12 or 20 questions: with Jill Hartman

Calgary poet Jill Hartman writes disjunctive narrative poetry about pachyderms, pirates, belly dancing, Ouija, Scrabble, and The Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth. She’s presented and performed her poetry across Canada and as far afield as Scotland, and her writing’s appeared in Queen Street Quarterly, filling Station, and DIAGRAM, in the anthologies Post-Prairie (Talonbooks) and Shift & Switch (Mercury), and in chapbooks from MODL Press, Olive Press, and her own chapbook series semi-precious press. Her first book of poetry, A Painted Elephant, (Coach House 2003) was shortlisted for both the Stephansson and Lampert Awards, and was featured on the program “Heart of a Poet,” which you can see on BOOK TV and BRAVO. Her second book of poetry, Booty: Hurricane Jane and Typhoon Mary, was co-written with Brea Burton and comes out November 2007 form the Mercury Press.

1 - How did your first book change your life?

When I got an offer of publication for A Painted Elephant, it made me feel that living in a shack in the woods was a charming interlude in a life of letters, rather than the first act of a spiral of eccentricities that would see me disappear into the interior of BC in a converted school bus, never to see the prairies again. Hard to say if that is a good thing, really. I think I need publication to stave off the eccentricity, or at least keep it at a good level. I’m very easily discouraged, but luckily, easily encouraged as well.

2 - How long have you lived in Calgary, and how does geography, if at all, impact on your writing? Does race or gender make any impact on your work?

This so counts as two questions, rob!

I grew up in Calgary, I’ve lived here most of my life so far. My family’s been in Alberta for a century or so, farming, coal mining. My parents both moved to Calgary when they were teenagers, and I like to think about the move from rural to urban over generations. So the city I grew up in is often what I write about—certainly it was a major part of my first book—and the landscape of the city and of what’s outside is a big deal to me. I write a lot about alienation from and reclamation of place and space.

Race and gender—well of course! More on the gender end of that, seeing as I’m not as confronted with “difference” in this culture/place in terms of my race as some writers are—but race and gender share that thing, that power thing. Who’s got it, how is it being used, how complicit am I in its misuse? The book I co-wrote with Brea Burton coming out this fall, Booty, treats sexualized and violent slang, cultural attitudes. It’s about power, sexuality, language. I prefer it when the power that gender confers is given up or equalized. Or at least recognized. Booty tries to take that power through irony and challenge. It’s a laugh riot!

3 - Where does a poem usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?

I usually have an idea for a book from the get-go. I have tried writing without an aim, but I much prefer having a title, a structure—I’ll start with a title like St. Ampede, I will imagine how it’ll be organized or what the form will be, say the book will have sections that are about each of the areas at the Calgary Stampede, then I can start colouring it in. “The Big Four Building” section title leads me to

tip holy cows
bulldoze Victoria Park
bull-in-a-china one-stop-shop for all your lottery, casino, junk food needs

Big Four building
bigger than the Famous Five
more than famous the biggest rodeo around
The Greatest Outdoor Show greater than
ten thousand dancing girls kicking cans
vaudeville baudeville Red-Mile-wide smiles

I’ll tell you the tale of the west
as the tale of the rest of us
what it’s like to love a cowboy before brokeback
when I was still ashamed to be a hick

Sort of macro-to-micro. Of course the title and structure usually change, after I’ve generated some material, but that’s how I start. If I know I am working on a book, rather than noodling around, it really helps me to be motivated.

4 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process?

Readings are part of the creative process, although not in a huge way. It helps to read stuff that is in progress to get a sense of how it is or isn’t working in terms of sound and rhythm, readability even, for choosing which work is meant to be performed, or how. It can help me realize if something is really oblique, and gives me an opportunity to think about accessibility. I want people to enjoy my work, at least on some level, maybe even on the level of frustrating them if that’s going somewhere. But readings don’t usually get me generating new work. Unless it is someone else’s reading of course.

5 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?

