December 9th, 2009
Postal excellence
Today’s mail was extra good: 1 magazine, one letter, one holiday card, one return-to-sender misaddressed holiday card (the only down note, to be hand-delivered on Saturday), and 2 copies of the fall issue of The Antigonish Review (the issue is not yet online) containing my flash fiction, “Do.”
I am so delighted to see it there, and it is a story I am quite proud of, but it is somewhat jarring reading as it was written a few years back and is *much* different from what I’m doing these days (how much flash fiction are you seeing from me lately, really?) It’s nice to be reminded that I have a little bit of range, though it’s sequential–I can no more go back to doing what I was doing in 2006 than I can skip ahead to whatever I’ll be up to in 2012 and see how that goes. I can only hope the cycle repeats, one of these days.
Anyway…hope you enjoy the story, and the whole of a very attractive-looking issue (mine was in *3* layers of shrink-wrap–it’s like they *knew* about the slush-storm!)
RR
December 8th, 2009
Not by any other: on names and naming
I have stolen a rose. It is in a glass water on my kitchen table, and I look at it as I eat breakfast. It’s pretty and I like looking at it, but I also feel a little guilty. I’m pretty sure no one misses it, but it was still not my rose to take.
Except there is a part of me that feels that all roses are mine. Because of my name, you see: when I see a rose, a tiny part of my brain says “mine” or, sometimes, “me.”
I identify very very strongly with my name. I have a strong interest in all the other Rosenblums in the world, of which there are not that many. There are more Rebeccas, and I always enquire after them if I hear the name mentioned–I want to make sure they are upstanding women and not doing anything under the aegis of Rebeccaness that might sully our reputations.
But I am willing to admit that their ways of being Rebecca, whatever they are, become the definition of Rebeccaness in their context. Names are tautological–whoever you are, that’s you! For that reason, as soon as I know a person slightly, I have no trouble keeping him/her straight from other people with the same name: the personality hooks into whatever the person is called (at one point I knew 13 Jasons). I have never met a person whose name didn’t seem to me to suit him or her; everyone simply becomes the embodiment of that name to me.
The only people whose names aren’t a simply tautology to me are, ironically, my parents, because I don’t know them by their names (although of course I know what they are). I have been known to obliviously introduce them as simply “my mom and dad,” and leave them to give their proper names themselves, which in fact sound strange to me, though I don’t honestly expect people to address my mom as “Rebecca’s Mom”–I just forget that that’s not actually her name.
I have known people who changed their names when they married, when they immigrated, when they broke away from their families, or when they began writing. They seem just fine with the change, learning to identify fully under the new rubric. I imagine that must be a huge transformation of self, a serious mental and emotional change. It’s enough for me to even remember to call them what they now want to be called.
So I am not one of those authors who takes great joy in researching names, keeping lists of cool names, or matching the meaning of the name with a character (my name means “bound”–not even close). To me that’s not how names work: the person inflates the name with his or her being, not the other way round. Because real people come to me with names in place, in my mind so do characters. I generally think of an appropriate name within the first few paragraphs of writing about someone, and then that’s it–it becomes who they are. I almost never alter the names of characters once I’ve been writing about them for a while, and though maybe I can fiddle with a minor character’s name if she’s only on the page briefly, the characters I know well would disturb me greatly by another name. It would be as if my mom suddenly demanded I call her Barbara.
So the fact that I now need to change a character’s name is making me bonkers. It’s a coincidental reality/fiction overlap, and since I have no wish to edit reality, it’s fiction that’s going to have to take the hit, so as to avoid confusion. I thought I would avoid upsetting myself by writing the story with the original name in place and then search’n’replace it right before submitting the piece for publication–I wouldn’t even have to see this alien name on the page for very long.
But my attempt to pull this clever trick on my own brain isn’t working: now that I know this guy isn’t keeping his name, he’s shifty on the page whenever I try to write about him. “Who are you?” seems to be my question for him, although I thought I already knew. It’s really slowing down the writing, as I stare at the paragraph where he drinks the soda and think, “As Paul took a sip of his soda,” “As Nick took a…” “As Dave took…” We can’t spend 20 minutes on the soda-drinking paragraph!! It’s only two lines long! This problem remains unsolved, and in progress.
