CIP FEBRUARY 2025 ISSUE by Canadian Independent Publishers

$15.00 FEBRUARY 2025

PUBLISHING

Since 2009, the FriesenPress publishing team has helped thousands of writers tell their stories. And now, we’re delighted to offer our expertise to your writing group or literary organization’s next event – in-person or online, and completely free of charge!

Our team of professionals can inform your audience about a wide range of industry topics. From demystifying self-publishing to effective book marketing techniques, our speaking engagements have been enthusiastically received by audiences across North America. We’re happy to curate our content to meet the specific needs of your group.

Visit FRIESENPRESS.COM/SPEAKING-ENGAGEMENTS or email BOOKING@FRIESENPRESS.COM to learn more about our amazing speakers and book us for your next event!

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A golden moment for Canadian independent publishers

As the publication begins its journey into 2025, I am very excited to announce that the year has started off golden for Canadian Independent Publishers. At the end of 2024, I received amazing news: the publication was named a finalist in three categories for the 2024

Canadian Online Publishing Awards (also known as the COPAs).

The categories included:

• Best Digital Publication (August 2024); Best Feel Good Story; and

• Best Company Profile.

As this was the first time that the magazine had been named a finalist for any type of publishing awards, I was ecstatic!

The winners were announced in February at the COPA Awards Party, where Canadian Independent Publishers won gold for Best Feel Good Story for our article on Edmonton-based Audreys Books titled, “Surviving and thriving: Audreys Books celebrates half a century of bookselling.”

If you haven’t read about the bookselling adventures of Steve and Sharon Budnarchuk and their daughter, Kelly Dyer, you can check it out in our August 2024 digital edition or online at: www.canadianindependentpublishers.ca/surviving-and-thriving.

Having to balance running my own writing and editing business with raising three amazing kiddos, studying part-time for my MFA in creative writing (for the purpose of teaching), running writing workshops for children at a local school, and finding time for my own fiction writing, it has been a real struggle at times to find room in my schedule to put this publication together over the past 20 months.

Winning gold at the COPAs for Best Feel Good Story and receiving two additional finalist nominations feels really special, and adds more fuel in my tank to keep pushing forward with the publication.

Thank you to everyone who has supported this publication to date. I hope to continue to shine the spotlight on Canada’s indie authors, bookstores and publishers for many years to come.

Happy reading and writing!

Andrew Snook Editor and Publisher

By Astra Crompton

You can’t edit a blank page. Let’s say that again, you can’t edit a blank page.

Many writers get tripped up while drafting by trying to perfect what they’re writing as they write it. While a rare few authors compose their text and edit in their heads before even putting pen to paper, most of us can type—and delete—with ease. Today, we’re going to champion the merits of writing imperfectly so you can break through your writer’s block and actually finish that book you’ve “always wanted to write.”

1. The creative brain vs. The analytical brain

When drafting, you use your creative and imaginative faculties. When you edit, you need to switch gears to use analytical and critical skills. Both are important to hone as a writer, but they can sometimes get in each other’s way. This often shows up in writers who are hyper-critical. These are the ones who spend hours placing and removing commas from one sentence, sifting through thesaurus entries, or falling down research

rabbit-holes to ensure a single fact is historically accurate… only to cut it later.

To free yourself from this tortured writing experience, it’s important to give yourself some grace in three important ways.

First, don’t delete content as you’re drafting. You can, of course, correct a typo as you’re going, but don’t try to edit your work when you’re in a writing flow. If you struggle to restrain your inner critic, try using tools that limit how much of your screen you can see at a time, turn off your spell checkers and grammar checkers when drafting, or even employ timers that penalize you if you hesitate too long. The goal is to allow the first draft to be messy.

Second, a first draft is not what gets published. If you worry that what you’ve written is terrible, take comfort that no one needs to see this version. You are just vomiting all your ideas on the page and you can clean them up later. Sometimes drafting is just telling yourself the story. Sometimes it’s fleshing out an outline. Accept that it will be full of plot holes and gram-

matical errors and that’s okay, because a draft is not the final version. But if you don’t finish an initial draft, you can never revise your ideas to make them better.

