‘I write because I have always thought of myself as a writer,’ says Chris Tomasini
What do librarians do in their spare time?
If you’re Lakehead University Orillia librarian Chris Tomasini, you write.
Local author Tomasini has written three books, with two more in the planning stage. All of his books are self-published through Amazon. His 2022 book, Close Your Eyes, won a 2022 Historical Fantasy Award from the Historical Fiction Company.
His latest book, a young adult novel titled Within This Darkness, which was published in February of this year, was on the shortlist for the Whistler Independent Book Awards this summer. Within This Darkness is the first of a trilogy. All of Tomasini’s books have received positive reviews, and are well liked by GoodReads and lots of other readers.
“My first book, Festival, is a coming-of-age novella,” reflected Tomasini. “I actually wrote it more during the late 1990s. ECW Press in Toronto almost took it, back when I was shopping it around in the ’90s, but when that ended up not happening, I let it sit in a filing cabinet for a long time.”
Luckily for Festival readers, Tomasini decided to self-publish the book in 2015.
“It still seems to resonate really well with people who are in their early 20s and kind of lost in life,” he added.
With Tomasini’s next book, he moved into the historical fantasy genre, and found he enjoyed it.
“Close Your Eyes is, thus far, my most popular book, and is set in early-1400s Europe,” he explained. “The actual kingdom, and the king, described in the book never existed, but otherwise, all the background setting within the book refers to real people, like Joan of Arc and Jan Žižka and others.”
Tomasini maintains he didn’t have to do a lot of research when he wrote Close Your Eyes.
“I had taken history as a minor at (the University of Toronto), and read history very widely, and was fascinated by Renaissance Europe, so my mind was brimming with thoughts and ideas about this time period just naturally,” he expanded. “So, that was more of a labour of love, I would say, doing the reading to help make this time period feel real to a reader.”
Tomasini shopped Close Your Eyes around to traditional publishers as well, before letting it sit, and, eventually, as with Festival, self-published it, this time in 2021.
He mused, “When I was shopping this one around, I don’t think anyone had a clue what to make of it. It’s historical fiction but with a Princess Bride or Peter Pan feeling to it. There is a soft, sensual side but a lot of deep emotion, and with jabs at the medieval Catholic Church.”
Regardless, Close Your Eyes has found a solid fan base among readers.
Within This Darkness is, again, a different kind of book, and one that was hard to sell to traditional publishers.
“It’s a teen/young adult book,” said Tomasini, “and it’s been well reviewed. It has magic in it, but the magic is kind of ‘off-stage.’”
He continued, “It has a very deeply felt, small-town, Canadian setting but also has a timeline that goes back to the First World War. And, there’s grief, as mentioned in the Reedsy review. It’s a deeply emotional book, while also having these other elements, and, similar to my other books, I don’t think traditional publishers had the patience for something like this.”
The Within This Darkness trilogy required Tomasini to use all of his librarian skills to do a deep dive into research.
“The trilogy involves researching wolves in Algonquin Park, what the physical streets of London were like during and after the Battle of Britain, who was guilty of what (on the German side) in the Lublin area of southeastern Poland in the 1940s, how the insanely confusing collection of Polish partisan groups worked together, or didn’t work together, to fight the Germans during the war — lots of interlibrary loans for this trilogy research.”
Tomasini is hard at work on books 2 and 3 of his young adult trilogy, and is excited for what’s to come.
“I was writing stories way back to Grade 6 or 7 … I wrote through high-school … and I pretty seriously assumed, with some naiveté and some ego, that I would be a money-earning novelist sometime not long after undergrad. When that didn’t work out, I grumbled and went to grad school and got my library science degree and put writing kind of on the back burner for a while, as life and kids and all that happened.”
He paused, and then finished: “I write because I have always thought of myself as a writer, and am maybe fulfilling some promises that I made to myself as a young man. I feel I understand the craft of writing, due to having been a lifelong reader.
“And then, I just hope that I have something interesting to say, and to contribute, through my writing.”
Tomasini’s books are available through Amazon here and through his website here.