{"id":14411,"date":"2015-09-04T00:09:04","date_gmt":"2015-09-04T07:09:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=14411"},"modified":"2015-09-02T12:01:42","modified_gmt":"2015-09-02T19:01:42","slug":"podcast-evolves-into-musical","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2015\/09\/04\/podcast-evolves-into-musical\/","title":{"rendered":"Podcast evolves into musical"},"content":{"rendered":"

Left to right: Playwright Vern Thiessen, composers Anton Lipovetsky and Ben Elliott and novelist Terry Fallis, whose The Best Laid Plans will see its musical premi\u00e8re at York Theatre on Sept. 19. (photo from terryfallis.com<\/a>)<\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s going to be a busy fall for author Terry Fallis. Already working on his sixth novel, his fifth is due in bookstores this October. And his first novel \u2013 which saw a CBC television adaptation in 2014 \u2013 will have its premi\u00e8re as a musical at Vancouver\u2019s York Theatre Sept. 19-Oct. 3.<\/p>\n

For anyone who has dreams of being a successful author, Fallis is a beacon of hope. While the best laid plans of mice and men may often go awry, or \u201cgang aft a-gley,\u201d as wrote Scottish poet Robert Burns, Fallis\u2019 rise in publishing is a tale about the good places to which awry can lead you. Many in the industry point to the internet as the main cause of publishing\u2019s demise, yet that\u2019s where Fallis\u2019 The Best Laid Plans<\/em> (McLelland and Stewart Ltd., 2007) \u2013 and his novelist career \u2013 got started.<\/p>\n

A public relations professional, Fallis and a colleague created a podcast in 2006 called Inside PR<\/em>. It occurred to him, he said in a phone interview from his office in Toronto, that, \u201cin this emerging world of social media, where we are our own program managers \u2026 I would try that in the publishing world. When I couldn\u2019t find anyone to take an interest in my first novel \u2013 I didn\u2019t even get rejection letters, I was greeted with a deafening silence, perhaps because I\u2019d written a satirical novel of Canadian politics \u2013 I decided to try and build an audience for it on my own. That\u2019s when I decided to podcast the whole thing for free and give it away on iTunes and on my blog, just as a way to gather some kind of a following and to see whether or not I had written a novel because I honestly didn\u2019t know whether I\u2019d written a novel, so I was looking for objective feedback from anybody I could interest in listening to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

McLelland and Stewart Ltd. have since published every one of Fallis\u2019 novels, all bestsellers, critically acclaimed and award nominees or winners. He remains loyal, he said, \u201cto the podcast listeners and blog readers who were there right at the very beginning, who gave me that feedback and were encouraging. Without that support, it\u2019s an open question of whether or not I would have self-published the novel. And, if I hadn\u2019t self-published the novel, none of the rest of these wonderful things would have happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

In his continued appreciation, Fallis still shares content for free and listens to what people think of it. \u201cNow, generally the book is finished by the time I podcast it,\u201d he said, \u201cso, to be clear, when I\u2019m looking for feedback, it\u2019s not so much that I want advice on how to change the novel, it\u2019s more that I think it\u2019s important for authors to be accessible to their readers. When the reader\u2019s interested, you can actually have a contact, and I find that an important part of being a writer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fallis said he loves both the \u201cisolated solitude that comes when you\u2019re in writing mode\u201d and also gets \u201ca charge out of traveling around and meeting readers and talking about the books, and talking to other writers. And I teach as well,\u201d he added, \u201cat the University of Toronto, in the writing program, and I like all of that stuff and I feel lucky that I happen to have both sides of that working for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

With more people reading these days than ever before, Fallis has hope in the publishing industry\u2019s future. Acknowledging that people are \u201cfinding their content in many more places than were available 20 years ago,\u201d he said, \u201cI think this new world opens up a whole bunch of opportunities for writers and for publisher alike, and the ones who are surviving have embraced that which is new\u2026. So, I think there are real opportunities, and writers can get their work in front of more eyes than ever before, even if they\u2019re not published. There are websites and apps available, and communities online that will welcome new writers, and it\u2019s sometimes a route to traditional publishing as, in a way, it was for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Touchstone Theatre\u2019s Katrina Dunn contacted him and his agent about the possibility of adapting The Best Laid Plans<\/em> into a musical, Fallis said, \u201cWe were really quite impressed with Katrina and Touchstone and Patrick Street Productions and what they had done in the past, and their vision for the musical, so it seemed like the right way to go \u2013 and we\u2019ve been thrilled ever since.\u201d<\/p>\n

