The Globe and Mail

Margaret Atwood

Beginning in the 1970s and ’80s, peaking in the ’90s, and continuing into the 21st century, Canada was an exceptionally welcoming country for writers. Support through the Canada Council; the creation of well-publicized prizes such as the Giller Prize (fiction), the Griffin (poetry), the Charles Taylor Prize (belles lettres), the Shaughnessy Cohen Award (political writing), the Writers’ Trust prizes and many more; the existence of many small bookstores and two competing chains; the mushroom growth of writers' festivals, from the large to the local... . All were helpful. The existence of many smaller publishers allowing entry, the mix of talents from incoming cultures and the appearance of talents from First Nations and long-resident minorities, all added the sense of effervescence.

At the moment, much is in flux, not only in Canada but globally. Opportunities abound for writers and publishers, but these include opportunities for failure. The Internet has been a game-changer; self-publishing is increasingly an option, though no safeguard; the proposed expropriation or confiscation or requisition – in any case, the grabbing without payment of copyrights – all are calling traditional models into question. We live in stirring times, as in ac soup pot. Who will end up as the burnt peas sticking to the bottom?

Margaret Atwood’s latest novel is The Year of the Flood. She lives in Toronto.

Linwood Barclay

Yes, mostly.

Canada's a great place to live and work as a writer in the same way this country is a great place to live and work as a doctor or plumber or music teacher. It's a wonderful country, and I don't want to live anywhere else, regardless of how I earn my paycheque, or who occupies 24 Sussex (although, some days...).

And in most cases, anywhere in the world, if you're a writer, you'll still be living and working as a doctor or plumber or music teacher because very few survive on their writing, even Canadians who sell well here. To live off book sales, you'll most likely need readers beyond our border. And, in some cases, accomplishing that may mean falling short of what some literary types expect of you as a “Canadian” author.

Linwood Barclay’s latest novel is the thriller Never Look Away; The Accident will be released in August. He lives in Burlington, Ont.

Andrew J. Borkowski

Yes, Canada is a fabulous place to work as a writer. Our society is an enigma that defies all the conventional rules of nationhood. We are an outward-looking society, open to new ideas, amused by the world’s contradictions (because our country is a mass of them) and we are less hidebound by assumptions about our literature and about ourselves than any other society I can think of. There are good reasons why the term “Global Village” was coined by a Canadian. As a multicultural society in the post-national age we are well situated to contemplate and to play with the conundrums of globalization. You can’t ask for a more intriguing challenge than to work within a culture striving to forge an identity when the whole concept of cultural identity is being laid open to question.

As a writer of Central European descent, I’ve been taught to treasure our freedom to say what we like, however we like. We could be making more money compared to our British and American colleagues, but Canadians are great readers and, compared to Ukraine, Libya, Zimbabwe and three quarters of the countries on the planet, Canada is a damn fine place to write.

Andrew J. Borkowski is the author of Copernicus Avenue. He lives in Toronto.

Pan Bouyoucas

Canadian writers, at least my generation of Canadian writers, are a privileged lot. We can write about anything we want without getting arrested for it or shot. Sometimes we even get grants to tell our stories. Why then – and here is maybe the downside of so much peace and freedom – do I often get the feeling of reading the same story, over and over? A story where nothing much happens, empty of magic, filled with navel-gazing and gloom and piddling private conversations commenting every wart and fart to death. As storytellers we are supposed to be enchanters too. As Canadians, we are free to invent and enchant as we please, and we certainly have the talent to do that. Why then our work is so lacking in magic, ambition, passion and daring? To paraphrase a famous line: With all this peace and freedom, will we, like the Swiss, only produce the cuckoo clock?

Pan Bouyoucas is the author of the upcoming novel The Tattoo (April). He lives in Montreal.

Gail Bowen

Several years ago, a writer in Texas and I were talking about government support for working writers. I mentioned the Public Lending Right payments that Canadian writers get to compensate them for use of their books in libraries. My Texas friend was incredulous. “I’m moving to Canada,” he said.

Few Canadian writers will get rich from the sale of their work, but a number of programs make it possible for us to exist, to reach an audience and to have our voices heard.

