Today I found out that Cort McMeel passed away. That he took his own life this weekend. I don’t have all the details and I can’t speak to it as eloquently, or intimately, as his great friend Les Edgerton, who paid tribute to Cort earlier today. 

What I will say is that I’ve been corresponding with Cort for the past few years, that my good friend Leah Chamberlain, a classmate and colleague from my days at Cardiff University’s writing MA, put us in touch after being taught by him at the Lighthouse Writer’s Workshop in Denver. She had long edited my writing when I was out in the cold, and when she met Cort and worked with him she decided that we had to start a dialogue. Cort read my work and emailed me out of the blue, and he was earnest and passionate and bloody wild in his opinions on what he’d read. He encouraged me to send him more writing and to strike up a back and forth about our work.

I’ve been extraordinarily lucky in my writing career to have found a handful of mentors and supporters that have helped me grind out the days and get through the darker hours of the night. It started with Al Moritz at University of Toronto, Lindsay Clarke at Cardiff University, and since then I found another mentor in Cort and, just this past year, in Tamas Dobozy. There is something pretty special about connecting with another writer on a serious level. It is extremely rare and it happens in a very intense and immediate way. I still look up to all of those writers I name, and I try my best to mention them whenever I can, and keep them informed about any and all progress I make, because I don’t know that they realize how significant their support was when I was broke and starving and Goddamned lonely. All of those men that I mentioned have said something at one time or another to keep me from putting my head through the wall and to encourage me to keep writing. Cort was among the best of them, and I’ll miss him very much.

Cort was a publisher and editor, responsible for excellent literary journals like Murdaland and Noir Nation. He was a proud father and husband. He was an excellent writer and had his novel, “Short,” published a few years back to wide acclaim. He reached out to mentor me when he had absolutely no other reason than the fact that he liked my writing, and he wanted me to keep at it. He didn’t ask me to read his book and he didn’t brag, but he talked about his plans often. To get into a position to publish and support good authors, young and old, anyone who had some truth to lay out. He told me who to read and to keep on going, to aim ferocious at the truth of things, at real writing, at honest narrative. We got along because I felt the same way, and thought the same things about writing. It’s just that he was a much wiser and smarter man than I, and he knew more by leagues, cared more for literature as a whole than I knew how to. Over the years we knew each other I called the man ‘brother’ in my emails and I felt it in my guts. Cort could see far down the road. And he talked some sense into me at a time when I was awful low and told me to keep going down that road. All the way.

We’d been in close contact over the last year to talk about the novels we were working on. They were both centred around fighters, MMA fighters, and he wanted to swap books and tear each other to shreds until we got to the real meat of things. Cort helped publish a segment of my novel, “Work,” in the inaugural edition of Noir Nation: International Journal of Crime Fiction, and he’d finished reading the full manuscript a little while ago. I’d read the draft of his novel, “Cagefighter,” and was eagerly awaiting the final parts of it. They were very different books and that made it all the more interesting. I know he thought my book too focused on the family aspect and all the sappy stuff and he wanted more of the blood and guts, the fighting, what it really meant. His book focused hard on the mechanics of the fight, on the game, on the real blood and guts of it. I hope to see it published. I hadn’t spoken to Cort on it for a little while, and I guessed he was busy with all the things that life throws at you. I had his book in my hand this week and was going to email him again, but I didn’t.

The last I’d heard from Cort was in later January when he said he’d have notes on my novel very soon. Not long before that he’d sent me a quick message about the book. Again, just at the right time. And just the right thing in his mad, shorthand way. Just to let me know he hadn’t forgot:

Hardcastle–Halfway through…had some shit going on so got delayed…Im freaking really luvin it…more later..but you should be proud…

This meant a hell of a lot to me, I promise you. It sure does right now.

Cort. I regret that I didn’t get to talk to you more about your book, man. Or about anything else at all. I felt your words in my bones when we talked writing and I’ll do my best to keep fighting and get the novel out and keep going. Try to make you proud. You were a great mentor to me when I was taking a lot of punches and I’ll never forget it, brother.

For anyone out there who reads this, please do as Mr. Edgerton asked in his tribute and consider buying a copy of Cort McMeel’s novel “Short.” All of the royalties will go to his wife and kids and you’ll get to better know that man I’m talking about. And he was a great one.

