In the Skin of a Writer: Getting to Know You

Toronto is full of great stories and great storytellers who can convey every feeling and every action into words. To celebrate the city's literary pedigree, Torontoist sat down with Judy Fong Bates and Terry Fallis, two acclaimed Toronto-based authors, for a four-part series to discuss their journeys as writers and their visions for the future of storytelling.

Photo of Terry Fallis by Tim Fallis. Photo of Judy Fong Bates by Michael Bates.

Judy Fong Bates has detailed the interior lives of Chinese immigrants in a collection of short stories, China Dog, and a novel, Midnight at the Dragon Café. She is the recipient of an Alex Award from the American Library Association and has been featured as a Great New Writer by the giant bookstore chain Barnes & Noble. When described as a veteran author, Bates, who is at work on a third book, is hesitant of the distinction: "I'm in a weird spot. As a writer, I think I'm still quite young," she says, modest of her decade of experience as a published author, "but, in terms of age, I guess I'm not the youngest!"

In writing, age ain't nothing but a number. (Bates jokes, "I probably wouldn't be able to have this kind of career as a ballerina.") Judy Fong Bates was born in 1949 in China and came to Canada as a child. She grew up in small Ontario towns, from which she drew the inspiration for her writing. Dragon Café, she recalls, sprung from her travels across the province when she realized that in every small town there was almost certainly a Chinese restaurant. (Upon the completion of the railways, Chinese immigrants opened businesses based on low-skilled work, such as restaurants and laundries, to survive.) The families who ran the restaurants—serving Canadianized versions of Chinese cuisine, like chicken balls—were sometimes the only Asians living in the town, part of a string of isolated, lonely posts across the land.

In the work of Bates, Toronto as the big city is a place for the major events in life. People get married in its churches or seek treatment for illnesses in its hospitals. Chinatown promises excitement and belonging for those who feel marooned in small towns. In her own life, Bates felt a sense of validation after moving to Toronto. "In a small town, one feels like an outsider with a nose pressed against the window looking in. In Toronto, the community—and not just for the Chinese—is big enough for even outsiders to have their own circles." She found not only a home in High Park, but also a circle of kindred spirits (she counts fellow Canadian writer Wayson Choy as a close friend and an "inspiration") and a place to share her stories.

In 1978, during his last year at Leaside High School, Terry Fallis dreamt of writing a novel. However, the idea for his Canadian political novel The Best Laid Plans didn't come to him until decades after he'd graduated. The gestation period may have been worth the wait, though, as Fallis not only fulfilled his dream, but won the 2008 Leacock Medal for Humour for his first published effort. Born in Toronto, he has spent the last year participating in readings across his hometown including at Harbourfront ("My butterflies were in full flight") and Word On The Street ("A reasonably good crowd turned out and not all of them family and friends").

The inspiration for the novel came from the years Fallis spent in Ottawa working in politics. It was on Parliament Hill that the germ of the story of a burnt-out politico who arrives like a fish-out-of-the-water to a small Ontario town took hold. In The Best Laid Plans, Daniel Addison travels to Cumberland with a mission to find a Liberal candidate for an election campaign he knows is likely to fail. He discovers a reluctant candidate in his landlord, Angus McLintock, an engineering professor with a passion for hovercrafts. The choice of McLintock ends up being a—to put it in political jargon—game-changer, and Addison gets more than he bargained for when McLintock gets all maverick-y.

Fallis drew inspiration for The Best Laid Plans from working nearly a decade in Ottawa. He felt leaving our nation's capital and returning to Toronto was essential to writing the novel: "I needed the distance to properly reflect and gain perspective on Ottawa." He admits there's a sort of "gravitation pull" that is unique to Ottawa: "It warps your perspective," he laughs. Having tackled the politics in the capital, Fallis says he'd like to set a novel in Toronto. "It's where I've lived for all but eight years of my life," he explains. It would be, in other words, a story of his home.

Tomorrow, we ask the authors about their start in writing and how they conquer staring at a blank screen.

Photo of restaurant sign by Cityhearts and photo of Ottawa by PDPhotography, both from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.