A question about questions. So theoretical! And what are THE current questions! As if we should all be asking the same ones!!! Well, my big thing for the last couple of years has been thinking about writing as play. The serious game. And I meant “writing” there as a noun, but of course it’s also a verb in the sense that I am playful while writing. So I’ve been addressing that directly with my project about Scrabble and Ouija. And also that project is about where creativity comes from, where language comes from, why language. Communication. Accessibility and inaccessibility. And that leads me to wonder about what art is. Is it entertainment? Does it have to justify itself? What does it look like when a difficult idea is trying to be entertaining?

6 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?

Both.

7 - After having published more than a couple of titles over the past few years (both chapbooks and books), do you find the process of book-making harder or easier?

The process of book-making. Hmm. I love it. I love making chapbooks, except that it’s pretty daunting to me now. Now that I really understand the amount of time I will need to make a chapbook that I am happy with—the sheer physical labour! The last chapbook I completed was a “Poetic License”—a card I printed on a letterpress. So daunting to imagine anything more ambitious. And there are a few unfinished chapbooks in various stages in various boxes and drawers. How can I start a new one?

But book books—well, I guess it’s easier? It’s definitely easier knowing what I am in for. But it’s harder because of course that means I must push myself farther, whether it means that the project is more intellectually rigorous, or I am pickier about my publisher, or I feel I must promote myself and the work better than I did with the last book. I liked being emerging. It felt like I couldn’t make a mistake. I remember joking with Julia Williams that neither of us managed to be a child prodigy. With my first book, I could imagine that I had a chance at that kind of status again. But now I am in the ugly teen-age of it all.

8 - When was the last time you ate a pear?

I had a bite of a wild pear in early September. Or I suppose it was a feral pear. Paul picked it and brought it back to the cabin where we were having our “summer” vacation. It was tough-skinned and under-ripe. It made me sad. I love the fall, it makes me a little melancholy in a good way. In a “boy it sure smells good” way.

9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?

Probably Fred Wah’s “so what.” It’s both a challenge and really zen at once, depending how encouraged or discouraged you are. It helps me keep the writing going somewhere for some reason.

Me:
“I wrote an 8-page poem that uses every letter in the Scrabble game and the score adds up to exactly the year that the game was invented!”
My Inner Fred:
“so what?”
Me:
“yeah, you’re right, it’s complete bullshit. It was fun to do it at least. Maybe there’s a phrase or two in there I can use.”

10 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?

I don’t have a routine. I write when I write. If I am unlucky I write when I have an appointment or something that stops me. I hate it when that happens. I feel like writing is something that happens to me, not something I do. So I try to be flexible with plans. And I never answer the phone.

11 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?

I usually forget this, because I don’t think very well when I am frustrated, but I find reading is very inspirational. Also watching films. I usually feel like writing after reading something—books, newspapers, signs. Rereading what I have written in a project can help too—I often just start adding/changing when I do that.

12 - How does your most recent book compare to your previous work? How does it feel different?

As the author of A Painted Elephant, I called myself a disjunctive narrative poet. I meant that my writing was disjunctive narrative poetry, not that I myself was disjunctive and narrative (because I was a child prodigy, I could get away with ambiguous language and people thought it was on purpose! Oh, to be emerging again.) But Booty: Hurricane Jane (my half of the co-written book) isn’t really narrative or disjunctive. It’s serial and iterative. So as the author of A Painted Elephant and Booty, I haven’t decided what to call myself. I’m glad that the two books are quite different. It shows range. It feels really really good. I think it is an excellent book. I can say that with no hesitation or false modesty because it is co-written with Brea Burton, whom I admire so much. I suspect we’ll be unappreciated in our time, but I only say that because I am a sullen teenager now. But seriously now. I am very proud of Booty—working with Brea (and with Cara Hedley in the project’s early days) has been one of the most rewarding creative endeavors I’ve tried out so far. I would love to write collaboratively more. Jason Christie and I keep threatening to co-write a fantasy novel.

13 - David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?

Well, culture. So all of those things excluding nature. But also nature. And of course books!

14 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?

Julia Williams, Brea Burton, Cara Hedley, angela rawlings, Jason Christie, Natalie Simpson, Jordan Scott, Fred Wah, Robert Kroetsch, Nicole Brossard. And beginning a list is sometimes the worst thing in the world to do—talk about a form dictating the content! Talk about rejection of closure! I can’t leave the list at that but I have to! Ok, if I was on a deserted island, who would I want with me…

15 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?

