December 3rd, 2009
Russell Banks On Research
I am ashamed to admit Russell Banks’s essay “On Research” in the PEN anthology Writing Life might be the first thing of his I’ve ever read. But clearly, I should take a look at his novels, since his views on writing and research so brilliantly express things I’ve been failing to articulate, even to myself, for years:
“Write about what you know, we’re constantly told. But we must not stop there. Start with what you know, maybe, but use it to let you write about what you don’t know.
“The best fiction writers seem to be great extrapolators; they start with a cue, a clue, an iceberg tip, and are able to extrapoloate from that the hero’s entire soliloquy, the motive for the crime, the entire iceberg. How does Joyce Carol Oates, for instance, know so much about the sexual secrets of lusty, irresponsible, working-class white men? Or of African-American, inner-city male adolescents, for that matter? I mean, come on! … She’s got to be extrapolating all that information from some small bit of only marginally related information close to home, conjuring a an entire world of quotidian data, speech, nightmoves, anxieties, sweaty desires, and hormonal after-effects, drawing it out of what…? A pair of men’s undershorts flopping in the wind on a backyard laundry line, glimpsed by her from the passenger’s seat of a car speeding down the New Jersey Turnpike? I suspect so.
…”As a fiction writer, one has no need to master a subject, to become as expert on it, or to report or otherwise testify on it later. In fact, quite the opposite. Because if I had done as much research to master a subject as would be required of a scholar…then it’s very likely that my novel would have died aborning. Its form and structure would have served no puropse but to organize data more or less coherently; its characters would have been case studies instead of complex, contradictory humany beings; and its themes would have led me, not the acquistion of a comprehensive vicion of the larger world, but to a narrow, parochial didacticism and/or ideology.”
As they say in the funny papers, wowsers. This creeping tendency of research to take over a text, to enslave characters it was meant to illuminate and make the plot into a mechanism for someone to walk into a room and demand, “Can someone explain this crazy proportional representation thing to me one more time?”–well, it’s enough to make a devoted fiction writer refuse to write about anything she didn’t make up entirely inside her head, just to keep safe from an academic onslaught.
But that’s not how inspiration for fiction works. Sometimes the story one most desperately needs to tell takes its spark in the dubiously real world, and we have to go to the material–learn the history, listen to the accents, memorize the map and/or order off the menu–out of respect for the story that needs telling. Banks is somewhat coy in insisting that that sort of work is *not* research, merely getting the story right. But whatever you call it, sometimes you need to do it.
I think an antipathy to fiction that’s been made submissive to fact is a reason some of us are not wild about most historical fiction. I don’t think that anyone would discur that any novel that makes its story, characters, setting, and world live and breathe and affect the reader is a superlative achievement, whether it’s set in the past or future, Liberia or the author’s living room (I am thinking, actually, about Chester Brown’s Louis Riel). Who doesn’t want to read that book? Some miss the mark a bit, and thought I don’t myself dig it, I do understand why even second-rate historical fiction is popular: for those who feel, like an Austen heroine’s mother, that reading novels without “learning anything” is a little indulgent, the historical novel as accessible textbook is not a bad bargain.
But I don’t do that, myself–I suspect that my reach is not that far, or at least, not in that direction. My fiction strays very rarely from the world I see while going about my daily life. But even then, it’s important to get it right, to study the facts that anchor the story, so there are no gaps for characters to slip through, no inaccuracies or incongruities to jar the reader. Mr. Banks can call that work what he likes, but research is fine with me. So, in just a sec, I’m going to gather up my taxiways map, my laptop, and my TTC pass, and head for Pearson International. It’s no grand project, an afternoon at the airport, but it’s the story I desperately need to tell.
