Author Suzanne Craig-Whytock 'just about fell off my chair' when she was long-listed for humour award
CBC
Author Suzanne Craig-Whytock has written post-apocalyptic fantasies and dark thrillers to humour for teens and adults and has a number of titles to her name including The Dome, Smile and Feasting Upon the Bones.
Earlier this year, her book What Any Normal Person Would Do was up for the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour.
The Drumbo, Ont., author also launched DarkWinterLit, a literary magazine to support other authors and get their work out into world.
She joined CBC Kitchener-Waterloo's The Morning Edition with host Craig Norris to talk about What Any Normal Person Would Do, the experience of it being nominated for a Leacock award and why she wants to support other authors through her literary magazine.
The following interview has been edited for length and clarity. The audio for the interview is at the bottom of this article.
Craig Norris: Tell me about your book What Any Normal Person Would Do.
Suzanne Craig-Whytock: So I've been writing a humour blog for 10 years now. I post once a week just humorous anecdotes and stories and this is kind of a prequel to me starting my own publishing company as well.
I thought if I'm going to start publishing books, I should maybe try something of my own and experiment on myself instead of, you know, some poor soul. So I put together some humorous anecdotes, you know, kind of from the past and some new material and put it together in a book.
Then I saw that the Leacock Awards were open. I thought, what the heck, I'll submit it to the Leacock Awards. Never in a million years thinking that I would get long listed.
When I got the email, I just about fell off my chair when I saw my name on the long list alongside other very notable people like Rick Mercer and the person who won — Patrick DeWitt.
Norris: What should people be thinking about as they read the book?
Craig-Whytock: Be prepared. My mind's a little strange. I'm probably a little more funny on the page than I am in person. It gives me a chance to do more with the machinations of my mind.
Norris: How did it feel to see your name on the list for the Leacock Awards?
Craig-Whytock: It was so exciting to be ranked up there. I think they had over 80 submissions this year from some very well-known writers. My husband went to the banquet and I didn't expect anything but the emcee actually did call my name and say, you know, 'one of our long-listers is here' and had me get up and people applauded. And it was so cool.
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