It’s impossible to overestimate the role the Canada Council plays in fostering Canadian literature. The Governor General’s Literary Awards recognize excellence, boost the sales of any book that is short-listed and offer a hefty financial prize. The Council also assists publishers, offers grants and awards to accomplished writers and supports author readings that allow us to travel and to reach new audiences.

The Writers Union of Canada and provincial organization like the Saskatchewan Writers Guild also sponsor author readings. Additionally, they fund writing contests and seminars and act as our advocates. The Access Copyright Payback program, formed by rightsholders, administers reproduction rights, including photocopying rights.

Canada is a hospitable country for writers. My Texas friend still hasn’t moved here, but he does spend hours gazing longingly across the border.

Gail Bowen is a mystery novelist living in Regina, Sask. Her latest Joanne Kibourne mystery is The Nesting Dolls.

Stephen Bown

As a writer of historical non-fiction and biography, living and working in Canada has been good, but being Canadian has had its drawbacks. There are few media outlets for reviews and interviews for non-fiction in Canada, so to make a living I have chosen to write about international subjects that have a market beyond Canada’s borders.

Yet as a Canadian, it can be challenging finding an international publisher. A U.K. editor once claimed that, “We export history, we don’t import it,” while an American editor informed my agent that a particular book idea would not sell in the U.S. because Americans “won’t buy history books written by Canadians.” Whether this is true, there is a perception that a Canadian should not write about international history and ideas.

Although I’ve had international success, I cannot avoid the conclusion that my Canadian nationality appears to have been a drawback in the field of world historical and biographical writing. Canada is a great country in which to live and work, but it has been eye-opening to realize that an author’s nationality can play a role in determining whether a book gets published and reviewed – ideas and literature are universal and should be above such things, should they not?

Stephen Bown’s The Pope, the Kings and the Rogue: How a Family Feud in Medieval Spain Divided the World in Half, will be available in September. He lives in the Canadian Rockies.

David Carpenter

Is Canada a good country in which to live and work as a writer? I’m not sure how typical my experience is as a Canadian writer. I write fiction, and occasionally nonfiction books, and I do it full-time. If I were writing for film and television, I think that I would be tempted to try my luck in the States, like Hart Hanson has done. But here, in a downwardly mobile sort of way, I can live on trickles from editing, CBC Radio gigs, writing articles, giving readings and workshops and getting the odd grant. The trickles add up to enough money to pay the bills and that’s about all. But because I get to live here and write as much as I want to, I think it’s a great life. We writers envy our American colleagues who have ready access to a big marketplace full of readers. But many American writers have told me they envy my access to the Saskatchewan Arts Board, the Canada Council and health care. And had Obama and his Democrats not won the election in 2008, I know a couple who would have moved up here in a heartbeat.

David Carpenter is the author of A Hunter’s Confession, winner of the Saskatchewan Book Award. He lives in Saskatoon.

Wayson Choy

With gratitude to this good country, I shout, “Yes!”

For example, I’m grateful to my writing teachers, like Earl Birney and Jacob Zilber in the 1950s, and to Carol Shields in 1977, who each insisted that I, for one, might do very well to “write what you know”.

I thank the instincts of publisher Patsy Aldana who scouted a multicultural writer like me to launch my first novel. And I’m just as thankful to this country’s critics and readers for being so willing to renew their vision of a changing Canada by reading stories that explored cultural differences. (Since 1995, The Jade Peony has been reprinted 27 times.)

However, those who write for more influential mediums – like the movies and television – are forever frustrated by such tiny audiences that appreciate such cultural differences. Are Canada’s literary readers more astute for exploring changing realities than those citizens sitting before screens? Yes, Canada has been a good place for me and my books, but it needs to be a good place for all writers. Are our publishers more far-sighted than our producers?

Wayson Choy’s latest book is the memoir Not Yet: A Memoir of Living and Almost Dying. He lives in Toronto.

Tish Cohen

Yes.