RR
November 26th, 2009
This week in review
Of course, this week is not technically over yet, but rather a lot has already happened. I think it was enough to occupy an entire week if it was spread out, and I am rather hoping nothing further will happen until next. Thus, I dare to pre-emptively summarize:
Tuesday: I attended the Writers’ Trust Awards. It is a pretty glitzy event, with roaming waiters and lots of excited chat before the ceremony. At the ceremony, the Journey Prize was the first to be awarded, which meant co-presenter Anita Chong and I could get our moment of stress out of the way early and enjoy the show! I had perhaps 200 words to say, and really people just wanted to know who won, but I was very worried about flubbing it, or not even making it to the podium because I had spotted a gap between the top of stairs and the stage where I could easily wedge my foot.
But nothing happened like that, and I was able to present the winner, Yatsuko Thanh, for her story Floating Like the Dead with no trouble. What an honour to do so, and what an incredible story. I was charmed by how sincerely stunned Ms. Thanh seemed, and was really glad I got a chance to meet her. And the other two incredible finalists, Dave Margoshes for “The Wisdom of Solomon” and Daniel Griffin for “The Last Great Works of Alvin Cale.” An evening like this one really makes me feel alive to all the wonder and diversity of wonders in CanLit.
I was also happy to see that Annabel Lyon took the fiction prize though I have not read the celebrated book, *The Golden Mean*. But if my intense love of her first book, Oxygen is any indication, I should. And I was pleased to hear that, though Ms. Lyon was also pretty stunned by the win, she remembered to mention in her speech all those smaller literary magazines where she got her start, and to please for no further cuts to arts funding in Canada.
Wednesday: On Wednesday morning I went out to University of Toronto Scarborogh to do a guest lecture in my fellow UofT Creative Writing alumni Daniel Tysdal‘s short story class. I did, as promised read the end of a story, “Massacre Day.” When I told the students that I would read the last three pages of that piece, I had the extraordinary experience of watching a roomful of students pull out copies of my book and prepare to follow along.
But that extraordinariness did not all compare with the level discussion after my reading and (very brief) talk. The students were reading intently and speaking insightfully, not just about my work (although I appreciated that very much) but about everything they laid their eyes and minds on. What a fantastic way to spend a morning.
That evening, was the Biblioasis fall poetry party, featuring Zachariah Wells, Shane Neilson and Robyn Sarah. The non-present presence of a 4th poet was Wayne Clifford, whose work was read by all three of the others to make up for his absense. It was really cool to get three interpretations of one voice.
Also last night, I got to meet London, Ontario, novelist A.J. Somerset who just won the Metcalf-Rooke Award. There’s a lot of literary winning going on this week!
Today, is the real American Thanksgiving, I’m pretty sure, so I am wishing you all a happy one of those–I remain as Thankful I was last week, on fake Thanksgiving. Also today, due to a minor incident, I was without tights for a portion of the day, and it was actually warm enough that I didn’t mind dreadfully, temperature-wise. The upside of global warming. What was strange is that I felt like a total scandal, bare knees and nothing under my dress but panties, when of course that is how I spent the entire summer. I think winter makes me puritanical.
I also spent part of today talking books with Kerry Clare while I lay on the floor eating scones and playing with her baby daughter. That was, as you might imagine, delightful.
To continued, low-impact delight.
RR
November 5th, 2009
Professional Interview #6: Martha, Contract Writer
Can you tell us your job title?
At that time, I was the contract writer; that was what was on my invoices.
And that was what you saw in the job posting?
There wasn’t a job posting. I was actually approached because I had worked on a previous institutional history for OISE, which is the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, because they were celebrating their 100th year. So I did some writing, a lot of research, fact-checking, sourced images…was on the editorial board. [The book project people] had actually looked at that publication and they liked that and then approached me to work on their history.
Ok, then, go back a step: how did you get to the OISE project?
I started when I was still a student at UofT, in the Information Studies degree (with a specialization in Archival Science) and basically I knew a lot of people because I wanted to see what the potential jobs were like. I was friendly with one of the archivists at UofT and someone approached her to work on the OISE project, and she said, “Well, Martha’s really cool and really keen. Why don’t you talk to her?”
