April 5th, 2008

Pictures

Despite the fact that literature is the least visual of media, sometimes someone takes a good picture. Lovely poet Dani Couture has posted several such images, taken by Julie Wilson, from the Exile launch a couple weeks ago. If you missed the show, or even if you saw it, you might want to check it out for shots of readers looking readerly, including one of the very few candids of me in which I do not look insane. Thanks, Dani and Julie!

I’m gonna stop pretending that I didn’t break your heart
RR

April 2nd, 2008

Brownies!

Ok, ok, I didn’t win the Journey Prize tonight. It’s really hard to be sad, though, when there were so many brownies available and when such a good story did win–Craig Boyko’s “OZY.” In fact, I’m hard-pressed to think of a story in the anthology that I would’ve been too distressed to lose to. Besides, it was a glittering room of happy talky writery people, and I ran into several old friends I haven’t seen in ages, and Andrew Pyper was the MC, which I had not been expecting. I know not everyone agrees on this, but to me, any day that contains unexpected Andrew Pyper is a good day.

Also, the acceptance speeches were all artless and really warm and funny. It helped, I suppose, that a number of the prize-winners were told ahead of time, so that they could write a really good speech. And they did–Diane Schoemperlen, winner of the Marian Engle award for a woman at mid-career, talked about her youthful impressions of Marian Engel, and Michael Crummy, winner of the Timothy Findley award for a man at mid-career, talked about how rare and wonderful good news is in the life of a writer.

This was a theme Lawrence Hill touched on in his acceptance speech for the fiction award for his novel, *The Book of Negroes,* which I have not yet read, but judging by his *Black Berry, Sweet Juice* it’ll be very good indeed. A theme across all the speeches accepting awards seemed to be, a real writer would write adrift in a bucket no readers but seagulls, and often do, but a prize is nice every once in a while. Everyone seemed to be saying that this critical and financial validation was just going to make it a lot easier for them to continue doing exactly what they would’ve done anyhow.

Which is nice to see so consistently re-affirmed. Another theme was that three of the speeches mentioned cats.

There were brownies at the end of the night, and they were good. Hence the subject line.

If you were a flower growing wild and free
RR

P.S.–I mean, I’m still sad in that winning-is-more-fun-than-not way, but I feel like that when I don’t successfully roll-up-the-rim, too. It’ll pass, and there’s always next year!

April 1st, 2008

The Writers Trust Dinner

…is where I went tonight and now I need to stay up an extra twenty minutes past my bedtime (already long past) to tell you about it.

I was Very Worked Up about this event, as you may know. If you did not know anything about it, the Writer’s Trust sponsors and organizes a large number of awards and other programs for writers. For instance, the Journey Prize, for which I am short-listed. Their big gala is tomorrow, when the winners will be announced, but since nominees, employees and board members had not yet met in most cases, and because many people had travelled from quite far to be there, they gave a dinner party beforehand to bring us all together.

What a wonderful idea, despite the fact that it combines all my love/hates–strangers, famous people, eating standing up. But I had my annual hair-straightening indulgence this afternoon, and wore make-up and my party tights (argyle!), so I felt semi-ok after a few minutes wandering around introducing myself to people I didn’t know. The people from the Trust were really friendly, and tried to introduce everyone to everyone, plus there was a speech where all present were given little intros. It was quite interesting to put faces to some of those names; people look very different when they are moving and talking than in a little window on the back of a book.

I have also learned a little bit of wisdom about writer-parties, which I will share, in case you need it: writers are perceptive and observant. They notice body language and respond to it, so if you reveal in your posture or gaze that you are feeling uncomfortable, some writer will likely arrive at your side and try to set you at ease. On the other hand, writers know other writers to be weird, so if you pretend you are having a grand time staring at this bit of the wall where it goes behind the bookshelf, writers will think that’s plausible and leave you to enjoy yourself uninterrupted. So I looked uncomfortable because I was uncomfortable, and numerous people were very kind, and then I wasn’t uncomfortable anymore and I just looked like myself.