In spite of its expansiveness, Canada has a close writing community. There’s a wonderful “we’re in this together” mentality amongst Canadian writers that makes even the greenest among us feel less intimidated. When I wrote my first novel – holed up in the spare bedroom day after day, not bothering to change out of pyjamas until the first draft was complete – I didn’t know anyone in the business and wound up navigating the soul-crushing process of trying to get published with nothing but my own terrible ideas to guide me. Turned out literary agents didn’t care that my mother loved my manuscript. How did I miss that?

But once my novel came out and promotion had me travelling the country, I began to meet other authors and was continually amazed by their warmth and acceptance, as well as their willingness to share their own writerly missteps. When a career requires you spend your days alone, having a tight community of like-minded peers can prove gratifying. Especially when you discover you’re not the only one who wears pyjamas to work.

Tish Cohen is the author of The Truth About Delilah Blue and the upcoming teen novel Switch. She lives in Toronto.

Mary Rose Donnelly

Canada has abundance, not just in mountains, prairie or shoreline; drive 20 kilometres in any direction and you’ll encounter cultural pockets you’ll never fully understand. Writers are students of dialect and heart, something abundantly clear with poet Elizabeth Bishop. Nova Scotians are putting on a considerable whoop-up for her centenary this summer. She spent only a couple of childhood years in Great Village but for the next six decades of a strangely nomadic life she mined that early landscape for her most enduring images: sandpipers, red mud, loss.

We are an interior people, confined by cold and deprived of colour. In a country where you need to hike on a spacesuit to walk the garbage to the end of the driveway half the year, the interior journey is not an unnatural pursuit. Had anyone other than Irving Layton gathered together his anthology of love poems, it might have been, Write where the nights are long.

On the other hand, if it’s material blessing you’re thinking about, I’d be with Ezra Pound:

“Oh God, O Venus, O Mercury, patron of thieves
Lend me a little tobacco-shop,
or install me in any profession
Save this damned profession of writing
where one needs one’s brains all the time.”

Better stick to investment banking or hockey. Men’s hockey.

Mary Rose Donnelly is the author of the upcoming novel Great Village (May). She lives in Halifax

Joy Fielding

Absolutely yes. Generally speaking, writers can write anywhere. That's one of the great joys of being a writer. But being a writer also means a life of perpetual uncertainty: Will I ever get another idea? Will anyone want to publish it? Will anyone want to read it? Will I actually make any money?

Writers are also largely anonymous. People may know our books, but they rarely recognize our faces. Canada is like a safe harbour in these often lonely waters, providing a peaceful backdrop where we can wrestle with our demons. While it's true that Canadians are often skeptical of commercial success, we give our writers time to find their voices and develop their craft, allowing us even the occasional misstep. (Although reviewers are sometimes less than kind.)

And while often criticized for its lack of a star system, Canada has somehow managed to create genuine literary stars. I really can't think of a better place to live and work.

Joy Fielding is one of Canada’s best-selling authors. Her latest novel is Now You See Her. She lives in Toronto.

Charles Foran

To be a writer in Canada is to live in the best of all possible worlds. One is free to behave on the page with boldness or temerity, intemperance or excess moderation, without much worry about being censored or having to evade a dictator’s boot to the face. That is no small liberty, being allowed to become, and possibly remain, your own worst enemy.

Also liberating is the chance to write for a highly literate, if also highly distracted, populace, fighting not the ravages of poverty or political oppression on the practice of reading but the endless waves of brighter, chirpier, more “fun” pastimes than books, magazines and newspapers. Lucky us, to be up against nothing more insidious or dire than video games. To be a writer in Canada is to be able to speak easily the best of all possible words. Words like “democracy” and “citizen,” “human rights” and “press freedoms,” “personal expression” and “individual conscience.” Having such easy access to these terms, we should never be cavalier about them, nor forget where the responsibility for their health lies. Keep them fresh and vital to the conversation. Use them well.

Charles Foran’s latest book is the biography Mordecai: The Life & Times. He lives in Peterborough, Ont.

Camilla Gibb

A resounding yes to the question of whether this is a good country in which to be a writer. Particularly, as a place to start out as a writer. We have perhaps more literary journals, more places for emerging writers to publish, than anywhere else in the world per capita. Ditto small presses, which is where the vast majority of us get our start.

