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THOMAS TROFIMUK, ’87 BA The alumnus and award-winning author of Waiting for Columbus talks to U of A graduate student Heather MacLeod about the power of the pen, his next book and why both he and his characters want to destroy all PowerPoint presentations. Waiting for Columbus, your third novel, has had a really spectacular year: publishing contracts in Canada, the U.S., the U.K, Europe and South America. It’s won the 2010 City of Edmonton Book Prize, and it’s received universally good reviews. And rumour has it that it’s being optioned for a film, is that true? Well, nothing’s official, but there’s an offer on the table from a Canadian production company. They’re talking about a CanadianEuropean co-production, and those kind of partnerships tend to get things done. And beyond that it’s been shopped around Hollywood, and it’s currently with Tom Hanks’ production company. I think Tom Hanks would make a great Columbus, but we’ll see what happens.
In addition to writing novels, you also
have a day job… I’m called a “business planning analyst.” Mostly I write and edit outside communications for the Government of Alberta. I handle the annual report, and I do e-scanning, where I get a bunch of newspapers and I look for an oblique connection to the business that we do in our ministry.
It sounds very dry.
Yeah, although the hardest part of my job is dealing with the bureaucracy, and you saw that in Columbus when Emile is dealing with the Interpol bureaucracy and shoots up the PowerPoint projector. That was a direct reflection of how I feel some days when I go into a meeting and wish the PowerPoint projector would just fall out of the ceiling. And my colleagues have read the book, and they still invite me to meetings where there’s a PowerPoint presentation, which surprises the hell outta me. 22
new trail
Spring/Summer 2010
So when do you
get to quit your day job and write full time? If we have the kind of response from my next book that we had from Waiting for Columbus, then, yeah, I’d love to because I’m getting old. And as you age, time gets so important, and carving out time to write, carving out time to edit, carving out time to not write and not edit but to walk around and think about what you’re going to write —all that stuff—it becomes really valuable.
Do you keep a vigilant schedule while
you’re writing? Do you write every day? When I’m working on a book I write 1,500 words every day. I don’t care if I have a 104-degree temperature or it’s my birthday or Christmas. Some days I finish writing, and I’m like, “Oh, my God! You have no idea what you’re doing.” Then two weeks later I’ll look at it, and I’ll be like, “OK, it’s not all bad.” I invariably find little gems even on the days when it’s very hard.
Did you always want to be a writer?
Was it something you imagined yourself doing as a child? I always wrote, but I wrote letters. I guess I was writing myself in the sense that when you’re writing a letter you’re the main character, you’re discovering who you are.
Do you still handwrite letters?
I still handwrite all my first drafts—with a fountain pen! Ellen Seligman [senior vice-president and publisher of fiction] at McClelland & Stewart asked me once, “So how do you write your first drafts?” I said, “I do it with a fountain pen,” and I showed her my fountain pen. And she said, “That’s why you’re good.”