I love my brain–it is a very interesting place to live, but sometimes I wish it were just a little more flexible. Even my father, who has been living under the Rosenblum rubric the longest, is baffled by my enthusiasm, and claims to “not really think about it.” He does sometimes give me roses, though.
RR
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 29th, 2009
Danforth Review Links Updates
As many of you are no doubt aware, the wonderful online litmag The Danforth Review ceased publication this past summer. This is sad, but understandable–editor Michael Bryson has been wildly generous with his time and has many other projects, including a new book.
Some comfort is also available in the fact that all the past issues of TDR were archived and are still available to be read. I, tech wizard that I am, didn’t really understand how the archiving system worked, which is why all the TDR links at right have been broken for the past few months, until today!! (thanks, Mark!) So, though I doubt many people have been clamouring for them, you can now read the review of my book, interview with me and short story of mine published on TDF at various times in the past three years. Along with tonnes of other good stuff!
RR
November 27th, 2009
Eavesdropper
I’ve already admitted on National Radio that I sometimes turn off my iPod on the TTC but leave my earbuds in, the better to innocuously listen in on the conversations of my fellow riders. Sometimes I don’t even have the earbuds; I just listen. Like an evening earlier this week, when the fellow behind me on the bus was arguing vehemently via cellphone.
The topic was whether the person on the other end would come to his house that evening. It was already rather late, and the guy was still on the bus and not in said house and so I wondered, is this a booty call? Those aren’t usually so contested, I don’t think.
Eventually, I worked out that the reason the other person (pretty sure) a female wouldn’t come over was that he would not permit her to smoke or drink on the premises. She felt this was a dealbreaker; he felt that was stupid and she shouldn’t have been smoking or drinking anyway. He said, “I’m gonna let you think about this. You think what you want to do and whether that is a valid reason for not doing what you want to do, and then you call me back.”
She called back almost immediately, and the conversation repeated itself, almost exactly (on his end, anyway). Then I think he noticed me listening (I wasn’t looking at him, but I had closed my book) and went and sat somewhere else. So I don’t know how it ended.
At the university discussion also this week, students asked me about using eavesdropped quotations in my work, which is actually something I never do. Or maybe almost never–I can’t think of a time I have, but the rule isn’t terribly rigid.
I listen a lot to what people say because I want a wide range of voices in my head (only ones I invite, obviously). I want to know a range of expressive styles, accents, lisps, slang, grunts, etc. I also want to know what a wide range of people think about stuff–some people feel it is reasonable to call an SO at 10:30 at night and demand that she not only come right over but abide by house rules. Ok. No one’s ever asked me to do that and none of my friends have ever mentioned it, so if I didn’t eavesdrop, how would I know?
Life is circumscribed, always, and in many ways that is good. My friends and family have a lot in common with me–interests, certainly, but also education levels and vocabulary, age, socio-economic status, etc.–which only helps us understand each other. But there is a limit to the vocal variations in that: We don’t all speak the same way, but there is a great deal of overlap.
I think, to be the writer I want to be, I need a broader pallatte than just people I happen to know. So I listen, and learn about how the world is and how sentence patterns can evolve. If a person says “moving forward” instead of “from now on”, uses “knife” as a verb, uses “my work” as a location not a project, insists that he is only “being true to my values” in everyday conversation–well, that tells me so much about how they are in life, and I crave being able to use that sort of shorthand in my work.
I don’t transcribe or quote partly because I don’t feel quite right about it; no one will ever track down that guy from the bus, but I’ll feel bad that I stole his words (although stealing his style of speaking is better how, exactly?) More than that, though, I don’t quote because I’m writing fiction and it is very very rare that the demands of the plot and characters I’m writing about will take in unedited words from a real conversation. More than just being true, story dialogue needs to be true to the characters, which is why I never take more than a general sense of rhythm and style from the folks I listen in on.
Here’s another one: At the Yonge & Bloor subway station newsstand, at rush-hour, among many other people a teenage girl is looking carefully at all the candies. She picks up a pack of tropical Jolly Ranchers and holds them up to the cashier.
“1.95 please.”