The unknown author who gets her first deal with a major publishing house? That is the exception. More of us publish stories in literary journals first, publish a first novel or collection with a small press, then maybe get an agent and move on to a bigger publisher. There is a common trajectory here thanks to government subsidies and grants to journals and small presses, as well as grants to writers at all levels of government and most stages of career development.

My generation has been the beneficiary of the lobbying efforts of some of our literary giants – Atwood, et al. A subsidized system like ours nurtures and cultivates the Atwoods of tomorrow. You need to fund far and wide in order to develop those future giants and our proudest cultural exports.

Camilla Gibb’s latest novel is The Beauty of Humanity Movement. She lives in Toronto.

Brian Goldman

Is Canada a good country to live and work as a writer? For me, absolutely. From the moment my publisher said yes to a book about what goes on inside the hospital's sliding doors, it was assumed I had a story worth telling. Having worked in collaborative media like radio and television, I was amazed at how my editor nurtured my voice and pulled the best words out of me, never once suggesting what I should write or how I should put it. This is the only country I can think of in which I could ask a personal idol like fellow doctor/writer Vincent Lam to write a blurb for my book – and he said yes.

The difference in the way writers are treated in the U.S. and Canada is stark. In the U.S., writing takes a back seat to selling yourself while bystanders judge you with raised or lowered thumbs. In Canada, you are recognized as a writer and contributor to Canadian culture and as a colleague by fellow writers – with no thumbs up or down. The only way my book gets a shot in the States is if I tell how I killed a patient, chopped the body up into bits, and sold them as souvenirs in the hospital gift shop. Come to think of, that would make a hell of a movie plot!

Dr. Brian Goldman is a Toronto emergency-room physician and the author of The Night Shift.

Wayne Grady

In Canada, we have a combination of problems. The times are out of joint for writers, with publishers reeling from the recession and afraid to publish anything but sure bestsellers – which are never sure. It's difficult to publish anything in Canada that hasn't already been accepted by an American publisher, which doesn't bode well for Canadian culture. Advances are way down from past years. Added to that we have the uncertainty of e-publication, and how writers are going to be paid for that.

And beneath all that we have the Harper government, which has been busily cutting arts and cultural funding for the past four years, and which is now trying to introduce Bill C-32, the copyright legislation that will cut writers out of the payment loop by making their work available for free to educational institutions. So I'd say we're going through tough times as writers in Canada, but that hope hovers just beneath the horizon.

Wayne Grady is the author of Breakfast at the Exit Cafe: Travels Through America, and former chair of the Writers' Union of Canada. He lives outside Kingston, Ont.

Pauline Holdstock

I’m a Libra. The answer is yes and no.

Yes, because Canada is a liberal democracy. Knots of heavily armed men are unlikely to break down my door in the small hours. Even if I were to write that Mr. Harper is a benighted soul helplessly in thrall to US foreign policy, they may not. I should probably voice my opinion more often just to enjoy the privilege.

No, because Canada has far too much wide open space. Readers are so thin on the ground it’s impossible to make a living on Canadian book sales alone. It’s demographics. In the U.S. or the U.K. sales of 25-50,000 put a book in the bestseller category. In Canada the equivalent figure is 5,000. Writers earn, on average, two dollars in royalties on each book sold. The math is not hard. But remember to divide your total dollars by the number of years it took to write the book.

No again, because, of the two mechanisms that work to adjust our situation – the Public Lending Right and the Canadian Copyright Act – the latter is currently fighting for its life in the House of Commons.

But finally, yes. Wide open spaces work miraculous alchemy on the creative mind.

Pauline Holdstock’s most recent novel is Into the Heart of the Country. Her 2004 novel, Beyond Measure, was a finalist for the Giller Prize that year. She lives on Vancouver Island.

Joel Thomas Hynes

Yes. Canada is as good a country as any to live and work as a writer, so long as you're not too concerned about what's on the back end of your endeavours. If you're primary objective is the advance, the awards, the reviews, the potential accolades, then your not really living as a writer anyway – you're living as a hack.

Joel Thomas Hynes is the author of Down to the Dirt and Right Away Monday. Straight Razor Days, a collection of creative non-fiction, is due out this September. He lives in St. John’s, Newfoundland.