Rest well, Cort.

Hardcastle

 

After my last post, back in January, I had about a month of bookstore mayhem to deal with before I was able to focus on properly writing again. During that time I waited to hear what would become of my new novel, with has been submitted to various Canadian publishers, a bunch of whom have dropped the same old horseshit lines about how I’m a very good writer and there is no way they can publish my book. If you are confused by that stance, join the fucking club, but that has been my life as a novelist so far.

Nonetheless, I think the book is pretty good. At the behest of my agent I’ve been reading a bunch of CanLit writers, just to see what’s out there. To be honest, there is some good writing, but it mostly just furthers my bewilderment about the machinery of Canadian publishing, and reinforces my belief that there is no intelligible pattern nor design to a lot of the decisions being made in those rooms. Nonetheless, I did have a good shot with an excellent editor recently. They fought for the novel with their publishing house’s editorial board but couldn’t get the book done. I felt like putting my head through the wall for a while, no doubt, but literary landscapes can change quick around here. Not long afterward I found out that I’m not dead in the water with this particular editor yet, and may get another kick at the can before I flat-out turn to crime. The reasons for this will all have to be left opaque for now, but I’ll say more if I hear more and feel like I can say it. In the meantime, keep all your fingers crossed, and your motherfucking toes, please.

Until then, it is a short story explosion over here. I started really laying down new stories in mid-February, and since then I’ve finished, edited, and submitted five stories to Canadian and US journals. The very first one I submitted, which is called “We gotta save the leg,” was accepted by a very good online journal called Little Fiction, run by the affable and goddamned expedient Troy Palmer. I’m not sure when it will come out, but keep an eye out for more news on that one, and check out what Little Fiction are all about by clicking this link: LITTLE FICTION

 

As I mentioned, I’ve got a number of other stories under consideration at various journals across North America. Here’s a list of their titles and a brief rundown of what horribleness they entail:

Raccoon – 3077 words

– Wherein an up and coming female Muay Thai fighter blows out a disc in her lower back. Tries to get by during one of the worst snowstorms on record. Takes a fair amount of medications one evening and adventures out in the white. Sees something heinous near a city backalley.

Thought you were fast – 4082 words

– Story about a contractor with a young family who struggles to impress his boy as a upstanding human male. Somebody he knows dies. Wayward cattle try to kill him. Things are set on fire.

Bandits – 9045 words

– In which a son learns the outlaw trade of snowmobile robbery from his hillbilly father, his uncles. Meets a townie girl. Struggles with the dynamics of their fragmented family. People go through the ice on sleds. People get shot. Plenty of snow and violence.

Hunted by coyotes – 9256 words

– Where a young man works one of the worst jobs ever imagined throughout Alberta. Knocks doors as a travelling sales agent for gas and power. Watches his moral compass go haywire. Sees coworkers fall off his crew. Comes to believe that all the dogs in the province are trying to kill him. Trailer parks and threats of gunplay abound.

Left arm – 3611 words

– Story about a child raised near feral by his granpa and uncle. Parents long gone. Taught to fight and taught other lowly things. Boy grows up and does not tow the line. Meets a girl. Brainpans get fractured. Prison awaits. Foul farmlands trickle down the generations.

If any of that sounds interesting to you, then great, keep your eyes peeled. I’ve got plans for a bunch more and hope to grind them out day by day. If any of them land I’ll let people know.

 

Thanks again for supporting my writings and ravings about the whole deal. I’d say I’ll try to post more on here but it would probably be a lie, unless there is something useful to say. Maybe if I can get some actual steady string of short stories accepted I’ll be able to fire posts up at a better clip. Who knows? Until then I’ll been drinking a bunch of beer and thinking up more awful shit to write about. None of it will have semicolons, exclamation points, or first-person present-tense. There will be absolutely no poetry. Ever.

Follow me on Twitter if you want, for more regular, daily nonsense: KHardcase. Or don’t, and go suck an egg.

Take care and believe in your dreams and whatnot.

KH

 

It’s a new year, so I figured I’d show up on here for once and talk about what’s up. It’s been awhile since I last wrote a post, back in November right after the Writers’ Trust Gala, and there isn’t really all that much new stuff to report but I’ll give it a go anyway.

