October 20th, 2009

Ottawa is Awesome

So I went to Ottawa this weekend to do a reading at the famous Manx pub (note that this link mentions an actual Manx cat but I failed to see one. I wonder if they meant a painting??) Anyway, I heart Ottawa and have some awesome friends there, but still I was frightened because it was my first solo reading. On a slate of three or so readers, as I usually am, some pressure is taken off because I can think to myself, “Well, he’s really good and she’s really good, so even if I just keel over after the intro, the audience will get a pretty good night out of it.”

Of course that didn’t happen and the reading went well (they almost always god well, I know I know; this has nothing to do with me freaking out or not). In case you weren’t there and feel sad that you missed it, here’s the play-by-play (thanks to G. for stellar photography).

October 16th, 2009

I’m so totally counting this

It’s a big stretch, being a) blog only, b) celebrating something I had nothing to do with, but I am still counting this as getting my name in the New York Times. There’s one for the life list!! (and it *is* a gorgeously designed cover!)

RR

October 15th, 2009

Rebecca Reading

This is a last reminder (because I need to spend tomorrow freaking out, and most of Saturday on the train), that I am reading on Saturday afternoon at 5pm at the Manx pub in Ottawa (here’s the Facebook invitation if you like). I hear the Manx is the nicest pub in Ottawa, if that’s any incentive for you to come.

Of course, I know many people can’t make it, either because they are busy or don’t live in Ottawa or some combination thereof. If you would like to hear me read anyway, you could try this little podcast of the Hear hear reading I did in August, of the first half of my new story, “Cheese-Eaters.”

Actually, since it will be a different reading on Saturday, you could actually do both of the above. If, you know, you felt like it.

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 12th, 2009

Gratitude

Ok, so on Friday I went on about the historical meaning of Thanksgiving being tied to food, the action on the day being centred around food, and the fact that the holiday is really about food, full stop. But of course its cultural relevance today is tied up in gratitude, that it is a day of blessing-counting, appreciation, hugs, and acknowledgement. And still food. I’m going to try to put my money where my mouth is (ha!) and make this year’s list of thanks as food-oriented as possible.

I am grateful for:

1) The ability to bite and chew. About six years ago, I went to the dentist with a pain in my jaw that I thought was stress-related and found out that the bones in my jaw were totally out of whack (that’s what you get for not seeing a dentist for three years, and, er, going to really loser one as a kid). After retainers to braces and finally very scary surgery and a long recovery period, I could eat whatever I wanted without pain, and food almost never falls out of my mouth while I do (unless someone makes me laugh). It was weird to be, as an adult, forbidden certain foods, and the experience certainly makes me appreciate walking down the street eating an apple, as I did this afternoon.

2) Dining companions. Food is often the social glue, the ostensible cause for a gathering, but really it’s the cooks’ presence, much more than the food they offer, that makes the meal special. In recent weeks, I’ve been invited into people’s homes for paella, chili, two Thanksgiving dinners and an ice-cream social. On all occasions, the food was delicious but far more so was the warmth with which it was offered, and the conversation with which it was enjoyed.

3) The infinite variety of breakfast cereals. No matter how many I try, there will always be more on the shelves, and new ones every day. The upside of capitalism.

4) The ability to feed myself. I like using the economic crisis as an excuse for my inability to get my laundry folded or show up at the movies on time, but the fact is, things are not excellent in the world of employment right now (the downside of capitalism). The fact that I still have a job that keeps me in breakfast cereal and veggie burgers is no small victory and I am grateful for it. I am also grateful for the fact that I get to eat my (brown-bag, natch) work lunch with awesome humans everyday, even if they make fun of me for my addiction to canned tuna.

5) Books. Sorry, I couldn’t make this one fit (though J. M. Coetzee did profoundly warp my relationship with meat, a testament to the power of prose if there ever was one) but writing, reading, and thinking about books fills up all the time that I have that isn’t taken up by the above (or grocery shopping), and I feel lucky indeed to have that.

6) Hey, while I’m already off the theme, thanks for reading Rose-coloured. I really appreciate it.

RR

October 9th, 2009

Thanks for the eats

Canadian Thanksgiving, for those from elsewhere or just confused, is a harvest celebration. There’s some murky bits of American tradition in there, but we have no silly mythology around the holiday (other than Tom Turkey, I suppose)–we’re just glad there is stuff to eat.

