Teresa Toten is a YA author best known for her Blonde books—Better than Blonde, Me and the Blondes, and the upcoming Beyond Blonde. Her books may be about those who win the inclusion jackpot—ah, to be young, blonde, and beautiful—but she was surprised to discover that it wasn’t those girls coming to her book launches, reading her books, and being touched by her stories. It was girls who felt like outsiders, who felt like they never belonged. Girls, like Teresa, who weren’t born in Canada. (Teresa was born in Zagreb, Croatia.) This experience inspired her latest project, an anthology about growing up and fitting in, Piece by Piece: Stories About Fitting into Canada. Books about growing up and fitting in are published every day. But this book, like the contributors in it, is different.
Small Print will launch Piece by Piece on Sunday afternoon with a performance mash-up, bringing together contributors from the book and kids with their own stories to tell for what should be some unforgettable performance pieces.
Teresa spoke with Books@Torontoist over the phone about the book and Sunday’s launch.
Torontoist: Tell us about your book, Piece by Piece.
Teresa Toten: It’s beautiful and Penguin did a gorgeous job. They let me do what I wanted and the result is an amazing mix of stories. But it’s not just essays. The very first story is a comic by Svetlana Chmakova. She examines the heartache of coming to Canada from Russia, when all the leaves here are the wrong colours. There’s also a spoken-word piece from Boonaa Mohammed, a slam poet whose parents are from Ethiopia, about being emotionally destroyed and resorting to violence to get his point across. Each story really brings to the table a different perspective. It’s not a bunch of stories about hard luck, they’re not “Oh woe is me, it’s so hard to be an immigrant” stories. They’re passionate, thoughtful examinations of the immigrant experience.
TO: Where did the inspiration for this project come from?
TT: I was touring for my Blonde trilogy. The books are set in the 1970s and the protagonist is a Bulgarian girl, Sophie. I was completely caught off guard when kids were in burkas telling me how much this book meant to them. Frankly, I was stunned. It’s about blondes, but I started to ask what touched them about the book, why they loved it so much. Everyone looked at me and said, “I am Sophie.” It was strange at first, because these girls were nothing like Sophie. But it dawned on me that other is other. It’s formless and defined by what it is not. As I started to go across the country, I realized that this was a national issue. The audiences didn’t look like me. How did all these people who didn’t look like me and didn’t look like Sophie relate to this book? Who are they? What matters to them? What are their stories? I started asking all those politically incorrect questions: where are you from, where did your parents come from? I wanted to know their stories, how they connect with literature and what they wanted to see represented in the books they read. I connected with that. Growing up, it would have meant a lot of me as a Croatian to have someone on television or in the books I read reflect my culture and heritage. I realized how powerful and universal it would be to bring together personal stories to reflect on a moment, to reflect on a point of change, acceptance or change of trying to become Canadian.
TO: How did you solicit and select the pieces for the book?
TT: There was so much research! I wanted balance. I wanted young people, but I also wanted people of a certain generation. There’s powerful stories in the European immigrant experience too. I wanted some masculinity. And, wow. The men wrote such powerful pieces. Richard Poplak wrote about coming from South Africa in Grade 8. He came from apartheid to Canada, and wrote from the perspective of a white man and his struggle to overcome the shock and dismay of seeing white people touching brown people. It’s a powerful piece that gets into the complex political and identity politics of that situation in a way that’s rarely written about. Linda Granfield wrote about coming to Canada as an American and facing vicious anti-Americanism. She feared for the safety of her family, and that’s something we never see or think about. For us, anti-Americanism is abstract. We never see or think about how it affects the day to day of families who live here and who support and believe in Canada.
TO: Why did you feel an anthology would be represent your vision for this project?
TT: I felt this was the best way to give everyone a little tidbit of experience. I don’t mean this in the geographical sense, but also in the breadth of experience. Everyone who is from someone else will be touched by the array of experiences that are touched upon in this book. Some of them came here at the point of a gun, or they were dragged here by a sense of an adventure. Others came out of economic necessity, others just wanted calm. One wanted to be an actor and make a living, so he came here for that. There’s geographical dispersion, age dispersion, but what I’m really proud of is the variety of stories. Mahtad Narsimhan wrote about becoming a Matty when he moved to Canada. How does one undergo that process? Changing your name turns your entire identity upside down. These essays touch on the different emotions you feel when coming to a new country: fear, hope, confusion, anger, relief, freedom. Marina Nemat, who wrote the essay “Crossing Yonge Street,” was raped and tortured before she came to Canada. She wrote about being so moved by standing in a convenience store with her three year old, completely bewildered by the array of chocolate chip cookies. Here are more cookies than could would imagine, you can have any kind you want, and you can choose them in peace.
TO: The book looks gorgeous. Can you tell me about the concept for the cover?
TT: There’s always been this idea of suitcases and how it represents travel and change, which I love. Penguin and I talked about that from the very beginning. An immigrant can be moving from Scarborough to downtown Toronto which, in many ways, can be as big as a move across the ocean. You still need to pack up your belongings and move them with you. What do you take? What do you leave behind? Are you bringing pieces to help you adjust to a new life or remind you of the old? Are they practical or sentimental? The best way to represent these transitions, both geographical and philosophical, is with a suitcase. On the back of the cover, there’s a line from the various essays, such as “How do you pack a life?” “If I gave up my name, what would I be left with?” and “No one ever tells you that fitting in never ends.” It’s beautifully done and it conveys exactly what the book is about.
TO: The launch, which is a performance piece mash-up, sounds interesting.
TT: It does! I’m so excited. Small Print came up with the concept and I couldn’t be more pleased. It’s such an amazing way to express the sentiment behind the book. Chris Reed’s vision and passion molded it into what you’ll see on Sunday. Joseph Kertes is involved and Andrew Roti is DJing. We have several kids coming in to share their stories. They’ll be working with several of the contributors to create a performance mash-up of their work, and it should be high energy and really creative. Some amazing kids are coming too. There’s one girl, who is of Indian descent, and she recently moved here from the States. But it’s not the colour of her skin that people are harassing her for, it’s the fact she moved from America. I hope she partners with Linda and I think they’ll come up with something fantastic. I’m stunned by the energy of it all and think it’s a fantastic way to celebrate this project.
The Piece By Piece Storytelling Mash-Up will take place on Sunday, March 28 at the Gladstone Hotel (1214 Queen St West) from 2-4 p.m. Entry is free.
Author photo copyright Matthew Wiley, courtesy Penguin Canada
Boonaa Mohammed is a Canadian. His parents are from Oromiya, a country under Ethiopian colony.
This has been clarified in the article. Thank you.
awesome. very interesting.. like your angle on it