May 31st, 2012

Rose-coloured reviews *Little Eurekas* by Robyn Sarah

I have been trying to become a more astute reader of poetry lately. I have a very good literature degree, and can scan a poem pretty well, as well as read it with some seriousness and insight. But actually, sometimes not all that much insight. Even when I really love a poem, I often can’t articulate why. And then I lame out in that chickenish trap of feeling too stupid for poetry, like I should just give up and go watch a reality show about cakes.

I thought reading Robyn Sarah‘s collections of essays on poetry, Little Eurekas would help improve my confidence–I finished that degree a long time ago now. But I was actually so intimdated by the book–what if I’m too stupid for essays *about* poetry, too??–that it languished on my shelf for several years.

I’m really glad I got over myself and read it. Sarah is a careful and insightful reader–incredibly well-versed in the analytical language of poetry criticism, but also adamant that both poetry and criticism be accessible to all who care to read. My favourite sections were the middle three–Appreciations, Essay-Reviews, and Short Reviews. All three sections a focussed direct engagements with individual poems, suites of poems, or collections. Some are more positive than others (the Appreciations are only positive, obviously) but all explain carefully, analytically *why* Sarah feels the way she does about a poem. Also, she quotes liberally–sometimes entire poems. This is so incredibly helpful to a non-professional poetry-reader. For me, many poetry reviews are inscrutable and nigh on unreadable because the reviewer seems to assume the entire audience has read the book. What would I need a review for then? Sarah has an aura of trustworthiness, but she invites you test her judgments on your own by tossing you the poem for your very own. These essays are empowering and inspiring–you feel Sarah is sharing her intelligence with you to help you grow your own. Like sourdough. That metaphor fell apart.

I enjoyed the first and last sections less. The first chunk of the book is general essays on Canadian poetry and they’re actually fine–Sarah is far more reasonable and careful in her judgements than most of the people writing such essays these days. But general is always less interesting to me than specific, and the specific pieces in this text are so insightful–I felt smarter after reading them in a way that the intro pieces didn’t inspire. I did love the first essay, “I to my perils: How I fell for poetry”–one of the only truly personal pieces in the collection, it’s a perfect introduction. But a few of the others in this chunk had the creeping hell-in-a-handbasket-ism that smacks of the standard generational split: kids these days publish too much, too early; workshopping is a crutch and robs students of their voice, etc., etc.

The last section of the book I didn’t really enjoy, though through no fault of the author–it consists of dialogues (in letters, mainly) between Sarah and other poets. As dialogue between professionals usually does, these conversations use highly elevated vocabulary, and often spin around and around on abstract topics that I couldn’t really grasp. I imagine someone who is a poet or critic him/herself would enjoy this section more. But I was very disappointed not to be able to follow the conversation between Sarah and Dennis Lee about polyphony in poetry–literary polyphony is one of my obsessions, so you really think I’d’ve gotten something out of that piece. But no. Alas.

What I probably shouldn’t have done is read this collection cover to cover in a week–it’s not that sort of book. But because it isn’t indexed and the pieces aren’t dated, it would be hard to use as a reference book, either. To be honest, I think the text is probably intended for teachers of poetry, who will be able to read with more insight than I, and then pick and choose pieces to assign in the classroom. Which is darn good luck for the students–*Little Eurekas* is a powerful education.

This is my fifth/May book for the Off the Shelf challenge.

May 24th, 2012

Writing and Money

Something cool happened in April, something that usually happens to me a few times a year but never loses its thrill: in the course of the month, I earned from writing endeavours slightly more than I pay in rent. That’s always exciting, even though it’s far from a sign that I could earn my living as a full-time writer: aside from it only happening a few times a year, rent does not a living make. If writing had been my only source of income in April, I could’ve sat in my paid-up apartment and slowly starved to death. But the idea that I’m even close, even occasionally, is neat-o.

I included this fun factoid in a presentation I was making to high-schoolers, who were quite aghast that that’s *all* I make. But then I told a fellow writer, and he was aghast in a good way, and congratulated me. The expectations for a writing life, monetarily speaking, are so various–and the more you know the less you expect.