I finished my second novel on November 8th and sent it off to my agent, Meggie Macdonald. And, after a couple of weeks of tinkering with it, we got it to where we wanted it to be and she started getting it ready for submission. The best part of my Journey Prize experience was meeting with other writers, editors, and publishers, and other people involved in promoting Canadian literature, and Meggie made sure to get the manuscript off to those editors that I spoke with and who didn’t think I was a complete dickhead.

The title of the novel is “Songs at the Dying of the Day,” which was taken from a line in the latter half of the novel and suggested by Meggie Mac herself. I am not awesome at titling things, unless something strikes my fancy as I write a story or book. I had this novel under the title “Work” because that is what I called the segment of it that was published in an American online literary crime fiction journal called Noir Nation. But I think her suggestion suits the novel, even if I forgot I wrote that title in a line of the book. But give me a fucking break. There are lots of lines in there.

All in all, the new book is with a couple dozen editors at publishing houses in Canada and the US, and Meggie tells me that she thinks it will “ruin people.” That’s what I wanted to hear. I know that a manuscript always has its flaws, and I’m sure I could do some work to make this fucker really shine, but I’ve read what’s out there and I know where this one should stack up. It is better than the last novel I wrote, which was pretty good but never found a home. I think it is about shit that really matters, and I would put the writing itself up against most other authors and take my lumps if I was wrong. Nonetheless, I’ve been through this process before and I know how the game is played, so we got our fingers crossed and in the meantime I’m just gonna keep writing, keep working on some new short stories, and wait to see which way my life is gonna go this year.

I’ve already got some early rejections. Which are hilarious as always. It’s hard to listen to someone tell you they think you are a significant writer or that you write as well as anybody out there and then they tell you they can’t take a shot at it. But, in the end, you gotta have faith in the quality of the work. If you know it is good, and the right people know it is good, and worth publishing, you have to believe somewhere in your heart that everyone who rejects it is a dumbass and that they will one day regret passing on it. They likely aren’t and the probably wont, but, in my experience, that is the kind of assholery you need to master, at least in your own brain, in your “me” time after you read about your rejections, if you ever hope to have the fortitude to make a living at this trade.

To do that properly you do need to have a couple of people you trust who will tell you what sucks and what doesn’t, and you need to listen to them, but that is something I’m lucky to have had for a while now. Which is why I’m so belligerent, and why I don’t just quit this whole deal and start a life of crime.

If anything breaks with this novel it will likely happen pretty soon in this new year. Either way, I will let the twelve people who have ever looked at this site know about it. And I’ll even tell some people in person, as we used to do it the old days. Until then I’ve got some new stories on the go. I got some of my notes and plans up there in the picture above this post, and those notes are from the end of one story I’m working on and another one that has been a long time coming. Ever since my prairie odyssey from 2005-2010. I’ve learned in my time that the best thing to do when waiting on a response to your writing is to write a bunch more shit and send it out. So that it is the plan. I just gotta get a handle on my shite job and manage my beer time and Muay Thai time. Then I’ll have a few more stories out there in the world.

Thanks for reading up on my junk and thanks for the support, and thanks to all the poor souls who met me last year through the Journey Prize/Writers’ Trust events and made the hilarious mistake of following me on twitter and/or investigating my other writing.

Take care all, and happy new year.

KH

I didn’t really get a chance to say what all went down over the last couple of weeks, what with work and writing stuff and punching things at the gym. But now that the big Writers’ Trust Gala is over, I figured I’ll get something on here.

Alex Pugsley won The Journey Prize for his story “Crisis on Earth-X,” published in The Dalhousie Review. I got a chance to meet Pugsley doing a short interview for The National Post, and he is a genuinely nice guy and a good writer, so I congratulate him on the win. Afterword, me and the other finalist, Andrew Hood, hung out at the pub and had a couple twenty drinks. He was a cool guy too, so there were no hard feelings nor chairs thrown. The bottom line is that the whole experience of being included in The Journey Prize Anthology, and especially being named as a finalist, gave us all a lot of opportunity to put ourselves out there and get some visibility while we all try to make a living at this fairly goddamned difficult way to make a living. I was definitely the least published and least known writer in those rooms, but almost everybody I talked to had something decent to say and they made you feel very welcome for just some guy. Writing is a pretty solitary thing for me, so when you get to see that there is actually a community out there that gives a shit it is an awful positive experience.

