Lynn Coady
Lynn Coady
Lynn Coady is a Canadian novelist and journalist...
NationalityCanadian
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth24 January 1970
CountryCanada
chunk claim preference time
Readers who claim a preference for short-form over long often tell me it's because they don't have time to commit to a book-length chunk of writing.
avoid grab grown hairy matter might point reins
I avoid writing about sex out of a certainty that no matter how grown up and matter-of-fact I might try to be, there is a snickering yet nun-terrorized 12-year-old-boy inside me who would at some point be certain to grab the reins in his hairy palms.
last looked spent stop typical university
It's the typical mid-life crisis kind of thing, where you just stop and wonder, 'Should I go back to university and get a law degree?' I kind of looked around me and thought, 'What kind of idiot am I that I've just spent the last 10 years writing novels? Financially, I'm pretty much where I was when I was 28.'
author best dirt famous stories supposed talk
The one thing I've always done as an author is talk to my publicists. Because they have all the best stories - and they have all the dirt on other, more famous and important writers. They're not supposed to talk about it, but sometimes you can get awesome little tidbits from them.
across begun both chest couple dead experience hands lying middle ominous pick tunnel wake
As a novelist, you have to pick your battles. You are tired. You have begun to experience the first ominous tinglings of carpal tunnel syndrome. You wake up in the middle of the night with both hands lying across your chest like a couple of plucked bird carcasses, dead of all sensation.
heads
Most don't live inside their heads as a writer does, having conversations with her own ideas.
deal great heavy lifting narrative overlook plot prose readers
Considerations of plot do a great deal of heavy lifting when it comes to long-form narrative - readers will overlook the most ham-fisted prose if only a writer can make them long to know what happens next.
chewing evasive imagining letter scenarios series slap
Occasionally, chewing over some random letter writer's dilemma, I'll find myself imagining scenarios where the problem could be sidestepped by an innocent fib or series of evasive manoeuvres. Then, I slap myself on the wrist.
body gamer heady human pleasures reaching requires temporary
I should say I am not much of a gamer - anymore. The reason for this is that I have to make a living, and my body requires vitamin D, and I've come to value the heady pleasures of human interaction over the temporary exhilaration of reaching the 'next level.'
diet entertainment literary organize people readings shake snap until
Literary readings aren't going to shake their reputation as the added-fibre of our entertainment diet until the people who organize and participate in them snap out of this mentality.
bring good impulse kid ourselves
I really do think of it in moral terms. I think that we can't kid ourselves that the storytelling impulse is innocent and does nothing but bring good to the world.
certain expecting forgot line social strongly time uncertain whenever written
Something I've always written about is social expectations: that the eyes of the community are on you all the time, expecting you to line up with certain social norms, certain behaviours. Whenever you forgot about them, they'd be strongly reiterated to you, in no uncertain terms.
canada narrative outlets running showcase stories
We like long-form narrative journalism, and we feel there aren't enough high-profile outlets in Canada running the kind of stories we want to showcase - long, meaty, thoughtful, investigative.
We are all somebody's children, and when we're in pain, we regress, instinctively looking to our parents to make everything better.