And I only lost one bit of food to the floor. If you are reading this, dear host, there is a baby carrot under the chaise lounge and I’m really sorry about that. Otherwise, it was a wonderful wonderful night.

Good night!

Set out for / a great adventure
RR

March 30th, 2008

Questions without answers

Is it just my lame neighbourhood, or was it awfully well lit during Earth Hour? Obviously the press says different, but…

Did America’s Best Dance Crew jump the shark with the rollerskating crew?

Why did my nextdoor neighbour’s snow boots, which he always leaves in the hall, have roses in them the other day?

How could I possibly have spent $55 at Kinko’s this afternoon?

Pondering, pondering…

I watch your hand smooth the front of your blouse
RR

March 27th, 2008

Post-mortem

I just wanted to let y’all know that the Exile Reading last night went swimmingly, both (a) in the sense that I neither fell off the stage nor choked during my reading nor in any other way embarrassed myself and (b) all the readers did beautifully, many of my most lovely friends were there, and I had a brilliant time. As you may know, I get waaaay worked up over readings, though I love to do them. I am always thrilled when invited to read, up until about two days before, when I become convinced it will suck, try to uninvite all my friends or at least apologize in advance for the sucking. And then I stagger through somehow, and then people *clap* and *hug me* and I’m happy again. Clapping and hugs, poetry, stories and friends; why couldn’t every Tuesday be like that?

None of this has happened yet
RR

PS–The new issue of Exile, with my story in it, and lots of other good stuff, should be available in the next few days at bookstores around and about. If you can’t find it and want it, try their website (to the right) or ask me and I’ll find you a copy. I’m helpful (and shameless) that way.

March 25th, 2008

You might wanna

…come see a bunch of writers, including me, read tomorrow night at the Exile Quarterly/Exile Editions Launch: 7:15, the Dora Keogh Pub, more info at the link. High hopes for fun and literature abound.

Other fun upcoming is the Idle Tigers show at The Embassy on Saturday, 29th of March as part of the Pitter
Patter Festival. I hear the Tigers are going to be up quite late in the evening, so if you can’t make that, you can always just pre-order the record, The Spirit Salon ahead of the May 1 release date and feel giddy with anticipation. I did, and now I do.

Also, it was both sunny *and* warm this morning, a rare combination. Hooray!

So pay my way into Graceland
RR

March 22nd, 2008

Reading about Writing

…is one of my favourite things. The act of writing, I mean, more than the noun, although my interest of course extends to criticism. And biography. And gossip.

I just finished reading Leonard Micahels’s novella “Journal.” The first half of it seems to be about (I make no assertions about the work is actually about; Michaels is slippery) a writer in a happy, or at least undemanding relationship, thus free to focus on writing a screenplay, teaching classes, chatting and backbiting with other writers. I was fascinated. In the second half, the marriage seems to fall apart, and the focus comes to be on the narrator’s assorted entanglements with other women, often quite graphically depicted. I was less interested. Men and their affairs, eh, I’ve heard it before; how a writer feels telling an anecdote to another writer and then realizing it’s a really good anecdote and they both want to use it in a story…that’s new ground. In my opinion.

“Journal” is a story that it’s unfair to quote from, because it is composed of fragments in a writer’s journal, disparate and specific, and it’s only by reading them together that you get even a partial portrait of the character. Nevertheless, some of the aphorisms (from the first half) beg to be quoted and so I will, with the caveat that you shouldn’t taken them as representative of much:

“In the American South, it’s said of a medical student, ‘He is going to make a doctor.’ For writers there is no comparable expression, no diploma, no conclusive evidence that anything real has been made of himself or herself.”

“Writers die twice, first their bodies, then their works, but they produce book after book, like peacocks spreading their tails, a gorgeous flare of color soon shlepped through the dust.”

“Anything you say to a writer is in danger of becoming writing.”

“My neighbour is building his patio, laying bricks meticulously. The sun beats on him. Heat rises off the bricks into his face. I’m in here writing. He’ll have built a patio. I’ll be punished.”