This used to make a good deal more sense to me when I actually experience the harvest. Where I grew up, Thanksgiving was the last weekend of county fair season (after that were only the big fairs, like The Royal Winter Fair). All through fall, we’d be bringing in tomatoes, peppers, corn, beans, pumpkins and squash, the prettiest of which were entered in some fair or other (I would like you to know that I won a ribbon for my butternut squash in grade 3; not sure if it was a first-place ribbon, but I choose to believe it was).

In short, at this point in the year, we’d be coming to the culmination of a harvest that began in May and June with lettuce and strawberries, and it would make perfect sense to be sitting down to a meal that both featured and celebrated the fruits of that harvest.

Now that I get most of my food from Metro (though my folks are constantly thinking of reasons to come visit with quart baskets in the trunk), the celebration makes slightly less sense. But I like it very much, not only because of the nostalgia, nor yet the enforced grade-school grace-saying (yes, it was a public school, but in a *very* small town) that makes it seem logical to me to owe my supper to someone greater. I like to cook and I like to eat, and when I was younger I liked to garden to. The harvest has always been a good time.

Food is a fraught business in 2009: between genetically modified tomatoes, body-image dismorphia, peanut allergies and gluten intolerances, sometimes there’s no one at the table that has a purely peaceful relationship with their plate. But it’s the stuff that makes us live, and whatever role we play in the food chain (gardener, chef, shopper, restaurant-orderer) can be a lot of fun. I like that, though most holidays are celebrated with food, this one *is* food.

May you eat well this weekend.

RR

October 8th, 2009

Random Sad

On my answering machine today:

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 7th, 2009

Vocabulary Rant: PC edition

I keep wondering if I’ve put some or all of this material on the blog before–certainly, these are some of my pet issues. I should probably point out here that I do *not* think that there are words one cannot or should not say. There is a quotation I heard ages ago that I attribute to Twain though I can’t really find a source, which is about how all words are necessary, because they each express an invaluable shade of meaning, and indeed there are none I’m willing to give up. Definitely, there are shades of meaning I feel I don’t need in my personal conversations (blind rage; misogyny; racial hatred) but would use without hesitation in fiction if that’s who the characters were or what they were feeling.

But at the same time, to get all those shades, I try really hard to know what the word is and where it comes from. There’s stuff floating in the English language that are relics of a less gentle time, when it was more ok to slur the group of your choosing. Now the words are here, somewhat divorced from their histories, and it is up to every speaker to determine what listeners/readers will understand of that history when the words are used. For example:

Welshed/welched means to dishonestly renege on a bet or deal; it is also a way of mocking the people or Wales. Historically, word means exactly what it sounds like: that Welsh people are characteristically untrustworthy and that to refuse to pay up on money owed is to be like the Welsh.

Gypped out of money (or anything else) means cheated or swindled. It also is a slur against people of Romani (Gypsy) origins. Again, the verb probably derives from the ethnic group (it can’t be proven, but I’m not taking the chance), with the understanding that Romani people are dishonest and untrustworthy.

The argument I usually get in favour of using these words is that they are so much a part of English that no one intends, or even thinks, the historical meanings. Which is very well possible, but without the go-ahead vote from each individual Welsh or Romani person who might hear my talking, I am going to leave these words out of my conversational vocabulary. Because another supposedly “de-historicized” slang expression is to jew down the price, ie., to haggle aggressively or unfairly. Which makes me flinch every time I hear it.

To say someone is hysterical means they are paralyzed with an agitated nervous reaction that is out of all proportion to the problem at hand. The word also implies that a negative reaction that is either disproportionate to the matter at hand, or in reaction to something totally imaginary is somehow uniquely a female or feminine, indeed sexually so, as it derives from the Greek word for uterus, hustera.

This is a hard word for me to let go of, though I have a been trying since January. I do both overreact to things and invent problems, so hysteria would see to me my natural state. But in fact, I firmly believe that my being a bit bats is not a sexual problem (nor a gendered one, for those who cut a fine dice). I have seen men overreact like champions.

However, if I am writing fiction, I think I can say whatever I like, incorrect or offensive or blasphemous or whatever, as long is reflects the reality as characters experience it. Plenty of people don’t know these word histories, and would say them without a care, and plenty of people think all sorts of hateful things and would use these words *with* malice–but if I want those people in my stories (I do) then I have to be able to stomach all the words that I imagine they would say. It’s a weird line in the sand to draw, but I feel the only artistically sane one.

Also, I know there other words in this “historically suspect” category, so feel free to share–I bet there are ones I don’t know about.

We be chillin
RR