William Kowalski

Geoffrey Cottrell said, “In America, only the successful writer is important, in France all writers are important, in England no writer is important, and in Australia you have to explain what a writer is.” Here is where Canadians lean more French than English: Writers are treated with abundant respect and only mild suspicion, which is better than many of us deserve.

Writers are also far better supported by the government than they are south of the border. The reading audience in Canada is much smaller, but so is the size of the herd one must rise above in order to get noticed. The tendency among Americans is to ask how many copies you've sold. Canadians would rather know what idea you're working on next.

Canadian writers have no serious expectation of growing wealthy from their work, which is a far saner approach to the whole business and makes it all the sweeter when it does happen. It would be impossible to choose the better place to write, but I love being a writer in Canada. You’ll never have quite enough to eat, but no one will ever let you starve, either. You’re too important for that.

American-born William Kowalski’s latest book, The Way It Works, is part of the Rapid Reads series for reluctant adult readers. He has lived in written in the U.S., and currently does so in Nova Scotia.

Lesley Livingston

Yes! Canada is a great country to be a writer in because it's a great country to be a reader in. There has always seemed to me to be an extremely vital and vibrant culture of reading in this country. That's good news for writers, and it's not going away any time soon. As an author of young adult books, I get to experience this phenomenon every time I visit a school or a library where I've seen first-hand the passionate fostering and nurturing of reading traditions in young people – who identify so strongly with my identity as a Canadian author. That's why it's so important for this country to recognize and value the contributions of its homegrown talent and make sure it remains a great place for us to live and work. Because we're not just writers to our readers – we're Canadian writers.

Lesley Livingston is the author of Tempestuous, the final book in the Wondrous Strange trilogy. She lives in Toronto.

Catherine McKenzie

Is Canada a good country to live and work in as a writer? In my experience, yes. The Canadians I’ve met as a result of becoming a published author are extremely enthusiastic about books and reading. They are particularly enthusiastic about supporting a fellow Canadian. I can’t count the number of times a reader has told me how excited they were to see that a book they were interested in was written by a Canadian.

I’d also add that the Canadian writers I’ve met have been uniformly generous. No matter whether you are competing with them directly in the marketplace, they are happy to share their experiences, champion your books and offer advice.

And hey, Margaret Atwood actually answered one of my tweets once. I can’t guarantee that it’s because I’m Canadian, but Canada is a great country to live and work in, and, as a writer, I’m happy to be here.

Catherine McKenzie’s latest novel is Arranged. She lives in Montreal, where she is a practising lawyer.

Donna Milner

Yes.

In the present publishing climate it would be easy to give a cynical reply, lamenting the negatives – the minuteness of our market on a global basis, the average “starvation” income of professional writers in Canada, the difficulty for new writers to break into the somewhat exclusive “literary” community.

But putting the semantics of the publishing industry aside, it’s also easy to take for granted that we live in a country where the opportunity and the freedom to find a quiet space to write is – as it should be – a given. Even though what I write is fiction, the seed and the result must be truth. Both of my novels deal in some way with controversial issues; in today’s unquiet world, I am constantly aware of my good fortune in living in a part of that world where I have the right to write my truth without fear of any harsher consequence than an unfavourable review.

Donna Milner is the author of two novels including The Promise of Rain, a Globe Top 100 Book for 2010. She lives north of Williams Lake, B.C.

Marina Nemat

Yes, Canada is a great place to be a writer. I was born in Iran and went to prison in that country at the age of 16. One of my “crimes” was having written articles in the school newspaper, criticizing the Islamic Republic. In those articles, I had written against the new Islamic dress code for women and the banning of music and Western literature.

Canada gave my voice back to me. For four years now, I have been writing memoirs and articles in Canada, and I have not been arrested. I have even had the great honour to represent Canada at international literary events and book fairs.

All this said, I think the Canadian government can do more for Canadian writers. Maybe instead of spending money on fake lakes, we can invest a little more in our artists and give them better opportunities to be seen and heard around the world. Books carry the human experience, and writers are the cornerstones of every country’s culture and identity; but even more than that, they are the guardians of freedom and democracy.

