Joe with an E (the Anne of Green Gables edition)

Or, How I Accidentally Crashed an Anne with an E Cast and Crew Party

Aug 23, 2024

Being the 33rd edition of Assorted Nonsense, the official newsletter of Donovan Street Press Inc.

Joe with an E

Back when I worked for a certain Canadian public broadcasting corporation I seemed to have a different job every two or three years. During one stretch I functioned as a liason between English Services Production and Real Estate. One day I was asked to help arrange an event being put on for the cast and crew of the television show Anne with an E, a modern television adaptation of Lucy Maud Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables.

I attended a few meetings and made a few arrangements. It wasn’t very difficult, just one of many assignments I would have been juggling at the time. But I guess I did okay because when all was said and done the Director of Communications asked me if I was a fan of the show.

“Absolutely,” I told him. “We’ve seen the whole first season. Can’t wait for season two.”

“Would you like tickets to the event?” he asked. “You can take your whole family.”

“Are you sure it’s okay?”

“Absolutely!” he assured me. “You’re practically part of the Anne with an E team now.”

Except that I hadn’t really done much and I hadn’t interacted at all with any of the actual cast or crew of the show.

But as mentioned I had been watching the show with my wife and daughters and admired its interpretation of the source material. Also, I had grown up in Prince Edward Island, the Land of All Things Anne, and visited my family there often. So I accepted three tickets, one for myself and my two teenaged daughters (my wife couldn’t make it).

All I knew about the event was that it was a celebration of the Season Two Launch of Anne With an E involving a screening of the season premiere and a small get together afterward. It took place Saturday afternoon one summer’s day in and around Dundas Square in downtown Toronto, and it sounded like fun.

On the appointed day I took my daughters down to Dundas Square. There were some outdoor activities for fans of the show that anyone could attend and then it was time for the private screening for those with tickets. My daughters and I made our way to the theatre and nabbed some great seats. Sitting beside us were a bunch of kids and parents. Later I would learn that all the kids present (except mine) had either acted in the series or had been extras.

Before the screening started, the mother of one of the kids chatted briefly with one of my daughters. “Did you work as an extra on the show?” she asked.

“No,” my daughter answered honestly.

“What’s your involvement with the show?” the woman asked.

“We’re just here with our Dad,” my daughter attempted to explain, pointing at me two seats away.

The woman looked confused. I smiled and waved at her, unaware that she was wondering what the heck any of us were doing there.

We enjoyed the screening and afterward I bumped into the Director of Communications who asked if we were going to attend the party afterwards. “Sure!” I told him, encouraged. So, daughters in tow, I headed off to the party at a restaurant in the same building as the theatre where, armed with the tickets we’d been provided, they let us in.

And so we found ourselves in, essentially, a private party for the cast and crew of Anne with an E. It only gradually dawned on me that it really was a PRIVATE party for the cast and crew of the show, to which I had only the thinnest possible connection. Really, my daughters and I had zero business being there. This is not to find fault with the man who arranged access for us; I’m certain he thought it was okay, and I guess it was legitimate in the sense that I had actually done something to help make the event possible (though as I write this I cannot for the life of me remember what), but not having had anything to do with the actual production of the show, we didn’t really belong.

But it was too late to worry about any of that. It didn’t matter cuz there we were. And everybody couldn’t have been friendlier. I even knew somebody (aside from the Director of Communications): the actor R. H. Thomson. He was there because he’d played Matthew on the show (brilliantly, I might add). I’d enjoyed working with R. H. Thomson on a radio play a few years before. Now, I say that I knew him because it’s true; we had worked together and had been on a first name basis for the length of the radio production. But I hadn’t seen him since and he didn’t necessarily remember me. So I reintroduced myself and he may well have remembered me and we chatted for a while and he was as warm as I remembered him and every bit as friendly as the character he played on Anne with an E.

At this time one of my daughters was a HUGE fan of the show Breaking Bad. The showrunner for Anne with an E just happened to be Moira Walley-Beckett. Beckett had been heavily involved with Breaking Bad. In fact, she had written a fifth season episode called “Ozymandias” which my daughter considered outstanding and has apparently been called “one of the greatest episodes of television ever broadcast.” At the time I hadn’t seen any of Breaking Bad (let alone Ozymandias) so I was not inclined to be intimidated or star struck when at some point somebody introduced me to Beckett.

Whoever it was introduced me as being “from Prince Edward Island.” Beckett seemed mildly intrigued at the Green Gables connection, or maybe she was just being polite. She asked me a half-hearted question about whether Anne with an E had captured the flavour of Prince Edward Island with any authenticity. Caught on the spot, any semblance of wit fled from my being as I jabbered some feeble attempt at a cogent response. I would have had better luck injecting Beckett with a powerful sedative. Her eyes glazed over and within seconds she turned back to the woman she’d been talking to before my inauspicious arrvival. I backed sheepishly away, resolving to pretend we’d never met if ever we wound up in the same writers’ room together. Later, I would watch Breaking Bad with great admiration, and although I thoroughly enjoyed the episode Ozymandias, I don’t think I’d call it “one of the greatest episodes of television ever broadcast.” (City on the Edge of Forever, anyone? Blink? Chicanery? Once More With Feeling?)