I would like to go to New Zealand and Spain.

16 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?

I like to fantasize about vineyards. Hot air balloons. Arboriculture. Soup entrepreneurship. Stichomancy. And I like to sew.

17 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?

It’s what I did when I was happy and when I was traumatized and when I was bored and when I was excited, so I thought it would be a good bet.

18 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?

Yesno by Dennis Lee, and we watched The Shining again the other night, what a great movie!

19 - What are you currently working on?

I’m working on a novel. It’s a ghost story.

12 or 20 questions archive

12 or 20 questions: with Jason Christie

Jason Christie is the author of Canada Post (Snare 2006) and i-ROBOT poetry by Jason Christie (Edge 2006). He edited Shift & Switch: New Canadian Poetry (Mercury 2005) with Angela Rawlings and derek beaulieu.

1 - How did your first book change your life?

I keep getting emails from some Teen Beat magazine reporter called Dash A. Budmeadow... I feel like my first book helped me to let go of a few anxieties I was feeling about writing. It was like finally getting a gold coin and then learning it was chocolate with a foil wrapper, but eating the chocolate and loving it anyway. Now I just wear foil wrappers on my head to insulate my thoughts.

2 - How long have you lived in Calgary, and how does geography, if at all, impact on your writing? Does race or gender make any impact on your work?

I lived in Calgary for 6 years and I recently moved to Vancouver. Geography is important to my writing. Writing about a particular place, at a particular time, is a way to put memories into a safety deposit box. You can move on from that place, once you have written it, and once written about, you can return to it. And it shouldn't even be obvious in most cases, rather the text should be doing something else while you are lining it with memories. Canada Post is full of places and people that are important to me, but I made the references oblique because they are really only important to me. The poems go off and do all kinds of other things, but I'll always be able to read one of the poems and get the references, and that makes me happy. In a time when place is less and less of a necessary marker, I'd say that place is important to my writing in another way as well. Place acts as a sort of nonlocation in Canada Post, where references to geographical places don't mesh into a narrative place. In i-ROBOT I tried to interrogate how people negotiate alterity, and how that negotiation impacts personal relationships or national relationships. Without talking directly about race, gender or class, I feel that in that book I was able to engage with them.

3 - Where does a poem usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?

Poems usually begin with a startling thought that gets into my head and snaps me out of whatever I was doing, or a strange sentence will occur to me and keep occurring until I write it down. Sometimes all it takes is a word, and I'm off writing. The robot poems, for example, often started with me thinking of something funny that related to robots and then I'd sit down to write, or grab a pen and random piece of paper and I'd write a first draft of the poem in one sitting. That's not always the way it goes, I do have files on my computer, and loads of scrap notes lying around that I'm hoping to return to, or add to something I'm working on, but for the robot book it was kind of magical. I would say I'm an author of short pieces that combine into a book and an author that forms a book from the beginning. I've had both experiences. Canada Post is a book that features several poems that I realized were all responding to similar issues about identity and nationality, and it made sense to bring them together. Strangely enough the robot poems got their start as Canada Post poems. I realized that they weren't right for the book and set them aside. I kept writing them like crazy until it dawned on me that they were becoming a book of their own. My new project is one that I conceived right off the start. It is a series of narrative poems, and I knew where they were going before I even wrote the first one. So this new book is definitely one that was conceived as a book first then the poems came later.

4 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process?

Not really. I get nervous when I read.

5 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?

Oh, that is a big question... My writing is heavily influenced by theory. It is also heavily influenced by my life. I'm trying to understand how language and Capitalism function together. I think the most pressing question for me is: how can I be accountable for the fact that language's program toward understanding has been totally co-opted by Capitalist ideology to such a degree that even pointing it out incurs the full weight of the problem? We replicate the problems even as we try to talk about the problems... That said, I'm not interested in alienating readers in my pursuit of answers by writing myself into an obscure niche. Nor am I interested in descending into an apathetic response of simply pointing out the problem over and over again. Lately I'm interested in alterity, how people understand difference, how they respond to difference. Do they attempt to integrate it? Assimilate it into their understanding of the world? Do they respect it and leave it alone? Do they ignore it, thinking they are being respectful?

