With 15 novels, a book of poetry, many literary awards, and millions of sales, Guy Gavriel Kay is widely regarded as one of the greatest living writers of historical fantasy, and indeed as a shaper and former of the genre itself.
He is a member of the Order of Canada whose reimagining of historical periods, celebration of culture, art, and music, worlds including the Sarantine Mosaic and the Fionavar Tapestry, and famous collaboration with Christopher Tolkien on The Silmarillion continue to win him new fans. Born in Weyburn, Kay grew up in Winnipeg — and still considers himself a native of the prairies.
On July 15, Kay, 68, was interviewed at the Mae Wilson Theatre by Dr. Angie Abdou as part of the 2023 Saskatchewan Festival of Words. Abdou is a Moose Jaw native, an acclaimed novelist and author, and a professor of creative writing at Athabasca University.
“This is my third time here,” Kay told the audience at the Mae Wilson. “You guys run a wonderful summer book festival, it’s actually a pleasure to be here, and I mean that sincerely, not just because we’re adjacent to my birthplace.”
Kay and Abdou discussed a little of what it means to both of them to be from the Canadian Prairies. Stubbornness, Kay humorously noted, is a key personality trait of such people.
“One thing is that prairie people are stubborn. We’re warm, we’re friendly. Winnipeggers [in particular] are never late for meeting someone, especially in winter, because the person you’re meeting may die, and you don’t want to live the rest of your life with that on your conscience.”
Kay told the story of writing Tigana (1990) immediately on the heels of his success with The Fionavar Tapestry (1984-86). While Tigana eventually became an incredible bestseller and won the Aurora Award for Best Novel, publishers and editors were reluctant at first to accept it — they wanted more of what Kay had already done and regarded Tigana as too big a change.
“Agents and publishers want you to, ‘do to me again what you did to me before,’” Kay said, telling the audience that prairie stubbornness was part of his resolution. “I said ‘No’ … my joke … was that I didn’t believe in writing four-volume trilogies. The math doesn’t work out.
“So, I shifted ground quite radically, both for myself and for what could be called the fantastic. The genre of the fantastic, at the time, had not seen a book like Tigana turned out to be.”
Kay said the painful experience of trying to market the book, nearly 700 pages long, taught him not to submit unfinished work for proposals.
“That story speaks to me of how it’s such a different thing, the market of publishing and the creative act of writing,” Abdou noted. “They just wanted you to do the same thing again, and that’s not what you’re in it for.”
“The interface between art and creativity, and books on sale,” Kay said, “is not a seamless interface. There is an embedded conflict at times between the desire to do something substantial, ambitious, risky, and the desire to pay the mortgage.”
Kay and Abdou’s conversation ranged across subjects such as what it is like for Kay to be considered one of the definers of the genre he writes in, mixing humour and sexuality, the change in interests across a writer’s lifetime, and how he establishes a routine for turning out a book every three years.
“I’m very aware of how much good fortune is embedded in the idea that I can just write my novels,” Kay said. “If I take on other projects, it’s because I like the people, I like the idea — but I don’t have to do that.”
Guy Gavriel Kay’s latest novel, All the Seas of the World (2022), is set in the popular world of his Sarantine Mosiac, and is available wherever books are sold.
