by Ivan Coyote
It was Brian Lam, my editor at Arsenal Pulp, who suggested that I skip the foreword and write an afterword instead.
Why I can’t come up with these easy fixes myself, I do not know.
Most of these stories have been memorized by me, to be told live, in front of real people. I have hauled them around in my head and hawked them on stages everywhere from Anchorage to Amsterdam. They have been downloaded and duplicated and dissected by university students. They have been laughed at by loggers and have brought a tear to the eye of the toughest tranny in a number of towns. Some of them were recorded for radio, or reprinted in anthologies.
They have travelled more than I could ever hope to, and further than I ever imagined.
Now they have been collected and bound together in one book, to become something different than they were as separate 1,000-word snapshots. They document the last five years of my life, and they are more than a small part of the reason that I am now able to devote most of my time to writing and performing
For this, I must thank Gareth Kirkby and Robin Perelle at Xtra! West, and the staff of Arsenal Pulp Press. Most of all, I want to thank everyone who read my stories in the paper, listened to them on CBC Radio, bought my books, or sat in the audience at one of my shows, for allowing me to do what I love to do the most: tell stories.
Because it’s true what they say, you know: without someone listening, a storyteller is just some guy talking to himself.