I first started doing…a file transfer to the UofT Archives from the Faculty, and then while I was there, they started working on their centennial and they said, “Hey! Why don’t we just have Martha stay and she could do some research for us, and sort some photos, because she’s an archivist and that would really be helpful to have onboard.” Then, because I was so interested in the whole book process, they said, “Ok, why don’t you be on the editorial board and write some of the in-between pieces.” So I did that.
Did you love it?
I did. I really really loved it. Because it was a huge team. The book was actually a compilation of a whole bunch of faculty members’ experiences there over the hundred years. So I got to work with them, and edit all of their personal accounts and then try to fill in a lot of the blanks for someone who didn’t really know a lot about the faculty. So I was learning a lot about various experiences and the overall process and it was nice to be a part of that.
So that was a team book?
Yes, I was a “contributer,” with a lot of other contributers.
I see! So, for the subsequent project, The Michener Institute, 1958 to 2008, the First 50 Years, was that your book?
Basically, yes. When I started, I was the only one with book experience as I was the only who had actually done a book before, and I had done one. I was on the Board with a whole bunch of other people, including an institutional historian who had done a thesis on the beginnings of the Institute because it had complete changed how medical technologists were trained in Ontario… He had done a chapter, [which] was just supposed to be like a little pamphlet. I looked at it and I said, “Wow, this could be something really big, this could be a really great story.”
I thought that it needed an outsider’s voice, because it read like they were talking to themselves, and I knew that’s not what they wanted. They wanted it to be something that other people would find interesting. So I told them that I thought the tone needed to change and that it needed to be expanded, and then my roles expanded.
I gave them a draft of what I thought could become a chapter. And from there, I worked with the institutional historian who knew a lot of the details of the place. I would take his ideas and his research and try to make the material a bit more accessible [and] tell a bit more of a coherent story.
Was it at this point that it became your full-time job?
Yes. I was working on it on the weekends for a few months, while was working [at another job]… So I did some work on it on the bus. But when I finished that contract …I worked full-time on this for…six or seven months.
Did they give you an office at the Michener?
No. There was a little desk with a computer behind some books in the library where I worked a little, but mainly I would do my research and then I would go home or somewhere else [to write].
Can you describe a typical day during that six months? Or was there a typical day?
There weren’t very many typical days. Most days, I would try to get up and have some sort of a normal schedule so that I didn’t get off the project, because I had to learn a lot to make this [text] make sense not only to me but to someone who has very little understanding. Most mornings I would do a little bit of research. Then if I had an interview with someone, I would go do the interview, then come back and transcribe. And then after a research day, the next day I would try to do a lot of writing.
We should talk about the interview process, since the reason I got interested in interviewing you/Martha is because she/you know(s) how to do this professionally. So I would like to talk about how you set them up and what your process would be to prepare, and then how it would go.
Because [the book covered only] 50 years, a lot of the people whose roles were important in the growth the institution, [the current staff] still knew them, or they were still working there. So it was very easy for me to find people to talk to…. Once I found out what they did, I had to do some research on what that actually meant, so that I could ask more intelligent questions, and so that I would understand the progression of programs and the expansion of the student body and all that kind of stuff. And then, most of the time I would go to where they worked…. They were practitioners in hospitals and that sort of thing and I really wanted to see what that felt like….I spent a lot of time in hospitals.
Usually, I tried to divide the interviews between things that I felt I knew already and things that I knew I didn’t know [but] that they would have expertise in. I wanted to get some specific answers, but I also wanted to get their impressions of the place and of the profession, because that’s what I really wanted to bring to the book. Those sort of personal anecdotes are sometimes really hard to get.
How structured were your notes going in to the interview?
I definitely had a list, because I wanted there to be some consistency across the interviews. There were 5 questions that I asked of everyone, hoping that there would be some themes that would emerge from that. But I also knew that there were specifics that I had to ask and I would list those. Then I would have a separate list of “probatives” where I hoped they would get off on a bit more of a tangent with their personal feelings.
How amenable were people to this process?