6 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?

I have found that it can be quite rewarding. It isn't essential to me, but it is always helpful to have someone else's input.

7 - After having published a couple of titles over the past few years, do you find the process of book-making harder or easier?

I find it is getting easier. I feel a bit more sure of how I want a book to function and that makes it a little easier to put it all together. That said, I still agonize over the poems, adding in or removing poems. Once the poems are written, I can usually relax a bit and let the structure materialize.

8 - When was the last time you ate a pear?

A pair of what?

9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?

Be patient. I think that has been the best advice I've received as a writer. Oh, and: if at first you don't succeed. well, who really succeeds at writing anyway?

10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to visual art)? What do you see as the appeal?

I need to be doing multiple things at any given time. Experimenting in visual poetry, or making noises with my computer, gives me an outlet other than writing words on a page to express the ideas with which I'm grappling.

11 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?

I don't have much of a routine. I mostly write when I have time, or when some idea surprises me. I guess I've been forced into a guerrilla-style writing routine. I used to write while hiding out in the boiler room of a department store where I worked, or on the roof near the water tower. I wrote a lot of Canada Post in those environments, and much of my MA thesis. There was one giant machine for which I had a fondness. It was a water chiller/evaporator that was built by The Carrier corporation in 1968 and it had been running more or less well until it was scrapped in 2005 which was also the year I stopped working at the department store. The Carrier was mint green and about twenty feet long by ten feet high. It leaked bromide that would pool beneath it and destroy the cement. Now, I do most of my writing at home or on transit at any time of the day that I can find some time, or when the mood strikes me. My typical day begins at 7:30. I grab a coffee and head to work. I'll sometimes read if I can sit down on the bus. Most recently I read a super secret project by Steve Collis. It is very good.

12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?

I will usually grab another book, listen to music, have a coffee, or shower to jump start the creative process.

13 - How does your most recent book compare to your previous work? How does it feel different?

I'm diving right into narrative which is something I've avoided (as in the robot poems) or made a point of avoiding (as in Canada Post). It feels like I'm rounding out a trilogy constructed of ideas where I tackle the same issues from slightly different perspectives and using different topics.

14 - David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?

Absolutely. I'd say other art forms heavily influence what I write, or how I think about writing.

15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?

John Barlow. Michael deBeyer. Those are two names that come to mind immediately. As for people I've never met: Max Jacob, Paul Eluard, Francis Ponge... A whole bunch of the Early 20th Century French poets... There are really too many people who have had a profound impact on my writing life over the years for me to mention. All the people in Calgary I know and miss dearly. The friends in Toronto that I so seldom get to see.

16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?

I would love to go to France. I've never been able to make travelling a priority, so I haven't been out of Canada very much and I've never been off the continent. It would be amazing to travel to France, since I admire so many French poets.

17 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?

I know everone says this, but I would have loved to have been involved in researching theoretical particle physics. If I wasn't a writer, I would probably be doing exactly what I am doing now minus the writing. Or maybe I'd be rustling pandas or something.

18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?

It feels like the only thing I can do.

19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?

The last great book was The Dice Cup, by Max Jacob. I bought a banged up copy of a 1923 edition in French and the first full English translation recently because I can't get enough of his poems.

20 - What are you currently working on?

I have some new poems that I'm pretty excited about, but I don't want to say too much. I'm also putting together a wee magazine called room to move. The first issue has writing by Jordan Scott, Nikki Reimer, Joanne Arnott, Ron Silliman and many others. I'm working on a chapbook for by the skin of my teeth press called Une Violence Etrange. I just got married in June and moved to Vancouver, so I've been really busy and haven't had much time to get things sorted out. But now that we are settling in, I'm feeling that exciting rush to write again.

