The Number One Rule of Leadership
Also, Cover Reveal! And a new novel by Cathi Bond
Being the 38th edition of Assorted Nonsense, the official newsletter of Donovan Street Press Inc.
We’ll get to the number one rule of leadership shortly. But first…
… A Cover Reveal!
As previously announced, Donovan Street Press Inc. will be publishing Mark A. Rayner’s short story collection “The Gates of Polished Horn” before Christmas, exact date yet to be determined, but probably around mid-November. This superb collection, consisting of twenty stories, represents twenty-four years worth of creativity from Mark’s fecund imagination.
I’m super impressed with Mark’s work here. The collection has depth; it’s thoughtful, entertaining fiction throughout. Of course, as Mark’s friend, editor, podcast co-host and publisher I might be kinda biased, so let’s turn to a completely neutral party: Mark himself.
OK maybe not so neutral. But don’t worry! He’s not bragging; just telling us what it’s all about:
The title of the collection is one that I’ve always had in mind for one of my projects. At one point it was the title of a trilogy that I started that never went anywhere. It originates from this quote:
"Two gates there are for our evanescent dreams, one is made of ivory, the other made of horn. Those that pass through the ivory cleanly carved are will-o'-the-wisps, their message bears no fruit. The dreams that pass through the gates of polished horn are fraught with truth, for the dreamer who can see them.”
~Homer, Book XIX, The Odyssey
And that’s exactly what holds the collection together: dreamers facing their truth. Many of the stories are science fiction, some are humorous, but there’s other genres in there: magical realism, horror, fantasy, and even some straight-up literary fiction. Yet they all deal with characters encountering a life-altering fact. Some of them are dream-like, some more visceral, and some exist in that liminal space between.
Check out this fantastic new cover for “The Gates of Polished Horn” by Bibliofic Designs.
Regulars readers know I’ve been jotting down a few stray thoughts about leadership here and there. Not because I consider myself an expert but because it’s a subject that interests me. In fact, I think it’s of supreme importance. I believe that poor leadership is at the root of many of the critical problems the world faces today. One poor leader making bad decisions can negatively impact many millions of people the world over for generations to come. I don’t have to point out specific examples; they abound. You have only to turn on the news, or read a history book.
Today’s thought: the importance of merely showing up.
Show up.
That’s it. That’s all there is to it. If you don’t do anything else as a leader, do that. Show up. Be there.
I’m not talking about showing up for work. I’m talking about being present as a leader.
Be there so that if someone has questions you’re there to answer them. Be there so that if someone is in trouble you can help them.
I think we all notice when our leaders don’t show up.
Once, after a lockout at work, we noticed certain managers that appeared to be hiding in their offices. Maybe they were embarrassed after the events of the lockout. They shouldn’t have been. That’s when they should have been out in the halls making themselves visible and approachable, helping smooth things over. It is possible, of course (maybe even likely) that they weren’t hiding out; that we just weren’t seeing them for other reasons. But that’s another reason to show up: so that rumours don’t have a chance to circulate. You’re there to set the record straight.
On another occasion a technical glitch resulted in a major “on-air discrepancy” (another way of saying that a program got messed up on air). The department responsible for the show waited to hear from the department ostensibly responsible for the screw-up, but crickets. The department responsible for the technical glitch might not have known what the problem was, but they needed to show up. They needed to come forward and be present to answer questions and take responsibility. They didn’t. When approached, they got defensive. It made for bad blood all round. Had they shown up and been transparent about the investigation, it would have gone a long way toward easing the frustrations and concerns of the people whose show had been impacted.
It can be awkward, showing up. Maybe you don’t know the right things to say. Maybe you don’t have all the answers. Maybe there will be confrontations that will put you on the defensive, making you uncomfortable. It doesn’t matter. You have to be there for your team, your partners, your clients. Showing up sets the groundwork for everything else you’ll have to do as a leader.
This doesn’t just apply to managers, of course. It applies to anyone with an opportunity to lead, official or otherwise. Terry Fox is an excellent example. Nobody assigned Terry Fox to do what he did, running across Canada to raise money for cancer research. He just showed up. He exhibited the first rule of leadership. He showed up and got the ball rolling. The impact of Terry Fox showing up for what he called his Marathon of Hope has helped countless people, and still reverberates today.
If you find yourself with an opportunity to lead and have no idea what to do, don’t fret. Just show up.
And you may just find the rest takes care of itself.
