Snowman Shivers: Scary Snowman Tales

Author Notes on "Ides of March"

Ides of March

First published in the story collection ONE HAND SCREAMING, October 2004

It was in the early 1990's when I was living in Ottawa and I heard a radio news blurb about a man somewhere in the southern U.S. who'd been shot by someone who proceeded to steal his snowman.

It was a quick, short news update, but it fascinated me.

I wondered what kind of a person would shoot another person to steal a snowman.

And then it came to me: a person who thought perhaps, that by stealing the snowman and bringing them north to a colder climate, he could help them escape spring and what would be certain death.

It would kind of be like an environmentalist or animal lover risking his life to save a helpless baby seal from needless slaughter.

But that still wasn't enough, I felt, to make it really interesting. So the idea continued to stay warm on a back burner.

I ended up first writing "That Old Silk Hat They Found" but, after finishing that story, I wasn't done with the idea of kidnapping or stealing a snowman.

Not long after, another idea occurred to me, based on the sentient snowmen from that previous tale.

What if the "man" who stole the snowman was actually a snowman himself – on a mission to save as many of his kind as possible?

I wrote the story and called it "Ides of March" (March 15th being a date not only thought of as a type of literary D-Day thanks to the warning given to Julius Caesar, but also a time when spring-type weather is likely to intensify – particularly back in the 1990's in Ottawa, which also experienced the type of real winters that I enjoyed in the Sudbury region).

This story was told from the point of view of a middle-aged man doing his taxes. The tale starts as he witnesses, through the window, two burly men in long jackets shoving at the neighbour's kid and stealing his snowman. I liked the tale, but not enough. I wrote it and only half heartedly sent it out to a few markets, then relegated it to my own personal slush pile (yes, in this case the pun is completely intended). When I was putting my story collection One Hand Screaming together in 2004, I decided to include this tale beside the other snowman piece because I thought they fit well together. Shortly after, I put them together in a free mini-collection that I entitled Snowman Shivers.