March 8th, 2011

I’m excited about…

Going to The New Quarterly‘s Toronto reading at Tranzac (which I just learned right now stands for Toronto Australia New Zealand Club!) in the Annex, doors 7, musical entertainment 7:30, readings 8. Should be wonderful, and that venue (multicultural club) is outstanding. See you there?

This lovely review of Once, by Sheila Lamb at the Santa Fe Writers’ Project.

This fantastic grade 11 chemistry textbook. I know, this blog is not usually about stuff I do in my editorial world–that would really require a whole other blog, and who has *that* kind of time? But I just worked so hard on this book that I gradually got obsessed and now I think that as grade 11 chemistry textbooks, this is the best one in the universe. Seriously, everyone who worked on it was amazing and brilliant and not just because they were nice to me when I was very tired and stressed. My role in the project was actually quite minor compared to some, but that does not in any way diminish my love for it.

February 11th, 2011

Rose-coloured reviews *Inventory* by Dionne Brand

Dionne Brand’s Inventory is a long poem in seven sections and many subsections. I don’t know if I’ve ever read a 100-page poem outside of school before, and that might be one reason this book stayed on my shelf so long, though I’ve always enjoyed Brand’s work in the past.

And what I’ve enjoyed is still there–the rhythmic voice and global vocabulary, sadness without cynicism and, very occasionally, plainspoken joy. The subject is the grim catologing of the world’s dead and other damages, wrought mainly through war but natural disasters and local violence make appearances, too. The sadness was challenging to deal with, no question, especially because of the ever-shifting narrator’s bafflement and slow-burning rage. But though I read very slowly, I felt no urge to stop to read something more cheery.

The poem is described on the jacket as “incantatory,” a word I always thought meant “in the manner of singing” but actually turns out to be “in the manner of chanting a magic spell.” *Inventory* actually seemed like both, like a song of sorrows and a magic spell to help the reader bear them. Although it is incredibly sad–it is after all an inventory of death–I felt the character’s love for the world in her sadness, and her warm and constant attention to the real details of real life. “Half the mind is atrophied in this / just as inanimate doors and pickup trucks / the unremitting malls of all desire.” What I think this means is that pain makes us objects, inanimate, unable to feel, but not entirely–we’ll never stop desiring. Am I close? Who knows! I like the lines, though, and when I don’t understand I feel secure nonetheless with these concrete nouns recognizable and benign.

I say “character,” but the book is tricksy on this aspect. The first section starts with “We believed in nothing” and continues in the first person plural throughout–not a defined group, I felt, but more a we-the-people, we-the-world’s-citizens. At the beginning of the last stanza of the first section, the lines ” now we must wait on their exhaustion, now / we have to pray for their demise with spiked hands” I was pretty sure she meant “everybody.” The second and third sections specify down onto a single person, “she,” a watcher of boys eating burgers and slick cities, a watcher of news on TV and, resulting from that, a weeper. “She” seems distinct from the narrator, who seems to identify with her closely and yet sometimes to pull back to a greater distance. Towards the end of the third section we get “we, / there is no “we” / let us separate ourselves now, / though perhaps we can’t.” Does this mean separation between the narrator and “she”? I think rather it means the impossibility of the “we-the-world” global consciousness in the first section–we can’t identify with each other really, yet we are stuck with each other, humanity’s collective fate impinging on all of our personal fates. Or something like that.

And “she” is observing fates both collective and personal. Where I got excited was in the fourth section, which is divided into subsections. The first of these returns to the “we,” but it is much more specific and intimate than before–now “we” are on a trip, touring Al Rifai Mosque, listening to the guard sing and wondering at the beauty. And then in the second subsection we finally get a “me”–“a voice called to me, “Welcome back, Cousin.” I can’t tell you why I was so happy about this, but I felt sort of like it was a homecoming, the narrator reunited with “she” to become a more cogent, personal whole.

Again, no idea if I’m close–this review (a good one, both in the sense of being positive and of being well-written) mentions there being several “characters” in the book, which seems plausible, but I’m happy with the idea of one woman in many guises, from many angles. In the fourth section, she’s being mistaken for someone else, or might be–this man’s cousin–though she’s willing to admit the possibility.

The next section is an elegy for someone who left and was mourned for, and is dedicated to Marlene Green. If Green is a public figure, I don’t know of her (Google fails me); perhaps that’s not the case. I read the section as broken-hearted sorrow for lost love, because I felt the book getting more intimate and because I felt that the “she/I” mourned a personal loss beyond what she saw on tv.