Because I also had a recorder sometimes people said, “I will tell you that when you turn this off.” And I said, “Ok, but you still know that as part of the transcript that’s going to be in there.” And they still said, “Yes, that’s fine, I just don’t want this on [tape].” And I said, “Well, am I allowed to use it?” … There were a few people [that said no], but after I had heard what they didn’t want recorded…I was able to say, “So how did that affect this other big thing,” and then I was allowed to use that material. I really had to try to scooch around it. But it was fun to hear about those kind of problematic relationships within the institutions, which every institution has, it’s not a new thing.
Historical gossip.
Exactly. I actually feel like having those sorts of stories helped even if I couldn’t use them word for word. They really helped shape how I felt about the project.
…Did you have oversight straight along, or did you complete a draft and then show it?
There were a lot of [chapter] drafts and each draft went to the Board. There were about 6 people on the board. Then when it all came together, we looked at as a complete thing and understood where there were pieces missing.
So it was a collaborative effort?
Yes. I think that it had to be, not because of the writing but because of the topic, because it was supposed to be something that really speaks to the institution, and those who are involved in the institution know the political issues, know what their future plans are. This needed to fit in with those ideals, which I wouldn’t know. So it had to be collaborative at the end, definitely.
But was it treated as your project that they were helping you make good?
No. I think that that’s OK for what they wanted, I don’t think that that’s the ideal for moving forward with a project like this. I think it’s important [when working on] a history, for the people who were actually involved in that history to step back and let the story be told from someone outside’s perspective. I think they gain something more from that. Again, I think there’s a tendency to talk to yourself and talk to your colleagues and not want to branch out at all. I think that they wanted to branch but they didn’t know how… So at the end it became a bit more, “This is our community and we want to keep it this way,” instead of saying, “This is a really great story about the history of Toronto, the history of Ontario, and of the profession in general, and it should be known.”
So, do you have plans for next time? Would you like to do another project?
Yes, yes, I would love to do another project. Because I know all the pitfalls: that I really need to stand up for myself as the writer as opposed to just part of a team, because I think that the writer is separate. Although there definitely needs to be that collaboration at some point, the writer should be in charge of that creative process. It’s really difficult to have a successful and real creative work when there are so many people giving their opinions all of the time.
So, when this project was winding down, I know you went on to something very different, what were you thinking jobwise, careerwise?
I really wanted there to be another book project after that, so I actually waited a few months after the project was finished, because it was quite hectic near the end…But then there was nothing coming, so then I had to get a real job. [laughter] So now I’m a fulltime archivist.
Can you put a lot of the lessons you learned in that project into the work that you do now?
Ye-es. But it really makes me want to go back and do more books. Because I feel that it takes my archival training and my writing tendencies and creates this lovely little relationship between them. There are so many really neat true stories to be told, that can be told in a creative and interesting way, and I really love to do that.
RR
October 20th, 2009
Metcalf-Rooke stuff
Y’all know that Amy Jones’ book launch is tonight, right? Ushering in a new era of Metcalf-Rooke awesomeness. Though I seem to have a tiny angry bird living in my left temple, I’m going to be there–and if I can do it, so can you!!
And then on Thursday, Amy and I and Carrie Snyder are reading at the New Quarterly issue launch at the Art Bar in Kitchener, which should be awesome. Provided the bird is free by then. Or dead, I suppose. I should not come up with metaphors when I’m feeling poorly. Glad I’ll have articulate folks to listen to tonight.
RR
October 14th, 2009
Readings in Motion
In the year since my last readings post, I’ve done perhaps 20 or 25 readings and other public presentations about my writing. I’ve had lots of fun, learned plenty, had some embarrassing moments and heard some amazing readings. I’ve also gotten loads better–my voice rarely shakes now, I enunciate and project, I know approximately how much emphasis to give the funny lines and the sad ones, and I no longer equate speed with fluency. If circumstances occasionally result in my giving a below-par reading, the benevolent hand of random chance occasionally result in my giving an above-par one, too.