Third, splitting up the drafting and editing process will make you more efficient at both. Think about trying to juggle a lot of tasks at once: you probably aren’t able to do any of them as effectively or skillfully as when you cut out distractions and focus on just one task at a time. In terms of writing, your inner critic is the distraction, and you’ll need to put it on mute until you get far enough in your draft to have something worth assessing and improving.

2. ‘Done’ is better than ‘perfect’

Many authors talk about the great idea they have for a book, or they even start their book but, dissatisfied with their opening, rework it over and over and never finish their manuscript. You can’t do anything with an unwritten idea!

Even if you are a skilled and seasoned writer, even if you self-edit and revise your manuscript, it’s impossible to catch every instance on your own—and you shouldn’t expect to. That’s why editors exist, after all. Instead of expecting perfection, focus on a finish line.

For the first draft, your goal should just be getting all the key scenes and story onto the page. If you’re working from an outline, flesh out each scene (whether you write linearly or jump around). If you’re following a story structure, hit each beat. You may want to have a target word count in mind based on your genre or readership’s expectations. Write until you hit that goal.

This draft will likely be messy. Pacing may be bumpy, characterization may be inconsistent, plot threads may have been dropped part way through, and themes may be amorphous — if they exist at all. That’s perfectly okay. Consider your first draft as the hewn marble from which your book will be carved. Now you can activate that inner critic to review what you have written. You may have parts that you hate — a key sign they need some revision — and other parts you love. Make a plan to tackle the big stuff first; it will save you time in revising later. Maybe you’ll call in critique partners or a writing coach, but approach this draft as a foundation for future work. It’s not meant to be perfect yet, it just has to exist so you can get closer to your goals.

For the second draft, you can fill in the blanks, clear up confusing language, and tidy the obvious typos and errors you spot on the page. You might seek out an editor or beta readers — but none of these next steps are possible if you don’t finish writing your story down first.

3. Try sandbox writing

Sandbox writing is explorative. Testing out a scene from different perspectives, cutting-and-pasting the order of events for how it changes their impact or intrigue, playing with dialogue or writing styles to hone a point of view — all are ways to explore what the shape of your writing might look like, how it might sound, and what kind of information you have to tell your reader.

Books like House of Leaves or Cloud Atlas play boldly with multiple “sources” to showcase the differences in these writing styles and subject matter; together they create impactful and inventive wholes. While your goal with storytelling may be more self-contained or linear, if drafting out of order keeps you motivated, inspired, or enables you to make transitional connections you might not otherwise have come up with, feel free to explore as you draft. Not every word you write needs to make it into the published book. You can always trim the bits that don’t fit later. As warm-up writing exercises and pantsers have long demonstrated, sometimes your best ideas come from playing around.

Rest assured, content you ultimately cut is not wasted writing time; you learn as much about your book from what it doesn’t need as you do about what it should contain. Besides, that sandbox writing helps refine your authorial voice and flesh out your characters along the way. You might even find that by the time you get to the end of your draft, you have a stronger idea of how the rest of it should look, sound, and read.

Some of this advice might feel easier said than done at first, but being kind to yourself as you undertake a courageous and creative writing journey requires practice. Give yourself that grace, set achievable goals, save editing for later, and you’ll be able to transmit your idea into tangible words.

Out of a thousand writers, only 30 will actually finish their draft and only 6 will actually publish it. If you want to be one of those 6, it all starts with a messy first draft.

Astra Crompton (she/they) is an eclectic writer, editor, and illustrator with over twenty-five years of publishing experience. Her work has been published in anthologies, table-top RPG books, magazines, and in several novels. They have also successfully completed NaNoWriMo six times and counting. Astra is currently the Editing & Illustrations Coordinator at FriesenPress, where they manage, coordinate, and vet FriesenPress’s industry-leading editing and illustrations teams. This article was re-published with permission from FriesenPress.

With Canadian Independent Publishers less than two years into publication, I never would have guessed that I would be sitting down with the same author twice for interviews already. But in the case of Eva Tihanyi, I will happily make this exception.

This talented poet, fiction writer, editor, and educator has earned the right to a second cover story with her short story, “Photograph,” winning the 2025 Canadian Independent Publishers Flash Fiction Contest.

