tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34128099656478107012023-11-16T08:35:51.814-08:00alberta, writingrob mclennanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07958889643637765864noreply@blogger.comBlogger46125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412809965647810701.post-20596760361180378072008-11-21T15:54:00.000-08:002008-12-13T19:54:11.537-08:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvzUJiWBEfdSeBT6Yq6QDvjQPb4widFQVYcando4KBZ1bO_2JxF9C98iYI8V_U-H7zE2HMSWmOXUEeejjBtBs6PvQUi2hWClPZ-jeBY8Z_7yxQXrItmKjIKe1TSNhZhfxGTk0J1iAcAhH6/s1600-h/hc_mistletoekiss.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 231px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvzUJiWBEfdSeBT6Yq6QDvjQPb4widFQVYcando4KBZ1bO_2JxF9C98iYI8V_U-H7zE2HMSWmOXUEeejjBtBs6PvQUi2hWClPZ-jeBY8Z_7yxQXrItmKjIKe1TSNhZhfxGTk0J1iAcAhH6/s320/hc_mistletoekiss.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5271266009935081474" border="0" /></a><br />Upcoming Events!<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Poison Ivy & Mistletoe Misfirings</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sunday, December 14th</span><br /><br />The ARTery<br />9535 Jasper Avenue<br /><br />Are there still 'feminine' or 'masculine' ways of identifying our writing? Does gender still bear literary relevance? Is Mommy still kissing Santa Claus underneath the mistletoe?<br /><br />The space will be<span style="font-weight: bold;"> free</span> from <span style="font-weight: bold;">Noon - 5 pm</span> for a book fair, representing a wide array of local journals, publishers, and small-to-even-smaller presses;<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">1-2 pm</span>, join us for a presentation on our topic of discussion;<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />3-4 pm</span> we hook up the microphone and open the floor so that you, the audience, can share your finest work!<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">7-10 pm</span> a celebratory evening ensues with music and readings by noted celebrities, including: <span style="font-weight: bold;">Michelle Boudreau, Thea Bowering, TL Cowan, ryan fitzpatrick, Jill Pollock, Jadon Rempel, and U of A Writer-in-Residence Lynn Coady</span><br />(Cover by donation; proceeds in support of our Factory (West) performers, and the Edmonton Women's Shelter.)<br /><br />Contact us at factorywest@gmail.com for more information, or if you are interested in participating in the day's events.<br /><br />Check out our <a href="http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=48424932224#/event.php?eid=38961767586">main event page</a> on Facebook!<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Tracy Johnson</span> is a university of Alberta student currently working on her second Bachelors of Arts in women studies, her first degree was in sociology and psychology. She intends to get into the non-profit industry working with and for marginalized groups.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.ualberta.ca/%7Ehzwicker/index.htm"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Heather Zwicker</span></a> has been teaching in the English Department at the UofA since 1993, where her research and teaching range through feminism, postcolonialism and cultural studies. She is the Board Chair for Exposure: Edmonton's Queer Arts and Culture Festival, and a columnist for Unlimited Magazine.<br />Other (notable!) factoids:<br />- She blogs (sonography of the heart)<br />- She's from Edmonton; Edmonton is where she learned to be a feminist<br />- She edited Edmonton on Location: River City Chronicles (NeWest Press 2005)<br />- She once dressed in butch drag for an Alberta Beef show and nearly got decked by a friend who didn't recognize her and thought she was making a move on her girl.<br /><br /><br /><a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://www.reverbnation.com/jillpollock">Jill Pollock</a> had her first break into the music scene when she performed the Canadian National Anthem at the Parkview Elementary School Assembly on her Yamaha recorder. She was eight and probably had pizza on her face and her shoes were most definitely on the wrong feet. Since then she has studied theatre, some philosophy and some other stuff on top of it all and has lived out of a smelly backpack whilst traveling around Australia for a while.<br />She stumbled upon the Ukulele when she was riding a bus somewhere insignificant to this bio and decided "hey, I'm going to learn to play this. and then, i will play it...a lot...probably more than I should...but hey, that's the way it goes" (she said all that to herself whilst sitting on that bus.) Jill likes trees, stretching, the colour greenish-blue and clapping her hands a lot. Jill likes you, too.