Amy Jones is the author of three books of fiction: the short story collection What Boys Like and Other Stories, and two novels: We’re All In This Together (now a motion picture) and Every Little Piece of Me. Her latest novel, Pebble and Dove, will come out this spring! I’ve never met Amy in person, but I feel as though I have. She’s incredibly generous, hilarous and real on social media, and she has the cutest little potato-dog named Iggy.

First, tell me about your publication journey—from your first book of stories, What Boys Like and Other Stories, which won the Metcalf-Rooke Award and was published by Biblioasis to having your next two books (We’re All in This Together and Every Little Piece of Me), published by one of the “big” publishers, McLelland & Stewart.

I wrote What Boys Like as my MFA thesis, and getting it published was so deceptively easy—the editor read a story of mine in a literary magazine and reached out to me for a full manuscript—that I thought that was what it was always going to be like! I had no idea I had basically just won the lottery. I was extremely green at the time—I thought, okay now I’m a WRITER, it’s all up from here! Then I didn’t publish a book for another seven years. I wrote two novels, one that never saw the light of day, and one that every publisher in the world rejected. It was really humbling, and eye-opening. So I went back and started from scratch. I wrote and published more short stories, two of which were chosen for the Journey Prize Anthology, which put me on the radar of McClelland & Stewart who publishes the anthology. When Anita Chong, my future editor, reached out to my agent to see if I had a novel I was working on, I LIED and said I had ten chapters (I had maybe 4) and then wrote the rest in… a weekend? She read them and asked when I thought I might have a full manuscript, I lied again and told her it was almost finished and I could have it to her in a couple of weeks. But she saw something in that complete mess of a draft (and a person) that she could work with, and she signed me to a two-book deal.

I do not recommend this method! But at the time I felt like it was a real “Lose Yourself” moment, you know? You only get one shot, etc. etc.

Now, tell me about your movie deal for We’re All in This Together! How did it happen, was it the cash cow we’re all told movie deals are, how did it feel to see your book on screen, etc.?

It was 2017, I think, right after WAITT came out. My agent had a client, Katie Boland, who was a writer, actress, and filmmaker looking for a Canadian novel to adapt into a screenplay that she could star in, and he gave her my book. She’s said the thing that attracted her to it was that she could play twins, along with adapting, directing, and producing it, which makes me exhausted just thinking about it! Katie optioned the book, and we met a few times and talked about the themes of the book and what was most important to me for her to include. She was really interested in the mental health angle, which made sense to me. But of course there was stuff that had to be cut out, too—it’s a long book! The result was a much tighter, less chaotic story that focuses on the twin characters and their mother. Once Katie wrote the script, she went through the process of getting it funded. I still remember the night she sent me a message saying it was a go. Everyone was so excited, and I was too, obviously, but I was also like… of course? She’s a genius, she can do anything.

I wasn’t really involved much after that, until the film was made, when I got to go to some festivals and do some Q&As with Katie, which was super fun. Seeing the movie on screen for the first time (at home, during the virtual Vale Film Festival) was SURREAL. You know when you’re writing, how you picture the scenes playing out in your head? It was like Katie had gone in and filmed in my mind. It looked exactly how I pictured it. And it was like these people who I made up in my head had been brought to life. It was maybe the most emotional experience of my life.

Also, haha, cash cow. I mean, yes and no? When the movie did get made and I got the cheque, it was certainly the biggest cheque I’d ever cashed in my life, but it wasn’t even as much as a Canada Council grant. But this was an independent Canadian movie, as opposed to a big Hollywood blockbuster, and it was a miracle that it even got made at all. I learned a lot about the industry just watching Katie navigate all the hurdles—funding and filmmaking and festivals and distribution, etc., not to mention COVID!—and it made me glad that I am a writer! But she is so good at all of that, so talented and determined. From the moment I met her, I had no doubt she was going to pull it off. And I wasn’t in it for the money! Meeting and working with Katie, and seeing the synthesis of my vision and her vision was what made the whole experience worthwhile.

What is your opinion on awards? How much stock should authors put on them? Do you think they helped establish you as a writer when you were starting out (e.g., the CBC story prize, being a finalist for the Bronwen Wallace Award, being in Best Canadian Stories and the Journey Prize anthology) and made you look good to potential publishers, and then do you think the awards that We’re All in This Together won and was shortlisted for helped with book sales and with the sale of your next book?

When I first started writing, I would submit to contests because there were no rejections with contests—you just didn’t win. But I would be lying if I said those early awards—CBC, Bronwen Wallace, Journey Prize—didn’t help me. It’s not a one-to-one correlation, like you win an award, you get a publishing deal, but the more name recognition you have, the more likely an editor or agent is going to pick your manuscript out of the pile to read. When it comes to awards for published books, I’m not sure. I had a two-book deal, so Every Little Piece of Me was going to happen, regardless of how well We’re All in This Together did. And since I’ve been publishing books, my focus has always been more on reaching readers than getting awards. A book club invite or a nice note from a reader means way more to me than an award nomination! But of course, awards can often mean more readers, so… I guess the short version is, don’t get too hung up on them, because there are many, many other ways for a book to be successful.

