Andrew Tibbetts is a counselor, professor, web developer, musician, writer, and a gay father of three. His work has been published in the Canadian magazines This Magazine, The New Quarterly, The Fiddehead, and Descant. In the U.S. his work can be found online at SmokeLong Quarterly, The Mini Mag, and Defenestration. Andrew is also an editor with the e-zine edificeWRECKED, a member of the Canadian Writer’s Collective, and a regular columnist at Moods Magazine.

I want to know about A. your novel B. your epic poem about heaven and C. your project “100 Posts about my Sex Life.” Ready? Go.

A. My novel began with my attempt to write about straight people for a change. I had been writing about family from the gay child’s perspective for so long– a decade? two? All my life, probably. It was time for a change, but I couldn’t completely leave us gays out of the picture. I had a family in mind whose dynamic was interesting to me, but they had a gay teenaged son, so I put him in a coma. I had him become the victim of a gay-bashing, before the novel opens. This let me concentrate on everyone else. Now the novel began to be about the couple and how their relationship was affected by this violence to their child. It’s still barely fumbling towards a first draft so I’ll stop before I spoil it for myself. Sometimes I get an idea for a story, and by the time I’ve finished telling everyone about it I’m too sick of it to write it out.

B. My epic poem about heaven began life as a short story– a gay fantasia on celestial themes. This is my most rejected story. Subbed more times than any other. Nobody wants it. Eventually I stopped subbing it– like a parent might stop forcing their beloved but ugly kid outside and instead let the kid set up hermitage in the attic. I figured that the piece was obviously ‘just for me’ and therefore I could take it to whatever aesthetic extremes I wanted. I decided to re-model it after Dante’s Divine Comedy. So I slowly transformed the prose into a warped kind of ‘terza rima’. It has taken hours and hours of my life, but such pleasant hours! It’s something I toy with almost daily. I think the exercise of working inside such a strict form will improve my facility with words– or at least I tell myself that, so I don’t feel guilty wasting precious writing time on something no one in the world will get but me. It’s about Lucifer in heaven before the fall of the angels and his boyfriend the archangel Raphael. They have a little apartment. Raphael does the ‘inside’ chores. Lucifer takes out the garbage, ‘walks the silverfish’, etc… I find it delightful but realize that I am insane.

C. As an experiment with my own psyche, I decided to observe my own sexuality very, very closely. I wanted to record every sexual act I had, every time I masturbated, every single time I thought about sex. When it was happening, what I was thinking, what memories I had. I wanted to go deep– into my history, into the effect of society around me on my own self-image. Joseph Young liked what I was writing and asked if he could put it on his website. I was so touched. It was a major vote of confidence for me as a writer– and one of the turning points in my career. When I’d reached the arbitrary 100th post, we took it down. I’ve been trying to shape it into a book since then– several years now. But I’m in no hurry, because I want to wait until my kids are older so they won’t have to put up with their father’s candour while they’re still mortify-able teenagers.

About your epic poem, you say it transformed into a “warped ‘terza rima.’” What is a terza rima? Would you mind sharing an excerpt of the poem with us?

Terza Rima is a rhyme scheme Dante perfected. It has stanzas of three lines in which the first and last line rhyme. Also, the middle line rhymes with the next stanza’s first/third rhyme. Like this:

a
b
a

b
c
b

c
d
c

It’s easier in Italian because there are so many rhyming words. In English, it is torture. Instead of rhyme, I went with assonance– starting the words the same like reed/reef/reel, but even that I gave myself leeway to diverge from. I call it (half)ass(ed)onacne.

I also choose to use 13 syllables– because that seemed a good number for such a mystical catastrophe. Here’s an excerpt:

The fight curdled and soured until there was nothing
left to say. There was a pure white tone to the silence
that was surprisingly final. So, look at him now:

the rent’s due. He’s out of coffee. His skull is sucking
on his brain. And his heart, sucking on its own pearly
juices, is too tired to break. This is a true story.

Descant Arts and Letters Foundation is holding a launch party in Toronto on October 10th. At this event, you will be reading your story “Ugly is the New Pretty.” Tell us more.

I’m pretty excited. This is my first reading in Toronto. It will be at the Gladstone Ballroom, which is an artistic hotspot– maybe the coolest place in Toronto right now, and hosted by Ian Brown, who is quite a notable figure in Ontario literary/journalism circles (ie, he’s been on T.V.). I alternate between exhilaration and panic. When I’m anxious I get giddy, so I’m glad my story is a comedy, and a fairly giddy one. Event details HERE. Wish me luck!