While he has yet to see the show, he has heard a few of the songs and read a portion of the script. Last fall, at the Vancouver Writers Festival, Fallis participated in a session with Dunn, playwright Vern Thiessen, composers Anton Lipovetksy (a member of the Jewish community) and Ben Elliott and director Peter Jorgensen of Patrick Street Productions. \u201cThey had a singer as well, and Anton and Ben both sing,\u201d said Fallis. \u201cAnd, for the first time ever, while I\u2019m sitting on stage in front of this packed hall, I was hearing the songs for the first time, at least a few of them, and that was strange. I was very conscious of \u2013 people are watching you now as you\u2019re reacting to the song, make sure that you\u2019re polite, and I loved the songs, there was no need to be concerned, they were terrific. It was a great experience, and quite surreal to hear someone singing about characters I had created and carted around in my brainpan for so many years.\u201d<\/p>\n

While many of Fallis\u2019 characters do indeed face challenges that arise from plans gone wrong, his novels are humor-filled and uplifting. He said that he is, by nature, an optimistic person.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think I see the world through relatively clear eyes,\u201d he said, \u201cbut, I figure, if we have some choice in the matter, of crying or trying to find the thin, little sliver of goodwill somewhere in the story, I will go there. I don\u2019t usually have much trouble finding humor in it. I grew up in a family where humor was just a daily staple.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think there\u2019s a certain engineer\u2019s logic in how I think about things, as well,\u201d added Fallis, who got a degree in engineering before being lured into politics, where he worked in various capacities before entering the PR world, eventually co-founding Thornley Fallis. \u201cIf something happens and it can\u2019t be changed, and we have no control over it, I don\u2019t spend a lot of time wondering why it happened. You just move on, and I try not to dwell on it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fallis credits growing up with an identical twin for helping form this positive attitude. He also has a younger sister \u2013 \u201cWe all get along wonderfully,\u201d he said, \u201cIt\u2019s rather an idyllic little family\u201d \u2013 but \u201chaving someone you\u2019re exactly the same age as and [who is] exactly like you, there is always someone to goof around with \u2026 having a twin brother to trigger that at every moment of every day was part of that, for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

As is his innate curiosity. \u201cI\u2019m fascinated by so many things,\u201d he said. When he was interested in something as a boy, he \u201cwould read every book around\u201d on it and his mother would say, \u201c\u2019Terry\u2019s on one of his kicks\u2019 \u2026 you can\u2019t imagine how many things I was interested in for short bursts of time, and I\u2019ve maintained an interest in most of them, but not with the same intensity. The library became my friend and I find it stimulating and fulfilling.\u201d<\/p>\n

Curiosity is something, he said, that he and his wife have encouraged in their sons, now 23 and 20, who will be joining them on the trip to Vancouver for the premi\u00e8re. \u201cCuriosity is a wonderful gift,\u201d said Fallis, \u201cand I feel sorry for those who don\u2019t have it in the same amount that I do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now in the midst of plotting out his next book, which is going to be about twins \u2013 though the protagonist \u201cdoesn\u2019t know he\u2019s an identical twin until some ways into the book\u201d \u2013 Fallis explained his creative process. Describing himself as \u201ca heavy outliner,\u201d he said, \u201cThe last thing I ever do is write the manuscript, and that\u2019s right at the tail end of the process. The last four months I spend writing the manuscript, the previous year I spend thinking about it, mapping out the story, plotting it, developing the characters, and then doing a chapter by chapter outline. That\u2019s the engineer in me \u2013 I need a blueprint for my novel before I can build it.\u201d<\/p>\n

For tickets and more information about <\/em>The Best Laid Plans: A Musical, visit tickets.thecultch.com<\/a> or call 604-251-1363.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Left to right: Playwright Vern Thiessen, composers Anton Lipovetsky and Ben Elliott and novelist Terry Fallis, whose The Best Laid Plans will see its musical premi\u00e8re at York Theatre on Sept. 19. (photo from terryfallis.com) It\u2019s going to be a busy fall for author Terry Fallis. Already working on his sixth novel, his fifth is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14401,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[785],"tags":[4461,880,4462,4463,4460,1268],"class_list":["post-14411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-performing-arts","tag-best-laid-plans","tag-cultch","tag-musical","tag-patrick-street-productions","tag-terry-fallis","tag-touchstone-theatre"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14411"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14411\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}