Barmaid to Measure

Author Maya Merrick Mixes Business With Pleasure

Fringe ArtsLizy Mostowski — Published March 29, 2011

Every aspiring writer is faced with the realization, at some point—usually in their twenties, but sometimes much later for the not-so-fleet of mind—that they will not be able to support themselves by their art alone.

This realization can come about in a number of ways. Perhaps their skeptical parents sit them down for a chat about their increasingly bleak financial situation.

Perhaps it happens when their professor casually mentions that it takes on average ten years for a writer to pen their first novel. Perhaps they happen to see a critically-acclaimed Canadian author bumming for change on a street corner.

At this point, the writer is faced with an all-important question: How will I support myself? What kind of job should I work so that I’ll have enough time, energy and mental capacity to write? And, perhaps more importantly, will it pay the bills?

Local writer and bartender Maya Merrick has some insight into these questions. Drinking and writing have long been associated with one another when it comes to the intellectual life, so it’s hard to not feel like there’s a certain symmetry in being a writer and a bartender simultaneously.

Author of two novels, Sextant (which has been translated into French) and The Hole Show, Merrick dropped out of university after about a year and went on to write Sextant in just six months. She then thought to herself, “Well, shit, I’ve got a book now—better do something with it. So I did.”

Getting hired at Copacabana on St. Laurent Boulevard, right below the infamous Korova, was her first taste. The bar has been a favourite of many local writers over the years, notably Concordia profs Rob Allen and Jon Paul Fiorentino.

As a writer, Merrick found that a day-to-day schedule at the bar is convenient to the writing practice—“unless,” she noted, “the Canadiens have made the playoffs”—since a bartender’s daylight hours are free, and they work in a social environment when they normally would be out socializing.

Merrick confirmed the suspicion: “A really true, great thing about bartending—it can be incredibly difficult to find the time to write when you have a regular 40-hour work-week. Working in a bar means you can work about half that, which leaves lots of time to get […] back to work on your book.”

As for the bar atmosphere, Merrick said, “I enjoy the fact that there are writers in the bar, but I also enjoy the fact that there are not just writers in the bar. The writers I have come to know through the bar have been incredibly helpful to me, in both my personal and professional life, and I appreciate them deeply. But it’s good to hang out with other kinds of weirdoes, too.”

Merrick’s schedule has allowed her time to start working on her third book, The Quiet Machine, of which she said, “this one’s in the future.”

“There’s some immortality, some space, some sentient body parts on the lam. Memory, abuse, drugs and sex.” Hearing this, it’s clear that her time working behind the bar has influenced Merrick’s fiction.

Maya Merrick currently works at Romolo, located at 272 Bernard St. W., near Parc Avenue. Apart from her two published novels, Sextant (4th Floor Press, 2005) and The Hole Show (Conundrum Press, 2007), her work has appeared in Geist, Matrix and The Portable Conundrum.

This article originally appeared in Volume 31, Issue 28, published March 29, 2011.