“Do you have–“
“What?”
“Do you have the chewy Jolly Ranchers?”
“What?”
“They’re like these, only chewy. I don’t see them here.”
“I– If you doan see them, we doan have them. Do you want those?”
“Could you look? If you have them?”
“We don’t– Ok.” [counting me, there were approximately 10000 people in line, but the cashier was so confused she went to the other candy rack and came back momentarily] “No, we doan. You want those?”
“Oh, no. Do you know what other stores might have them? In the subway?”
“I– No, I’m sorry. No idea.”
“Oh, well…ok.”
Of course, one could argue that I am quoting here, on the blog, but here I am also giving attribution to the speaker, insofar as I am able. Please hold no illusions that I am able to make this stuff up.
I don’t know these voices are doing in my head besides going into the general mishmash file called “experience.” But I don’t have a tv, so this is pretty good entertainment for me.
RR
November 25th, 2009
Writing Exercises: advice column plot
Ok, apparently I’m not all that busy, so here’s a random writing exercise that I used to use a lot: write a letter to an advice column in the voice of a character in a story you are working on. Have the character summarize his/her concerns at the midpoint in the story.
This is a bit of a specific exercise. When I was last posting writing exercises, most of those were geared towards or at least open to creating an entirely new piece, and that really won’t work with this one (I would be very impressed to see an entire short-story in the form of an advice column letter; it could be done [I once read a good one that was entirely in blog comments] but it wouldn’t be easy).
This one works when you are in the middle of writing something and feel stuck (stories are of course the only thing I’ve tried it with; wonder if a novelist could use it?) It also needs to be a piece that’s fairly plot- and character-driven–otherwise, it will be a very boring letter and not really shed a lot of light on the story itself.
I find this helpful in stories where I feel like I’ve lost my bead on a character’s motivation, and/or can’t quite guess what that person would do next because I don’t know what they want. This exercise can fix that because it concentrates not on what is *actually happening in the story* but how the character sees that stuff.
Whether it’s first or third person, the characters still know a lot less than the author, unless the characters is static, omniscient Mary Sue who doesn’t grow or change at all in the story because he/she is already perfect. Ahem.
It is really useful to lay out exactly how a character sees the world, and what they see as going wrong. This is especially useful to do with minor characters; I often find I know exactly what the central folks are up to, but not at all how the surrounding characters will understand the situation or react to it, what lies they believe, what information they’ve missed or ignored. And I like to know all this–even if someone is only on the story-stage for a couple paragraphs, I’d like them to be realistic and human there, not a prop or a piece of the scenery.
I probably won’t post an example of this one because, I said, boring! But I do find this so useful to do, even if only in your brain.
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 28th, 2009
Autobiographical Fiction and the Spectre of Mary Sue
Though my stories use plenty from the purportedly “real” world, I don’t write much autobiographical fiction. I know many authors use their lives on the page to brilliant effect, but the few times I’ve done it, the process made me miserable and took forever. It’s very very hard to transform oneself and people one cares about into characters, and the reason (for me) is that I can’t be as dispassionate, as clear-eyed and insightful about myself as I can about someone I made up, with whom I have no personal connection (because they are not a real person, and not available to form a connection).
Like um, this blog? In case you didn’t know? It’s really really biased. I avoid blogging anecdotes that make me look like (too much of) a moron, don’t discuss complicated moral decisions I made and later regretted, or other ways in which I might have let people down.
Those are shortcuts that aren’t available in fiction or at least not in the sort of fiction I (want to) write, I can’t blink at the characters’ flaws, let them get away with dubious actions, or valorize tepid behaviour. Even though the people aren’t real, they have real flaws and failings, and I care about writing those carefully, honestly.
I care about being honest about my own failings, too, but I find that incredibly difficult to do in public, with an audience. When I attempt to render something that happened to me in fiction, I often wimp out without realizing it, and wind up writing something that lets the “me” character off the hook or else pushes her forward in an unearned “hero” role. I have long-since learned that no matter how much an author likes her characters, you can’t have “favourites”–a really hard rule to enforce if a character is based on your brother, your beloved, or yourself.
