The Wandering Bibliophile

Better late than never, because life often gets in the way of blog post schedules.

A few years ago, a friend of mine, Michael Hingston, had a brilliant idea to make a Short Story Advent Calendar (SSAC) for Christmas 2015. That first calendar was a thing of beauty designed by Natalie Olsen and edited by Mike. The great thing about the calendar is that it contains classic stories, established authors, and writers just getting started in their careers (and often a local writer or two for good measure). I like to think I played a small part in the continuation of that enterprise by passing a copy on to comedian Patton Oswalt, who I had come to know over Twitter through our mutual love of books, scotch, strong tea, and saltines. Patton loved the SSAC and last year, in addition to the SSAC 2017, Hingston and Olsen (by then an official publishing house) worked in collaboration with Patton Oswalt to put out The Ghost Box, a Halloween advent calendar of 13 individually bound spooky stories that was so pretty it won an Alcuin Society Award for Excellence in Book Design in Canada.

I first met Mike in 2013 when he was writing the books column for the Edmonton Journal and I had suggested to the MacEwan Book of the Year Committee that he would be an excellent candidate to interview Michael Ondaatje when he came to town to do a public reading of The Cat’s Table as part of the Book of the Year celebrations. We had known one another virtually for a little while because local book nerds do find one another on Twitter. Mike was an astute reviewer, and also happens to be a big fan of literature in translation, like me, so we got along like a house on fire.

Mike has been writing for a number of years and has published in Wired, The Washington Post, and The Atlantic. His debut novel, The Dilettantes, came out from Freehand Books in Calgary in 2013. (I got a hot tip that you can now order signed copies from Mike while supplies last, just go to his website.) Mike has just published his first non-fiction book at ECW Press (one of Canadian independent publishing’s old guard, in business since 1974). Let’s Go Exploring: Calvin and Hobbes is an investigation into the history of Bill Watterson’s beloved comic strip and what it says about the power of imagination. It’s a great read.

I’m sure Hingston and Olsen are hard at work on SSAC 2018—and who knows what else they have up their creative sleeves—but be sure to watch their Twitter feed (@hingstonolsen) and website later this fall for updates. The calendars usually sell out pretty quickly, so make sure to get your order in early (and order more than one, because it’s a great gift for the book lovers in your life!).

The other thing I want people to take away from this post is the importance of community and connection. Mike is a great example of the kind of person who does well not just because of his talent (which he has in spades), and his hard work (which it exhausts me to even think about), but because he is an active and positive member of the literary community who understands the importance of community (between authors, readers, publishers, booksellers). Mike has supported indie publishers, local bookshops, other writers and their projects (like the very cool YEGWORDS coffee sleeve project from Jason Lee Norman (@bellyofawhale), and readers in whatever way he can (whether that be through book swaps/donations, reviews, social media, etc.). Enthusiasm and encouragement are an important part of the literary community, especially in one as toxic as the current CanLit scene. So, I want to spend the summer lifting up what I love, sharing, making connections, and creating community.