November 30th, 2011

Tomorrow night

I am pretty jazzed about the reading I’m doing tomorrow night, because my co-reader is the marvellous Anne Perdue, author of I’m a Registered Nurse Not a Whore, a book many probably read for the title, but few were likely to be disappointed. It’s an amazing collection. Our reading will be at the Lillian H. Smith library on College Street, one of the nicest libraries in Toronto. It’s also really close to my favourite Chinese restaurant, which I will point you towards if you like. You really can’t lose.

Can’t make the reading, but still craving more of my thoughts? Well, that’s a dubious pursuit, but I did participate in Shaun Smith’s Fiction Craft Discussion on Dialogue this month, so you could check that out.

In other news…today I opened a can of chickpeas to make my lunch and the kitten went *insane*. The can is the same size/shape as his catfood can, and apparently he thought I was hogging all the catfood for myself and not sharing. That he would think so little of me really hurt my feelings, which tells you a bit about how tired I am. Also, today it snowed, and I betcha that won’t be the last of it.

November 27th, 2011

Things Happening

So I went out west to do a bunch of readings and had an amazing time–but I also was in 4 timezones in 4 days, and am now very tired. So this recap will be brief–but with links elsewhere, and a few pictures.

Before I left, the November Quill and Quire went online, including that review of *The Big Dream*. Also the December print edition of Q&Q came out, and if you should read it you might see a gang interview on the short story with me, Jessica Westhead, D. W. Wilson, Alexander MacLeod, and Michael Christie. You should read that interview, because it’s definitely interesting, but you should also take a look at the picture of us (sadly minus the east-coast dwelling Mr. MacLeod) looking confused and friendly, as your garden variety short-story writer often does. (Bonus: there’s an extra picture in the table of contents).

Then on Sunday the Winnipeg Free Press ran a short interview with me by Ariel Gordon, in advance of my appearance there with Ray Robertson on Thursday. But before that, Calgary and Vancouver. Here are some highlights:

Ray reading from his essay collection "Why Not?" at Pages on Kensington in Calgary.

A veritable fiesta of breakfast cereal at my hosts' home in Calgary.

Gorgeous weather in Vancouver.

Me, baffled in Vancouver because I couldn't find the Ocean--where are you, Ocean?

Cathy Stonehouse reading at the Incite series in Vancouver.

Post-reading socializing with awesome friends in Winnipeg.

And home again, home again, jiggety-jig (what is that line from, anyway?)

November 20th, 2011

Readings this week

Lots of book stuff going on this week, in some places I’m not usually in. So perhaps you’d like to join me…

Tuesday November 22, Calgary, Ray Robertson and I will be reading at Pages on Kensington

Wednesday, November 23, Vancouver, Ray, Cathy Stonehouse and I will be reading at the Vancouver Public Library as part of the Incite reading series

Also on Wednesday, Waterloo, you could attend The New Quarterly’s 30th birthday party, with readings, music, wine, and awesomeness. I won’t physically be there, sadly, due to the aforementioned Vancouver appointment. But I will be in spirit, my books (signed!) will be there as part of the silent auction, and I sent a few paragraphs that might get read if there’s a lull in the evening. I think of it as similar to sending a telegram to be read at a wedding when one can’t be there, and truly this is a similar happy occasion.

Thursday, November 24, Winnipeg, Ray and I read at McNally Robinson’s Grant Park.

And then a probably very tired and happy Rebecca goes home, to conquer the mountain of work that will have built up in her absence, and hug her little kitten. It promises to be a very good week.

November 17th, 2011

Should I get a masters in creative writing?

This question has come up in my orbit a lot lately, and despite my inherent bias–I have one and I like it–I always attempt to answer the question usefully and honestly. Now that I’ve reheased my answer half a dozen times (seriously–it’s like the new hot topic) I thought I’d put it here, for posterity.

After I went through the University of Toronto’s Masters of Creative Writing program, someone asked me “But can you really learn to write in school?” and after so many years, I finally stopped that line of enquiry cold by saying, “I did.”

I was lucky that woman phrased the question that way, though; if she had said, “But can you really be taught to write?” my answer would be more dubious. But a masters program can be a wonderful stimulant, incubator, director, and fortifier of any inate ability one might possess. A masters can help some people get where they want to go, but it depends on a number of things–some people get nothing out of their creative writing education, or nothing but bitterness and alcohol poisoning. Here are some questions to ask–yourself and others–that might help you decide if grad school might be worth your while.