<br /><br /><a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://www.michelleboudreau.ca/">Michelle Boudreau</a> is a songwriter, spoken work artist, gardener and mom. All the way from dusty Saskatchewan, follow the river to the deep forests of Alberta. You'll hear a melodic twist, a unique blend of energetic Folk and Roots music.<br />With her 1962 Guild Acoustic, ripping and tearing soundboards across Canada, Michelle will bring an audience to groove, laugh, cry to her catchy indie/folk melodies. Michelle has a couple of cd's that would make EXCELLENT Christmas presents...<br /><br /><a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://processdocuments.blogspot.com/">ryan fitzpatrick</a> lives and writes in Calgary where he is a past-editor of filling Station magazine, the curator of the Flywheel Reading Series, and the publisher of MODL Press. His first book, FAKE MATH, was published by Snare Books in Fall 2007.<br /><br /><a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://42opus.com/authors/jadonrempel">Jadon Rempel</a>'s poetry has been published in Canada, the US and Europe. Recent publications include 42opus, Blueprint Review, Rose & Thorn, Misunderstandings, Existere, the Daily Haiku Anthology and Monday's Poem by Leaf Press. He has made several appearances on CBC Radio, is active with the Edmonton Poetry Festival and his work is nominated for a Pushcart Award in the US. Happily, he lives and writes in Edmonton with his wife and daughter.<br /><a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://www.members.shaw.ca/jw-turner/boweringt.htm"><br /></a><a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://www.members.shaw.ca/jw-turner/boweringt.htm"><span>Thea Bowering</span></a><a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://www.members.shaw.ca/jw-turner/boweringt.htm"> </a>writes, teaches and bartends in Edmonton. Much of her fiction involves the female flaneur. Her own practices make her think the thrill of walking where she isn't supposed to walk, mixed with talking the way she isn't supposed to talk, suggest something about a woman's way with words.<br />Her recent writing appears in The Capilano Review: The Sharon Thesen Issue, and Splurge 2.<br /><br /><a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://www.uofaweb.ualberta.ca/researchandstudents/news.cfm?story=48174">T.L. Cowan</a> is an Edmonton-based writer, performer, and purveyor of smut. Her on-going performance cycle, The Twisted She Poems, explores themes of perversion, popularity and pathology all funnelled through conventional and unconventional performances of gender.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span><br /><a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://www.lynncoady.com/">Lynn Coady</a> is author of the novels Strange Heaven (1998), Saints of Big Harbour (2003), and, most recently, Mean Boy (2006). She has also published a short story collection, Play the Monster Blind (2000), and edited a collection of short fiction from Atlantic Canada called Victory Meat (2003).<br />Her first novel was nominated for a Governor-General's Award for fiction, and since then she has garnered the Canadian Authors Association's Under-Thirty and Jubilee Award (for short fiction), as well as the Dartmouth Book Award and the Atlantic Bookseller's Choice Award. Most recently, Coady acted as editor of The Anansi 40th Anniversary Reader, published in 2007 by House of Anansi press.<br />Coady has written non-fiction for various publications, and has taught creative writing at Douglas College, Simon Fraser University's Writer's Studio, The Sage Hill Writing Experience, The Maritime Writer's Workshop, and the Banff Center's Wired Writing Studio.<br />While in Edmonton she expects to finish her next novel 'Hyperborea', which, appropriately enough, was started in Edmonton in 2006, and also hopes to develop a short play for the Edmonton fringe. And maybe--just maybe--start working on a new novel she has in mind.Trisia Ehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17126185891943303291noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412809965647810701.post-46844689684862975072008-07-02T10:25:00.000-07:002008-07-02T11:35:53.176-07:00The Factory (West) Reading Series, July 15, 2008<strong>A monthly Edmonton reading series of poetry, fiction and creative non-fiction originally established by rob mclennan during his tenure as </strong><a href="http://www.humanities.ualberta.ca/english/WIR.html"><strong>writer-in-residence at the University of Alberta</strong></a><strong> (2007-8) in January, 2008, now organized/hosted by Edmonton poet Trisia Eddy, editor/publisher of Red Nettle Press; </strong><br /><div><strong></strong></div><br /><strong>The name "Factory (West)" refers to the fact that mclennan has been running readings in Ottawa since 1995 that now exist under the title </strong><a href="http://www.ottawaartgallery.ca/factoryreadingseries/index-en.php"><strong>The Factory Reading Series, held regularly(ish) at the Ottawa Art Gallery</strong></a><strong>;</strong><br /><br />Due to the very sad demise of our beloved venue, <span style="font-weight: bold;">Cafe Select</span>, this month's readings will be held at <span style="font-weight: bold;">Remedy Cafe</span>, who have very graciously opened their doors to us...so be sure to make your way down to <span style="font-weight: bold;">8631-109th Street</span>;<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">doors @ 7pm</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">readings @ 7:30pm</span><br /><br />with readings this month by:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Clarice Eckford</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Lainna Lane</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Kevin Kerr</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">& Ted Bishop<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.tixonthesquare.com/pressreleases/kingfisher.html">Clarice Eckford</a> </span>is an Edmonton-based actor and poet. She is a former member of the <a href="http://www.strollofpoets.com/">Stroll of Poets Society</a>, and her work can be seen in 4 Corners: A Feminist Review, Xpress: Youth Book Project #1 and <a href="http://www.thismagazine.ca/">This Magazine</a>. Eckford is a three-time nominee for the <a href="http://sterlings.varsconatheatre.com/">Elizabeth Sterling Haynes Award</a> for excellence in theatre performance and she holds a <a href="http://www.uofaweb.ualberta.ca/drama/bfaacting.cfm">BFA in drama from the University of Alberta</a>. Her award-winning theatre company, <a href="http://wavingatsatellites.blogspot.com/2004/06/congratulations-pony-productions.html">Pony Productions</a>, is dedicated to the production of new works.<span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /><br /></span>*<br /><br />Lainna Lane has lived in Ottawa, Vancouver, and most recently Edmonton where she is very slowly completing her <a href="http://www.ualberta.ca/%7Eenglishd/ENGHOME1.HTM">English and Comparative Literature degree at the University of Alberta</a>. She finances this by working in an office tower guarded by peregrines. When not in office or school she enjoys traveling, working at <a href="http://www.othervoices.ca/">Other Voices</a><a href="http://www.othervoices.ca/"> literary magazine</a>, <a href="http://parenting.ivillage.com/gs/gsactivities/0,,88nf,00.html">playing dodgeball</a>, and mixing a mean <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mint_julep">mint julep</a>. She has one publication in this year's student edition of the <a href="http://olivereadingseries.wordpress.com/tag/lainna-lane-el-jabi/">Olive Reading Series chapbook</a>, as well as the <a href="http://abovegroundpress.blogspot.com/2008/03/new-from-aboveground-press-peter-f.html">Peter F. Yacht Club, #10</a>.<br /><br />*<br /><br /><a href="http://leeplaywright.blogspot.com/"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Kevin Kerr</span></a> is a playwright, director, actor, and founding member of Vancouver’s <a href="http://www.electriccompanytheatre.com/">Electric Company Theatre</a>, with whom he’s co-written numerous plays including <a href="http://www.electriccompanytheatre.com/works/the-wake/">The Wake</a>, <a href="http://www.screensiren.ca/projects/completed/the_score/index.html">The Score</a>, <a href="http://www.electriccompanytheatre.com/works/dona-flor-and-her-two-husbands/">Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands</a>, <a href="http://www.electriccompanytheatre.com/works/the-flop/">Flop</a>, <a href="http://www.electriccompanytheatre.com/works/the-fall/">The Fall</a>, and <a href="http://www.brindleandglass.com/books/brilliant.htm">Brilliant! The Blinding Enlightenment of Nikola Tesla</a>.<br /><br />In the 1999/2000 season, he was Writer in Residence at <a href="http://www.touchstonetheatre.com/">Touchstone Theatre</a> where he developed <a href="http://www.talonbooks.com/index.cfm?event=titleDetails&ISBN=0889224617">Unity</a><a href="http://www.talonbooks.com/index.cfm?event=titleDetails&ISBN=0889224617"> (1918)</a> (Talonbooks, 2002), which earned him the <a href="http://www.canadacouncil.ca/prizes/ggla/cw127248833750781250.htm">Governor General’s Literary Award for Drama</a>. He is the recipient of three <a href="http://www.jessies.ca/index.html">Jessie Richardson Awards for Outstanding Original Play</a> (Brilliant!, The Score, and Unity) and his work has been produced across Canada, in the U.S., France, Australia, and the U.K.<br /><br />Recent works include The Remittance Man, which was commissioned and premiered by Kelowna’s <a href="http://www.sunshinetheatre.org/">Sunshine Theatre</a>, <a href="http://www.electriccompanytheatre.com/works/studies-in-motion/">Studies in Motion</a>, which was co-produced by Electric Company Theatre and <a href="http://www.theatre.ubc.ca/index.shtml">Theatre at UBC</a>, and the feature-length screen adaptation of the Electric Company play The Score for CBC Television. His latest work, <a href="http://web.mac.com/realwheels/iWeb/Site/Skydive.html">Skydive</a>, received its premiere in 2007 at the <a href="http://pushfestival.ca/index.php">PuSh International Performing Arts Festival</a> in Vancouver, co-produced by Vancouver’s <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wf7aGyGaTjs">Realwheels Theatre</a> and the <a href="http://www.belfry.bc.ca/">Belfry Theatre</a> in Victoria.