12 or 20 questions archive

The Writers Guild of Alberta presents:

An Evening with rob mclennan
2007/08 Writer-in-Residence, University of Alberta Department of English and Film Studies
Wednesday, October 31, 7:00 – 9:00 PM
2nd Floor Program Room, Strathcona Public Library
8331 104 Street
WGA members free; non-members $5.00

Ottawa-based writer rob mclennan has done much musing on the subject of regional writing in preparation for his move to Alberta: his essay “On (not) Being an Alberta Writer: or, anticipating UofA” appeared in the June 2007 issue of The Danforth Review. Spend an evening with rob, two months into his residency, as he shares his new-formed impressions of Alberta, his thoughts on Canada’s literary geography, and his work.

rob mclennan is an Ottawa-based writer, editor and publisher. His thirteenth poetry collection is The Ottawa City Project (Chaudiere Books), and fall 2007 sees the publication of his first novel, white (The Mercury Press), subverting the lyric: essays (ECW Press) and the non-fiction title Ottawa: The Unknown City (Arsenal Pulp Press). He regularly posts reviews, essays and other items at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com, and is currently working at www.albertawriting.blogspot.com.

12 or 20 questions: with Sarah Lang

Bio: Sarah Lang was born in Canada.

1 - How did your first book change your life?

I decided that the second seminar was no longer worthwhile, I would leave. So, one day, I got up and left (Office Space style). I’m no longer perusing my PhD.

2 - How long have you lived in Chicago, and how does geography, if at all, impact on your writing? Does race or gender make any impact on your work?

I lived in Chicago from Sept 2005-March 2006 and then again from Sept 2006 to June 2007. I no longer live there.

I think it is too early to say if it made an impact; I usually have to sit with things for a good while.

Does gender? I suppose it must--androgynous as I feel, and was raised--I still live in a gendered culture.

Does race? I don’t know. I grew up in a very multicultural environment. Ethnicity, or culture and language were much more identity markers.

I lived in three different neighbourhoods when I lived in Chicago. The last, Woodlawn, is one of the worst neighbourhoods in the US. Yet, I was a 10 minute walk from the University of Chicago and the University of Chicago Hospital.

Children would do their homework (rather commendably) on my steps, in the cold, at night, while their mothers had sex for crack.

I would walk from campus--which was a walled city--through the hospital, past waterfalls and LED monitors--cross the street, walk one block, and be in the projects. People were living without windows. Frankly, I couldn’t understand why there weren’t riots.

I also lived in the posh neighbourhoods. Needless to say, you could buy fresh groceries within a 5KM walk.

3 - Where does a poem usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?

I write clumsy, insufficient, I write French, and I am sad because when I write, I really feel that I only-write, I accompany, but from so far away, I only write with the greatest possible love, but only shadows and allusion, not even of my hand but already spoken by French, not even of my composition.

All I am trying to say, Antouylia, is perhaps but this:

All the books that I could write revolve around the book that I shall never
write, which allows all the others to be written, and this book of books is the
book of You.-Cixous, (With) Or the Art of Innocence

In other words, all my writing, all writing that I have ever done is part of one book. That book has chapters or sections, but it is one book.

4 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process?

I consider them part of my job (as teaching is to a researcher). It is my professional duty, and as such, I try to be professional.

5 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?

I try to write poetry that doesn’t suck.

6 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?

I think I would need you to define “outside.” If that means any reader but me, no, I quite like it. I think I am usually “my own worst critic,” but sometimes it’s good to work through something with someone--show them a line you love but know can’t leave the house, so you can then delete it, etc.

If you mean an editor at a press or whatnot, no. Again, once the work is ready for publication, what others do with or think about it is rather irrelevant to me.

If you ask me to talk about typography and book design, that would be another question.

7 - When was the last time you ate a pear?

One month to the day.

8 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?

I’m going to take it you mean writing.

As I write this, I mean no disrespect to those who educated me later in life, nor my peers; however, the best writing advice I ever got was from Martin Godfrey, the Canadian children/teen writer, at the age of about 10. Three things: 1) Stories can start with something other than one day. In fact, start in the middle of something to grab someone’s attention. 2) Show don’t tell. 3) Remember that there are senses other than sight. (And throughout, focus in.)

9 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to photography)? What do you see as the appeal?

Photography is my needlework.

10 - Just what is it about airports?

They are, in a way, everywhere an nowhere at once. They are both highly anonymous and personal. They are the physical manifestation of ambition.

In a word, they are *ports.*

11 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?