I worry about both sides of the spectrum. On the one hand, I think there is a crazy rumour floating around that writing a publishable book equals a lifetime of generous income. That’s hilarious, but I encountered yet another aspiring writer recently who had decided–knowing little of the publishing world–that it would be worthwhile to quit her job in order to write a novel. I quiver in fear for her. But on the other side, I worry about getting too anti-materialist, too hippy-dippy, “I have to write to be happy, payment or not!” I once got a rather stern talking-to from a fellow writer when I said that I would write my book whether or not my grant application was successful; the grant would just make that writing a lot easier and more pleasant. She said not putting monetary worth on my work *causes* it to be under-valued. I say putting a pricetag on work sets me up for disappointment (and not working) if no one wants to pay…but I take her point: artistic creation is hard and it matters, and in our society, the way we appreciate what matters is with money.

So…I try to care about money, but not too much; to treat writing as something that brings me personal fulfillment but also has a market value; to know what is disrespect and what is budgetary constraint. If you say you’re going to pay me and then don’t, I will politely nag you over the horizon; but there’s also situations where I’m more than happy to work for free. It’s complicated.

A further complication is that folks don’t talk about this stuf enough, because money is weird and awkward (unless you’re that girl who yelled at me). Novice writers–or writers doing it for money for the first time–don’t know what to expect and thus feel disappointed when they’re actually being treated generously, or else don’t speak up when they’re actually being treated poorly. So I’m going to do a post on what writers can and do (and don’t) earn. It was actually going to be a part of this post originally, but it’s getting really long, so I’ll see you back here in a few days.

May 14th, 2012

Next Week in Review

I always seem to think I’m just around the corner from a peaceful, unbusy period in my life, and of course in never happens. Now that I’m over the intense craziness at work, I can return to being insanely busy in my off-hours–hosting out-of-towners, attending concerts, filling out government forms ALL WRONG and having to do them over again. Exciting events today include laundry, buying a calculator, and redoing the damn form. If they come for me in the night, please rest assured that I haven’t done anything wrong–I’m just too stupid to prove it.

Ahem. The rest of the week will be better. Here are some of the highlights as I now perceive them–no calculators required!

Tuesday: The Toronto Launch of Akana Schofield’s *Malarky*, which promises to be wonderful. If you, like me, can’t actually make it, there are some other opportunities to see Ms. Schofield read. See you at the library, perchance?

Tuesday also: Cadence: The Next Chapter will be cool tunes and a new member for Toronto’s favourite a capella guys. At the very classy Hugh’s Room. I’ll be there!

Wednesday: The wondrous Kerry Clare hosts an evening of short-story excellence with Heather Birrell, Carrie Snyder, and Daniel Griffin. Depending on my levels of failure or success in other areas of my life, I may or may not be there–but I would love to attend!!

Thursday: I will attend a Feldenkrais class, which is a new thing I’ve been exploring and really quite fascinating.

Friday: Is the cast and crew screening for the new short film, *How to Keep Your Day Job.* They are going to let me attend, even though I am neither cast nor crew. I’ll let you know how it goes (but I have a guess, and the guess is: awesome!)

What are you doing this week?

May 8th, 2012

Reading tonight in St. Catharines

So I’m reading tonight at the Virus Reading Series in St. Catharines with Mark Sampson (yknow, that guy) and it promises to be excellent. And I read yesterday to a seniors group here in Toronto, marking my first-ever reading in (a) a place of worship, (b) in the morning, or (c) that had to follow an announcement that a member of the group had been seriously injured. It was challenging but I think the reading went well, and audience was seriously engaged–tough questions, but those are the best kind.

I’ve done so many readings in the 8 months since *The Big Dream* came out–more than 30, anyway–and I think I like each one better than the last. It’s such a thrill to get to share my work with an audience, and I never know how they’re going to respond–that’s the really exciting part.

So despite the dark grey weather and my lurking migraine, I am in a good mood today! Hope to see you tonight in St. Cats! (Does anyone actually call it that?)

May 7th, 2012

Rose-coloured reviews *A Nail in the Heart* by Ian Daffern

I am a text-based person–very used to getting all my information, entertainment, and general stimulus from words. My visual perception is not highly evolved. I do actually know what matches, clothing-wise, and when a page layout is poorly done, but it doesn’t bother me all that much–I have to force myself to notice.

So it’s an odd experience for me to read a graphic novel. I’m excited, I’m looking forward to it, but I’ll read a few pages without following too well, pause in confusion, then flip back and look at the images. Ah, I’ll say, that does make sense.

