I started working on my first novel, Game Changers, in 2015. I own a promotional-products company in Halifax, so the book was only meant to be a creative outlet on the side—and I certainly never expected it to become a hit show. The idea for it came from my lifelong love of hockey, but also an awareness of the problems with the sport’s culture more broadly. I played in the mid-’90s, when I was 14. Back then, there was no girls’ hockey league, so I played in the local boys’ peewee house league for one season. When it came time to write my book, I thought a lot about how difficult it would be to be a closeted pro player—and what it might be like if they came out.

I initially didn’t intend to show Game Changers to anyone, but by the time I finished it, I decided to send it to a couple of publishers who had open submissions. Getting published was shockingly easy, which I realize is very unusual—I didn’t even have an........

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