The 5th and 6th sections move back and fourth with “I” and “she”, with a fair amount of “you” thrown in, but I already felt implicated. They are also beautiful, beautiful, but what I read this morning on the bus is the thing that burst my head open, and that’s the 7th section, which begins “On reading this someone will say / God, is there no happines then, of course, tennis matches and soccer games, / and river song and bird song and / wine naturally and some Sundays.” And so it goes, the last dozen pages of the book, a genuine, faltering, beautiful attempt to offer comfort, succour, joy or something like it in the face of tragedy. This section would not have been half so stunning were it not in the context of all that came before, were it not in some small sense *earned* by the reader. I don’t doubt that I’ll sometimes take the book down and read only the 7th section, to revel in it, but it’ll never feel quite the same way without the rest.

What a stunning book. One thing I thought upon closing it is that it must’ve been so hard to write. However, in the reading of it, the strain of emotion is apparent, but never the strain of poetry–maybe poetry is the real succour?

This is the 4th book in my To Be Read challenge. The first poetry collection, and also the first Canadian book. Interesting, whatever that says about what languishes on my shelves.

January 14th, 2011

New in Voyeurism

I’ve joined the literary-voyeurism army on Julie Wilson’s Seen Reading project, and I’ve got some wonderful company. I’m really thrilled that Seen Reading is back after its hiatus, and that I get to be a little part of it. So expect regular reports from me on my Scarborough beat. Also, I rather expect some fails. Even this week, in my first few attempts, I saw what can go wrong. Examples:

1) It is impossible to tell what someone is reading on Kobo unless you are practically on top of them.
2) Some people actually sew little coats for their books that stay on even while the book is open. I assume they are reading porn (why else hide it?) but have no proof.
3) If I am myself reading a very good book, I sometimes forget to look at other people.

More on the situation as it develops!

January 11th, 2011

Rose-coloured reviews *The Mysteries of Pittsburgh* by Michael Chabon

I was quite impressed by Michael Chabon’s later books, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay and especially Wonder Boys–such wild and different novels,original, weird and very funny. So when I found a used copy of his first book, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh and found it completely covered in exclamations of delight from various reviewers, I thought I couldn’t miss enjoying it.

I missed.

Don’t get me wrong–there’s a reason why The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Village Voice, Cosmopolitan and Playboy wrote blurbable raves about this book–“Astonishing,” “remarkable,” “extraordinary” and all the rest, it’s a linguistically gleeful, almost acrobatic novel, and I took real pleasure in the flights of language throughout. On almost any page you’ve find something like, “In the big, posh, and stale lobby of the Duquesne Hotel–in a city where some men, like my father, still wear felt hats–one can still get one’s hair cut, one’s shoes shined, and buy a racing form or a Tootsie Roll.” Or how about, “He stood up, inhaled deeply, and cried, ‘Ah, the sweet piss odor of cedar!'”

There’s a real flare for sentences here that goes much deep than fireworks–the images make sense as long as you care to think about them, and the metaphors are joyous and flamboyant, but true at the core. And oh, what an evocation, a mythologization of Pittsburgh–that’s the main thing I loved about this book. Pittsburgh seemed a magical and beloved place–interesting that the narrator was supposed to have lived there only 4 years, because he seemed to have known and loved it forward. And yet some mysteries never get solved, and I loved that about this urban dream, too–cities are just too big to ever know anything about them.

So what didn’t I love? The plot, I guess, and its various machinations. Art Bechstein is graduating from university, about to start working in a bookstore and have one last magical summer before he buckles down to some unknown serious grownup career. While working on his last academic paper, he meets a guy at the library who tries to flirt with him. Art politely turns him down, and they become friends. The new guy, also named Arthur (this worked just fine, much better than you’d think) draws him into an exciting, glamourous world of new friends and various sexual imbroglios, money and power.

Well, that’s how it’s set up and marketed. In truth, it’s a profoundly episodic novel, with characters making centre-stage appearances for pages on end, only to never be seen again. This happens in the first clangourous party that Arthur takes Art to–it seemed so intense that it all must mean something, but it was just a set-piece; Chabon could write a good party scene, so he did so. Even this girl, glimpsed on the back lawn of the party after a long search for her: “She stood alone in the dim centre of the huge yard, driving imperceptible balls all across the neighbourhood. As we clunked down the wooden steps to the quiet crunch of grass, I watched her stroke. It was my father’s ideal: a slight, philosophical tilt to her neck, her backswing a tacit threat, her rigid, exultant follow-through held for one aristocratic fraction of a second too long.”