Eva was born in Budapest, Hungary, and came to Canada at the age of six. She grew up in Windsor, Ontario; spent the Eighties in Toronto; and has lived in the Niagara Region since 1989, currently in the Port Dalhousie community of St. Catharines. Eva is a longtime published poet (the first of her nine collections dates back to 1982) but she has also tried her hand at other genres: short stories, screenwriting, lyric writing, and, most recently, a novel. Up until her retirement in 2020, Eva also taught English at Niagara College.

I had the pleasure of catching up with Eva again and learning about her interest in flash fiction and what inspired her to create her award-winning entry.

Pen name: Eva Tihanyi

Recently published books:

• Cirlce Tour (Inanna Publications, 2023)

• The Largeness of Rescue (Inanna Publications, 2016)

• Flying Underwater: Poems New and Selected (Inanna Publications, 2012)

• Truth and Other Fictions (Inanna Publications, 2009)

• In the Key of Red (Inanna Publications, 2010)

Place of residence: St. Catharines, Ont.

Follow her on social media: Instagram: @authorevatihanyi Facebook: @authorevatihanyi

eva tihanyi

By Andrew Snook

A chat with 2025 CIP Flash Fiction Contest winner

Congratulations on winning the 2025 CIP Flash Fiction Writing Contest! Do you want to start by telling me a little about the motivation and inspiration behind writing “Photograph”?

I completed my first novel back in April 2024, and then decided to take the summer off writing. I was thinking about what I wanted to do as my next project, and then your contest came up, and I thought, well, this is an opportunity to try flash fiction, which is something I’d already been considering.

What inspired “Photograph” was a news item that I caught on TV. I was watching a segment about how younger crowds, people in their early twenties, have taken a liking to disposable cameras. And I thought, this is fascinating in this age of digital madness we’re in, and with photographs especially. I’ve also had a lifelong interest in photography. It’s always been a way for me to get involved with my visually creative side. I love visual art, and photography is my direct connection to it. The news story also got me thinking about the old dark rooms and the magic of photography. When I took my first photography class, I was seventeen. The course was part of the journalism program I was enrolled in at the time. I still

remember how enthralled I was when the images began to appear in the developing tray.

Do you often try to challenge yourself by trying new styles of writing?

I love trying new things and challenging myself. I’ve written nine collections of poetry. I wrote all the lyrics for a fourteen-track album that’s coming out soon. I published a short story collection, Truth and Other Fictions, back in 2009. I even have the first act of a screenplay written. And last year I completed my first novel, so a flash fiction collection would be an exciting next adventure.

Did you want to tell me a little about the book you just finished?

I’m particularly excited about this one because I’ve wanted to write a novel since I was a teenager. The book is called Ride and it takes place in Toronto. The narrator is a woman — a collage artist — riding the subway from east to west across the city. The novel unfolds over the course of that ride, which is thirty-one subway stops. Its main concern is the subject of time—memory, awareness in the present, anticipation—but there are many other things happening as well. You know how when you’re sitting as a passenger in a

car, and you’re traveling on the highway for a while and you’re looking out the window, things are always going through your head. Well, that’s the sort of thing going on in Ride. The narrator sits in one spot experiencing her surroundings, which are continually changing. People get on and off, there are different ads at different stops, etc. What she experiences in this present tense triggers memories, opinions, reactions, etc., all following one after the other in a stream of consciousness narrative. The date of the subway ride is July 31, 2017. Donald Trump has been in office at that point for six months already, which gave me the opportunity to weave some political commentary in as well.

What inspired you to write that as your debut novel?

I used to spend a lot of time in Toronto and rode the subway often. The idea for the novel came to me back in the summer of 2017 on a particularly long ride across town. As I sat there, I became conscious of how my mind wandered to this and that, and what made me think of certain things, and how one thought flowed into the next. It occurred to me that such a ride — with the subway station names forming the chapter titles — would be an interesting

AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT

way to structure a narrative.

Now that your book is written, are you working on another project?

Yes, a flash fiction collection is my next project. I’m thinking of structure again — how it might work to have a series of “flashes” tell one story.

Did the flash fiction contest influence your decision to pursue the creation of a collection?

The contest got me serious about it. It got me sitting down and starting something new. I wasn’t going to submit, but then you guys extended the deadline, and two days before the contest closed, I thought, Oh, what the hell. And look what happened! I just want to say how delighted I am. The contest really did me a huge favour. It jumpstarted my

next book.