Graphic novels are not just novels with pictures in them–they are a completely other form of storytelling, where words and pictures are highly integrated and symbiotic–neither one could stand alone–telling a story in concert.

This is all a very long preamble to explain why, while I enjoyed *A Nail in the Heart* very much, I perhaps didn’t get everything out of it I could’ve. This short story collection by variously creative person (I can’t figure out how to say he’s active in a number of media–what is that term?) Ian Daffern has three short stories, each illustrated by a different artist. The affect is cool–it’s like a mixed tape, in that the modes and styles of the pieces are all different, but united by a single sensibility in the stories being told.

The stories being told, FYI, are horror, which is also something new for me. The first is “Bring Me the Head of Osama Bin Ladin!” The tone is noirish–a grizzled old fed on an errand for “Eagle One” to bring in proof that bin Ladin is actually dead–guess what kind of proof? Noel Tuazon’s art fits the tone and the gross, grim subject matter quite well. The lines blur slightly in the illustration, it seemed to be, giving the impression both of a dark night and secrets obscured. Very affective. As usual, I had trouble following, but once I’d worked it all out, the ending left me with a shiver.

“Bird of Paradise” and “Eyes in the Sky” were illustrated by Shari Chankhamma and Frank Fiorentino respectively. Both had a more realistic look to them–clearly drawn faces and backdrops, details like freckles on noses and buttons on shirts easy to pick up on. Despite this, both stories were very dark. My favourite piece was “Eyes in the Sky,” because it was the funniest–not just black irony like the other pieces, but some character and dialogue humour along the way. My sort of thing–even though the story ended very bleakly, it still made me smile.

It’s going to be a long journey for me to learn to understand the graphic genre, but I think it’s a worthwhile pursuit and *A Nail in the Heart* an excellent step in the right direction.

Since there are 12 books in my To Be Read Challenge, I thought it be easiest to remember if I simply do one a month. *A Nail in the Heart* is the April/4th book book.

April 1st, 2012

Maritime University Tour with Amy Jones

…was so fun! As the last major block of touring I’ll do for *The Big Dream* (there are still some one-offs to come this spring/summer [and maybe fall]), it was so delightful to have lovely venues, warm hosts, engaged audiences, and a stellar reading companion (basically constant companion). Here are some of the highlights:

The Halifax waterfront--a bit chilly, still lovely.

Amy at the Waterfront--also looking a bit chilly, but entirely lovely.

Post-St. Mary's reading, at the Bistro, with Alexander MacLeod, Amy, Zach Wells, me, and Brian Bartlett

This is one of Amy's mom's THREE cats, Ben. It is a very happy household.

Professor Wanda Campbell starting off the readings at Acadia University.

Amy, batting cleanup at Acadia.

The whole gang from the University of New Brunswick creative-writing team had dinner with us. So friendly!

Me, doing air-quotes, at the UNB reading.

March 26th, 2012

East Coast Tour

Ok, so here we go (sodio?): tomorrow at dawn, I will be driven to the ferry docks, ferried to the airport, flown to Montreal and then Halifax, where I will be re-united with wonderous story-writer Amy Jones and we will read to the people of Atlantic Canada! So look out Atlantic Canada! Seriously, if you’ll be near any of these spots at the appropriate dates/times, you should totally come out. Amy’s pretty awesome and, well, if you’re reading this blog then you already know about me.

Tuesday evening, 7pm at St. Mary’s Univesity in Halifax

Wednesday evening, 7pm at Acadia University in Wolfville

Thursday evening, 8pm at The University of New Brunswick in Fredericton

And then back here, to sleep for a while and see what the cat has broken. It’s gonna be a fun week–seeya on the road!

March 18th, 2012

New Work

After *The Big Dream* launched last September, I had–and continue to have–lots of very cool opportunities. To do readings, to teach classes, to do interviews, sundry other fun stuff. All this coincided with a very intense period at my job, as well as wedding planning, cat discipline, a tax catastrophe, and just a lot of general life stuff. What I’m trying to say is, I haven’t been writing very much lately.

But I do still write–just very slowly, a few sentences here, a reworked page there, a complete of crisis of confidence every third week, as you do. Stories even occasionally get finished, though at a rate so much slower than my norm that it is kind of driving me crazy.