A Mary Sue is a character in fiction that is (or the reader thinks is) a version of the author that is used a wish-fulfillment device in the story. It’s the dowdy girl who turns out to be the only one who can repair the engine in time to return to battle–and that’s when the sergeant notices her quiet yet tantalizing beauty. It’s the nerdy boy who just happens to be there when the head cheerleader falls in the lake–and the only one who bothered to learn mouth-to-mouth, and the possessor of surprisingly soft yet firm lips.
The term “Mary Sue” comes from the land of fan fiction, which is stories written about characters from TV shows, books and movies by their fans, for personal enjoyment and sharing with friends (not publication, cause that’s dubious copyright territory). But it applies in literary fiction too, I think–sometimes a fascinating event from real life doesn’t work in fiction because there are too many surrounding personalities and emotions and tensions that the author can’t manage on the page. Those things get edited out, and what we are left with a sublime perfect character who understands everything and everyone and never falls down in the parking lot.
I’m on this topic for a couple of reasons, not least the hysterical bit above from the Write Badly Well blog (thanks to AMT for the link). But more, it’s hearing Carrie Snyder read some really amazing autobiographical fiction, at the launch for the new issue of The New Quarterly, which features same.
Snyder’s story “Rat” is wonderful not only because it evokes the place and experience (a child emigrates with her family to Nicarauga) perfectly, but because the child’s POV is supplemented by a more omniscient third-person narrator. Thus, we do not end up with one of contemporary literature’s stock figures–the “wise beyond her years” “preternaturally intelligent” child-narrator. Sometimes this works beautifully, but often an author using remembered childhood incidents cannot help but load in adult insight and contextualizing, and we end up with an unrealisitically brilliant and insightful child–a character who knows more than all the others, and can do no wrong…a Mary Sue.
Snyder’s central character, Juliet, is smart but not insanely so–she understands more than the adults think she does, but she still misses a lot. The 3rd person narrator fills in the gaps in insight in a striking, sometimes shocking way. I’ve only heard a condensed version of this story read aloud, and I’m really looking forward to reading it at leisure when my issue of TNQ shows up (c’mon, Canada Post).
It’s always nice to reminded that although something is hard, it can be done extraordinarily well by an author with perspecitive and talent. Almost makes me want to try again myself…almost.
RR
October 27th, 2009
Happiness and Nostalgia
The Globe and Mail had a nice review of The Journey Prize Stories 21 on the website yesterday. Yes, I am always pleased when my name is on a book that’s in the newspaper, but mainly I am thrilled for the 12 writers whose work constitutes the collection. Especially for those who have never been in a book in the newspaper before.
The Globe’s review of The Journey Prize 19 was my first review, and that, along with actually being included in the collection, was part of a big huge shock to my system, that of real professional grown-ups that I had never met taking notice of my work. That morning, which was full of phone calls and emails, since I had no subscription and no clue such a thing was possible, was amazing.
I hope the current 12 had a similar kvell yesterday, and that there will be more to come. I am sure I sound like such a fogy, and this was all only two years ago. Actually, maybe that’s why the nostalgia is so acute–I’m not over the shock yet! I actually got an acceptance letter from a journal this morning and it took a moment to sink in–what, really, seriously??? Amazing.
I tried and tried to find the blog post from that 2007 Globe Review (or the review itself), but to no avail. But I did find this post, which might make you laugh.
RR
October 22nd, 2009
Entertainments
Depending on your mood and inclination, you might enjoy one or several of the following:
–A beautiful and very sexy duet of “Emmanuel” by trumpeter Chris Botti and violinist Lucia Micarelli (via Leon via Mark)
–So this Dresden Cloak is pretty good: 42 3rd Act Twists (my favourite: “Ancient Druids lose interest”) is only the latest of a number of amusing things from the site Scott’s sent me lately (er, via Scott, obviously).
–Tonight, Amy Jones, Carrie Snyder and myself read at ArtBar in Kitchener to celebrate The New Quarterly’s new issue. I am very excited, and would be delighted to see you there.
–Tomorrow night is the Peep Show at the international festival of authors, hosted by Hal Niedzviecki and featuring a number of authors, including Lauren Kirshner and Dani Couture. See Dani peep it up on her blog.
RR
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