The bad news seems to be that, no matter how much I improve, the nervousness does not go away. I fret a lot pre-reading, going over the selection again and again and wondering whether the piece isn’t just garbage that I should be ashamed to present in front of an audience? I am a fairly obnoxious dinner companion pre-reading, but tonnes of fun–in the manner of a pardoned death-row prisoner–after any reading that didn’t utterly suck, which is most of them. It remains hard to convince reading organizers, some of whom have gone to trouble and expense to have me there, that I am thrilled to be.
And I am! Thrilled that I get to personally deliver my work to the world. A little terrified, yes, but mainly thrilled. And getting better, the more I learn about the process.
So what have I learned? A few things since that year-ago post, actually. If you are curious, here are some very basic practical tips that I overlooked for a while (too long). Now that this stuff has occured to me, I am ever closer to consistently giving readings people will enjoy listening to (note: these lessons are from my combined experiences as reader and audience):
1) Ask if you can be heard in the back before you begin, and adjust your voice/mic until you can be. It is tempting to avoid being primadonna-y and plunge in at a preselected pitch and let the audience cope how they can. However, if you can’t be heard, most audiences won’t cope; they’ll yell at you to speak up/adjust the mic. That’s obviously annoying for the audience to have to do, and it is also very startling to a nervous reader to have people yelling at you.
On a similar note, adjust the mic *stand* before you begin, so that you don’t have to give your reading crouching or on tiptoe, neither of which helps with delivery. Ask for help from the stage if you can’t figure it out; likely the reading organizer/tech guy/random helpful soul will come darting up immediately.
2) Prep your guests. Every reader has some friends and family who aren’t very literary-reading savvy, and maybe have never even been to one before. If they want to say aloud, “Wow, that was great” after each poem in your set and/or attempt to engage you in dialogue from the stage, you may well enjoy that, but then again you may be completely thrown off/dying of shame. Even if a little vocal audience validation is exactly what you want, warn those validators to stick to polite applause for readers that may come before or after you. And please please please, tell your posse not to sit in the front row if they want to leave immediately after your reading. People tromping up the aisleduring the next reader, sometimes *talking* is something I’ve seen a number of times. Of course no one should have to sit through stuff they aren’t interested in, but try to get’em to sit near the door and leave discreetly. I honestly think that some people have grown so used to movies that they forget that it’s a real person up there whose rhythm could get thrown (or feelings could get hurt).
3) Try to stay within the time limit. This is necessary to ensure the goodwill of your fellow readers and the organizer. I have lots of awesome 22 minute passages and it is tempting to read them always, but if I were asked to read for fifteen and there’s a band coming on after literary portion of the evening, the later readers are going to get screwed and hate me, so I don’t do it.
Also, as a listener, I’ve found evenings of readings have a rhythm that it’s best to go with. If everyone reads for 15, I am in 15-minute-mode, and a 22-minute reading suddenly seems torturingly long, though an evening of 22-minute readings is fine. Or maybe my brain is weird.
4) The best readings, in my experience, require very little explanation. The best selection to bring to the stage is completely self-contained: one complete story, a selection of complete poems or a complete poem cycle. The second best thing is the beginning of something, from the first page until you run out of time. The third best is, uh, some self-contained thing in the middle that still doesn’t require much explanation.
But sometimes you simply don’t have an interesting segment the right length that stands alone. Or, damnit, you just want to read the ending for once. So go for it, but work on the explanation as if it were a new piece of reading–make it clear and interesting. The one time I tried to link up two sections from different parts of a story in a reading, I think I lost a good percentage of my audience because I hadn’t rehearsed my explanation and it was not very clear.
The brilliant writer and reader Leon Rooke often jumps around within a reading *without me knowing it* because his bridge passages are so funny and interesting and completely in keeping with the tone of the story. The only downside is when I read the published piece looking for the bit that isn’t actually part of it. Strive for this.
It should go without saying that work shouldn’t need an explanation for anything more than logistical purposes (“Ok, so Jimmy is Johnny’s stepson, and they’re on the road to Vegas”). If an author feels the need to tell the audience how to interpret what they are about to hear, it demonstrates a lack of faith in either how smart the listeners are or how good the writing is, neither of which is an appetizing thought as one tries to get into the work.