So new stories exist. In fact, I have lots of “new” work, because I didn’t stop working on *TBD* when it got published in September–I stopped in January when I handed it over to Biblioasis. I did work through copyediting, proofread, marketing materials, etc. in the ensuing 9 months, but basically I was free to write other stuff, and I had an incredibly productive period. Partially it was the same panic-induced work frenzy I had after handing in *Once*–“my baby is *gone*!!” partly it was that I was doing very little public-arena stuff since *Once* was three years old and the new book yet-to-be, and partly it was because I got a grant and took a leave of absence from my job.

What I am saying is, there are actually *lots* of stories of mine that most people would register as new because they haven’t been seen or heard anywhere. And though I’m kind of at a low ebb of confidence right now–not writing very much will do that to me–I do *like* some of these new pieces. I haven’t read any of them in public because I have been busy promoting *TBD* and I haven’t sent them to any journals because the aforementioned low confidence is making me a big fat chicken (also, my printer is broken).

Well–no more! I have done more than 6 months of only *TBD* readings and I’m sure one aberration will not cause anyone to forget the book exists. I can borrow a printer if I have to and a few rejection letters would probably not destroy me at this point in my life, despite my fears.

I am getting back on the horse. See you at Pivot at the Press Club on Wednesday.

February 4th, 2012

Lit Live and Rowers Pub Reading Series

Just a quick note to remind you that I’m reading Sunday night in Hamilton at the Lit Live Reading Series and Monday night at the Rowers Pub Reading Series here in Toronto. Twould be lovely to see you at one or the other.

Happy weekend!!

January 22nd, 2012

Unlikable Characters

I’ve been working on a fairly grim new story. A few of my early readers, while they said good things about the story as a whole, were unhappy with the choices the characters made and, while they felt the choices and their results were honest and believeable, wished for better behaviour the fictional folk within the story.

No one has suggested I change these things necessarily, but they have wondered about how easy it’ll be to sell, pointing out that many people don’t like to read about unlikable characters.

It was a revelatory moment for me. People don’t like to read about characters they don’t like? Well, really? Yes, really–what sells a lot is, I suppose, more slanted towards the hero/villain market than the protagonist/antagonist one. Of course there’s always Macbeth, Wuthering Heights, anything by Martin Amis…but really, most of the time, yeah, likeable is what people like. I know this is true.

Huh.

But the other stuff, those other people with their bad behaviour, moral standards at variance to mine, bad spelling and poor table manners–fascinating! People I don’t like–I usually need to avoid sitting next to them on the bus lest they start making fun of my hair or expounding upon libertarianism. But in fiction, I can run through a logic that, while not mine, is *like* mine, and end up at fantastically different place. I am interested in thinking, reasoning, not particularly stupid people (stupid is too easy; it’s a one-word answer) that do things that I think are bad. To just say they are bad, and dismiss them with that other one-word answer, is to say it’s not worth trying to understand hate, or violence, or viciousness, or whatever.

Which is why I’m not interested in amorality–if you don’t know the difference between right and wrong, how can your choice to do wrong be an interesting one? There is a small but thriving genre of serial-killer thrillers written in part or entirely from the point of view of the killer, as he or she relishes the killing and never ever analyzes her choices. I read a few too many of these as part of a job I had, and consider them tantamount to snuff pornography; I certainly didn’t learn anything.

I am interested in immorality–people who do things I consider wrong because of an alternative version of morality or a view of extenuating circumstances or some other thing going on in their heads that makes the issue less than black and white. My objection to treating characters as villains in fiction is that limits the conversation to how others see these folks; we never see them as they see themselves. Because no one is ever not the hero of their own story, no matter how villainous they may seem from the outside. And I truly think no one thinks, or not for very long, “I am a bad person and what I am doing now has no moral justification.” I am interested in the justifications we all find for the compromises we make.

Which is why I am eager to read and write about people who behave in ways I find abhorrent, who forgive themselves for all of it, and never see the error of their ways–I want to know why, and how. Not all the time, of course–sometimes all I want is to read about is a sweet young book editor who can’t find some of her tax forms and eats too much chocolate, but at the end of the day is kind to her cat and her fiance and is rewarded for her efforts with a really nice new printer. I really hope someone is writing that book.

But other times, when I am feeling strong, I am looking for books that ask me to stretch beyond myself and my own petty concerns, and discover something I didn’t already know about the human condition, even if the new knowledge is uncomofortable or even unpleasant. I’m not saying my work does that…but I want it to. Isn’t that what fiction is for?