Year-end Wrap-up and 2025 Writing Resolutions
My first public reading, September 2024, Eden Mills Writers Festival Fringe Contest
“Celia Chandler won a Canadian Online Publishing Award for her series on her husband’s medically assisted death on rabble.ca in 2020. That kickstarted her writing. Since then, she’s won the 2024 Eden Mills Non-Fiction Read at the Fringe Contest, and been shortlisted in several others, including the 2023 International Amy MacRae Award for Memoir. As well, she’s had work published in Gemini Magazine, Ariel Chart International Literary Journal, Months to Years, CommuterLit, and Witcraft. Celia blogs weekly from her Toronto laneway suite. You can follow her at celiachandler.com."
That’s the short brag-bio that’s required with every piece I submit for publication. I imagine editors grouping entries like the Hogwarts sorting hat in Harry Potter: Gryffindor for pieces from the writing novices; Hufflepuff for mid-level writers; Slytherin for authors with books; or Ravenclaw for Margaret Atwood and Barbara Kingsolver. I’m really at the low end and I know it! But I’m moving in the right direction.
Keeping the bio current but still fewer than 100 words is also part of the game. I used to highlight having been shortlisted three times by the Wild Atlantic Writing Awards, being a four-time finalist in the WOW contests, and winning second prize in the Northwestern Ontario Writers Workshop writing contest. But with three publications in 2024 (up from just two in 2023) and the Eden Mills win, those earlier acknowledgments have dropped off the list. It’s just like cow-milking is no longer on my resume - doesn’t mean it wasn’t an important part of my history and got me where I am!
If my short bio could exceed 100 words, I’d include a number of other 2024 achievements I’m proud of:
I expanded my writing network by joining two writing groups:
a Zoom group that writes together in comfortable silence on for three hours Saturday mornings; and
the Writers and Editors Network (WEN) that meets monthly for a speakers series over brunch.
I attended my first writers’ retreat in June 2024, spending a week with nine others connected by the love of putting metaphorical pen to paper.
I read twice in public - once at the Eden Mills Writers Festival in September for my piece, Why, and a second time at the WEN December breakfast when I read a piece entitled Doors.
I continued the weekly blog I’ve been writing since May 2021, and added a biweekly column about solo dining and a video of me reading each new post. To date, I’ve posted about 200 blogs that comprise approximately 160,000 words, the equivalent of two books.
My blog subscriber list increased by over 30% going from 200 to 307 - a slow build, but I’m encouraged by the upward trajectory. The number of visits to my website has increased by 8% over 2023, with the high-water mark of nearly 2500 visits in March 2024. About 700 people read my most popular 2024 blog, As long as there’s CBC Radio, I’ll never live alone, another 450, the one in second place, The Train that Changed Weston, and in third place, 330 read one of my pieces about grief: My Life with Jack in Three Word Sentences.
I’ve agreed to share my blogging experience with a Mississauga writers’ group later this month. I’ll tell them I think it’s a valuable to build a network, show I’m committed to meeting deadlines, and improve my writing.
Because profile is important to potential publishers, I’ve been increasing my social media reach. I now have 1512 LinkedIn connections; 507 Facebook friends, and 186 Instagram followers. (I walked away from my 700 Twitter/X followers because of Elon Musk.)
For the third year, I was a volunteer judge for the Muskoka Novel Marathon, an annual fundraiser for adult literacy initiatives in Muskoka in which writers spend 72 hours at their non-fiction, fiction, or YA craft.
I submitted to 71 places for publication and got 64 “thanks but no thanks” responses (some of those were 2023 submissions). I aim to have at least 20 submissions active at all times.
To improve my writing, I:
took a four week memoir workshop with American memoirist, Prince Shakur, through The Writers Workshop @ Authors Publish;
hired a coach, Anne Bokma, to help me write a book proposal, now in process; and
read about 20 books ranging from frothy fiction to serious memoir, including The Year of Magical Thinking.
And finally, I’m thrilled my passion for writing seeped into my professional life this year. I conceived of, wrote, and worked with a designer to produce a 32 page booklet commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Co-operative Housing Federation of Toronto (CHFT). This included writing profiles of the 31 people who’ve been named lifetime members of CHFT for their contributions to Toronto’s co-op housing movement. It was an honour to interview many of them in person and improve my understanding of the passion and energy behind creating co-op units for the 50,000 people in Toronto, Durham, and York Region who now comprise the sector. You can read edited versions of my profiles on CHFT’s website found here.
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So how will my short bio read at the end of 2025?
Well, I’d love to say I’ve been published at least three more times and hopefully even more. At least one of those will be in the Toronto Star — I’m currently working on a piece with the Real Estate editor that I hope I can share soon.
I will maintain the momentum of a weekly blog on wide-ranging topics including the dining solo series which is generating its own readership among the many Facebook “cooking for one” groups.
I aim to grow my subscriber list and my readership on social media by continuing what I’m doing and finding ways to develop my audience, especially among those living in small spaces like I do.
I expect sometime in 2025 to have a book proposal done and be shopping for a publisher for “Lane Change,” the memoir I’m working on about how I’ve reinvented my life by switching jobs and building my laneway suite, Chandlerville.
I will continue meeting with other writers and reading their work. They inspire and encourage me to improve and keep producing.
Here’s to the future!
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