Marina Nemat is the author of Prisoner of Tehran and After Tehran: A Life Reclaimed. She lives in Toronto.

Hal Niedzviecki

Canada is one of the worst places in the world to be a writer. A country that really supports its writers would be a place where writers were free to write whatever they wanted without fear of suppression. Writers would even able to access grants from government-funded agencies to pen their potentially provocative musings. But it doesn’t stop there. In this hypothetical haven for writers, the government would not only fund the authors, but also help publishers – small and large – publish the books the writers eventually produced.

Wait, wait, I’m not done yet! There would be festivals across the country where writers were invited, even paid, to present their work. And, how about this wild idea: In each town and neighbourhood, there would be libraries where anyone, rich or poor, could go to read the works of the writers for absolutely free.

I know, I know, it’s crazy! In this fantastical place, there would be prizes, veritable fistfuls of them, handed out to writers. Writers, particularly those nominated for the prizes, would be discussed on TV, the radio and in newspapers all over the land. The less busy, un-nominated writers, would gather in cafes where they would gossip about the nominated, sip fair-trade espressos and grouse about being overlooked. That’s right, in this dream country, being overlooked would be the major issue for most writers. Can you imagine? What a country! What a place to live and work as a writer! Someone pinch me, I need to stop dreaming.

Hal Niedzviecki is the fiction editor and publisher of Broken Pencil: the magazine of zine culture and the independent arts. He is the author of eight books including the forthcoming book of short stories Look Down, This Is Where It Must Have Happened (April). He lives in Toronto.

Roberta Rich

A resounding and heartfelt yes! I was at a writers’ conference recently and told another author of my great good fortune to be published by Random House Canada and she, a writer with many more notches on her gun belt than me, replied. “You are so lucky. Canadian publishers give you the kind of care and attention you will never receive elsewhere.”

To live in a country that is top of the chart for “active readers,” i.e. book buyers and book readers, is a privilege. Canada is a country where books and reading are not only valued but encouraged both through public and private funding: writers’ festivals, conferences, workshops, courses at every level for creative writers, the list goes on and on. To be a writer in a country where few people read or value books would not be half so rewarding.

And our long cold dreary winters? It’s enough to drive you to fire the hard drive and write. Or curl up with a cup of coffee and read. When it comes to the printed word, Canada rocks!!!

Roberta Rich is the American-born author of The Midwife of Venice. She lives in Vancouver, B.C. and Colima, Mexico

Candace Savage

There is no life apart from the writing life that I would choose to live. Still, I have to say that earning a buck as a writer in Canada is difficult. Sadly, it’s harder now than when I started out in this business 35 years ago. Back then, an ambitious young writer had a lot more arrows in her quiver, including a choice of national magazines, a diverse list of small- and mid-sized publishers, and a range of freelance gigs. Over the years, many of these options have been discontinued. Although e-books and online venues are now helping attract new readers, they pay miserably, if at all.

The situation would be insupportable if it weren’t for the Canadian tradition of public funding for the arts. Without the backing of the Canada Council and other agencies, there would be little or no home-grown publishing in this country. Think what that would mean not only for writers but also for readers of Canadian lit. Would it have been easier to keep my writing dreams alive in some other country: Burundi or Guatemala, say, or even the U.S.A.? I can’t be certain, but it doesn’t seem likely.

My mother used to tell me, “Sometimes you just have to be grateful for you have.” And, without giving up my constitutional right to grumble, grateful I am.

Candace Savage is the author of, most recently, Prairie: A Natural History. She likes in Saskatoon.

Merilyn Simonds

It has been. It will be. But at the moment, writers struggle against a misconception that art lives and dies by the same rules as entertainment; that athletes contribute more to society and therefore deserve more support than artists; that the primary producers of all that nurtures a population rightly belong at the bottom of an inverted economic pyramid. Writers are the farmers of the mind, the fishers of the soul; we share the same low status and popular disinterest. Is it better elsewhere? Perhaps. But adversity sharpens the nibs of our pens.

Merilyn Simonds’s latest book is A New Leaf: Growing with my Garden. She lives outside Kingston, Ont.