Currently, I have a routine lack of routine.

12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?

I don’t think about it. If I do not want to write; I don’t. If I do, I do. If I never feel like it again, then I will never do it again.

13 - How does your most recent book compare to your previous work? How does it feel different?

NA

14 - David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, but are there any

other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?

Music. I want to write Tallis’s “Spem in Alium.” Björk’s “All is full of love” or “Generous Palmstroke.”

15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?

When I first went to the Waldrops’ for a party or whatnot, I suddenly learnt a new way of living an adult life.

16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?

Sail, tallships style. Be a rock star. Own a really good bed.

17 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?

Composer. If I had heard music before the age of ten, and was trained in any way at an earlier age (I can sing and play various instruments, but not with the same fluidity with which I can write), this is what I would have done.

But, as that was not the case, and as I was reading theoretical physics books at the age of 12 or so, I probably I would have ended up a cosmologist, who really, really wanted to be an astronaut.

18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?

Made me? Nothing. I did that as I do other things. What made you eat an apple? What made you walk? What made you drink juice instead of milk?

19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?

Kathy Acker has really been a relaxing read lately. She calms me down for some reason.

Last night I watched Romance and Cigarettes. It was pretty darned grand.

20 - What are you currently working on?

This.

12 or 20 questions archive

12 or 20 questions: with Todd Babiak

Todd Babiak’s latest novel is The Book of Stanley, published by McClelland & Stewart. His second book, The Garneau Block, was longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller and won the City of Edmonton Book Prize. Choke Hold, his first novel, was shortlisted for the Rogers Writers Trust Fiction Prize and won the Henry Kreisel Award for Best first book.

Todd is an award-winning screenwriter and the former lord mayor of Old Strathcona. He is the culture columnist at the Edmonton Journal.

1 - How did your first book change your life?

I was suddenly confident. At least for 12 or 14 days. Choke Hold came out, unfortunately, just as Stoddart — remember Stoddart? — was going down. So the book didn’t have a distributor. I went into bookstores, hoping to turn everything on the shelf so my novel would face out… and the novel was never in stock! It was optioned for film and I was hired as a screenwriter. Nothing ever came of it, but I learned how to write a screenplay. The novel was shortlisted for a national award and it won a provincial award. Strangers read it, when they could find it. A couple of my enemies, I learned, wrote mean reviews on amazon.ca. So I murdered them.

This, really, was the life-changer: strangers — even a few of them — reading what I had written.
2 - How long have you lived in Edmonton, and how does geography, if at all, impact on your writing? Does race or gender make any impact on your work?

I’ve lived in Edmonton since 1998 or so. Before that I was in Montreal. Before that, various locations in Alberta. Geography, and its social-political-cultural manifestations, make a huge impact. Since 1947, when oil was discovered near my ancestral home — Leduc, Alberta — this province has been tied to the land and its bounty. And the corrupting factors thereof. It’s the soul of the place.

When I first read The Studhorse Man, by Robert Kroetsch, it leveled me. I was living in Montreal, and it was a call from home. A nasty and true novel — a novel — about an Alberta I recognized. And it changed me forever.

3 - Where does a piece of fiction usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?

Lately, everything has been a “book” from the very beginning. Since The Garneau Block, and really the screenwriting malice of Choke Hold, I’ve been devoting myself to the mysteries of structure. Short fiction is more of a hobby, so far.

4 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process?

I like writing essays to be read aloud, rather than reading sections from novels. So I think about the public reading as a separate medium. I have a different persona, certainly, in a public reading. So I’ve been trying to cultivate a “public reading voice.” When I read from the novels, I try to make it short. I’m hyper-aware of boring the hell out of people. I feel for them: we live in a visual culture.

5 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?

Everything is difficult. But I have loved working with editors. My most recent editor, Jennifer Lambert (formerly of McClelland & Stewart, now of HarperCollins) is a genius. She asks all the right questions, sniffs out weaknesses, and makes the work better.

6 - After having published more than a couple of titles over the years, do you find the process of book-making harder or easier?

