How to get yourself a publisher for your literary translation:

Know someone in the business. Ouch! I hate to admit it, but the only reason that this translation is being published is because of having friends in high places... In my defence, this is true of the work of a number of celebrated writers, including Jack Kerouac and Emily Dickinson. But here was my process: I have a translation credit on a trilogy of plays that I co-translated with Shelley Tepperman, one of my profs from Concordia.

The plays were translated by Talon Books, so I figured that if I sent them my proposal for this novel, they might pick it up because I'm already on their register. The proposal included a cover letter, my CV and a writing sample of the prologue and the first 3 chapters (which you can check out here). Just for good measure, I also sent it to Anansi, and Oberon Press and a couple others too... Imagine my dismay when, in reply to the 5 proposals I sent out, I received 4 rejection letters. There was one that hadn't replied: it was Talon Books! I kept my hopes up for a good little while, until I realized that they hadn't even bothered to get back to me.

That year, I went back to Winnipeg for Christmas, and was telling my tale of woe to my friend from junior high, and she said, "Well, why didn't you pitch it to me?" She manages a small press that belongs to her friend; it's called Loon Books. I knew that she was running this company, but I also knew that the company specialized in childrens' books, and in books tailored to teach literacy skills to aboriginal children. The other end of the spectrum from Crimes horticoles. But she's taking it on (without a doubt, she accepted it because she wanted to support me, but also because she thought it would be a cool project) and we're negotiating a contract with Leméac, the French-language publisher. Yay!