Look Out! Milksop Released Today into the Wilds of Writing
Will You Catch It?
It began with a memory from 50 years ago. That memory became an image: a teenage boy from the city sits on a tractor in an unfamiliar farmyard. He can’t get the tractor started, even though the farmer showed this strange boy how to do it the night before. On a second tractor, the farmer is heading down the laneway. He doesn’t look back.
About a decade ago when I started writing fiction, I recorded that image in my writer’s notes as the seed of a story, one seed among many. Or perhaps it was more like a tiny egg. It stayed an egg, though, until I was on sabbatical in 2022-2023, when I thought maybe that egg could hatch into something more than a short story. A novella, perhaps? I started scribbling more notes, dreaming what the story might be. Eventually I dared to think it might have the potential to become a novel. A much larger and more unruly creature might be born from that egg.
I’d taught novels for decades but wasn’t sure how to go about writing one. The eternal student, I looked for a teacher, and I discovered The Novelry. In April 2023, I signed up for their Novel Development program. In less than 90 days, I’d completed a first draft of Milksop.
What followed, of course, was plenty of revising, editing, and proofreading; review of the manuscript by two professional editors; and querying agents and publishers until Milksop was acquired by Chicken House Press—a whole process worthy of another post.
Today, May 23, fifty years after that remembered moment, Milksop has hatched from my egg head into a polished, published novel. Here’s the official launch announcement from Chicken House Press, if you’re interested in how I’m making publishing history.
Milksop Unleashed
It’s truly out of my hands now, unleashed into the wilds of writing—the rugged terrain where millions of published books roam unfettered, eager to latch onto readers’ unsuspecting brains. Beware!
With almost 70 “milksops” scattered through its pages, my novel is now the newborn in a long line of literary milksops, as I shared in “Sightings of ‘Milksop’ in the Wild” and “More Sightings of Milksops in the Wild.” In my extensive use of “milksop,” I feel myself in good company with Shakespeare, the Brontë sisters, and Stephen King. With Milksop, I’m planting my flag on that high hill.
While it’s out of my hands, I’m hoping Milksop is in your hands today or soon will be.
If you haven’t already corralled a copy, you can catch Milksop at any bookseller’s and in both ebook and paperback formats. Stop by your favourite bookstore and ask for it, or order it using these links:
A Canadian Independent Bookstore Near You
Indigo (Canada): paperback and Kobo ebook
Amazon: paperback and Kindle ebook
Barnes & Noble (print and ebook)
Bookshop.org (paperback)
Books-a-Million (paperback)
These links are primarily for readers in Canada and the US, but Milksop is available around the globe (except where it’s banned, of course, due to its incendiary nature). That makes me a global phenomenon! Tiny, practically invisible, if I’m honest, but a phe-nom nonetheless.
Welcome to U-MAW
If you have Milksop and are reading it today, I hope you find great pleasure in the dream it creates. May you find the dream vivid, continuous, and compelling!
By reading Milksop, you automatically receive membership in U-MAW: the United Milksops Association of the World. With membership, you’re now allowed to cry over spilled milk because, let’s face it, it’s worth it. No one can tell you anymore that there’s no point: existential crisis averted!
In fact, I recommend drinking milk while reading Milksop: they’re both wholesome, one for your body, the other for your soul. If you want something stronger, try a brown cow (Kahlua with milk or cream). Milksop will go down even smoother; it will feel both creamy and dreamy.
Simply Grateful
If I imagine readers reading Milksop, I find it a bit unnerving, to be honest, but what I feel today above all is gratitude.
I’ve included acknowledgements at the end of Milksop where I name names and explain how different people contributed to my hatching this egg, but I wish to thank a whole community that encouraged and supported me: my immediate and extended family; friends, colleagues, and former students; fellow writers and writing mentors, including those who’ve offered Milksop their endorsement; the coaches, editors, and whole amazing writing community at The Novelry; my equally amazing publisher at Chicken House Press; reviewers who received an advanced copy and shared their opinion…
And you, dear reader, holding the book in your hand.
Float My Boat?
I hope in the end Milksop floats your boat. If it does, that will float my boat.
“On we sail in our paper boats, we writers,” says Margaret Atwood. “Flimsy enough vehicles, but we don’t jump ship.”
Milksop is such a flimsy paper boat, and it could use your help. I’ll be honest: in the Canadian literary lake, my vessel is tiny. In the global literary ocean, it’s miniscule—hardly capable of an ocean crossing, not to mention circumnavigating the globe.
Only readers can keep my paper boat afloat. You can buoy up Milksop any number of ways. If you enjoy the story, please consider shouting your joy from literal and digital rooftops:
Tell your friends. Are you old enough to remember the Fabergé Organics shampoo commercials from the ’70s and ’80s? Heather Locklear says, “I told two friends about it... and they told two friends... and they told two friends... and so on, and so on, and so on.”
Post a rating at the website of the retailer from whom you bought Milksop, at the Chicken House Press website, and/or on Goodreads. If you feel comfortable doing so, add a brief review. A sentence or two will do!
Send me an email with your reaction (I’d love to hear from you!), and with your permission I’ll post it. If you feel comfortable doing so, share on your social media your experience of reading Milksop. (In my fantasies, I see selfies: thousands of people reading Milksop while wearing milk moustaches.)
If your local library doesn’t have a copy, recommend it for their collection.
If you belong to a book club, consider suggesting Milksop for the group.
Thanks for considering these actions. Thanks for being part of Milksop’s birthday. What’s left to say but “Happy reading!”
Oh, and yes, especially to my family, I’ll add that Milksop is a work of fiction, not a memoir. It may have originated in a memory of a moment a half century ago, but any resemblance to real events and people—well, all that has been thoroughly acted upon by my imagination. Into the rotary of my mind it all went; Milksop is the story that spun out.
As always, if the spirit moves you, please share your thoughts and this post.
Congrats, John! Hope you've been basking in book-birthday festivities