Do you have any favourite authors of short stories, or collections, you’ve read in the past?

Yes, it’s a book called Kilter: 55 Fictions by a Canadian author, John Gould. He was a 2003 Scotiabank Giller Prize finalist with this book, which is how I heard about it. I thought it was really interesting, how much he could achieve with these short pieces. For example, there’s one story about a school being under siege by a shooter, and a parent trying to get to their child. It was pretty intense. I would highly recommend that book for anyone interested in a whole book of flash fiction by one writer. More recently, I enjoyed Hollay Ghadery’s Widow Fantasies, which came out last year.

To read Eva’s original interview, check out the February 2024 issue of Canadian Independent Publishers at: www.canadianindependentpublishers.ca/cip-magazine.

iwant to take your picture, which won’t be as easy as you think. It’s not about the technology—that’s not an issue given the millions of images proliferating each day from smartphones alone—but more about the what and why than the how.

I saw on the news yesterday that disposable cameras are making a comeback, especially among the twenty-something crowd. There is always a reason for a bout of nostalgia, and this time I suspect it’s about a need for something concrete in a virtual world. Hard copy prints made from original negatives, which can’t be duplicated. Unique objects that can be touched, held.

The young have always liked it easy. Hence the love of throw-away things like disposable one-use cameras. Snap your pictures, take the plastic camera to an actual photoshop (amazing that such a place still exists). Come back a few days later and collect your pictures. It’s a bit like the surprise you feel witnessing photographs emerge in a darkroom. You don’t know exactly what you’ll see until the images form, as if by magic.

When you take pictures with a non-digital camera, there’s no deleting or on-screen editing, and only a finite number of shots available on one roll of film. With a disposable camera, there’s even less control. You point and shoot, hope the light is good enough.

The secret is in the content, of course. This has always been the case regardless of the virtuoso performances of even the most famous photographers. The eye that takes the picture makes the picture.

I’ve chosen to go a step beyond the disposable camera in an attempt to create a one-ofa-kind image of you. I’m using the Polaroid camera I was given on my birthday last year by a friend who understands my attachment to childhood artefacts. These cameras have also made a comeback. Since they contain the entire process of shoot to develop (it all happens in under twenty minutes), they appeal to my delight in instant gratification and simplicity. But what attracts me most is what can’t be controlled in a Polaroid—which is pretty much everything.

I will take only one shot of you. This will require patience on both our parts. You will have to sit still while I too sit still and wait. Through the viewfinder I will watch you watch me, notice how your gaze shifts in time away from me, both further into yourself and farther out into your surroundings.

As the moments move, so too will your expressions. Your face will flounder, tense, relax. Eventually a truth will arise. It will be but one truth of many.

The shutter clicks. I think I got you, but most likely I didn’t.

By Astra Crompton

Few things are as satisfying for writers than typing “The End” when they finish their manuscripts.

In reality, this milestone is merely the beginning of a new phase of creating a good book: self-editing. This crucial phase of the drafting project has a huge impact on the quality of your book, the costs of editing, and the quality of the feedback you might garner.

Even the strictest plotters should employ self-editing before submitting their manuscript to outside eyes. Here we’re going to cover why self-editing is so important, how to do it effectively, and some tips on how to switch gears from drafting to revision.

WHAT IS SELF-EDITING?

Self-editing is different from a professional edit in two key ways: first, a writer may lack a professional editor’s skill set and, second, the author can only approach their text from a position of familiarity as its author. What this means is that — no matter how skilled the writer, there will be errors, confusing phrasing, or missed elements (for example) that

you simply won’t be able to see. That’s okay, though! The goal of self-editing is not to create a perfect manuscript all on your own, it’s to clarify your intentions and smooth out the places where your meaning didn’t quite come across on the page.

The level of revision needed varies greatly depending on a number of factors, including how much outlining or plotting you did before writing, how clean a drafter you are, and how you organize your thoughts. Some writers are painstakingly slow, agonizing over every sentence and word choice; these writers may only make minor adjustments during their self-editing process. Others throw every idea at the page to see what sticks, including writing additional scenes from different perspectives, writing out of order, leaving notes for future-them to address, etc. These writers might find they are cut-andpasting their story into a better semblance of order, may rewrite whole passages, or may even transcribe their hand-written notes into a digital document.

