"Try to Enjoy the Small Moments of Magic" - Kate Hilton and Elizabeth Renzetti Talk About a Writing Life and Their New Mystery Novel, Bury the Lead

In Bury the Lead (House of Anansi Press), mystery abounds when big city journalist Cat Conway moves to a small town in cottage country, and begins to uncover secrets lurking below the surface in the bucolic and seemingly benign Port Ellis.

Co-authored by Kate Hilton and Elizabeth Renzetti, the novel is the latest in the popular Quill and Packet Mystery series. It's a thrilling tale of one journalist finding her career and marriage in tatters, and returning to her hometown at a peculiar time. Hired on at the Port Ellis paper, her first assignment is to interview Eliot Fraser, the lead actor at the local theatre and a man with a sordid history in the region. When Fraser ends up dead on opening night, Cat is driven to solve the mystery of his murder and make a last ditch effort to restore her career and reputation.

We're excited to share this Going Pros & Cons series entry from the authors of the novel, where they talk about the ups and down of their writing careers, and give some sage advice to emerging and established writers alike.

A big writing/publishing disappointment I remember and how I coped:

Kate Hilton:

My first novel, The Hole in the Middle, had been a bestseller in Canada and an American publisher picked up the rights. The senior editor was personally very excited about the acquisition and told me that the book had made her fall in love with her husband all over again and that she had high hopes for it in the U.S. market. Everything seemed to be on track…until it wasn’t. The book was cursed with a series of unfortunate events, some of which I knew about (a publicist was absent for a family emergency at a critical time; a major order was dropped and no one noticed) but most of which I didn’t (the senior editor eventually told my agent that she’d never seen a set of circumstances like it in 40 years of publishing). It sold a spectacularly small number of books and torched my U.S. sales track, derailing any possibility of another U.S. deal for a decade. How did I cope? Perspective helped. The rest of my life was in flames -- I was going through a horrible divorce and my kids were a mess – so it wasn’t the worst thing happening to me in the moment. Somehow that made it easier to bear. And I did a lot of therapy. That helped too.

My best public reading or event experience:

Elizabeth Renzetti:

At the Kingston Writers’ Festival for my book Shrewed: A Wry and Closely Observed Look at the Lives of Girls and Women, a woman stopped by the signing table. As I was signing her books, she told me that her dying friend had asked her to read aloud some of my newspaper columns. I was stunned. I couldn’t imagine someone requesting my words on their deathbed (I still can’t believe it happened!) I was honoured and also overwhelmed. Then a moment later a young woman asked how she could be sure she was marrying the right man – would he actually step up and do half the housework? I had no answer, and I was once again humbled. The ups and downs of the author experience!

My worst public reading or event experience:

KH:

I organized a small promotional tour for myself with my first book and tried to cluster a few events together in places where there seemed to be interest in having me. I went up to Sudbury, where a book club had won a contest I’d run, and planned to do a talk at the local library while I was there. The start time for the library event got closer and closer, with no bodies in the seats at all. Meanwhile, the librarian moved anxiously through the free computer stations, trying to drum up business for my talk. No takers. Eventually, I abandoned the plan, sat down at a table, and invited anyone at the computer terminals to come and chat with me about their personal writing projects. I have a vague recollection that an old man came to talk to me about his memoir, but I’m not entirely sure it happened.

The person or writer I met who I was most excited about:

KH:

As a teenager, I’d been obsessed with Guy Gavriel Kay’s Fionavar Trilogy, and subsequently read all his work. It turned out that we’d attended the same law school, and we were invited, along with fellow graduate Andrew Pyper, to do a panel discussion for the Alumni Association at U of T Law. More than any other experience in my first year as a published writer, being on that panel with Guy made me feel like I’d arrived. He was also incredibly nice to me and generous with his time and advice, so that was a bonus.

A writer whose career I admire and why:

ER:

Hilary Mantel, whose prodigious gifts for fiction and non-fiction were only equalled by her resolve and generosity. She battled undiagnosed endometriosis for much of her life. She was told by doctors that she suffered from “an excess of ambition” and that she could cure herself by working at a dress shop. Thank God for all readers that she did not listen to any of that nonsense.

The advice I would give someone publishing a book for the first time:

KH:

So much of the process is out of your hands. This fact can be liberating if you allow it to be. You’ll be asked to build a platform on social media and may be made to feel that your efforts will dictate whether the book will be a success or a failure. If you already have a huge platform, it might. If you are building it from scratch? It won’t move the dial that much. Try to enjoy the small moments of magic that come from connecting with readers. Savour every win, however tiny. Soak in every compliment. You’ll want to remember them when things get hard, as they inevitably will. And lastly, don’t give up your day job. Few writers sustain themselves by book writing alone. It’s a huge amount of pressure to put on yourself, and (to circle back to the beginning), the outcomes aren’t yours to control.

The thing(s) I need at/in my writing space:

ER:

If you’re trained as a journalist you can’t be too picky about where you write. I’ve filed stories over the phone from muddy fields and wrote others on my BlackBerry (the late lamented best phone ever.) For that reason, I can write in most places, except if there’s too much noise. But what I do require is a long runway. I can’t pop out of bed, like some diligent writers, and just crack on with it. I need coffee, some scrolling of news websites, a bit of yoga, a bit of sustenance. I wish I could wake with the dawn and start typing but that’s not me, and I’m now old enough to realize it’s never going to be me.

My advice for new writers: The best time and place is the one where you can get words on a page. It be 10 pm at a coffee shop or six am when the kids are sleeping. Don’t try to emulate other writers’ work habits. Find the one that suits you.

______________________________________________________

Kate Hilton is the bestselling author of three novels: The Hole in the Middle, Just like Family, and Better Luck Next Time. When not writing, Kate works with psychotherapy and life coaching clients in the area of transformational change. No stranger to reinvention herself, Kate has had prior careers in law, university administration, publishing, and major gift fundraising. She lives in Toronto in a blended family—including a husband, two sons, a stepdaughter, and a rescue dog.

Elizabeth Renzetti is a bestselling Canadian author and journalist. She has worked for the Globe and Mail as a reporter, editor, and columnist. In 2020 she won the Landsberg Award for her reporting on gender equality. She is the author of the essay collection Shrewed: A Wry and Closely Observed Look at the Lives of Women and Girls and the novel Based on a True Story. Her book What She Said: Conversations about Equality will be published in 2024. She lives in Toronto with her family.