fine-tooth-combing

I’m in the depths of fine-tooth-combing through my forthcoming book manuscript. This particular project, an edited collection of letters, reflections, and essays about Joey Smallwood, the first premier of Newfoundland and Labrador, includes 35 contributors, who have transcribed letters written to Smallwood between 1948 and 1952, the years immediately surrounding Newfoundland and Labrador’s entry into confederation with Canada in 1949, and written reflections and essays.

My co-editor and I started this book project in 2019, and we’re both passionate about it. The letters folks wrote to Smallwood are incredible documents that give insights not just into individual lives but also into families, communities, and more. Reading them is like listening in on kitchen table conversations. Some make me laugh. Some are delicate. Some are devastating. I can hear the voices in the letters, and I so wish I could have met some of correspondents in person.

a particularly moving excerpt from a letter to J.R. Smallwood. The correspondent writes, “I don’t think you can visualize what Family Allowance mean to some women, even tough you have reached the top via the hard way - last Friday I was in a store, when a woman by my side bought some sugar, milk, butter etc. she offered her Family Allowance cheque as payment and on receiving the change, she just stood there and cried, how she must bless you.” COLL-075, Archives and Special Collections, Queen Elizabeth II Library, Memorial University

Creating this book has been a long haul. 2020 ushered in Snowmageddon, when the weather goddesses unleashed two blizzards, hurricane force winds, and a metre of snow (on top of the metre of snow we already had). St. John’s shut down completely for over a week. Two months later, another shut down, this one much longer, after the pandemic was declared. Life went sideways for a while. The project, which relied on access to archival materials in a shuttered university library, stuttered, stalled, struggled to find its footing, moved forward a bit, and stalled again. Wash, rinse, repeat.

*Another excerpt from a letter to Smallwood, this one about religion….*

Once we were able to get going again, the landscape had shifted. Some contributors were no longer able to participate. Many were in new life stages. And then there were other complications – as there always are, along the publication process – and these particular complications took another year to sort through.

But we kept going. We wrote. We revised. We participated in a number of public events….

*We held some public events along the way…*

*…I even took the department of gender studies Barbies on a field trip to an event at the Colonial Building in Fall 2024…*

…*and I wrote an article for the Newfoundland Quarterly… (we were also on the radio)*

And so here we finally are, six years later, fine-tooth-combing.

Fine-tooth-combing is one of the most critical parts of the writing and publishing process, because it’s the last opportunity we have to find mistakes or errors. Our last opportunity to get in there and fix things before those things are fixed in print, forever.

But it’s also one of the most challenging parts. By this time in any book writing process, I’m tired. My eyes have read those words (or words like them) a hundred times or more. They’ve shuffled through footnotes. They’ve focused on bibliographies. My brain is mush. My creative energy is low. I am at the point where I just want it all to be over and done with.

There is apparently a proverbial light at the proverbial end of the proverbial tunnel, but instead of getting brighter, it almost feels like it’s getting dimmer.

I can see the end. But I can’t quite touch it. I can feel it. But I can’t taste it. And all I want is to squirrel myself under a duvet. To close my eyes. To push it all away. Far away.

I’m not the only one. Yesterday, a friend shared this social media post:

I don’t hate our book. Actually, I love it. I really, really, really love it. I’m so excited to see it in the world! But right now, I’m also exhausted by it. And I think I can say that my co-editor feels the same way.

Fine-tooth-combing is the exact moment that authors have to gather all the concentration and energy they possibly can to make that final push. Fine-tooth-combing means that there is actually, finally, a book. It’s right there. It’s almost ready. It’s waiting. It needs all the energy I’ve got and that little bit more that I need to push myself over the finish line. We’ll get there, fine-tooth-combing says, I promise.

Happy almost, almost, almost book birthday, Dear Mr. Smallwood. We can’t wait to meet you.

Dear Mr. Smallwood: Confederation in the words of those who lived it, edited by Sonja Boon and Vicki Hallett, with contributions from Angela Antle, Terry Bishop-Stirling, Jessica Bound, Andreae Callanan, J.T.H. Connor, Heidi Coombs, Linda Cullum, Elizabeth Dane, Lesley Derraugh, Violet Drake, Sheila Hallett, Joanne Harris, Gemma Hickey, Robert Hong, Daze Jefferies, Mi’sel Joe, Sharon King-Campbell, Kate Lahey, Julia Laite, Shannon Lewis-Simpson, Dave Lough, Jennifer Morgan, Emily Murphy, Sheila O’Neill, Jasmine Paul, Andrea Procter, Colleen Quigley, Shruti Raheja, Amy Sheppard, Sarah Simpson, Gina Snooks, Jocelyn Thorpe, Patricia Way, and Miriam Wright, is out in November 2025 with Memorial University Press.

(c) Sonja Boon, 2025.

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