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by Erin Balser/The Torontoist

April 27/2010

In November 2009, writer Chad Pelley launched Salty Ink, a blog dedicated to covering the Altantic Canadian literary scene. Since then, Salty Ink has emerged as an authoritative voice on all things bookish on the East Coast, covering everything from book design (they held a Judge a Book By Its Cover contest earlier this year) to emerging Maritime and Newfoundland writers (check out their monthly Shedding Some Ink On… profile series). Atlantic Canada has a vibrant literary scene, and Salty Ink covers it with humour and heart.

Chad Pelley chatted with Books@Torontoist about what it’s like to blog and why he chose to cover the East Coast.

Torontoist: Why did you decide to start Salty Ink?

Chad Pelley: Basically: my first novel came out in October 2009, and I did quite a few radio shows and interviews that all asked the generic, “Who are your biggest influences?” I started to notice that I was always offering up an Atlantic Canadian author, particularly a Newfoundland author, which surprised me. I hadn’t really noticed the impact Atlantic Canadian authors have had on my writing, or the sheer diversity of books and writing coming out of here. I think a successful book blog needs a focus (or something to make it distinct), so I thought, There’s my niche: Atlantic Canadian writing.

TO: Salty Ink is relatively new, having been launched in November 2009. How has the blog evolved since then?

CP: Salty Ink spent November and December finding its legs. It started as a place to dump various bits of news about Atlantic Canadian writing. As of January, I’ve added some regular features: a “Book of the Month” that grants the featured book a glowing review, free ad space for a month, and some other future and retroactive perks that are in the works. I also do an “overview of and interview with” an author on the tenth of every month, and I run an annual “Judge a Book By Its Cover” competition. I’ve sprinkled some regular features around random bits of news to help establish the site and give meaning to its commentary. I have ideas for some of these regular features beyond Salty Ink, or offshoots of Salty Ink, that are too vague to mention right now. Also, some publishers have gotten in touch about author blog tours. I am looking forward to that. And visitation has been tripling every month, which helps justify all the time I spend on it.

TO: What have you learned about book blogging?

CP: To do it right, it is quite time consuming. It is a part-time job. You have to love what you are talking about. Despite having had some great writers, critics, editors, and book types offer assistance, I have chosen to run the site solo, so that it can be “branded,” and people can decide if they like or disagree with Salty Ink’s suggestions. I don’t think doing it alone makes it narrow in its opinions, as I have a broad-ranging love of all styles of literary fiction.

TO: What’s surprised you the most about book blogging?

CP: How much some publishers have embraced book blogs: I get free books in the mail every week. Which is overwhelming because I am a slow reader, doing this alone, and can only talk about so many books. Also, the feedback and positive reaction to this site has been uplifting proof of that some people still love the book more than the movie.

TO: What role do book bloggers have in today’s book industry?

CP: Things like author blog tours and interactive contests should be something publishers, not just readers, are embracing. Via book blogs, any author—established or emerging, small press or Random House published—can be flashing there in front of every Canadian reader’s face and getting into Canada’s reading conscious. The world is online now, and so are the most successful publishers and authors, in terms of marketing. The pros of book blogs are numerous and incontestable. With so many book blogs, readers can pick and choose the ones they enjoy. Book blogs are also free, and their entire archives of articles are there and searchable. Book blogs can be interactive, with people all over the country. There’s blogcasts and podcasts, and vote-based competitions and other giveaways. Book blogs can summarize everything happening in the industry at the click of a mouse (See Book Ninja) or they can have a specific focus, like Salty Ink. I guess I like the niche site aspect of book blogs, and individual readers finding individual blogs that excite or inform them. The con of a book blog is that, unlike a newspaper or magazine, there is no hiring process: everyone and their dog can blog about books (but not intelligently and fairly and objectively).

TO: Why are Atlantic Canadian books important to you?

CP: Because of their influence on my own writing, sure, but mainly: there is an astounding diversity of style, delivery, and subject matter coming out of Atlantic Canada. So much of it is so fresh and crisply written that, as a writer, I get plain excited by it. I am reading Amy Jones’s Metcalf Rooke award-wining What Boys Like at the moment, and what she does with narrative structure in some of those stories is brilliant.

TO: Can you recommend some great Atlantic books and authors for our Toronto readers?

CP: It’s too hard. I can say that the best book I’ve read so far in 2010 has been Jessica Grant’s first book Making Light of Tragedy. From a writing stand point, there is only one Jessica Grant, but I’d like to see a dozen more. Or would that dilute what I like about her? As for my favourite Atlantic Canadian novel, I don’t have a favourite book, or I’ve yet to read it, but I default to David Adams Richards’ Mercy Among the Children. Michael Winter’s This All Happened is the book that got me writing.

TO: Do you feel Atlantic Canadian lit is a genre unto its own?

CP: It’s a yes and no situation. There is an astounding diversity of style, delivery, and subject matter coming out of Atlantic Canada, all of which cannot be lumped together. How do you compare, say, Lisa Moore to Kenneth J. Harvey? That said, there are packs of writers you could categorize together, beyond what you could from other regions, particularly Newfoundland writers. So, I don’t think it is a genre unto its own. No, our writers are too distinctive or diverse in subject matter, and yet there are distinctive styles of writing coming out of Atlantic Canada. I could say “Ryan Turner is like early Michael Winter” and you’d know what I mean. I think Atlantic Canadians are very supportive of their own, and they read a lot of each other, and therefore possibly influence each other, which may explain any vague similarities. I know I consider myself a “best of collection” of all the writers who have influenced me. They all happened to be Atlantic Canadian authors. (How’s that for talking in circles?) I don’t think it is a genre, no, our writers are too distinctive. But Atlantic Canadian Lit IS more cohesive and identifiable than than Western Lit (a term that’s never dubbed for that reason: I can’t think of a group of comaparable western writers as readily as I could Atlantic Canadian writers). Although all of our top-notch writers are distinct from each other, there are distinctive unnamed subgenres coming out of Atlantic Canada.

TO: As a writer yourself, how have you approached writing about other writers’ work?

CP: I don’t read like a reader, I read like a writer. I don’t do it on purpose, but what I tend to focus on in critique is what I admired from a writing perspective. Not story, not pageturnerness, or who the author is, but how evocative the sentences are, how effective a narrative structure is, or how distinctive a style is, that sort of thing. The books I get the most excited about are the ones I am fondly jealous of, because I didn’t write it myself. Not the ones that compelled me as a reader. There’s a slight difference.