Wow. Doesn’t it break your heart to know that this character, Jane, hangs around until the end of the book without doing anything else interesting ever again? In her one other big scene, she makes a salad.

Virtuosic writing for its own sake annoys me. I can’t be called plot-obsessed, but I’d like what’s on the page to deepen my understanding of character, setting, mood, something. There is a heavy plot running through the final third of the book, to do with the mafia (I’m not spoiling anything) and another with Arthur’s wildly annoying new girlfriend, Phlox (yes, really). I could be in a sensitive mood, but I felt that women didn’t fare too well in this novel–Chabon is well-known for his intimate understanding of men, and perhaps in his early days it was at the expense of understanding women. Phlox felt more like a scrap heap of wild outfits, quotations, beauty tricks and tears. A whole novel reading about her, and when she writes in a letter towards the end, “There’s only one place in the world where you are supposed to put your penis–inside of me,” I couldn’t tell if any spark of humour intended by character, or by author.

I was truly baffled by how the plot wrapped up at the end of the book, and though I don’t know much about the mafia in Pittsburgh, what I could understand struck me as terribly unlikely. Though I realized about midway through the book that the narrator was being constructed as unreliable, I wasn’t able to glean anything from that fact other than that the narrator was unreliable. In the great unreliably voiced books (*A Prayer for Owen Meaney* or *Money,* or even *The Great Gatsby,* which inspired this one) the absence of “truth” in the narration allows the readers to solve their own riddles, or create their own truth. But what can we do with the fact that Art never mentions having one friend–even a friendly acquaintance–that he did not meet after page 1 of this book. Are we to suppose that Art the narrator elides these memories as too painful or difficult? Or that Michael the writer couldn’t be bothered to write characters who existed prior to page 1?

I read the bookclub notes at the back (I have a 2001 edition, after Chabon was famous for *Kavalier and Clay*) and as an apology for having had wild ambitions for the breadth and amazingness of this novel, Chabon says, “Twenty-two, I was twenty-two!” But somehow he doesn’t see that as being inherent in the text itself; I think it is. I think this is a wild brilliant first effort from an author that had not really learned to marshal himself, to be true to his characters and his stories, and not just to his own writing. Later on, he did learn those things. So you should probably read this book–it’s got a lot to recommend it–but you should definitely read those later ones.

This is my first book for the Roofbeam Reader challenge
Off the Shelf. 11 to go!

January 5th, 2011

A couple reading challenges

So my main reading challenge this year will be Steven W. Beattie’s from That Shakespearian Rag, which boils down to:

“…why don’t we all try to read better: to be more sensitive, expansive readers, to enter more deeply into the text, to actively engage with books on an intellectual, aesthetic, and linguistic level. Let’s try to focus less on the quantity of our reading and more on the quality. Who knows? By slowing down a bit, you might even find you’re enjoying yourself more.”

Which is absolutely right, and something we should all be doing all the time. Except for those who get paid to read (academics and reviewers, I guess), there is no other reason to read except for the joy of the story, of the new information, new ideas. And I for one tend to lose those things when I read too quickly, ending up being able to say of the book, “Well, I read it.” Much as I do tend to be seduced by the pleasure of making tidy entries in my book journal and on Goodreads, no one cares *at all* how many books I read. So I’m going to follow Steven’s pledge to read in the now, with no goal in mind other than the text itself.

*However,* the real reason I’ve never done a book challenge is that I’m not organized enough, and I get sad when I have to read things I don’t like or am not interested in. However, there’s a challenge this year for something I’ve been wanting to do anyway–so by entering the challenge, I can follow my own path but still have company–yay!!

I found the To Be Read Challenge on Nathalie Foy’s lovely blog, and it seems ideal for me.