The highlight of the whole series of events for me was getting to meet and talk with Tamas Dobozy, who rightfully won the Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize for his short story collection “Siege 13.” If you ain’t read it yet, get it, read it, and tell somebody. That guy can write like hell. We are very different kinds of writers but we got along great and he was extraordinarily kind about my story, “To Have To Wait,” and even got into some of my other stuff that can be found online. Tamas is a prof at Laurier, and has a wife and kids and a lot on his plate, so having him take any time out of his day to put up with my crap is unbelievable, and I won’t soon forget it. I got that guy’s back forever.

Otherwise, I went home and licked my wounds (by which I mean I drank everything) after the Writers’ Trust Awards on the 7th, and then spent a good four hours that next night doing the final corrections on my second novel. I sent it to my agent, Meggie Macdonald, and she is figuring out what to do with it now. I think it’s pretty good, but we’ll see what happens. I met some publishers and shook some hands, and some of them have agreed to read the book. That’s about all you can ask for, is someone to give good work an honest reading. If there’s any weight to it someone will hopefully publish the stuff. So thanks to everyone I met for getting ready to give it a go and see if I am any good or not.

I had to suit up for the Writers’ Trust Gala on Thursday, the 15th, and got to hang out with a bunch of other “emerging” writers at the Apple iBookstore table, put together by Christopher Jackson, who had the misfortune of sitting beside me all night. He was an excellent fellow and I gotta thank him for letting me sit there and talk his ear off. All the fancy shit isn’t quite my bread and butter, but nobody threw me out or anything. I got a chance to talk to Amanda Hopkins, and the other Writers’ Trust staff and helped me out through the last couple of weeks, and who put on all of these amazing events. They bust their asses for writers, even for guys like me, and they deserve to be recognized for it. Also, Becky Toyne, Elizabeth Cameron, Anita Chong, and everybody else who was part of the process, you are all heroes. I appreciate all you do. Seriously.

That’s about all I got for now. I’m gonna get back into some short stories while I wait to get notes on the novel and fix it up for submission. I might have took about ten years off my life with all the booze and tie wearing, but I certainly feel like there was a fire lit under my ass to get to work on new writing and to plough ahead. Keep your head on a swivel. There is a lot more to come.

Anyway, thanks to my friends and family for all the support. Sorry I couldn’t take the big prize home for you guys, but I ain’t going nowhere. I feel like I’ve gone a long way in a couple of years, and we are just getting started here. So thanks again and keep on reading.

Take care everybody. Happy Saturday. I’m gonna get into a tallboy or twelve and watch the fights. Also, young’uns at work have convinced me to get Twitter going again. And I guess I’ll see what I can do before I get booted from the internet. So here you go. Prepare for pure nonsense.

Cheers,

Hardcastle

https://twitter.com/KHardcase

Here’s another piece from The National Post that came out today. I’m not sure if it is in the print edition of the paper, but you can read it here anyway:

The Writers’ Trust Conversations: Kevin Hardcastle and Tamas Dobozy

Big thanks to Becky Toyne for setting this one up as well, and to Elizabeth Cameron for coordinating the whole thing. Of course, there was a much larger conversation around the published Q & A, and it was an honour for an up and comer like me to have a chance to speak to a short story master like Tamas Dobozy, who is up for the Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize this evening. I am very grateful to him for taking the time to read my rants, and for ranting back some.

Hopefully you enjoy this little bit of press leading up to actual handing out of the Journey Prize this evening. On that note, I am off to get mildly fancified and probably drink a beer or six to simmer down. Win or lose I got a huge leg up from having “To have to wait“ chosen for The Journey Prize Stories, and especially from being named as a finalist. Good luck to all of the nominees, for all of the Writers’ Trust awards. Whatever happens, it’s out of my hands now and I’ll be hitting the open bar hard either way, so there’s that…

See you on the other side. Thanks for all the support. KH.

Here is the link to a joint interview that me and fellow Journey Prize finalist Alex Pugsley did a couple of weeks back. The conversation was with Armina Ligaya for the National Post.

