Sean Dixon profiled in the Toronto Star

Sean Dixon, author of The Girls Who Saw Everything, was interviewed by the Toronto Star this Monday, July 9, on the day of his Scream in High Park performance. <!--newline--><!--newline-->See the interview at http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/article/233736.<!--newline--><!--newline-->Employing a novel approach to playwriting<!--newline--><!--newline-->July 09, 2007<!--newline-->Vit Wagner<!--newline-->Publishing Reporter<!--newline--><!--newline--><!--newline-->After spending most of the past 20 years in the theatre as an actor, a director and a playwright, Sean Dixon has suddenly – and somewhat unexpectedly even to him – embarked on a new career as a novelist.<!--newline--><!--newline-->The vocational shift wasn't anything the 42-year-old planned – apart from the fact that, yes, he has written a couple of novels, including the recently published The Girls Who Saw Everything.<!--newline--><!--newline-->But it is the reception that novel has enjoyed, more than the actual writing of it, that has set Dixon on a new occupational path. After the book was issued by Toronto's Coach House Books, its author received a substantial advance on a two-book deal with HarperCollins in the U.K.<!--newline--><!--newline-->Sipping a free-trade cappuccino at a coffee bar in his Roncesvalles neighbourhood, Dixon confirms that the arrangement tops "six figures" – but, he quickly adds, "just barely." Even so, the money hasn't been advanced against potential future royalties, so that nicely sweetens the pot too.<!--newline--><!--newline-->All he has to do now is write another novel. And, as far as his new friends in the U.K. are concerned, the sooner the better. HarperCollins intends to release The Girls Who Saw Everything in Britain a year from now. And ideally, the publisher would like to have another book hot on its heels.<!--newline--><!--newline-->"They want momentum," Dixon says. "I told them I heard that Margaret Atwood said that a book every two years is momentum. They said they have authors who do a book a year."<!--newline--><!--newline-->Dixon probably won't start the new novel until September. Right now, he's busy directing his own stage adaptation of Barbara Gowdy's novel The White Bone, which will premiere in two parts at next month's SummerWorks Theatres Festival.<!--newline--><!--newline-->He's currently writing the second in a trilogy of young adult novels, the first of which, The Feathered Cloak, will be released by Key Porter in the fall. A banjo enthusiast (check out his blog at banjobanjar.blogspot.com), he will also don his musician's hat for Dark: An Evening of Inspired Art & Performance in the Valley, taking place on Aug. 25 in Todmorden Mills.<!--newline--><!--newline-->"The advance really came out of left field," says Dixon, who reads from the novel tonight as part of the Scream Literary Festival in High Park. "I really didn't expect it at all. And it shocked all my friends.<!--newline--><!--newline-->"I've never been set for more than six months in advance before, sometimes a little longer. But suddenly I have a two- or three-year commitment happening. And I'm looking forward to it."<!--newline--><!--newline-->The Girls Who Saw Everything is the story of the Lacuna Cabal Montreal Young Woman's Book Club, an oddball collection of literary mavens who aren't merely satisfied with reading the novels on their list but feel the need to act them out as well. In this case, their travails with the ancient Sumerian tale The Epic of Gilgamesh takes them all the way to the Middle East at the outset of the Iraq War.<!--newline--><!--newline-->The style of the discombobulated narrative will be recognizable to anyone familiar with Dixon's surreal stage works, including The End of the World Romance. In fact, the novel started life as a play, which, apart from a workshop at the National Theatre School in 2003, never made it to the stage.<!--newline--><!--newline-->In the past, whenever anyone suggested that Dixon try his hand at writing a novel, he felt vaguely insulted.<!--newline--><!--newline-->"When you're a playwright and someone says you should write a novel, you think it's their way of telling you that your play is over-written," he says.<!--newline--><!--newline-->This time, the idea was his.<!--newline--><!--newline-->"I loved those characters. It was really frustrating because I thought that I'd pulled out all the stops and really showed my stuff. But people weren't interested in producing it as a play. I waited a few months and then decided I could write it as a novel."<!--newline--><!--newline-->Proof that sometimes you never know how the story will turn out.