What do you do aside from writing (i.e., how do you feed and house yourself) and how do you manage your time between your other work (feeding and housing work) and your creative writing?

I’ve always cobbled together a living outside writing by working a variety of gigs—currently, I am program manager at the Flying Books School of Reading and Writing, as well as a writing mentor for their mentorship program. I also am a copy editor for The Walleye, an arts and culture magazine based in Thunder Bay. I’ve taught creative writing, worked at bookstores, worked admin for arts organizations, worked other kinds of retail, babysat … anything I could to get by. But even though I’ve struggled, I’m still coming from a place of great privilege–I have a partner who has a full-time job (as well as being a writer!) and I have also benefited from generational wealth. I think it’s important to be honest about these things, because the industry is an incredibly challenging one for those without a safety net of some kind.

I mean, that said, I still have a mortgage, and I still have to juggle time! And the answer to how I do this is… poorly. I am not a write-everyday kind of writer. I will go weeks without writing, and then panic-write in spurts. I take on too much stuff and the writing falls to the side, and I end up staying up until three in the morning to finish an edit. I am still learning how to prioritize my writing, even after all these years.

What are your thoughts on Goodreads? Do you think authors should ignore it, worry about it, engage with it? Do you ever use it to decide whether or not to read a book?

I never go on Goodreads. I basically try to forget it exists! I think of it as a place for readers, not writers, and what readers post there about my book is none of my business. And I mean, of course I am a reader myself, but I mostly rely on recos from friends and booksellers, social media, literary events, etc. to find my next read—honestly I never have any trouble finding books I want to read!

How about agents? Should every fiction writer get an agent, even if they want to publish with small presses, and how should an author find an agent that’s right for them? How has having an agent helped you?

I’ve had my agent since just after What Boys Like was published. It was the right decision for me, but I do know people who have decided to go it on their own. I just don’t have that skill set—I have zero hustle, and I don’t have the capacity to make deals or parse contracts or even advocate for myself, really. When it comes to the publishing industry, I’m embarrassingly clueless. But I think, even if you do have that capacity, there’s something to be said for having someone in your corner who can help you make sense of what can sometimes be a very confusing industry. But as I said, it’s not right for everyone. I know that it can be enormously difficult to find an agent in these times, and I don’t think the inability to find an agent should discourage new writers. I mean, I did publish my first book without an agent, and that’s in fact what got me my agent. The road is not straight for any of us!

How do you deal with the deflating side of being an author—not being mentioned on lists of books “we’re anticipating,” not being on awards lists, negative reviews, etc.

I keep a list of everyone who has ever snubbed me or said anything negative about my work, and then I work them into my writing as a character and have an anvil fall on their head or something.

I’m, like, 75% joking? But I do just try to focus my energy on the next thing I’m writing. Once a book comes out, everything is out of my hands—who buys it, who reads it, who likes it. Dwelling on it will only drive you completely bananas. When a book is published, it kind of feels to me like it might feel sending a kid off to college—you hope you’ve done your best with them, but they’re on their own now, and you have to let them go do what they’re going to do. (Also, I am really, really good at compartmentalizing!)

What would be your number one piece of advice for an emerging author (a) creatively and (b) about the business side of writing?

I can’t tell you how many new writers I’ve encountered who think that, if you’re actually a good writer, you only write good things all the time. I’m a really slow learner, and believe me when I tell you I SUCKED when I first started writing. I also write REAMS of trash, even now. I’m not saying that needs to be everyone’s process, but I also think that a lot of people equate talent with getting something perfect the first time. And that’s just not going to happen, whether it’s your first book or your 15th. Talent isn’t something that comes down and strikes you like a lightning bolt, and there is no muse that you will channel to write the perfect book. You can practice, you can read, you can talk to other writers, you can train yourself to look at everything around you as a literary puzzle to figure out, you can break down the creative process in order to understand it better—there are a million things you can do, actively, to make your writing better. The only thing that won’t make you a better writer is not writing.

I guess on the business side of things, I’d just say respect your readers? Be kind to people? Give back as much as you can? I don’t know, that doesn’t sound very businessy.

And finally, what are you working on now?

I have a new novel coming out in spring 2023, called Pebble and Dove. Not one anvil falls on anyone’s head.

AMY JONES's first novel, We're All in This Together, was a national bestseller, won the Northern Lit Award, and was a finalist for the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour. Her debut collection of stories, What Boys Like, won the Metcalf-Rooke Award and was a finalist for the ReLit Award. She won the 2006 CBC Literary Prize for Short Fiction, was a finalist for the 2005 Bronwen Wallace Award, and is a graduate of the Optional Residency MFA Program in Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia. Her fiction has appeared in Best Canadian Stories and The Journey Prize Stories.

Amy's second novel, Every Little Piece of Me, was published by McClelland & Stewart in June 2019.

Amy has taught creative writing at Lakehead University and served as the Northwestern Ontario Writers Workshop’s e-Writer in Residence in 2015. Currently, she teaches creative writing at the University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies and is a mentor in the Flying Books Mentorship program. Originally from Halifax, she lived in Thunder Bay for many years before moving to Toronto.