It’s easier to imagine success and easier to fail. Earlier I wrote that publishing Choke Hold made me confident. Well, didn’t I rush out and write three shitty novels in three years? Unpublishable dreck. But I’ve learned from that experience, and I’m absolutely vibrating with fear as I write these days. And it shall always be so.

7 - When was the last time you ate a pear?

I made pears stuffed with gorgonzola cheese and crème fraiche earlier this month, and ate three of them myself. Stinky tasty.

8 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?

I know some writers who’re so drunk with the idea of themselves that they’ve written, or said, ugly things about their friends, colleagues, mentors, and competitors. An American bestselling author once said to me, as though it was a secret, “Being an asshole in this business will destroy you.” It’s true! Writers are on the margins of the entertainment industry, ignored and unappreciated. They ought to help each other, whenever possible.

Did I ever tell you how rakishly handsome you are, rob mclennan? I kiss you, rob mclennan.

9 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (fiction to journalism)? What do you see as the appeal?

I have [to] make a geographical change every day, from my little writing studio at home to the newspaper office in downtown Edmonton. Early in the morning, I write fiction or screenplays. So it’s my first priority. Then I dress up in my work clothes and come downtown and become that other Todd. The appeal: it’s a challenge. I love writing fiction and I like writing journalism. Oh also, I need two jobs to survive right now. And I continue to pursue a third: film and television writing.

10 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?

6:15, alarm goes off. I hit snooze
6:25, alarm goes off. I hit snooze.
6:29, guilt overwhelms me, I get up, grind coffee, make coffee, eat toast, read paper, drink coffee
7:00 check e-mail, write fiction
9:00 shower, eat some more
10:00 arrive at Edmonton Journal
After this, the day varies. Sometimes I write more in the evenings. But usually I’m whupped and all I want to do is read or go to a play or something.

11 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?

Books and walks, the gym, my daughter and my wife. The literary inspirations, I guess, are The Sun Also Rises and The Great Gatsby. They made me do this instead of lawyering, in the first place, and they whisper in my ear: yes, it’s pointless and heartbreaking and you’re poor. But don’t stop.

12 - How does your most recent book compare to your previous work? How does it feel different?

Both Choke Hold and The Garneau Block were about people in small communities. The Book of Stanley is more ambitious, I guess. It feels bigger. There are actual multitudes in it.

13 - David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?

Nature and music, definitely, in that they affect my mood. And mood infects the writing. Science and visual art don’t influence me directly, but I try to keep track. All the arts communicate the same story: what it’s like to be a human being. And the more art we take into our lives, as writers and as citizens, the better off we are.

Nature reflects that back at us, I guess, our littleness. Poor old King Lear, shouting at the storm.

14 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?

I want to write a major motion picture. I want to live in the central valley of Mexico for at least one year, and write a great novel of Mexico.

15 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?

I wrote the foreign service exam, so I almost did that. Yes, that is what I would be doing today. I’d be working for the Canadian government somewhere in Asia or Northern Europe, hoping that Stephen Harper won’t shut down the consulate.

16 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?

In grade six, my language arts teacher gave us 30 minutes to write on Monday mornings. It was for journal entries, or a sanitized diary, or little stories. I satirized my family. In one story, Billy Smith, the goalie for the New York Islanders, stalked my extended family at Skeleton Lake. I (the hero) had to save the day. When I discovered Billy had eaten most of my family, I had to cut him open and allow everyone to escape. The teacher was horrified. She invited my parents to her office one evening and wept, and demanded they send me to a psychiatrist. Today, they would have put me on 5 prescription drugs. Instead, my parents photocopied the stories and gave them to family members at Christmas time. Some people laughed, others treated me like the family psycho. Either way, I loved it.

17 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?

I enjoyed The Lay of the Land by Richard Ford, the third part of a trilogy I’d been following. And the last movie I loved was The Lives of Others.

18 - What are you currently working on?

I’m writing a novel called Toby A Man, about a television style and etiquette commentator who loses his job, his girlfriend, and his BMW on the same day. The novel, really, is what he does trying to get it all back, and what he learns: in the 21st century, success is compromising our humanity. There’s a kid in it, named Hugo.

And The Book of Stanley is being developed as a television series. I hope to write, or at least help write, the pilot.

12 or 20 questions archive