“We’ve already crossed the finish line a couple times” – National Post/Arts/Afterword

I am not sure what happened to my head right before the photo here, but there it is. Armina had a bit of a tall order in this interview, as it was supposed to be about Toronto-centric writing stuff, and the scene in and around Parkdale. Of course, most of my writing involves hillbilly violence and I’ve not written anything about Parkdale yet, and I also know exactly zero other writers in this town. Either way, I haven’t done a writing related interview since I was about ten years old, so it was an interesting experience, and I want to thank Armina for her time, and also Becky Toyne for setting it all up.

There will be another article in the National Post this week with me and Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize/Governor General’s Award finalist Tamas Dobozy. I’ll post that as soon as it shows up.

Upon learning that ‘To Have To Wait‘ had been chosen for the Journey Prize Stories 24, The Malahat Review (who published this story back in January) asked me to answer some interview questions for them. They set me up with Linda Rogers, an acclaimed poet and member of Malahat’s advisory board, who sent me some excellent questions to reply to by rant and rave. So I did.

The interview is now up on Malahat’s website, and you can find it by clicking the hell out of this whole line that you just read.

It is a fairly lengthy conversation. But I think Linda asked some very fine questions and that those questions deserved real answers. So I tried my best to give some. Regardless, give it a read and see what you think.

Soon I’ll have some other news related to novel completion and wearing a tie to see if I can drum up a career, and I’ll keep you posted on that. But for now you should check out the interview. Thanks to Linda Rogers and The Malahat Review for all of the support. I won’t forget it:

http://web.uvic.ca/malahat/interviews/hardcastlejpinterview.html

Today I was named as one of the three finalists for the 2012 Journey Prize, for the short story ‘To Have To Wait,’ which originally appeared in The Malahat Review early this year. The image above is a screenshot from the Writers’ Trust of Canada website, and it likely proves that I did not hallucinate the whole thing as part of a whiskey fuelled fever-dream.

I’ve had a lot of congratulations today and I’ve said a bunch of thank you’s, but I want to thank everybody again for supporting my work. Some very good writers are in The Journey Prizes Stories 24, all of whom are a fair amount more reputable than I am. Nonetheless, The Malahat Review gave my story a shot and Michael Christie, Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer, and Kathleen Winter got what I was trying to do and chose the story for the top three.

Now I have to go to some a fancy dinner and some kind of gala to see if I can win the whole thing. I might even have to dress up, shave, wears shoes, and so on. I also have to find a picture of my head that isn’t utterly ridiculous so that the Writers’ Trust can put it up on their webpage. None of those are particularly bad problems to have.

Anyway, that is the news from today. The winner won’t be announced until November 7th, so, in the meantime, you should go out and grab a copy of The Journey Prize Stories 24, and read all of the writers in there, not just the buggers who made it through to the finals. I’m not gonna lie to you though, if you read my story the most I will throw you a high five.

I will keep you posted if anything else happens, and I will have an update on my latest novel soon as well. Until then, take care, thanks from deep in my surly guts for all of your support.

Here are a couple of items from today’s newscycle about the announcement, as well as the announcement of the shortlist for Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction prize, which you gotta scroll past to get to the Hardcastle:

CBC

Quill and Quire

National Post

The Toronto Star

NOW Magazine

The 24th edition of The Journey Prize Stories will be released today, and includes my story ‘To Have To Wait,’ which was originally published back in January by The Malahat Review.

All of the thirteen stories in the anthology are in contention for The Journey Prize, a $10,000 award meant to identify the very best emerging writers in Canada. The prize is made possible by James A. Michener’s generous donation of all Canadian royalties from his novel Journey. On Wednesday morning The Writers’ Trust of Canada will be announcing the finalists for the prize, and the eventual winner will be announced on November 7th.

Along with the stories, you will also find a very interesting introduction by the jury with some insight into the selection process, and some kind words about each story that was chosen. Also, some of the authors in the anthology show up in a questionnaire at the end, sharing their ideas on how not to entirely eat shit as an emerging writer. There is some pretty good stuff in there.

