My Bio-Fantasy

By Tamara Lee


It's the end of NaNo week one. And things are getting silly.

And I need to write a bio. For a different project.

Wander over there to the left, and you’ll see my bio’s rather paltry. These past few weeks I’ve become quite aware how little I have to reveal. Guess that handful of rejections and list of publications I’m terrified to submit to aren’t worth mentioning. But the more I sub, the more I recognise I need to drum up a bio for query letters and the occasional publication. Then my mind glazes over with a Wayne’s World-style flash and I go south.

Thinking about trying to describe myself, I fall into a cheesy fantasy about being interviewed for that novel I’ve not written. The one I’m working on. And as I spiral deeper and deeper, I see the interviewer is Jon Stewart (‘cause it’s my fantasy, dammit) and he has maybe even read my book and I am trying not to giggle, or stare at the bald spot he attempts to hide because I’m in bald-Jon-Stewart denial (and judging by his recent almost-combover, so is Jon Stewart).

Okay, so maybe I’ll bring this fantasy north, and think of someone up here who’ll maybe read my book (and my bio, neither of which I’ve written yet). Someone like Daniel Richler. Yes, maybe he’ll read my novel. And I’d try not to look at his bald spot either, but I’d certainly swoon at his big words and dry humour. And I’d not giggle at all, because it’s Daniel Richler and with him it’d be chuckles. Yes, I’d chuckle with Daniel; snicker with Jon. And then there’s the pretty Trudeau boy, not the teacher-turn-mini-icon one, the other one, the one who makes those earnest documentaries. Yes, maybe he’d read my bio, I mean book. If ever I’d finish either.

So my fantasy has now turned into a round-table event, with Jon and Daniel and pretty-Trudeau-boy. And me. And I’ve written my bio and I’ve written my book and I’m not giggling. (I will not giggle). And it’s all very informative and jocular. Except for the big bottle of gel on the table, which the boys are using, not on me, alas, but on their thinning hair-dos. Daniel, a most virile adopted-Richler, uses the least (although perhaps his brother Jacob is virile, too, but he wrote an article that pissed me off once, thus sullying my childhood Jacob Two-Two crush forever.)

So anyway, the fellas, as I’ll be calling them, are all arguing over which passage of the book is most inspiring or something. Jon’s at a loss for words first, which is sort of surprising for him; and the Trudeau fella, he just becomes brooding or pensive. It’s Daniel who perseveres and says things more poignant than the novel could ever say, but I forgive him because he has all his hair and his brother is Jacob bloody Two-Two. And, and…

And I realise I still have over 40,000 NaNo words to go.

And I still haven’t written my bio.

So, wha'? Do you think this one is too long?