November 23rd, 2009

On-going goings-on

I think this might be a low-post week due to busyness, but then again it might be a high-post week due to having pictures and reports on the busyness. We’ll see how that goes.

Plans:

Tomorrow night is The Writers’ Trust Awards ceremony. Despite being in a totally different venue than it was two years ago, and thus causing me a little brain-on-fire here-is-not-there moment, I still think it will a lovely event. There will be literary repartee of canapes and fancy drinks, there will be entertaining speeches (at least, last time I attended, almost everyone spoke remarkably well, and briefly), there will be a *lot* of prize money handed out. And there will be me, in a *dress that I ironed* (what I wouldn’t do for literature) helping McLelland & Stewart’s fiction editor Anita Chong announce The Journey Prize 21. Yay for all long-listers, short-listers, and of course, the soon-to-be-known winner (guess who is very excited not to have to keep a secret anymore??)

Then on Wednesday morning, I get to get up very early to go out to University of Toronto at Scarborough to give a lecture of my stories. I’m going to direct my comments mainly towards the last story in *Once*, “Massacre Day,” which is one of the ones the students are studying. It’s also a story I’ve never done a reading from and since the audience has all (allegedly) read the piece, I’m free to read from any point in the piece. I think I might take this unprecedented opportunity to read the ending. But what I am looking forward to most is a discussion with students. It never fails to amaze me when people offer me insightful, thoughtful, utterly accurate interpretations of my work that I never thought of. Can’t wait.

Wednesday evening will find me at Ben McNally’s for the Biblioasis Poetry Bash, appreciating three poets imported to Toronto for the occasion. Should be outstanding–see you there?

So, if this is it for postage for a few days, I would like to leave you with these lines from the song “The New World” by The Burning Hell:

My world would be a place where everyone would play the saxophone
But never soprano saxophone
Only tenor and baritone
Then a drum and a trumpet and a rusty old French horn
Would play a solo and make us shake our little bones

RR