The BAR*D Newsletter

July 2025

* BAR’D: a lighthearted combination of my initials, BAR, and a nod to the bards, those gifted with writing and delivering fine prose.

Sple’tk (Exploits River) on a moody morning.

The steel bridge crossing the river behind the Grand Falls mill is symbolic of humankind’s relentless efforts to tame nature.

Lord Northcliffe dammed the river in 1908 to generate electricity for his mill. While the river remains dammed and continues to generate electricity, the mill has been dismantled.

The river continues to flow.

Welcome

Thanks for joining me on this journey of writing and storytelling. Your feedback is always appreciated.

As promised last month, in this newsletter I’ll provide some thoughts on the literal and thematic importance of water in writing, including my manuscript. I’ll also share a few ideas swirling around my brain for future manuscripts.

Consistent with previous editions, this newsletter is laid out as follows:

1. Status of My Manuscript.

2. The Writing Life.

3. Facts & Curiosities.

4. Writer in the Wild.

In future newsletters, I’ll share insights from our upcoming trip back home to Newfoundland, including:

(1) the Writers at Woody Point festival where Ann Patchett and Kevin Barry are headliners,

(2) Fogo Island, where my grandfather was born, and where my manuscript begins, and

(3) a visit to France (the islands of Saint Pierre and Miquelon), 19 kms off the coast of Newfoundland.

A travel trifecta!

Status of My Manuscript

I recently read a post discussing how writing is both a reclusive and communal activity. While bringing words to the page is often a solitary endeavour, the completion of a novel is the result of a group effort. Mentors, writing group colleagues, freelance editors, literary agents, and in-house editors from publishing houses, all play critically important roles.

In early July, I sent my manuscript to four experienced readers, often called “beta-readers,” seeking their critique comments. Feedback is trickling in. Perhaps it isn’t surprising the impressions aren’t homogeneous. In some cases their views are diametrically opposed. For example, one reviewer told me my prologue is engaging but my chapter endings could be improved. I’m also being told my prologue needs revision and my chapter endings are great. Ultimately, it’s my decision how to respond to the feedback and determine what I believe is best for my manuscript.

After editing my manuscript based on this feedback, I must decide whether it’s ready to send to the five literary agents who have already requested to read it. Or, should I engage a professional editor before sending the manuscript to agents?

I’m eager to put my manuscript into the hands of agents and advance to the next phase in the publishing process. Yet, if it isn’t sufficiently polished, those agents may pass on it. Industry practice dictates a writer only gets one opportunity with an agent for a particular manuscript, so it needs to be your best work.

Patience is often cited as a trait writers need on their journey to publication. Established authors remind unpublished writers like me that you’re only a debut author once, and recommend relishing this period without deadlines and demands.

Patience is not one of my strengths, but I’m good at heeding wise advice.

The Writing Life

While my manuscript has been in the hands of the four reviewers since early July, I’ve purposefully kept my manuscript file closed, allowing time away from it to build some objectivity for me when I dive back in.

I’ve taken this opportunity to catch up on reading, a necessary and enjoyable endeavour for all writers. In recent months, I’ve read a lot including:

The Paris Express by Emma Donoghue (historical fiction set in France in 1895),

Is A River Alive by Robert Macfarlane (non-fiction, the thesis of which is that rivers should be given distinct rights as persons),

Tom Lake by Ann Patchett (modern multi-generational fiction about family stories).

House of Hate by Percy Janes (a Newfoundland classic from 1970 set in a company mill town, thinly disguised as Corner Brook), and

The Portrait Artist by Dani Heywood-Lonsdale (historical fiction set in England in the 1890s)

Each time I read a new book I take notes with ideas on how to refine my manuscript. Over the past month, I’ve gathered a few pages of notes and am eager to get wade back into my manuscript to sprinkle in some of these ideas.

I’ve also been allowing my mind to wander with concepts for future manuscripts. Several ideas percolating include a fascinating but relatively unfamiliar historical event on the French islands of Saint Pierre and Miquelon, the life of a soprano from Twillingate, NL who took the opera world by storm in the early 1900s, a story Dad told me about English heiresses who were sent by their parents to Grand Falls to escape the bombing of London in the ‘40s, and a more modern story about “Texas Vampires” who conducted covert genetic testing on a homogenous population in central Newfoundland.

Facts & Curiosities

Perhaps it’s because I was born and raised on an island that I’m discerning the important role water plays in my writing. While my Newfoundland hometown is in the interior of the island, the Atlantic coast is only 35 kms away. And, the town was purposefully built in the crux of the Exploits River. Lord Alfred Northcliffe used the river to generate electricity for his mill and to transport logs felled from forests upstream. My beta readers have told me my description of place is strong.

While participating in a writers’ retreat last year aboard the Queen Mary II from Southampton to NY, one of the wise instructors, Dinty Moore, spoke of a writing theory he describes as the “Invisible Magnetic River.” He theorizes that all stories follow a path, sometimes fast and turbulent, sometimes slow and reflective, yet always advancing to a destination, following the pull of a magnetic force.

Dinty writes, “Our metaphorical rivers are something we discover along the way, in our first drafts if we are lucky, in re-working our fourth or fifth drafts more likely. We don’t impose our underlying rivers of emotional resonance on the work; most often they reveal themselves to us.”

Dinty’s theory captured my attention and hasn’t let go.

I loved the ‘92 film, “A River Runs Through It” (directed by Robert Redford and starring a young Brad Pitt) so I read the wonderful 1976 story by Norman Maclean that inspired the movie. I also highly recommend the movie soundtrack by Mark Isham. As soon as I hear the opening bars, I enter “writing mode.”

Robert Macfarlane’s 2025 book, Is A River Alive, is very inspirational as it brings four rivers to life, including the Mutehekau Shipu (Magpie River) in Quebec. While it’s a work of non-fiction, his writing is very poetic and reads a lot like literary fiction.

The next novel on my list is There Are Rivers In The Sky by Elif Shafak. One reviewer’s comments include, “The interconnectedness of water and human experience are beautifully expressed in Elif Shafak’s epic century-spanning novel, taking in Nineveh and London, the Thames and the Tigris, Gilgamesh and Dickens.”

While my current manuscript includes many references to water, the final version will more fully feature it as a motif.

Writer in the Wild

We’ve had family visiting us at the cottage throughout July. While I’ve taken many photos, this one of my nephews and Rudy at sunset best captures what summer should feel like.

I hope you are also finding an opportunity to recharge.