Do I want an MA or an MFA in creative writing? If you don’t know the difference, don’t worry; I didn’t either until long *after* my tuition cheque was deposited. Good thing for me I picked the right thing for me, albeit totally randomly. An MA in creative writing is, as far as I know, always affiliated with a standard MA in English, and you will have to take some of those critical reading/theory classes in the course of the program. This is great if you, like me, believe that directed reading, intense and critical reading, and writing about what I read totally feeds and inspires my writing. Not that I’ve ever tried to write like Virginia Woolf, Mavis Gallant, J. M. Coetzee, or Salman Rushdie, a few of the authors I studied in my MA. But I certainly believe those writers stoked my creative fires, and helped me strengthen my work.

If on the other hand, you don’t want to read in that way or write essays, then you could consider an MFA in creative writing like the one at University of Guelph. These programs concentrate on various workshop classes (UofT only had one) and professional development for writers. While profs might well ask you to read, it’s in a decidedly non-academic context.

Despite my marvellous fortune, I strongly encourage potential masters to figure out which of these programs you want. I knew folks in my academic program who saw the critical courses as a waste of time, and they take a lot of it. It’s extremely disheartening to struggle through classes you don’t care about. And it’s very hard to half-ass a graduate-level class full of critical masters students and PhD candidates.

MA students and MFA students also have different potential sources of funding: in MA programs you are eligible for the same sorts of grants (ie., SHHRC) that academic students are; it’s entirely different in fine arts programs, although honestly I don’t know the details. If that MFA sounds like the path for you but you are worried about money (more on this later), it’s worth looking into.

How far have I gotten in my writing on my own? Largely, the folks who haven’t gotten far enough on their own will automatically be selected out, because all masters in creative writing that I know about have a portfolio admissions process–you can’t get in without some good work already behind you. But honestly, if you’ve done barely any writing but happen to have enough pages of really good stuff to constitute a portfolio, I’d still advise against it. Grad school can only take you from where you are on the road to a certain number of paces more along. If you could’ve walked those paces alone just by bashing around writing more stories and poems, I think you should. It’s only when you see problems in your work and try to solve them and *can’t* that you should consider getting someone else’s help. I mean, I imagine grad school would be fun for some of us no matter what, but it is after all expensive–use it when you really need it.

Do I like to workshop? As far as I know, there are no serious creative writing programs that do not have a workshop component, a sizeable one. If you think that a roomful of your peers telling you what’s wrong with your work might make you cry, or would simply be useless to you, I would say you should try one out, and if you still feel that way, maybe you shouldn’t go to grad school. In my program, the first year was workshop and critical courses; the second year was mentorship and long-project writing. I think many Canadian programs are the same and honestly, I know people at several who largely blew off the workshopping and waited to get to the good stuff, ie., mentorship. Obviously, I would say don’t do this. There are other ways to find a mentor. And if you’ve never done a workshop, try taking a continuing education or community college one in the evenings, just to see how you like the vibe. That’s a much cheaper experiment. I took a bunch before deciding I could commit to a full-time degree.

Can you afford it? You notice I mentioned money in all of the above bullet points? Well, it matters–higher education in the humanties in Canada is not the soul-destroying financial burden it is in the States, but the financial factor is worth considering. “Afford” means different things to different people; there’s nothing wrong with taking on student debt if you are comfortable with that, and the first thing you wanted to do when you graduate is not buy a house. I was fine with working 20-30 hours a week along with my studies, but not everyone is–you’re there principly to learn, and if your various part-time gigs get in the way of that, what’s the point of any of it?