No one approach to self-editing is

BOOK EDITING

better than another; regardless of your approach, look for five key things:

1. Does the text flow or build in a connected, deliberate manner?

2. Is everything you want to say on the page?

3. Is there anything on the page that does not belong there?

4. Does it make sense?

5. Does it sound the way you want it to?

As you read through your work from the beginning, it’s a good idea to begin at a high level. You may not make any changes on your first read-through. Instead, you may want to leave comments in the margin, or write out your findings chapter by chapter of what’s working, what’s missing, and ideas for solutions for the whole manuscript — before you start implementing any changes. Once you’ve done this initial assessment, it’s time to self-edit.

HOW TO SELF-EDIT EFFECTIVELY

As mentioned, there’s no one right way to self-edit. Here we’ll go over some best practices with the caveat that not all of these methods may work for you, so give them a try and curate the approach that fits your writing style best.

Let it percolate

If you’ve just finished drafting, don’t try to self-edit right away. Give yourself at least two weeks to let the book settle in your mind. This allows your subconscious mind to review the work, compare it with your ideals or goals, and to process your memories of the writing process. Once it’s settled, you can come back to your book with fresh eyes. This enables you to notice things you hadn’t before — including passages that don’t ring true, silly typos, and potentially new ideas for how to approach a section of your text.

Even if there are rough patches that you know need work, you should also keep an eye out for the sparkling passages. As Peter Elbow notes in Writing with Power, even the most amateur writers have brilliant bits of prose that come through in their writing. Noting these strong lines or passages for yourself (whether with notes or in a journal) will help keep you anchored as you begin your revisions. Especially if you end up moving things around or rewriting large passages, you don’t want to throw the proverbial baby out with the bathwater!

Start with the broad strokes

While you can work through sequentially, starting with the first word on page one and going through

to the end, if you noted larger things that need adjustment in your initial assessment, it’s smart to tackle these first. Not only does this make your subsequent smaller revisions more efficient (as you’re not wasting time revising something that’s just going to be cut or further revised later), it also gives the new work you do on these sections a chance to rest before you review them in context.

Broad strokes might include:

• Reorganizing content (reordering chapters, moving scenes, cutting sections, drafting new introductions/ prologues/endings).

• Making changes to names throughout (these changes are much easier to do all at once, so you don’t miss any instances).

• Merging characters or rewriting a scene from a different character’s point of view.

• Changing the tense or perspective (such as from past to present or from third person to first).

• Changing the entry or exit points of the story (either starting further back in the timeline or skipping ahead to later in the timeline).

• Pruning back exposition or revising places where you lapsed into “telling yourself the story.”

• Building out your references list or bibliography.

• Filling in any placeholder gaps you might have left while drafting (like an article you wanted to include, or filling out a “fight scene note” past-you left behind).

Tackle these tasks one at a time, rather than trying to do them all simultaneously. Some require a more creative mindset and others are more clerical attention to detail; it’s easier to use one skill at a time, rather than trying to hold it all in your head at once or switching back and forth between the critical and creative parts of your brain.

Keep a checklist of the items you wanted to review so that as you implement each one, you can check them off and feel a sense of progress — especially if you’re jumping around in your manuscript.

Get feedback

Once you implement the broad strokes pieces that you knew you wanted to address, your manuscript should be in a cleaner state and you’re likely feeling more confident about its merits. This can be a great time to get feedback. Consider running a section by a test audience (such as if you’re writing for kids), a sensitivity reader (if you tackle issues outside your lived experience), or beta readers (who can give you a sense of how readers might engage with your text).

Remember that feedback is just one opinion. It’s important to listen, but equally important to

approach possible solutions constructively. The reader’s suggestion may not be the right approach, but they are alerting you of issues that need more attention. If you collect multiple sources of feedback, you also may find that they contradict! When this happens, weigh them against what your goals are as the author and side with what feels truest to your intentions for the book. Be sure to organize the feedback you get (by chapter, by character, by section, etc.) to make it easier to compare apples to apples. If you send out a list of questions to guide the feedback you receive, you may be able to compare the answers directly to look for patterns, a consensus, or possible solutions. Then you can see which pieces you may want to implement or be inspired to make further changes.