Amybeth McNulty played Anne Shirley on the show. She was very friendly to my daughters and even invited them to hang out with her later. A bit shy at the time, my daughters demurred. I had a great conversation with the parents of one of the other actors, and then, aware now that we really had no business being there, my daughters and I made good our escape. Still, it had been a very pleasant experience. No one had deliberately made us feel awkward or unwelcome. Actually, I would expect nothing less from the cast and crew of a Canadian television show about an iconic Canadian character famous for her warmth and imagination.

I wrote the above after spending three days on Prince Edward Island visiting my parents, who have lived on the island since moving there in 1966 (they are still considered “from away”). On the second day my daughter Erin and I toured around Cavendish with some friends visiting historic Anne of Green Gables sites. My friend Dave Gallant was an excellent and informed tour guide. He showed us the “real” Lake of Shining Waters and directed us to the tiny house in Clifton, New London, in which Lucy Maud Montgomery was born. Admission was $7 per person which bought us a brief history lesson and the freedom to explore this tiny wooden house which took all of, say, ten minutes. Still, they must be making a mint; visitors never stopped coming through the door. (Not far away in Cavendish there’s a much more elaborate museum and property devoted to Anne but we’d already done that three years earlier).

You’d think I’d know all about these places, having grown up in PEI, but I really wasn’t that interested in Anne of Green Gables at the time, and checking out those sorts of places was something tourists did, not locals. And I only got around to reading the first Anne of Green Gables book three years ago. I will say; it is every bit as good as people say it is.

Even better than that Breaking Bad episode Ozymandias.

Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery

(I posted this review Sept 1st, 2020, after having finally read Anne of Green Gables for the first time.)

One of my daughters was reading a copy of Anne of Green Gables and left it sitting around, so I picked it up and read a couple of pages and somewhat to my surprise I was instantly hooked.

Now you have to understand that I grew up in Prince Edward Island and have been surrounded by Lucy Maud Montgomery and Anne of Green Gables pretty much all my life. I've seen the stage production at the Charlottetown Festival at least three times. I've seen a spoof of the official version a couple of blocks over called "Annekenstein" (it was pretty good). As a media student, I was privileged to sit in on an audio mixing session of the original Kevin Sullivan movie version (spoiler alert: that day they happened to be mixing the scene a certain beloved character died). I've seen the Sullivan movie a couple of times, and I recently watched and enjoyed the first season of Anne with an E.

So I thought I pretty much knew Anne of Green Gables.

But I didn't. Not until I read the book, which I finished yesterday. Somehow, even after being exposed to so much of Anne throughout my life, I had not met her face to face. No disrespect to Kevin Sullivan and Anne With an E showrunner Moira Walley-Beckett and all the rest, all of whom I think came as close as they could to authentic takes on Anne of Green Gables, but the fact is, to really get to the heart and soul of the story you have to go directly to the source material.

The actual book was a revelation. The writing is sublime on so many levels: vocabulary, dialogue, story structure. It's so funny... despite knowing what was coming, I still laughed aloud at the pickles Anne got herself in. And the character of Anne herself: she just pops off the page, living and breathing as authentically as any of our favourite literary characters. As do Matthew and Marilla. Especially Marilla, my favourite character, through whom (more than any other character, I think) we come to love Anne.

If there is one tiny flaw, it's a flaw in Anne herself, acknowledged frequently by Marilla (and, consequently, Montgomery). Anne does go on. But that may just be a question of personal preference, a feature, not a bug, for true fans of Anne.

I was rather astonished to learn that Anne of Green Gables was Montgomery's first published novel. I'd always imagined it was, say, her twelfth novel, the work of a mature, accomplished professional who'd learned a trick or two over the years. Nope. It's the work of someone with story and character in her blood, with a natural flair for humour, and a deep understanding of human nature.

I do think I'll be reading more of Montgomery's work. About time.

“‘Dear old world’, she murmured, ‘you are very lovely, and I am glad to be alive in you.‘”
~ Lucy Maud Montgomery

Barking Mad

My daughter Erin is posting new episodes of her online comic, Barking Mad. I know I’m biased, but I think they’re great! You can check them out here.

Podcast

Re-Creative: a podcast about creativity and the works that inspire it.

This week Mark and I welcomed our first ever return guest: writer and editor Ira Nayman. No, we did not talk about Anne of Green Gables.

Ira returned to help us understand the importance and fun of the early Marx Brothers films, including Animal Crackers (1930), Monkey Business (1931), Horse Feathers (1932), Duck Soup (1933), and Groucho of Avonlea (2021).