You can buy this sucker online through Amazon, Indigo, or directly from McClelland & Stewart, who graciously runs the competition and publishes the anthology. There are some fine stories amongst those pages, by some very good up and coming writers. But I hear that this particular collection of tales gets especially awesome from page eighteen to page thirty-six…

Thanks go out to the The Malahat Review for giving ‘To Have to Wait’ a shot (John Barton, Julie Paul, Rhonda Batchelor, Susan Sanford Blades, etc.), and to Anita Chong and the rest of the staff at McClelland & Stewart, as well as the jury who chose the stories in the anthology: Michael Christie, Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer, and Kathleen Winter. Special thanks to all the folks I’ve met along the way who have read, edited, or otherwise supported my work, namely Leah Chamberlain, Lindsay Clarke, A.F. Moritz, and Cort McMeel.

I’m in the final stages of revision on my second novel, which I hope to have out to my agent, Meghan Macdonald, by early October. Win or lose, it is a big deal to be included in The Journey Prize Stories anthology, and perhaps it will help get one of these novels sold. No matter what happens, I will keep putting in work, and you’ll probably see a bunch more of it out there over the next couple of years.

Keep your ears to the ground. I’ll post more as it comes…

Earlier this week it was announced that ‘To Have to Wait,’ a short story of mine that appeared in The Malahat Review‘s Winter 2011 issue, will be included in this year’s Journey Prize Stories anthology, and will be a contender for the $10,000 Journey Prize a little further down the road. Here is some information on the prize from the McClelland & Stewart website:

*

The $10,000 Journey Prize, now known as The Writers’ Trust of Canada/McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize, is awarded annually to an emerging and developing writer of distinction for a short story published in a Canadian literary publication. This award is made possible by James A. Michener’s generous donation of his Canadian royalties earnings from his novel Journey, published by McClelland & Stewart in 1988. The Journey Prize itself is the most significant monetary award given in Canada to a developing writer for a short story or excerpt from a fiction work-in-progress.

The winner of the Journey Prize is selected from among the stories that appear in the current volume of The Journey Prize Stories, published annually in the fall by McClelland & Stewart.

For over a decade The Journey Prize Stories has established itself as one of the most prestigious anthologies in the country, introducing readers to the finest emerging Canadian writers from coast to coast. It has become a who’s who of up-and-coming writers, and many of the authors whose early work has appeared in the anthology have gone on to distinguish themselves with acclaimed collections of stories or novels, and have won many of Canada’s most prestigious literary awards, including the Governor General’s Award, the Trillium Award, the Chapters/Books in Canada First Novel Award, and The Giller Prize.

*

Previous winners of The Journey Prize include Yann Martel, Alissa York, Jessica Grant, Yasuko Thanh, and Timothy Taylor. Other writers that have appeared in the anthology are: David Bergen, Michael Christie, Michael Crummey, Craig Davidson, Emma Donoghue, Charlotte Gill, Elizabeth Hay, Steven Heighton, Lee Henderson, Annabel Lyon, Pasha Malla, Alexander MacLeod, Lisa Moore, Heather O’Neill, Rebecca Rosenblum, Sarah Selecky, Madeleine Thien, and M.G. Vassanji.

All in all the Journey Prize, and inclusion in the Journey Prize Stories anthology, is regarded as a sort of holy grail for emerging writers in Canada. It’s an honour just to be included in the anthology, and I’m not gonna lie to you, if I won it I’d probably drink a beer or twenty.

I have to thank The Malahat Review for publishing ‘To Have to Wait,’  the staff at McClelland & Stewart and The Writers’ Trust of Canada, who run the Journey Prize, the jury that selected the story (Michael Christie, Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer, and Kathleen Winter), and my agent Meggie Macdonald at Transatlantic Literary Agency, who has championed my work for nearly two years and is working hard to get a novel sold. I also want to thank Leah Chamberlain for editing my work before any journal editor or publisher laid eyes on it, and Cort McMeel, who published an excerpt from my near-finished second novel in Noir Nation, and who continuously supports my work with profanity laced emails and calls for literary revolution.

Below is the link to the facebook page for The Journey Prize, where they are announcing each one of the included stories on a regular basis. Keep an eye out for further updates, and maybe go ahead and ‘like’ the announcement of ‘To Have to Wait.’ Thanks to everyone for their support.

http://www.facebook.com/TheJourneyPrize