5) It’s your time–do what you like. I love it when authors like Pasha Malla chat with the audience, tell funny stories, and engage in dialogue, and I was totally impressed to hear Angela Szczepaniak‘s rejoinders to a heckler be funnier than the actually heckling. Evan Munday and Jon Paul Fiorentino’s typical reading for Stripmalling is a slideshow. A couple weeks ago I heard Spencer Gordon introduce his short story, briefly and wittily, and then he said the words, “I just have to do it in a southern accent.” I thought to myself, and I believe I wasn’t alone in this, “Oh, shit!” Which made it all the more amazing that period Mr. Gordon actually has the twin talents of story-writing and accent-doing is not to be trifled with. It was a stellar reading, warm and funny and original on a number of levels.
My readings are still pretty non-esoteric. I’m pleased if I can get the words from the page into the air in a relatively entertaining manner. My big new thing at my next two readings will be to actually tell a brief anecdote *about* the story before reading it (with cue cards, der; I haven’t gone completely crazy!)
But I am learning to chill out occasionally, and enjoy myself more and more every time. Here’s a picture from one of my more awesome readings/seminars (actually, I did relatively little talking at this one, perhaps why I enjoyed it so!) at North York Central Public Library’s Young Writers’ group.
Even though I struggle with the readings still, I know how lucky I am. How many people get to do this stuff, really?
RR
October 13th, 2009
Everybody’s talking
Dave Fiore talks to Jenny Sampirisi at Agora Review.
Amy Jones answers rob mclennan’s 12 or 20 questions.
Kerry Clare blogs astutely about Little Women.
Me, I’ll be talking (though probably more listening) about the demands and rewards of plot in fiction at a writers’ discussion group tonight. This should be bracing, considering my usually limp-wristed grasp on the plot of any story I try to write. More on this situation as it develops.
RR
October 8th, 2009
It’s a Metcalf-Rooke Thing
All good things must pass, and my term as Metcalf-Rooke winner is ending. But I couldn’t be happier that I’m passing it on to Amy Jones, who, on October 20 is launching this year’s winner, What Boys Like. Which, from the stories I’ve read so far, will be amazing and I’m so excited both to read the whole thing and to attend the event.
And then, we’re going to do a couple of the events together in M/R team-joy (I’m always tempted to say “M/R sisterhood” but I won’t because our awesomeness, respective and collective, is ungendered, and likely someday a man will win). October 22, along with Carrie Snyder, Amy and I will be reading at the Art bar in Kitchener for the launch of Issue 112 of The New Quarterly, which has featured all of the above authors. And then on November 2, we’re going to Montreal to read with another M/R teammate, Kathleen Winter, at Drawn and Quarterly. I don’t know if or when we’ll get the four of us together (the prize was launched in 2006 with Patricia Young’s Airstream, but we can dream.
October 4th, 2009
At Draft
Yesterday, I was a happy attendee and terrified participant at The Draft Reading Series. As usual at these readings, the organizers were super on-the-ball, supportive and fun. Here is Maria from the Draft group, below, introducing the event and being charming:
Then amazing Amy Jones read, also new work, which was shocking and very funny and made me even more excited to read her forthcoming book as well as for the other events we’ll be doing together soon (oooh, suspense: stay tuned, Metcalf-Rooke fans!!)
Then Sachiko Murakami read some striking poems about Vancouver, and wore some really nice boots (not pictured):
Then Lina Medaglia read from her novel about immigration, superstition and how hard it is to be a kid because no one will tell you anything:
Since it was the Draft reading series, I read a story in draft form, ie., something I wrote the week before and edited over breakfast. This is something I had never done before, and it was really only Hallowe’en kisses (can you believe I could not find a picture to link to here? Can you also believe that it didn’t occur to me before now that bringing candy to readings is awesome?) Here I am, terrified, and full of sugar (thanks for taking the pic, B):
Then, of course, the camera died (B, I don’t blame you) before I could get a shot of final reader Roz Spafford, but I assure you she was interesting too! And then there was the first open mic I’d ever seen, which was quite quite good, considering the reputation of such ventures, and included such cool readers as August Bourre and Terri Favro!