DEEPER SELF-EDITING TOOLS

When you’re ready for a deeper self-edit, tools that enable you to break the book down into manageable chunks or help your brain to approach the text in a new way will provide motivation and polish. Here are some options:

Read aloud or text-to-speech software

Many word processing programs include this feature, but you can also find app versions to install into your preferred browser. Some are free and some have broader customization options for additional fees. It’s important to visually read along as you listen to get the most out of this review. Read aloud features force you to slow down (though you can adjust the reading speed), and the AI voice reads literally, which can

help you catch errors you hadn’t noticed. This is especially effective for homonyms, typos, missing or duplicated words, run-on sentences, and awkward phrasing. Hearing the text can change the way you engage with it, better approximating your experience as a reader than as the author.

Goal-setting or tracking software

Having a measurable goal can be highly motivating and can help you assess your progress through your self-edits. A tool like TrackBear or Dabble Writer can allow you to set a goal within a certain timeframe to keep you progressing. You can set goals by words written, hours worked, chapters completed, words cut, etc. Try making a checklist for your goals (such as marking off each chapter as you go or by rounds of review for spelling, grammar, flow, timeline, etc.) to make the self-edit less daunting. You can also rely on your page count progress or your word processor’s word count tool to see how you’re doing.

Assistive AI tools

In the same way that you may check spelling and grammar in your word processor, you might also employ assistive AI technology like Grammarly, ProWritingAid, or PerfectIt to review your manuscript for a final polish. It’s crucial to carefully review each suggestion these tools make. Some are built for certain audiences or style guides (such as Grammarly being based on AP style for business writing), which may recommend suggestions that aren’t appropriate for your work. However, they can help catch simple errors that slipped through your pre-

vious reviews or new errors you introduced in the course of your self-editing. By cleaning up these errors, not only do you create a cleaner, more polished manuscript, you also ensure that your professional editor can focus on the pieces you hadn’t thought of, rather than worrying over a high level of technical errors. Whichever of these steps you choose to implement, taking the time to self-edit will ensure that what you have to say comes across as clearly and cleanly as possible before moving ahead in your publishing journey. This will improve the substance of your discussions with your editor and heighten your understanding of your book when working on promotions and marketing efforts. While it does mean you need to sustain enthusiasm for drafting a little bit longer — it’s an investment of time and effort that is well worth it. Your readers and reviewers will appreciate a better book!

WRITING COMPETITIONS

NEXT GENERATION INDIE BOOK AWARDS

EXTENDED Deadline TO SUBMIT: MARCH 6, 2025

www.indiebookawards.com

INDEPENDENT PUBLISHER BOOK AWARDS (ippy awards)

Deadline TO SUBMIT: MARCH 27, 2025

www.ippyawards.com

writer’s digest SELF-PUBLISHED BOOK AWARDS

EARLY-BIRD DEADLINE: APRIL 1, 2025

www.writersdigest.com/writers-digest-competitions

writer’s digest ANNUAL WRITING COMPETITION

EARLY-BIRD DEADLINE: MAY 5, 2025

www.writersdigest.com/writers-digest-competitions

CANADIAN BOOK CLUB AWARDS

DEADLINE: JULY 31, 2025

WWW.thecanadianbookclubawards.ca

2025 BEST INDIE BOOK AWARDS

EARLY-BIRD DEADLINE: AUGUST 1, 2025

WWW.bestindiebookaward.com

WRITING EVENTS

thE 2025 toRONTO wRITING wORKSHOPS

APRIL 5, 2025

Sheraton Centre Toronto Hotel

TORONTO, ONT.

www.torontowritingworkshop.com

VIRTUAL CAN-CON

APRIL 12, 2025

VIRTUAL EVENT

www.can-con.org

TORONTO INDIE AUTHOR CONFERENCE

APRIL 26-27, 2025

Beeton Hall, Toronto Reference Library

Toronto, Ont.

WWW.torontoindieauthorcon.com

LIVE CAN-CON

OCTOBER 17, 2025

SHERATON OTTAWA

OTTAWA, ONT.

www.can-con.org