All you have to do is “To finally read 12 books from your “to be read” pile, within 12 months.” I’m superstoked to read these books that I’ve long looked forward to and somehow never managed to read, and I’ve already started reading the first one. If you are interested in joining me, the deadline’s been extended until January 15, and full details are at the link above. Here’s my list:

*The Mysteries of Pittsburgh* by Michael Chabon
*Jenny and the Jaws of Life* by Jincy Willett
*The Anxiety of Everyday Objects* by Aurelie Sheehan
*An Abundance of Katherines*by John Green
*Inventory* by Dionne Brand
*Real Life* by Sharon Butala
*A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius* by David Eggers
*Snow Crash* by Neal Stephenson
*Away from Her* Alice Munro (yeah, yeah, I got the movie paperback)
*London Fields* by Martin Amis
*Tell Your Sister* by Andrew Daley
*Songs for the Missing* by Stewart O’Nan

Two alternates–in case I wind up hating one of the above enough not to finish it:
*Little Eurekas* by Robyn Sarah
*Subways are for Sleeping* by Edmund G. Love

December 26th, 2010

Christmas and Reverb 25

Hi all! I hope you had an excellent Christmas! I turned off the computer for more than 24 hours, and had a glorious one myself. Highlights included something called “bubble bread,” a catnip toy frenzy with the local kitten, a game of Scrabble at which I lost miserably, a beautiful new jacket from The Fairies’ Pyjamas, and many hugs and friendly people. The only real low point of the day came when I said in passing, while talking about something vaguely related over Christmas dinner that microwaves run on nuclear energy. There was a long silence after that–it turns out, they don’t. Shame ensues.

Ok, back to reverb:

Choose one that best captures you; either who you are, or who you strive to be. Find the shot of you that is worth a thousand words. Share the image, who shot it, where, and what it best reveals about you.

Me in the dressing room mirror in North Bay

This is me in the only dressing room I’ve ever been assigned, at the Capitol Theatre in North Bay, before my reading at Circus Wonderland. It’s me being “Wow, I’m a rock star, I have a dressing room” but also very obviously all alone, since I had to take the picture of myself in the mirror (There were, technically, a couple fellows asleep on the floor behind me, but I can’t really count us as being “together.”)

It’s me being wowed by one of the little flashes of glamour in the writing world as I know it, enjoying myself and yet not particularly enjoying the loneliness, longing for friends (and not just to take the picture). It’s interesting, this picture, and I don’t know exactly what it means, but definitely something, I think.

December 15th, 2010

What I’m up to

If you haven’t heard my voice in a while, you might want to check out a podcast of a reading I did on Hear Hear’s website. You can also hear Andrew Daley, Julia Tausch, and Adrienne Gruber, all of whom I had the pleasure of reading with that evening, and all of whom are fab. The piece I did was an excerpt from my story “The Weatherboy”–if it whets your appetite for the whole thing, you can download “The Weatherboy” from Rattling Books. That reading is done by Gerard Whelan, and is really much better than mine–warm and musical, arch in places, completely as I would have done it if I were a much better reader. Enjoy!

If you’d like to see what a bunch of the writers from the last issue of The New Quarterly (including me!) are reading at the moment, please check out TNQ’s Who’s Reading What feature. And did I mention that I wrote the letter for TNQ’s donation campaign this year? For those not on their mailing list and who are curious, I’ve copied in the text from the letter below–if it inspires you to give, hooray–but no pressure.

My second acceptance from a literary journal was from The New Quarterly. I still have Kim Jernigan’s shocking, thrilling acceptance letter from September 4, 2006. I was utterly amazed; I had sent my story off to strangers, and they liked it, and wanted to share it with more. Kim said, “We’ve all…recognized…the way [the protagonist] tries to remain aloof from the lives around her while also feeling disconnected from her own life.” It was such a joy to be so well read, so understood. I felt like I’d thrown something fragile that I loved up into the air and a stranger had gently caught it.

When I first started sending out work, I was 28, and had been writing stories for maybe 15 years. It took so long, but I had finally reached that crucial point: my terror of rejection had been exceeded by my desire to share my stories, which I loved so much, and see if they resonated with anyone else. Publication in a respected journal gave me a sudden audience of serious readers, often subscribers who know the magazine well and are loyal to the editors; they’ll take a new writer seriously because they know who chose the work, and they’ll take the time to listen for that resonance. Publication in a literary journal is an invitation to join the conversation.

But let’s back up, to before acceptance or publication or that reading audience of subscribers–it’s thrilling just to have a reading audience of thoughtful readers on the editorial board. You can’t really ask for a more attentive audience than editors, who have read 100s or 1000s of stories and devoted their time to really listening to what each story is doing and why. That attention can be terrifying, too—if something is going wrong in a story, a casual reader or even a serious one reading for pleasure might miss it. Someone with years of experience critiquing and selecting stories, and who puts his or her name on the masthead won’t. When TNQ accepts a story, you can know it’s the real deal.