I know people who have educated themselves by workshopping with friends, reading hundreds of books in their genre, going to the occasional seminar, and just writing a lot of the time. That works too, for the more independently minded, self-disciplined sort.

~~~

It basically boils down to what do you want to do? No one is ever going to say you *need* that creative masters to be a writer. It could very well help you on that path, but that depends on you, on the program, and on the path.

(But I had a lot of fun when I did it!)

November 12th, 2011

Rose-coloured Reviews the Giller Prize Show 2011

To watch last year’s Giller show, Mark and I had to head for someone else’s house, but this year through the power of live-streaming, we could watch at home and keep the kitten company. I have no idea if CTV had a live-streaming version of the Gillers, too, but the CBC one was hitchless–no hiccups or buffering issues. Lots (and lots) of commercials, but I guess that was the point.

So there we were with our smartpop, our wine, our kitten going insane under the desk, watching the camera roll over the vast and glittering crowd at the Four Seasons up to…Jian Ghomeshi?? Hooray, I love that guy. He was the host at the Writers’ Trust Awards the year I was a presenter, and he did a lovely, low-key, and charming job of it. What a shock to find that at the Gillers, right off the bat, Ghomeshi was unfunny!

Worse, as the show wore on, he seemed to be rolling his eyes at his own jokes. He’d kind of grimace, look down at his notes, make the joke quickly, and then say, “C’mon, c’mon, that’s funny, right?” It was all a lot more Fozzie-Bear-ish than I was expecting.

But that was the cumulative effect of the entire show–at the beginning he just seemed a little stiff as he introduced Lang Lang, who played something lovely on the piano and was, unique among the men I saw on the telecast, wearing an open-collared shirt.

The next segment was a bit from the judges, talking about how hard it was to read so many (140+) nominated books. One of the judges (I don’t know who any of them were except Annabel Lyon–always nice to see her) said, “All of the books had something about them that made them worthy of the prize,” or something along those lines. “They’re talking about my book!” I squealed. (Full disclosure: I have no idea if *The Big Dream* was put forward for the Giller, I just know that–technically–it was eligible.)

Like last year’s event, things moved along at a good clip, and as I recall after that we got pretty much directly into the book presentations. As with last year’s, the presentaters were a random assortment of vaguely famous non-book-related people. The first one, “international celebrity” Lisa Ray was no one I’d heard of and her telepromtation delivery of the introduction to David Bezmozgis’ novel did not make me want to investigate further. Nelly Furtado, Robbie Robertson, and that guy from Hedley did slightly better jobs, but still–who cares? I seriously doubt anyone who was not going to watch the show would see an advert and say, “Hey, Nelly Furtado is not singing, but is speaking for 120 seconds? I’m so there.” As for me, who was looking forward to the show, there’s pretty much no one whose literary opinion I respect less than the Hedley guy’s, and I consider myself *un*curmudgeonly among litsy types–why not cater to your audience?

Weirdly, the only presenter who did such a good job that I believe (a) that he was speaking extemporaneously, and (b) that he had read the book, was Ron MacLean introducing *The Antagonist* by Lynn Coady. Mark explained that he is some sort of hockey commentator, and he certainly spoke bomastically, but also with genuine enthuasiasm for the book and its author, whom he address directly, as “Lynn”–he also said he was going to call her parents and congratulate them. If all the presentors had been like that, I could’ve forgiven their literary irrelevance.

I should admit that Michael Ondaatje’s book *The Cat’s Table* was introduced last and, though I genuinely liked the excerpt in the New Yorker, by that point I was not paying attention. I don’t even know who introduced it. Part of the problem was that the kitten had become increasingly destructive, flipping a folder off the desk and sending a plume of papers into the air, followed by partially eating a little rubber thing that could not be subsequently identified. But also, there was the fact that I was freaking bored.

The best parts, as last year, were the personal interviews with the authors. This year’s however had shucked off the lame invasive aspects–showing the writers with their partners and kids–in favour of actually focussing on the books, and writing in general. They had also left off the syrupy natural settings (strolling beside a river, anyone?) in favour of a really nice, book-lined studio, the same one for all six. The questions were interesting if not overly intellectual, and the editor kept in only the bits where the authors sounded thoughtful and smart. I liked last year’s pieces very much, but these were far better–weirdly, making the setup less personal allowed the authors’ personalities to come through far better. I was especially impressed with what Coady said about what the reader owes the book (nothing) and what Zsuzsi Gardner said about why she writes (to comment on the world). I also liked that the writerly questions were folded in with the life ones, so that no one was stuck standing in front of a white wall just after the commercials, talking about what is their muse. Really well-done segments, all six (fine, I didn’t really watch Ondaatje’s–the cat was trying to dig through the floor).