Phyllis Smallman

I write mysteries set in Florida but I was published because I am a Canadian and was eligible for the first Unhanged Arthur awarded by the Crime Writers of Canada. My winning manuscript was read by McArthur & Co. and, four books later, McArthur is still my publisher.

But the writing world has changed. With Kindle, and all the other electronic readers, my books are instantly available in Hong Kong, Regina or Tampa. Electronic publishing knows no borders, and in a global marketplace it doesn’t matter where your publisher is or where you live. Now the question is: How can a writer stand out in a global market? How do you make yourself known to those millions of readers?

I’m glad I had a chance to build a readership in Canada before the writing world went tilt, and I’m happy I have a publisher who works hard for her authors. It’s the only advantage you can have. And I’m betting a smaller publisher will be able to adapt faster to this new industry than the big publishing houses. But whatever happens next it will be an exciting ride.

Phyllis Smallman is the author of the award-winning Sherri Travis mystery series. Her fourth book, Champagne for Buzzards, will be published later this month. She divides her time between Salt Spring Island, B.C., and Manasota Beach, Florida.

Russell Smith

No, for financial reasons. It is easy to get published here, as there are so many subsidized small and regional and specialty presses. But it is well known that it is impossible to make a living on Canadian book sales alone, and the international presses have been much more cautious about acquiring Canadian titles since the financial crisis.

Of course there are a few big winners in Canada, but there are only winners and losers – that is, there are those who win the major prizes and Canada Reads, and the rest who vanish down an echoless well. So there is no such thing as a “mid-list” any more (the mid-list is the euphemism used by publishers for unpopular authors – and it used to be possible to make a small living from this position). In the United States, a “cult following” can make one quite successful: This country’s population is too small to make a “cult following” mean anything more than failure.

Russell Smith’s latest novel is Girl Crazy. He is a regular contributor to the Globe and Mail and lives in Toronto.

Jessica Westhead

Yes, absolutely – both nationally and locally. I’ve been part of Toronto’s supportive literary community since 1998, when I moved here from the suburbs and joined Jim Munroe’s “Hoity Toity Writers’ Group”. The Hoities encouraged me to make zines, which I hawked at small-press fairs. That’s how I met Alana Wilcox of Coach House Books, who later published my first novel. I met my current publisher, Marc Côté of Cormorant Books, after he recommended me for a grant through the Ontario Arts Council’s Writers’ Reserve program. I’ve also received grant funding from the Canada Council for the Arts, and my fiction has benefited from free lectures on writing craft sponsored by the Toronto Public Library.

My confidence increased and I met more local writers by performing at Toronto reading series, and I met writers from across the country at the Banff Wired Writing Studio. The literary journals Taddle Creek (Toronto), The New Quarterly (Waterloo), and Geist (Vancouver) not only carefully edited and beautifully published my stories, but also continue to cheer on my writing. Independent bookstores including Toronto’s Type Books and Book City, Guelph’s Bookshelf, and Ottawa’s Octopus Books have all generously promoted my work. I love it here.

Jessica Westhead is the author of And Also Sharks and Pulpy & Midge. She lives in Toronto.

Mark Zuehlke

From the perspective of a popular historian, Canada is a good country for a writer. This is because so much of the large canvas of national experience that is our history remains untold or poorly told. When my attention turned to the experience of the nation’s army in World War II, I expected a field already crowded with books about battles fought. Not the case. So the Canadian Battle Series, which will run to a dozen volumes, was born. It is much the same with many other chapters in our history.

That said, the challenge for Canadian popular historians mirrors that of our poets, novelists, and most other writers – how to make writing these stories financially viable in a small market. Most Canadian history is unlikely to resonate south of the border or across the Atlantic in Britain, so book sales are primarily limited to the home front. Fine if Canadians showed a keen interest in their history. Although I have seen much improvement in recent years, we are still not a nation where most readers look to the past to help understand the present and future. But I remain hopeful this too is changing.

Mark Zuehlke’s most recent Canadian Battle Series title is On To Victory: The Canadian Liberation of the Netherlands, March 23–May 5, 1945. The next in the series, Breakout from Juno, will be available in November. He lives in Victoria, B.C.