And then Adam Gopnik wasn’t even really talking about writers, just trying to make a comparison with magicians, but it’s still relevant:

“All grownup craft depends on sustaining a frozen moment from childhood: scientists, it’s said, are forever four years old, wide-eyed and self-centred; writers are forever eight, over-aware and indignant.”

Which of these bits I believe, I couldn’t say, but I feel a little older than 8—the devouring outward gaze of a writer feels more teenaged to me.

How do you know you’re right / when you’re not nervous anymore
RR

March 21st, 2008

Circadian Reading

Though I don’t know too much about the science of it, I put a lot of faith in personal circadian rhythms, the cycles by which an individual organism reacts to light, dark, and other stimulus to determine when and how much we sleep. Obviously, humans are diurnal, and want mainly to be asleep when it’s dark and awake when it’s light, but most believe that there are fairly wide variations in exactly what hours a given human will not only prefer but biologically be more able to be conscious. I have to believe that, otherwise I’m just a giant loser that prefers to be in bed by 10:30, maybe 10. Call me at 6 am, though; then we can chat. But you won’t, because your circadian clock is different than mine, as it is with most people. Ah, the majesty of human difference.

I have been wondering recently if the body *and* the mind have an innate preference for doing *everything* at certain hours. Obviously, we are flexible, can do things on schedules that accommodate our jobs and loved ones and the hours that busses are running, and also maybe there is no ideal hour to reprogramme the heat levels on the microwave (perhaps the ideal is never.) But really, on a lazy weekend day (ie. today) on which I am not expected anywhere and have no particular tasks to do, I find the day orders itself into it’s ideal form, which involves several hours of reading starting just past dawn.

I prefer to read in the morning–I’m better able to focus, to sit still, to immerse myself in the book for longer periods. I don’t of course, usually get three hours in the morning to read, being employed as I am, but I do get 45 minutes or so to read while doing cardio at the gym at dawn, and I really love that, too. And I read on the bus *to* work with much more concentration than on the bus home.

I wonder if there is something in that, some sort of perceptive nozzle that is switched higher in the earlier part of the day than later… I wonder if there is a good time to do everything–I write best in the evenings, I know, and I’m more charming to talk to before 9pm. Perhaps there is a laundry hour, a speechifying hour, a pancake flipping hour. Perhaps there’s some minute of the day when, for the first time in the seven years of our relationship, it would become intuitable to me how, or even why, one would want to alter the heat levels on the microwave.

This is just yammering, of course, since there’s no way I’m going to look beyond the already slightly esoteric Wikipedia article to find out more about this subject. But it is worth, as always, playing to one’s strengths.

Seven drops of blood fall
RR

March 19th, 2008

“Kissing with tongue”–your opinion, please

Is that still part of the (pre)teenage lexicon, do you think? Or have they reverted to “French kissing” or something I haven’t even thought of because I am now officially old? Does anyone actually know any teenagers?

All insights appreciated!
RR

March 18th, 2008

I like

Am I ever going to get it together to review something? This is the extremely small question of the hour, which I mainly ignore. Until then, here are some things I’ve been uncritically enjoying.

Thom Bryce, of Free Biscuit fame, has a new play called *The Curative* being performed this week by the (pivotal)arts folks at the WriteNow! festival, in conjunction with three other plays that I haven’t seen, but if *The Curative* is a fair sample, are probably brilliant. (Warning: *The Curative* is not for the faint-hearted, in terms of both sex and violence. The word “chilling” comes to mind.)

The joyful music of The Choir Practice. I don’t know what I need more faith in, but this pretty music redeems it all.

Smoked tofu–it doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page, but it’s delicious (as tofu goes) and little known. Consider it.

Oh, and just to show I can dislike stuff, I didn’t think Lars and the Real Girl was very good, and, worse, gave a simplistic reductive portrayl of both women and the mentally ill.

But really, who am I to say?

You look so good with a gun / but that hat doesn’t suit you
RR