Apparently, Sir Cameron Needs to Die: A Guest Post by Greer Stothers

A mad sorcerer and a shy knight must join forces to fulfill a prophecy in this laugh-out-loud queer romance. Read on for an exclusive essay from author Greer Stothers on writing Apparently, Sir Cameron Needs to Die.

Way back in 2022, I decided to write a book, because if I didn’t write a book and then I died, that would be really depressing for me personally. Now, when I think back to that summer, and to the writing of Apparently, Sir Cameron Needs to Die, a few things come to mind.

Firstly, there was the cinnamon bun that made me sick. A new café had popped up nearby, and I made a habit of walking there (while writing new chapters on my phone) to order the cinnamon bun that made me sick. I would return home, eat it, experience some gastric complications, lie in bed for twenty minutes, and then write more Sir Cameron. My daily goal was two thousand words, and nothing got in the way. My friends kept telling me, “Stop eating the cinnamon bun that makes you sick!” but they didn’t understand that it tasted good. Anyway, that was the year that I got horrifically anemic. Like, barely a drop of blood left in my body. I went to a clinic and sat beside cancer patients while a bag of iron trickled through an IV into my arm, because – as it turns out – my immune system had started attacking gluten in my intestines, destroying villi and removing my ability to absorb iron. I am no longer medically allowed to eat the cinnamon bun that makes me sick.

The second thing that comes to mind is beach volleyball. I wrote two thousand words every day, except for the day I was invited to the beach. All the other players got extremely frustrated because my limp wrists couldn’t hit the ball properly, and because I screamed every time the ball came near, and they did not invite me back. On the walk home, I tried telling one of the people about Sir Cameron, and she nodded very politely but had a glazed look in her eyes.

The last notable thing about that summer was my illegal chickens. I would write on my back porch, tip-tapping on my laptop, while my chickens screeched and toddled about. The lead hen, Tallgeese, was a Standard Brahma, which is the second largest chicken breed in the world. I bought her because we have raccoons in Toronto, and I thought maybe she could beat them up if they stole her food. That didn’t happen (she just watched), but what did happen is that a fox tried to eat her but couldn’t get its teeth through her massive fluffy coat. I walked out to see her standing there calmly while it repositioned its mouth. Miraculously, she survived without a scratch. Tallgeese also had a habit of screaming full volume every time she laid an egg, and this interrupted my writing, because I’d rush out and bribe her with food to be quiet. My neighbours had already yelled at me for having illegal chickens and I didn’t want them calling the cops. They never did, though.

Somehow, out of that summer of flattened villi and volleyball rejection and chicken crimes, Sir Cameron was born, and I am very, very excited for the world to finally meet him.