by Karen Keeley
Coming from Canada, I have been asked when travelling in the States if I parked my dogsled at the border—is my igloo in safe hands? Okay, I get it. Always good for a laugh, right? But living next door to the US, we’re more alike than you may think. We’ve grown up on American TV, sports, films, books, documentaries and news programs. I like to think we’re cousins with many more similarities than differences.
Even with that in mind, pick up any novel or collection of English short stories, and depending on the publisher, and the writer, the book will be in either American or British spelling. For some, they see spelling mistakes, the extra letters added such as the U in colour, labour and liquor. Or the extra L in travelling and jewellery. The extra zed (yes, we say zed, not zee) in recognize or apologize. It is, after all, the Queen’s English—now, the King’s English. And since I’m Canadian, I write with the extra letters—something tied into my upbringing despite the American influence in oh, so many things.
We now come to Jay Hartman wanting to put together an erotic crime fiction anthology. When I first read of the call-out, I wasn’t thinking about spelling. My first thought was, nope—not my kind of writing. Then Sandy, editor of the anthology, emailed me, had I seen the call-out? Yup, I saw it. Are you going to submit? Nope, not my kind of writing.
Sandy encouraged me to give it a try, to step outside my comfort zone, to run with it, to have fun! Have fun? How in blazes does a person have fun writing about sex? I needed to do some serious thinking on that. How to prime the pump, as it were.
Then I found a couple of erotic short stories online, downloaded them, gave them a read. The electrical impulses kicked in on the ol’ brainwaves, meaning, I was no longer the dimmest bulb on the tree—you simply tell it like it is! Maybe it was possible I could do this. I then got lucky, the voices talking in my head. My protagonist came to me, a sassy gal with attitude. A gal with a healthy appetite for sex. Never a prude, never shy, never intimidated. I liked my gal which meant, I was off to the races. And being Canadian, I wrote the story at a fevered pitch with my Canadian spelling, those extra letters.
I since learned, the largest market for English literature is the US, therefore it’s recommended we use American spelling, something I now try to remember with my own writing. When I wrote my story for Sex & Violins, I didn’t know then what I know now. Sandy, God love her, allows those of us submitting with British spelling to run with it, so there I am, the only Canadian in the book with my Canadian spelling, all those extra U’s.
Despite all that, we do play soccer, what the Brits call football. Only for us, football is that game where two teams smash into each other trying to gain another down, headed for the endzone. We say potato chips, not crisps, and we walk on sidewalks, not pavement. I get a kick out of the many YouTube videos which show the differences between the Brits and those of us on the other side of the pond, reminding me of the old cliché: variety is the spice of life.
As for my bio in Sex & Violins: Sandy added, “Karen is Canadian and throws in extra letters in her spelling. We humour her.” Get it, humour me? Yup, the extra U. And with that, I encourage U to dive into Sex & Violins. You’ll find it a fun read and maybe, just maybe, you might learn something new.
Karen Keeley lives in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. She’s a member of the Short Mystery Fiction Society (SMFS) and Sisters in Crime, Canada West Chapter. Her stories have appeared in a number of anthologies: literary, speculative, and crime. She first fell in love with a good who-done-it when she stumbled upon Rex Stout and his Nero Wolfe novels at a used bookstore in northwestern Ontario. She writes short fiction with a fondness for crime and mystery, delving into the realm of speculative fiction when the stars align. A former communications analyst with the Yukon government, she is now retired.
