Meet the Author: Vic Cavalli

I am delighted to welcome Vic Cavalli to Books, Life and Everything today to talk about his life as a writer. I will be reviewing his literary fiction novel, The Road to Vermilion Lake in January 2019, so here's a chance to get to know a little about him first.

Welcome Vic!  Would you like to start by telling us a little about yourself and how you started as a writer?
 

Thank you for welcoming me to your Blog, Marianne. I studied the visual arts and photography as a young man, and later in life discovered the potential depth and force of literature. In graduate school, I concentrated on the complex interpenetrating relationships between literature and the visual arts. I have been teaching Creative Writing at the university level in Canada since 2001.

When did you first realise you were going to be a writer?

As a young man, I fronted a couple of rock bands in my hometown of Vancouver, BC. Writing song lyrics was my introduction to poetry that was real. There with my girlfriend, and surrounded by instruments and amplifiers blaring as I screamed out the lyrics I’d written, it never occurred to me that someday I’d write serious literary poetry and then later literary fiction, but I suppose the energy of words in those teen years hooked me on language and I, in a primal sense, became a writer.

Where were you when you heard your first book was going to be published? How did you celebrate?

Throughout the years, I’ve had many poems and virtually all of my short stories accepted by literary journals, but my first novel was an intense five-year labor of love involving over 50 drafts, and when Harvard Square Editions accepted it I was joyous. I was at my university office desk checking my emails and I’ll never forget opening their email and reading, “Dear Vic, Thank you for giving us the opportunity to read your intriguing manuscript, Road to Vermilion Lake. We are excited about the light your work throws on the act of storytelling. The novel is compelling and the characters' plight sympathetic. . . . We very much enjoyed the story and would like to publish it. “ Reading those words and seeing the attached contract waiting for my signature, I did what any mature male writer would do, I cried like a grown man for several minutes and then phoned my best friend.


Tell us about your latest book without giving the plot away.

I recently completed my second novel and it is currently being considered by 10 publishers. It’s like having 10 baited lines in a river and waiting for the first nibbles. I’m excited. It is literary fiction—like my first novel.  Novel 2 is an omniscient palimpsest garden of minds, voices, bodies, and ghosts moving within the real, then surreal, then shifting settings of the book. I probably shouldn’t say more at this pre-acceptance stage.


What are your writing routines and where do you do most of your writing?

I can’t even imagine having a writing routine, for example, forcing myself to spend hours at a desk no matter what, for discipline’s sake.  When I have ideas and I’m working on a novel, I record scenes, snatches of dialogue, etc., on my computer, and if I’m not near a computer, I’ll use a note book that I keep handy. I also have found large index cards very helpful for concisely sketching scenes or ideas at awkward times.  But once I am inspired to write, I get in the zone and just keep at it, stopping only for meals and showering. I’m pumped and brimming and flowing. I usually have a sense of the book’s basic structure, but as I work chapter by chapter, the free choices my characters make often lead me into completely unexpected terrain. 
   
How difficult was writing your second book- did having one published change how you went about it?

Each book has its own challenges, but there is no question that having been appreciated, accepted, and published by a high-quality press like Harvard Square Editions, created a confidence that energized me as I wrote my second novel.  My short stories are written in either a first-person or omniscient point of view. I wrote my first book using a first-person narrator, and maintaining that point of view over 250 pages was a major education for me. In my second book, I’ve used an omniscient point of view throughout. That my publisher appreciated my quirky idiosyncrasies in The Road to Vermilion Lake, emboldened me to write even more freely in Novel 2.

Are there any secret references hidden in your books?

I teach literature and creative writing at the university level. The books I teach are rich, multilayered texts—usually annotated Norton Critical Editions. These are books where I’m still discovering new dimensions after 15 readings and many years of lecturing. In my own fiction, I can’t help but try to create a rewarding depth for my readers. Nothing secret or hidden, really, but rather allusions and correlations, hints and echoes, intertextuality.  For me the key to successful literary fiction is that it must be humble and honest while being by nature complex. Any reader should be able to read and evaluate, for example, my first novel The Road to Vermilion Lake and enjoy it while being surprised by some of its intentional quirks. If a reader has a knowledge of the poet John Keats, they will get something more. If a reader has a knowledge of the various musical allusions, they will get more, etcetera.

If you could tell your younger writing self anything, what would it be?

“Young Vic, trust me on this one. People will tell you that writing a novel is only a small part of the picture. It’s really only the beginning. You need to put around 70% of your energy into building networks, creating a brand for yourself, getting lots of followers, having a marketing plan, etc. Bullshit. Name one novel of the highest caliber, by Hemingway, Faulkner, Kafka, Flannery O’Connor, Pynchon, Coetzee, and so forth, where the author did not devote 100% to the text itself. The classics, those books that stand the test of time are not marketing blips that rake in a quick chunk of money and then fade away. They remain because of the text itself. Write one or two good ones, that is, books where you put every fiber of your creativity and soul into the work, and let destiny take care of the rest.”


Thanks for telling us about your writing life, Vic. Good luck with Book 2!

Book Spotlight: The Road to Vermilion Lake 

 "The novel tells the story of . . . Thomas Neal Tems, a blaster's assistant and first-aid attendant who lives and works on a construction site beside a glorious, remote lake. The site is being developed by a Swiss company into an ecologically friendly village, and Thomas begins a romance with the talented and imaginative architect who designed the site, a devout Catholic. The world that the characters must navigate, however, is decidedly not a romantic one. It is marked by painful past experiences, dysfunctional families, tragic accidents, alcoholism, and drug overdoses, all of which seem to derive from an inability to reach beyond the superficiality of existence. And yet, this is a world of second chances, for those who desire to change their imaginative perspective, to seek a sense of depth and enchantment that is deeply embedded in the tangible world, particularly in the body and in the natural world, as well as in the creative world of contemplative thought.”

Midwest Book Review

Sharon Alker, Professor of English, scholar of Eighteenth-Century and Romantic Literature

Note: This novel was reviewed in Literary Review (UK), Edinburgh Book Review, Midwest Book Review, and The Pacific Rim Review of Books.  

Publisher: Harvard Square Editions  
Goodreads Author Page 

Book link: Amazon US   |  Amazon UK

About the Author

 

Vic Cavalli studied the visual arts and photography as a young man, and later in life discovered the potential depth and force of literature. In graduate school, he concentrated on the complex interpenetrating relationships between literature and the visual arts.

He has been teaching Creative Writing at the university level since 2001.

His fiction, poetry, photography, and visual art have been published in literary journals in Canada, the United States, England, and Australia.

Selections from his artwork and photography, plus a list of his publications, can be viewed at:www.vittoriocavalli.com