How long have you been a member of the Canadian Writer’s Collective? What sort of topics do you write about? Do you have a favorite post?

The CWC celebrated our 1st anniversary in April. We’ve had members come and go in a jolly rollicking way. It’s Melissa Bell, Anne Chudobiak, Tricia Dower, Steven Gajadhar, Tamara J. Lee, Antonios Maltezos, and me now. One Canadian writer for each day of the week. I like all the posts the same. Each one is special in its own way. None of them are being made to go and live in the attic.

Talk about the Canadian lit world. It seems to be very different than the scene in the United States, especially in regards to the pay and prestige of being published in literary journals. What else can you tell us?

I get a couple of hundred dollars every time I get something published in a CanLit Journal. It’s not a living. It’s a labour of love. I’m never exactly sure if anyone will even read the damn stories. However, I’ve published enough to apply for a grant. If I’m lucky enough to get one, that’ll give me enough money to work part-time in the summer and write, write, write. Maybe finish that novel, or that epic poem, or one of the twenty-five stories I’ve got on the go. In the meantime I squeeze the writing in around my three jobs and my family time.

You also write a regular column about mental health issues for Moods Magazine. How did you get this job? What are your qualifications?

My day job is as a psychotherapist. I have a clinical Masters of Social Work (M.S.W.) and have worked in the mental health field for over twenty years. I met the publisher, the wonderful Rebecca DiFilippo, when she came to the university where I work to drum up sales for her labour of love. She wanted some material about mood disorders and university students and I offered to write for her. It’s been the hardest writing I’ve ever done. I’m no journalist. I like to take a decade stewing over something before I start to write about it. And I like to make it up. Facts are too stubborn for me. But I manage because I think it’s important for all of us to start talking about mental health. I outed myself as a person with a psychiatric dis/ability while working on this. It’s been personally freeing.

In addition to writer, you also function as a counselor, a professor, a musician, a web developer, and a gay father of three. What role do you most identify with? When people ask you what you do, what is the first answer you give them?

I think when people ask ‘what do you do?’ they mean- ‘where does your money come from?’ So I start at the top and work my way down. I stop when their eyes glaze over. I hate to bore.

What kind of music do you play?

I was in a punk band in university, but before and after I played/play the classical music that I write myself and the piano pieces by others that I love and can manage– Haydn, Beethoven, Bartok, Schoenberg. I play like a punk rock musician, which is NOT GOOD for classical. But I FEEL it, man, like those singers in the early episodes of each season of Idol. The most fun I have playing is accompanying friends who sing. I like to improvize.

Looking back on everything you’ve written, what is your favorite opening line?

I refuse to worship at the cult of the opening line! (plus, I don’t have any particularly good ones. sshh!)

On a bone marrow chilling winter night, what type of book would you like to sit in front of the fireplace with? On a melting summer day?

For long winter nights I like a big classic. I love Dickens. He’s still my favourite novelist. Recently, David Mitchell has been my obsession– and I feel about him similarly to Dickens. I love the way these complicated rollicking books build worlds inside me.

For summer, I do love detective novels. If I can find a good gay one, I go for that. Joseph Hanson is as good as Hammett and Chandler– better in some ways. Anthony Bidulka has the extra credit of being Canadian, which I also enjoy. Richard Stevenson’s Donald Strachey series is excellent. It started when I was a kid with the Hardy Boys. I’m still that kid so nothing’s changed.

When your children look back at their childhood, what do you hope they will remember about you as a dad?

It’s more what they’ll feel, really– loved, respected, confident. But on another issue: my three are all teens now so there’s no more cuddling. I can’t wait for grandchildren. Seriously. Bring them on.

Contact Andrew

Read:

“201 Feet”
fiction published by SmokeLong Quarterly

“Everybody in Holland is Mad at Me”
fiction published by SmokeLong Quarterly

“My Gay Date with Attorney General Ashcroft”
fiction published by Defenestration

“Someone Saved My Life Tonight”
non-fiction at the Canadian Writer’s Collective

“Still Wearing the Momma’s Boy Jersey, Le Tour de Moi!”
non-fiction at the Canadian Writer’s Collective


Filed Under: The Writer Profile Project |