I said it last year and I’ll say it again–why are there no readings at the Gillers? The Oscars show clips, the Tonys show song-and-dance numbers, the Grammys have songs, the Gillers have…that Hedley guy reading the back cover bumpf. These are supposed to be our country’s best crafters of words–how come some speech-writer is crafting everything that’s said in the awards presentation? And if the worry is that the authors themselves would be too nervous and unprofessional for a CBC telecast, one could certainly hire actors to read passages–they’d be cheaper than Robbie Robertson, I’m guessing. Although I vastly prefer to see how a writer reads his/her own work, and anyway, this year the writers didn’t even get to stand up on tv (except the winner) and I wanted to see what they were wearing.

And while I’m ranting, with all the serious, respected, professional criticism and reviews that has been written about these 6 books, why was the only quotation in the broadcast of Nelly Furtado’s tweet that she was “consumed” by *Half-Blood Blues*?? WHO ARE THEY TRYING TO APPEAL TO???

Deep breath. Esi Edugyan won. I’ve only read Better Living through Plastic Explosives and The Antagonist (and loved both) but Mark read *Half-Blood Blues* and assured me it was strong novel and a worthwhile winner…though he, like me, was pulling for Coady’s novel. And Edugyan gave a calm, sweet speech and also is absolutely stunning, so it was pleasant to watch her (though for some reason I STILL couldn’t see what she was wearing).

So though we were happy enough with the outcome and were glad these 6 books were celebrated, I found the broadcast of the Gillers extremely lame and unrepresentative of the glorious books it was supposed to be showcasing. And there were *so many* commercials. I haven’t watched broadcast TV with any kind of regularity in nearly a decade, and almost never with my partner, and it turns out there is a strange kind of silence that comes the first time you watch a yeast-infection-treatment advert together…which was probably the most memorable part of the experience.

November 9th, 2011

Rankings

(this made sense in context, actually, kind of, but I like it even better without)

RR: Do the rankings!
MS: The rankings? Of what’s most important?
RR: Yeah! Do it!
MS: Well, you. Then Evan, then the rest of cat-kind.
RR: Yeah?
MS: Then the Giller Prize. Unless it is a year you or I are nominated for it. Then we flip the Gillers with “the rest of cat kind.”
RR: Yeah?
MS: Am I getting this right?
RR: Seems fair. Then what?
MS: Then what?
RR: What comes after the Gillers?
MS: I dunno. What else is there? We haven’t talked about anything else all night.

November 8th, 2011

Stuff going on

So I was in the Deathmatch on Sunday night, and I went down in the first round. But it’s ok, because the winner was Dani Couture, and losing to Dani is a lot like winning, due to her awesomeness. Other awesomeness was provided by Carolyn Black and Grace O’Connell. And a special shout-out to Ricardo at the Gladstone Hotel, who retrieved my lost camera for me and kept it safe until I could come for it. I owe you one, Ricardo!!

Other things that happened in the past few days–a mini-mention in the Toronto Star (not online, sorry) and a wonderful review in the Rover by Mark Paterson. That latter review made my day–I felt like Paterson really “got it.” Not that reviews should have any bearing on how I feel about my book, not that people who understand the book in different ways than I do are wrong–some have much better interpretations than mine–but it is nice to know that I wrote the book in such a way that someone might, at least, feel about it how I do. This is my favourite sentence from the piece: “Communication, understanding, and perception are themes Rosenblum began to explore in Once and takes up again in The Big Dream.” Ok, well, and this one: “Rebecca Rosenblum is one of literary Canada’s funniest food comedians.” If I knew how to put emoticons into my blog posts, I think I’d be driven to use one here.

And now jumping ahead–I’ll be reading at the Lillian H. Smith Library with the fantastic Ann Perdue on December 1. Which is my last event of 2011 (that I know of)–looking forward to it immensely.

November 4th, 2011

Pre-Deathmatch Intimidation/Love

In case you are not already in a froth of bloodlust/literary interest about Sunday evening’s Literary Deathmatch, the National Post’s book blog has run a series of interviews between the lovely Book Madam and all us contenders: Dani Couture, Grace O’Connell, Carolyn Black, and mmmmmmmmeeeee. What a bunch of strange and lovely women, I think–it will be a pleasure to serve and die with them on Sunday night. Hope you can make it!

November 2nd, 2011

A Canadian Affair

I think most Canadian lit folk are familiar with Salty Ink, Chad Pelley’s outstanding blog about literary endeavours on Canada’s Atlantic Coast. Though I am attempting to marry my way to Atlantic Canadian status, in the meantime I am very honoured to be Salty Ink’s first “Canadian Affair,” which means I got to do a cool interview with Chad, even though I’m from boring Ontario. Awesome!

October 31st, 2011

Deathmatch? On the Rose-coloured blog?

Yep, it’s true–I’ll be a part of the Literary Deathmatch this Sunday evening, along with co-combattents Dani Couture, Carolyn Black, and Grace O’Connell. If you’ve hung out with me at literary events before and witnessed my hugging patterns, you’re probably wondering when I stopped liking those people and, of course, I haven’t–they are all awesome humans and writers and I in no way wish to see them die.

But it’s going to be a fun night with cool people, and I heard rumours that at the last Toronto LDM, there was a cupcake-throwing contest, which sounds as hilarious as it does non-literary. Anyway, as usual, I got sucked in by my desire to do what the cool kids are doing.

If you aren’t familiar with LDM, here’s an amusing video–you see why see why I couldn’t say no? And here’s the link to Sunday’s event details if you’d like to come out and enjoy the silliness (or just try to eat a cupcake before they all get thrown).