It was an entertaining and illuminating (I can read draft work to strangers without bursting into flame–who knew??) afternoon, though I was shocked that there was candy leftover. Don’t worry, that will be rectified shortly!
Teenland, whoa-oh
RR
October 3rd, 2009
Event City
I usually have perhaps one or two standing-at-the-front-of-the-room experiences per month, but I have three this week, and I suppose it won’t be long before I start snapping my fingers for drinks and talking about the difficulties of “my art.” Or maybe not…
After the very fun Writers’ Trust presentation on Wednesday, on Thursday I got to go do a little reading and workshop with the teen writers’ group at North York Public Library, who are so very amazing (as is their leader, Susan Kernohan) that I didn’t have to do all that much of the talking, actually, just sit back and listen to the discussion about why art theory doesn’t help, while Dickens is a must, how inspiration starts, and what to major in in university. Pretty amazing.
And then tomorrow, I’ll be doing a reading for the Draft reading series. Here be the deets:
Sunday October 4th, 2009, 4 – 6 p.m.
The Blue Moon Pub, 725 Queen St. E. (That’s just East of Broadview on the South side.)
Including new work by:
Amy Jones
Lina Medaglia
Sachiko Murakami
Rebecca Rosenblum
Roz Spafford
There will be an open mike. Seven readers, three minutes each. Please arrive at the beginning of the reading to sign up. With the $5 admission fee you get a copy of Draft, a limited-edition publication available only at these readings. For info: draftreadings@gmail.com or 416 433-4170
I am stoked to hear all the other artists on the bill, including the fabulous story-writer Amy Jones (who I have never seen in person!) But I am a little terrified to myself be reading in draft form, something I’ve done only once before. Even that other time, it was a reasonably polished draft, as opposed to this story, which I only started work on a week ago Thursday. Oh dear. This’ll be something different, anyway.
Next week, I think I’ll stop standing at the front of the room and go to other people’s events for a while. Perhaps you would like to, too??
Tuesday October 6–Marta Chudolinska does a signing of her graphic novel, Back + Forth at Ben McNally Books.
Wednesday October 7–It’s the first anniversary (approximately) party for Pivot at the Press Club, and Emily Schultz, Spencer Gordon, Ken Babstock, and Meaghan Strimas take to the stage to celebrate. I am of the opinion that a night at Pivot is *always* a good bet, but this one might even be extra good.
Friday October 9–A non-lit event–the acapella groupCadence live at the Annex. Should be a whole new experience for me, and I hear nothing but good things.
And then we’re into the weekend, and can safely abandon cultural consumption for turkey consumption. I don’t know about you, but I intend to spend the entire weekend hugging people and eating sweet potatoes… But that’s *next* weekend, so I guess this means I should get back to work now.
Hope to see you at one (or more) of the above!
There’s nothing I can do for you you can’t do for yourself
RR
October 2nd, 2009
Another week
And another week’s end round-up:
Michael Turner answers 12 or 20. Mr. Turner is an important author for me (although really also for Canada) for various reasons, not least his was one of the first literary readings I ever saw, and at said reading, the very first pornographic film I ever saw.
The Literary Type has a hilarious post about The New Quarterly’s adventures at Word on the Street. My favourite part is when Melissa worries she’ll have to live in the parking garage. Oh, I love those guys!!
My matching quote game was met with near-resounding silence (thanks for trying, AMT) but here are the answers anyway: 4 a), 3 b), 2 c), 1 d), 5 e).
The Writers’ Trust announced their shortlists on Wednesday, including the Journey Prize shortlist, announced by Camilla Gibb and me.
It got really cold in Toronto and I hate it. I am also encountering some sort of wardrobe malfunction wherein all my clothes disintegrate (within the privacy of own home, mind) so I have to cobble together outfits that don’t make sense just for frostbite prevention. I will shop tonight, I swear it,
Behaved very badly in the arms of a boy
RR
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