SEATTLE / RURAL SASKATCHEWAN — As some may know, I own and run Saskatchewan's newest fiction publishing company, Supernova Press, specializing in genre fiction that can shatter the status quo and expand readers' minds.
What fewer of you know is that I'm also serving a two-year term on the SaskBooks board of directors, with SaskBooks being Saskatchewan's provincial trade association for book publishers.
Because of SaskBooks my alarm woke me at 2:45 a.m. in the first week of February so that I could catch my flight from Saskatoon to Vancouver to Seattle and attend the largest book publishers conference of my life (so far), PubWest's annual conference.
PubWest's annual conference was in Seattle this year, and PubWest is a national trade organization for publishers and associated publishing-related members across the US and Canada.
But more on that later.
Around the conference, I was able to experience multitudes of Seattle-centric excitement, including Pike Place Market, (massive) Pioneer Square (ancient) and the MOPOP (fascinating). I was also able to taste the freshest seafood in years, visit a Walgreens, and answer the age-old question: are Canadians actually nicer than Seattlians, or is it just a stereotype?
After "gaining" two hours on my flight to Vancouver, I arrived in Seattle at 9:38 a.m. To my immediate distress, I noticed that the grass was green and it was +8 C. A stark contrast to the -39 deep freeze Battleford was experiencing.
Rather than take a taxi, I wanted to experience the authentic Seattle, so I took the Seattle Link light rail north from the airport through parts of the city like Othelleo, SODO, and Mount Baker. After getting off at the downtown core, I wandered uphill to my hotel. It feels like it's all uphill, no matter where you're walking.
After checking in, I wandered west, down towards the smell of the ocean, the sound of seagulls, and the red light of the Pike Place Market sign.
Pike Place Market
Pike Place Market has been in constant operation since 1907 and has garnered a reputation as the US's most prominent and longest-operational farmer's market. It's the truth. Six stories wind upstairs, through hallways, and into dead-end shops.
At random intervals, the air smells like strawberries, then old leather, floor wax, then lobster bisque, pee, then dairy chocolate. Used bookstores, fresh fruit stalls, locals walking dogs, Greek restaurants, witchcraft stores, stores filled with Indian spices, and stalls selling stationery are all within a mile of each other.
Some stores sell raw milk, the first Starbucks in the world has a line that wraps around the corner, the maze-like corridors wrap you in circles, and a stall of men tossing fish yell in tandem about their sale prices and new sauces. Everything imaginable is at the market, including the infamous gum wall.
I ate fried oysters and shrimp in a small restaurant with a sticky floor and windows that suggested it was once the edge of the building after purchasing a deck of palmistry cards, a birthday cake kit-kat, and two Gatorade for the price of one.
I walked past a woman selling tarot readings and a man cutting his leg hair with scissors as I climbed the hill back to 6th Ave and Madison for the opening reception and cocktail party of PubWest.
Lots of books and missing Canada?
The next day, the morning involved a panel of four workers across the industry, a book publisher, two printers, and a paper manufacturer, to speak about the changes in book manufacturing since COVID. Surprise, everything is different.
Later, we switched up our tables, had 15-minute roundtable discussions, and tried to solve an issue in the industry, ranging from (almost) no young people in the industry, a push for environmentally sustainable practices, and the stigma around specific printing machines.
After a few minutes of visiting with exhibitors and collecting business cards, I attended a workshop discussing how to run an accessible publishing company. Did you know almost a quarter of Canadians live with some form of disability?
We discussed how we could change our process for accepting books and authors, develop HR practices within our organization, and have vision-impaired people reading our books.
The day's highlight was having keynote speaker Christopher Finan share his thoughts on the rapidly shrinking sect of society that believes in free speech. He detailed the current fight to ban BIPOC, LGBTQ+ books, and stories from libraries across the United States, pushed and backed by Republican politicians and donors. But even he, despite the bleak outlook, figured there was still time to fight.
Are we nicer?
After a full day of conferencing, I walked east again to a Walgreens.
Now, the ultimate question. Are Canadians nicer than people from Seattle? The answer is obvious. Despite the multitudes of people, and the fact that the greater Seattle area is home to more than three million people — almost twice the population of Saskatchewan — stores are almost deathly silent.
Does that tell you something?
Walking to the till with a can of spray cheese and a bag of Bugles, I didn't notice another till had opened up and stopped to wait in line. My mistake. I was yelled at to move along by a patron behind me and was asked, "What's the point in having glasses if you can't see?"
After leaving the building and holding the door open for a passerby, I was glared at. While I purchased a burrito from Chipotle for supper, the attendant stared at me silently. While trying to buy ice cream from a grocery store on the way back to the hotel, I found people squeezing past with rarely a word.
It's certainly a different culture. An abrupt, busy, unfamiliar one. Though my cashier did not smile, he did say that he loved Canadians and our maple-scented bills.
Go figure.
The Final Day in Seattle
On my third and final full day in Seattle, I spent the early morning (which is 10 in Seattle, it seems) taking in the Museum of Pop Culture (MOPOP) after taking the monorail from Pine and 4th. Inside, you could mix your own music, view Buddy Holiday's guitar, see the Sci-fi hall of fame, and see zombie heads from The Walking Dead.
That night, after Pubwest's Book Design Awards, a delicious Italian stack sandwich, and a finishing reception that found us blowing on horns, competing surveys, and singing songs, I walked to find supper in a storm.
After finding a little restaurant in Pioneer Square, the oldest area in Seattle, dating back to the 1850s, I tried my first ever malt. When I tried to ask for gravy with my fries, she looked at me like I had a screw loose. Even during a storm with rain pelting my face and the wind stirring the smell of cigarette butts, the city felt alive with tourists and locals.
Lastly, on my walk back to the hotel, I visited the library with its funky geometric designs and lime-green elevators that ascended in mirror-filled corridors. Also, the stalls in the bathroom are waist-high, so when you stand to pull up your pants, you can stare people in the eyes. To say that was an experience would be an understatement.
Seattle was lovely, I have a million more things to share about the conference, but there's nothing like travelling to make you extremely happy to watch Canada draw a bit closer from the window of a plane.