When I submit to a journal I respect, when they don’t take a story I can often learn something from that too. Even if they haven’t had time to offer criticism, knowing that the editors think it’s not quite there can be enough encouragement to go back to the drawing board. The TQN eds are notably generous with their time and criticism, however, and their feedback can be so valuable when I’m searching for direction. The story “The House on Elsbeth” was rejected by The New Quarterly in the summer of 2007, but with their feedback I revised over the next six months, and it was published in the mag the following summer.

But there’s so much more than just giving us a place to publish! The New Quarterly is good reading, and a pleasure I look forward to every quarter. More than entertainment, I and so many other writers count on the lit journals to bring the news: what new things are writers doing? What new forms or adaptations of old ones have the poets found? What are ways story-writers are solving issues of style and structure? And how are the lines being blurred between the genres in ways that expand them? I’ll never forget reading Elizabeth Hay’s “Last Poems” at three in the morning and feeling like she had told the utter truth, and yet made it more than just truth. How did she do that?

Every issue of TNQ—or any worthwhile litmag—brings me 20-30 voices, that many conceptions of the universe and the written word. Not all are my cup of tea, but heaven help the writer—or the human being—who drinks only from her own cup. I like reading something I didn’t expect to read, or to like. I like to be surprised—it’s very close to being inspired, I think.

I also like feeling that I’m part of this group of surprising writers and insightful readers—the team that goes out to the readings and applauds, the team that makes comments on each issue in emails and blog posts. On the famed TNQ/CNQ (Canadian Notes and Queries) tour of 2008, Kim and TNQ managing editor Rosalynn Tyo drove a few of us story-writers, plus a very little, very cute, very vocal baby, from Windsor to Waterloo in a blinding snowstorm. Some of us ate chicken with our fingers in the back seat, and everyone was in a strangely good mood, and I don’t think any of us will soon forget it.

Literary journals do so much to foster a sense that we are all—writers and readers, poets and artists, fans and friends—part of something we can work on, separately and yet together. I am so happy to write this letter for The New Quarterly, to remind everyone (including me) how much good they do.

October 18th, 2010

Dear Readers

I’ve gotten a couple really nice emails and blog comments of late, both about Rose-coloured and *Once* and I just wanted to say here that I appreciate it–it’s really generous to take time out of your day to tell a writer you like his or her work. (I especially want to say this to those whose contact info came up wonky, so I couldn’t send a personal note).

And to the three readers who arrived at this blog somehow by googling “film body massage,” I am so sorry for the disappointment.

September 28th, 2010

Things to do–busy edition

Do you want to come out with me to the Combat Camera launch tonight at the Garrison? Or without me, tomorrow night, to the mayoral arts debate, which sounds fascinating and educational (and includes free snacks). I, of course, bought my Jays vs. Yankees tickets months ago, so that’s where I’ll be tomorrow. And then on Thursday I’ll be very tired, and on Friday getting ready for my trip to North Bay, where on Saturday I’ll be reading in the Circus Wonderland at WKP Kennedy Gallery. And on Sunday returning from that, again tired. And on Monday at the Cadence cd launch party. And then the thing that I am doing on Tuesday October 5 at 6:30pm, I can’t read in my calander (I have lousy handwriting, ok?) but if I was planning on doing it with you, could you please let me know??

September 25th, 2010

If you feel you haven’t seen enough of me

…you could come down to the Ossington tonight and see me read with Liz Howard, Julie Cameron Grey, John B. Lee and The Vagabond Trust (doors 5:30, readings 6–so there’s still time to go for dinner afterwards!)

Or, if the reason we haven’t seen each other lately is that you live in North Bay, don’t worry–I’ll come to you! I’ll be reading at the WKP Kennedy Gallery next Saturday, October 2, at their Circus Wonderland event, which promises to be very exciting. If you live in North Bay or plan on being there next weekend, I hope you come out. And even if you won’t be around NB next weekend, if you’ve been there ever and had some good times, perhaps you would like to recommend some highlights for me to see on this, my first trip (before you say it, no, sadly I can’t go visit Amy–that’s the other Bay. I know, it’s confusing!)

So see you soon, somewhere!