be more accomplished than I’ve ever dreamed of being (though Terese is certainly that) but because I could have missed out on knowing about a fascinating person and reading some damn fine literature.
Welcome to The (CanL)It Crowd, Terese!
Author Terese Svoboda
The (CanL)It Crowd with Terese Svoboda
IMMIGRANT
By Terese Svoboda
I’m a fairly recent immigrant, bailing on the US in 2020, near the end (hopefully!) of Trump’s reign. The headline in Victoria’s newspaper the day we landed featured the discovery of two tones in a bird’s song that was thought to have only one. I had to spend ten minutes on Twitter to make sure I hadn’t fallen off the planet. I was not a refugee from a wartorn country with terrifying stories to tell, but accepted by immigration as an international artist, yet I still needed goodwill, and a populace who might appreciate my work. I found both, but it took quite a while.
We arrived during the pandemic, and it was a shock to have no writerly camaraderie even possible. I missed my friends in NYC, and the whirlwind (and yes, cutthroat) literary scene more than I had imagined, and zoom was not a real replacement. At the time, meeting even the other float home owners on Fisherman’s Wharf was a challenge. However, we adopted a puppy and took his training to the streets six times a day, and locals and strangers were suddenly approachable.
What kind of puppy did I need to lure someone to talk about writing? I was so lucky to discover one of my dock mates had connections to some very good fiction writers. The poetry world, in contrast, seemed sealed. After the pandemic wound down, readings at Russell’s resumed but quite understandably, people were cautious around strangers. I joined the requisite organizations, and had my home pinned by GPS as a poet, but if I wanted to read, I had to start with open mics. After eight books of poetry and fifty years of work, my first impulse was to give way to the younger poets. Mistake. I discovered that I did need some kind of audience. Molly Peacock, an old friend, very generously suggested I email John Barton, ex-poet Laureate of Victoria and we have become poetry gossipers, the bulwark of a sturdy friendship. Three years after I arrived, I was very grateful to have read my poetry twice in the public gardens, one of them the Lt. Governor’s, where I sprang out from behind a bush with my poems and startled the woman herself!
Altogether, I’ve published over twenty books of fiction, poetry, memoir, biography and translation, including four since coming to Canada, nearly all of them with US university presses. The distribution here mirrors what has begun to be commonplace among the smaller US presses: after an initial marketing push, the rest of the sales are POD. That means there’s very little chance of making it into Canadian bookstores because they won’t stock what they can’t see, unless the books are put on consignment with the self-published. Fewer and fewer bookstores allow that, and few want to be bothered to order books to be printed. Another strike against me was that I have published little Canadian content – although not none, since I did spend four formative years in Vancouver. The Big 5 NY publishers who crowd the Canadian shelves as sole representatives of US writing don’t need Canadian content. They can afford to pulp returns, and have vast marketing machines to alert Canadian booksellers and reviewers of their wares. Without the small press book on the shelf, booksellers won’t schedule a reading. I persuaded Munro’s only by flaunting a full-page review of my last two books in the NY Times Book Review. That’s where I discovered Victorians, at least, do not mind reading novels about mythological creatures that are not their own nationality, and even short stories. Will it take me fifty years to find a Canadian audience? Only forty-five left.
More about Terese Svoboda:
Guggenheim-winner and author of over twenty books of poetry, fiction, biography, memoir and translation, Terese Svoboda has lived in Fisherman's Wharf in Victoria for the last five years. She's won the Bobst Prize in fiction, the Iowa Poetry Prize, an NEH translation grant, the Graywolf Nonfiction Prize, Jerome Foundation and NEA media grants, the O. Henry Award for the short story, and a Pushcart Prize for the essay. Three-time winner of the New York Foundation of the Arts fellowship, she has been awarded Headlands, James Merrill, Yaddo, MacDowell, Bogliasco, Hermitage, Hawthorden, and Bellagio residencies. Her opera WET premiered in L.A.'s Disney Hall. The NYTBR just featured Roxy and Coco and The Long Swim, in a full-page review.
Bring home Roxy & Coco. (West Virigina University Press, 2024)
About Roxy and Coco:
Sisters Roxy and Coco are two glamorous harpies—mythical bird women—attempting to outrun extinction and fix the planet by preventing child abuse, one child at a time.
When Roxy is suddenly attracted to her human supervisor at a social work agency a hundred years too early, Coco is very suspicious. Luring Roxy with his scent, Tim is also on the payroll of a fake conservationist intent on her less-than-legal collection. Coco swoops in to vet Tim, but Interpol is hot on her trail for a series of curious homicides. (Surveillance has a very hard time convincing his boss of what he’s monitoring.) When the sisters find themselves trapped, Chris, a bipolar skateboarding truant, tries his best to rescue them but it’s Stewie, Coco’s colleague, who turns the story inside out. Roxy and Coco climaxes at a gala of egg fanciers who scramble to escape the harpies’ talons.
Action figure–worthy, for readers of Neil Gaiman and Karen Russell, this modern take on these fabled women touches on mental illness, racism, animal rights, and the rights of children.
Bring home The Long Swim. (UBC Press, 2024)
About The Long Swim:
A runaway circus lion haunts a small town where two lovers risk more than their respective marriages. A junket to Cuba and an ambassador’s dalliance with a niece hide dark secrets and political revolution. “I’ve always had a knife,” says the unstable stepson to his parents. Inventive, dark, and absurd, the stories in The Long Swim capture Terese Svoboda’s clear-eyed, wry angle on the world: a place of violence and uncertainty but also wild beauty, adventure, and love both lasting and ephemeral. Her characters strive for escape—through romance, travel, or more self-destructive pursuits—and collide with the constraints of family and home, their longing for freedom and autonomy often at odds with the desire for safety and harmony.
Cynical, irreverent, and formally daring, Svoboda’s stories in The Long Swim are a deft exploration of womanhood and humanity. Waves of provocation and wonder toss the reader and leave them wanting more.