Photo by Shelagh Howard

Sure, like anyone, I have a shyness about certain aspects of my body — hell, I just turned 53 — but when Amanda Leduc asked me if I’d be interested in posing in the barely concealed buff for a calendar to support PEN Canada, I didn’t hesitate. There are a few reasons why.

First of all, I knew Amanda, so I knew her to be someone who has great ideas and makes them fly. That was important — you don’t want to strip in support of a cause only to have the pictures wind up no further than a drawer or a hard drive. When Amanda teamed up with music producer Allegra Young, someone with smarts who understood how to market artistic projects, I knew she was on the right track.

Second, I’m a sucker for a catchy name: “Bare it for Books.” Has a ring to it.

Third, I think Canadian artists should be willing to put themselves out there for artistic projects, and sometimes that means doing more than putting your name on a petition or twenty bucks in a slot. Sometimes it means getting in front of people and exposing your, er, convictions. PEN Canada is a great cause to support. But my involvement wasn’t determined by the choice of charity. I just think writers should DO stuff, break out from behind their desks and from under their protective blankets of solitude and work with other artists, contribute their minds and, yes, their bodies, be part of a larger artistic community.

Fourth, it sounded like fun. A lark. It reminded me of the summer of 1968, when my actor father decided we were a family of nudists and should all ditch our clothes and live the life nature intended. That was the sort of thing that happened around the summer of ’68, when you were an artist or the son of one. I was eight at the time and it seemed fine by me. My mother, I recall, was less impressed.

The shoot happened in my Toronto apartment — comfy warm only because I can’t seem to get the radiators to keep to the precise working cool that I prefer — with photographer Shelagh Howard at the other end of an impressive Nikon. With the help of her assistant, Carole, we moved a few pieces of furniture around, and I, in my terry cloth robe, got into position. When Shelagh and Carole turned around for a moment, the robe went.

There had to be a prop. When you’re shooting a semi-nude picture, there must always be a prop. One of sufficient size and opacity. I’m not going to claim that it had to be extraordinarily large or anything, but it had to do the job. And ideally, it had to have some reason for being there.

We chose a typical garden shovel. Though it seems anomalous in the context of a Toronto apartment, it has a connection to my third novel, Practical Jean, in which — spoiler alert — a shovel is used as a murder weapon.

So there I was, just my shovel and me, as Shelagh’s camera clicked. There was less of me than there would have been a year before — in the previous months I’d lost about 40 pounds — and I have to say I was rather glad, in that moment, that I’d had the foresight.