LUCIAN CHILDS | author

WRITING

On co-authoring Confluence

A NOVEL-IN-STORIES | Alex Turner and Lucian Childs
Coming September 1, 2026 from Arsenal Pulp Press

After editing and expanding Confluence, the novel-in-stories written by my late husband—Canadian visual artist, author and educator, Alex Turner—I’m very happy that the book is being published by one of Canada’s top independent publishers, Arsenal Pulp Press. Much gratitude goes out to publisher Brian Lam and his team for believing in the book.

The novel begins in 1956 when fifteen-year-old Teddy—a lonely boy drawn to the water and woods surrounding his small town of Harrison Hot Springs—is overwhelmed by his feelings upon meeting the bad boy Wade. During the rapturous early period of their friendship, the two range over the area’s mountains and waterways before falling out after high school over Teddy’s sexuality. In the years following their separation, Teddy struggles to live openly as a gay man, now going by Ted, finding and losing lovers at parties, dance clubs, and cruising spots in a surprisingly wild pre-Stonewall gay Vancouver. He is befriended by a lively crew of eccentrics—a new chosen family—who aid him in finding fulfillment both as a gay man and as an artist. Returning to his hometown nearly a decade later, Ted must decide whether or not to reunite with the one who once meant so much to him: the sexy and mercurial Wade.

Alex generated a lot of material over the nearly two decades he laboured on the work. He had a natural dramatic sense that lent tension to each story. His language was poetic, humorous and exuberantly down to earth. But with only scant training in writing fiction, he didn’t always know how to shape this material. When I took on the project after his death, I found a few of the stories worked well. As for the rest, it was a bit like archaeology—requiring me to dig through draft after draft to find the shape he was driving toward and to sharpen its arc.

Fortunately, Alex was a huge pack rat. So, on the occasions where beats needed fleshing out or new scenes added, I was able to utilize text and incidents gleaned from his copious editorial notes, letters, journals and photographs from the period.

Given these many interventions, the resulting manuscript can now be more properly understood as a work of joint authorship. I am grateful beyond measure that he and I are still together, labouring these many years after his death to create something of meaning and beauty. Pleased that his personal journey, on which these stories are based, will now be more widely known. Delighted, as well, that we’ve rescued from oblivion this dynamic time and place.

Lucian Childs
Updated 8/1/26