Atlantic Publishers Marketing Association
Donovan Street Press Inc. has been accepted as a Supporting Member of the Atlantic Publisher’s Marketing Association (APMA), an “industry support organization representing book publishers located in Atlantic Canada.”
APMA provides many different types of support to publishers both big and small, including publishing Atlantic Books Today, a full colour magazine about Atlantic Canadian books available twice a year.
To me, this means that Donovan Street Press Inc. is being taken seriously by our fellow Atlantic Canadian publishers. It’s an opportunity to learn from them, and it’s also a chance to contribute on a larger scale to the publishing industry in this neck of the woods. As I told them, it’s “quid pro quo.” APMA is sure to help DSP Inc., and in return we will do our best to contribute meaningfully to APMA.
Really excited to be working with these folks.
Random Sheltie Pic
Advance Readers Wanted
Donovan Street Press Inc. is looking for advance readers for upcoming books. If you’re interested, drop us a line at contact@donovanstreetpress.com
Bessie by Cathi Bond
This is the second book I’ve read from Cathi Bond, the first being Night Town, which I covered in a previous edition of this newsletter. Night Town quite impressed me. I was surprised to learn that Cathi plans to completely rewrite that book and re-release it as part of a trilogy called A Woman of Good Standing. Bessie, the cover of which is pictured above, is the first book in the proposed trilogy.
Didn’t George Lucas do that with Star Wars? (Who shot first, Han Solo or Greedo? I don’t recall anybody being shot in Night Town.) I asked Cathi how she felt about rewriting Night Town and she said she’s loving it. Myself, I couldn’t imagine having to re-write A Time and a Place. Anyway, it will be very interesting to see what she does with it.
On to Bessie, which I’m happy to report doesn’t disappoint. Cathi Bond has always been an excellent story teller, dating back to her freelance days on CBC Radio on shows like DNTO. True to form, she has a great story in Bessie, which is set in a bit of a dark period in Canada’s past. It’s a period we don’t hear much about, unless you’ve read your Pierre Berton, which we all probably need to do more of. (Shamefully, I’ve never read any Pierre Berton (though I did meet him in person once, briefly, while working on the CBC Radio’s Morningside.)
Bessie is “a sweeping family saga” set predominantly during the Great Depression leading up to the Second World War. Cathi hitches this (obviously well-researched) historical background to the classic “love triangle” story engine to great effect.
Without giving too much away, Bessie Barnes meets an attractive man at school (Edward) only to wind up marrying Edward’s brother instead (shame on you Bessie!), with whom she raises a family on the lads’ family farm. Circumstances during the depression are such that the unmarried brother is forced to come live with them. Awkward!
That’s the excellent set up. As you can imagine, smouldering emotions ensue. Cathi keeps the action and emotions moving, deftly setting up situations that place her characters in jeopardy, both physically and morally. Endings aren’t always happy in Bessie, though some are. And because I cared about the characters in Bessie, those endings mattered to me.
I thoroughly enjoyed Bessie’s tale and that of the men in her life, and I look forward to the next book in Cathi Bond’s Women of Good Standing trilogy.
Podcast
Re-Creative: a podcast about creativity and the works that inspire it.
This week Mark and I were joined by Canadian science fiction writer Hugh A. D. Spencer to talk about one of his favorite bits of audio – the original radio play of The War of the Worlds.
The novel by H. G. Wells was written in the 1890s, and adapted by Orson Welles for his Mercury Theatre in 1938. Howard Koch adapted the story for the radio. Koch used the trope of the news flash to tell the story, and this led many listeners who had missed the start of the radio play to think the invasion was real.
Needless to say, it caused a bit of a panic.
The three of us have a great time talking about the effects of the radio play, science fiction in general, and the impact of the play on Hugh's own work.
Future episodes of Re-Creative will feature Blair Young, Tom Bradley, creative partners Evan Gary Hirsch and Kip Baldwin, 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.
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
First, an apology. I had hoped to be in Saint John Friday Sept 27th at the Partridge Island Press bookstore but I’ve caught a bad cold. Not only did I not feel up to it, I figured it would be superbly bad form to show up ill in public. Alas.
Coming up:
Saturday October 19th I’ll be at the Athena’s Touch Hallowe’en Craft Fair at the Lion’s Club in Riverview, quite possibly in costume. We’ll see!
Thanks for reading!
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This has been the thirty-eighth edition of Assorted Nonsense, the official newsletter of Donovan Street Press Inc.
90% of success is showing up - Woody Allen
So Cathi writes novels now? Have to look into them...