When “Arctic Predator” was still called “The Burning Schoolhouse”, it was rejected many times by publishers in Canada and one in the United States. At one point in the rejection process, Chip Fleisher of Steerforth Press, who published my husband’s book “Minik: The New York Eskimo” told me that while my book wasn’t a fit for Steerforth he hoped it would find a good “house.” I remember finding the word ‘house’ comforting in that moment. What I did not know at the time was how difficult it would be to let my book go when the right house came along.
Writing the book that became “Arctic Predator” (currently a #1 Bestseller in Educator Biographies and Western Canadian Biographies on Amazon), took a long time – 20 years from the time I first heard the name Ed Horne. It was also very difficult to get on paper in a readable form that would inform and educate the reader, but not painfully overwhelm them.
I’ve been a newspaper woman my whole adult life. Those news stories I wrote and edited were usually short and not deeply researched. There was just not enough time. Long-form journalism about child sexual abuse in some of the most isolated Indigenous communities in the world would test me at every level and every word. But I had to do it. My friends in the North where I had the most important job in my career (Bureau Chief, Nunavut News/North, Iqaluit) had questions about Horne that were never answered. They were still hurting because of his crimes. They wanted the story to be told. I was in the cliched right-place at the right-time to collect that brutal information and report.
I wrote the book because I recognized I was in a position to do so. But when it came time to actually LET IT GO – to press ‘Send’ to Dundurn Press, I couldn’t do it. An editor was waiting for it. But I held back, surprised by my burst of tears and sadness at sending the book away. I was standing by a lake near my writing cabin in Calabogie when this occurred. I had pictured the moment differently. I thought I would be relieved to press ‘Send’ under those pine trees by the lake. But suddenly I noticed I was holding my MacBook like a baby, whispering OK, OK. It dawned on me that the story could not be mine anymore if I wanted it published, and I did want it published. I would have no real control over it anymore. I held my computer and wept.
Things that mattered to me in that moment: Dundurn was Canadian and independent. I’d lived and worked in Canada my whole life. I’d never made a lot of money writing. But I just couldn’t stop writing. The book that had become “Arctic Predator” felt as if it had a life and personality all its own, forcing its way out. Book people understand this. They understand the lifeblood coursing through stories that must live. I had book people on my side. I was giving my work over to book people.
I stood there by the lake still clutching my MacBook to my chest. When I finally pressed ‘Send’ it became theirs - and yours. I let it go.
— Kathleen Lippa, Ottawa