Ira makes the convincing case that if you love Monty Python, and you haven't seen the Marx Brothers, you really should give them a try.

If you enjoy comedy, you cannot afford to miss this edifying and funny conversation. (Well, maybe some of you can, but we assure you missing it might be VERY expensive.)

Ira Nayman on Re-Creative

Future episodes of Re-Creative will feature Blair Young, Bruce Sterling, Tom Bradley, Hugh Spencer, Lisa Brandt, Tony Schwartz, and Robert Runte, with plenty more guests on the way.

All previous episodes are available online, comprising the first 2 seasons, over 40 conversations with creative people from all walks of life about the art stoking their imaginative fires.

Distribution

Regular readers know that I’ve been exploring book distributors in the last several issues of this newsletter. This week we look at these folks:

Nimbus Distribution

At long last we come to the final book distributor of my ongoing book distribution survey. Based out of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Nimbus is a a Top Canadian vape & e-juice wholesale… wait! Wrong Nimbus. Let’s try that again.

Based out of Halifax NS, Nimbus is “the largest English-language publisher east of Toronto.” But they also deal with what they call “Distributed Publishers.” These publishers include Atlantic Canadian publishers such as Acorn Press, Breton Books, Pottersfield Press, and MacIntyre Purcell Publishing. (My sister, author Susan Rodgers, just published a wonderful book called The Floating Days through Acorn Press, distributed by Nimbus).

The Floating Days, reently released by Acorn Press, distributed by Nimbux

The Nimbus website is not entirely up-to-date: among at least one of their lists of Distributed Publishers is Fierce Ink Press, which used to publish my friend Angela Misri’s Portia Adams Detective series (which she now publishes independently). Fierce Ink (unfortunately) closed shop several years ago.

On the same page that lists (somewhat inaccurately) the list of publishers that Nimbus distributes is a list of bookstores that Nimbus presumably distributes to. It’s not clear if this is the extent of venues they distribute to or a subset of venues. They really aren't clear anywhere I can see about the extent of their distribution operation, and don’t seem to go to a lot of trouble to “sell” it. I hope to have a chat with an industry contact soon who is familiar with their operation; perhaps they’ll be able to tell me more. In the meantime, I’ve heard through the local publishing grapevine that Nimbus is not accepting any more publishers. So the whole question of using Nimbus as a distributor is actually moot for the time being.

Also, we have to be careful here… I’m talking about Nimbus Publishing and Distribution located in Halifax, Nova Scotia, but looking around for additional information I spotted a completely separate company ALSO called Nimbus Distribution that operates out of California. Not talking about them; nor do I intend to explore them (they seem a little hyperbolic). There seem to be at least two other distribution operations using some version of the name Nimbus Distributors.

This wraps up the initial part my book distribution survey. Over the next little while I want to winnow the list down to distributors best suited for Donovan Street Press Inc. And from there, start contacting them.

We’ve only just begun.

Thanks Ron!

I would like to thank subscriber Ron for being the second paid subscriber (Founding Member, actually) of Assorted Nonsense. Thanks Ron! Paid subscribtions to this newsletter go straight to Donovan Street Press Inc. to support the publication of books and the production of our podcast Re-Creative as well as other projects and operating expenses.

Because we now have paid subscribers, I intend to start including “paid only” content soon. I feel it’s only fair to reward our paid subscribers in some way.

Featured Book

Other Times and Places

What do a thief, wizards, a platypus, ghosts, soft drink salesmen, God, the devil, and a spaceman all have in common? Together they will make you laugh, think, sleep better, open your mind, spark your imagination, and quite possibly improve your complexion* as Joe Mahoney brings them all vividly to life in this humorous and thoughtful collection of seven tales of the fantastic.

*Individual results may vary

“This collection of short stories shows how far and wide Mahoney’s intricate mind can wander. Beautifully told in a slightly old world style.”
~Bryan Wyvill, Amazon.ca

Share Assorted Nonsense

Coming Soon from Donovan Street Press Inc.

The Gates of Polished Horn by Mark A. Rayner.

Huey and the Wasteland by Matt Watts

A Peculiar Symmetry by Tanah Haney

Appearances

Coming up:

Donovan Street Press Inc. will be at a Pitch the Publisher Event Area 506 Container Market Saint John, NB. Saturday Sept 21st 2024
I’ll be doing another signing with Partridge Island Publishing in the Area 506 Container Market in Saint John, NB Friday Sept 27th

I will also be at three Athena’s Touch Craft Fairs this fall, dates yet to be determined, at the Riverview Lion’s Club in Riverview

Yours Truly on Spotify

Some instrumental music I’ve recorded over the years in now available on music platforms such as Apple, Spotify and Amazon. Full disclosure: for every stream of mine you listen to on one of these platforms, I receive 0.000000000000000000001 cent (or something like that).

You can find it by searching for the album Underdog by Joe Mahoney. Enjoy! (If it’s your cup of tea, that is.)