<br /><br />At present he’s at work on an Adaptation of <a href="http://www.carouseltheatre.ca/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=71">Pierre Berton’s “Secret World of Og”</a> for Vancouver’s <a href="http://www.carouseltheatre.ca/">Carousel Theatre</a>, as well as a new collectively created work with Electric Company Theatre.<br /><br />He is currently the <a href="http://www.uofaweb.ualberta.ca/drama/nav03.cfm?nav03=61494&nav02=41334&nav01=28956">Lee Playwright in Residence</a>, a two-year position at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, where he is living with his wife, poet <a href="http://maritadachsel.blogspot.com/">Marita Dachsel</a>, and his two sons.<span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /><br />*<br /><br /></span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Bishop"><strong>Ted Bishop’s</strong></a> [<a href="http://robmclennan.blogspot.com/2008/05/12-or-20-questions-with-ted-bishop-ted.html">see his 12 or 20 questions here</a>] literary nonfiction has appeared in <em><a href="http://www.ccgdata.com/5025-10.html?gclid=CNv0yaD2upMCFSY1agod2k4CDA">Cycle Canada</a></em>, <em><a href="http://www.enroutemag.com/">Enroute</a></em>, <em><a href="http://www.prairiefire.ca/">Prairie Fire</a></em>, <em><a href="http://www.ridermagazine.com/">Rider</a></em>, <em><a href="http://www.banffcentre.ca/press/publications/word_carving.asp">Word Carving: The Craft of Literary Journalism</a></em>, and <em><a href="http://januarymagazine.com/artcult/whatimeant.html">What I Meant to Say: The Private Lives of Men</a></em>. His <a href="http://www.penguin.ca/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9780670063857,00.html"><em>Riding with Rilke: Reflections on Motorcycles and Books</em> </a>(Penguin 2005 /Norton 2006), was <a href="http://www.blogto.com/arts/2005/10/doing_it_weekly_interview_1_ted_bishop/">a finalist for the Governor General’s Award </a>and the <a href="http://www.writerstrust.com/programs_apa.html">Writers’ Trust Award</a>, won the City of <a href="http://www.writersguild.ab.ca/programs/alberta_book_awards.asp">Edmonton Book Prize </a>and <a href="http://www.supershowevents.com/super/ss08-max-awards.html">the MAX Award (Motorcycle Awards of Excellence)</a>, and has been translated into Korean; it was also named <a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/">a Best Book by the <em>Globe and Mail</em></a>, <em><a href="http://www.cbc.ca/insite/SOUNDS_LIKE_CANADA/2003/6/26.html">CBC’s Talking Books</a></em>, and <em><a href="http://www.playboy.com/">Playboy magazine</a></em>, where he appeared (in textual contiguity) with <a href="http://www.pamelachannel.com/channel/">Pamela Anderson</a>. He is at work on a new book for Penguin, “The Social Life of Ink.”<br /><br /><br /><div><strong>info:</strong> Trisia Eddy at <a href="mailto:trisia.e@gmail.com">trisia.e@gmail.com</a></div><div><strong>further readings:</strong> begin again in October!</div><div><a href="http://albertawriting.blogspot.com/2008/04/factory-west-reading-series-may-20-2008.html">previous readings</a>;</div>Trisia Ehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17126185891943303291noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412809965647810701.post-33449551590075716662008-05-21T13:15:00.000-07:002008-12-11T03:10:35.817-08:00The Factory (West) Reading Series, June 17, 2008<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgg2S6PR4nLK6oz847yPl1z-FxHNNtgGxBa4nCDCsj03G4DCFhvCpBwkckJzpCgyaFd4UgFh38wd6WJJCiMR3T48ED1tDhZYhiwNHEE6QpAl2liY_y67kNWEV1PdDQhUJBIOtuy2wuf2UWq/s1600-h/mallthird149.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5202934324151557618" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgg2S6PR4nLK6oz847yPl1z-FxHNNtgGxBa4nCDCsj03G4DCFhvCpBwkckJzpCgyaFd4UgFh38wd6WJJCiMR3T48ED1tDhZYhiwNHEE6QpAl2liY_y67kNWEV1PdDQhUJBIOtuy2wuf2UWq/s320/mallthird149.jpg" border="0" /></a><strong>a montly Edmonton reading series of poetry, fiction and creative non-fiction originally established by rob mclennan during his tenure as </strong><a href="http://www.humanities.ualberta.ca/english/WIR.html"><strong>writer-in-residence at the University of Alberta</strong></a><strong> (2007-8) in January, 2008, now organized/hosted by Edmonton poet Trisia Eddy, editor/publisher of Red Nettle Press; </strong><br /><div><strong></strong></div><br /><div><strong>the name "Factory (West)" refers to the fact that mclennan has been running readings in Ottawa since 1995 that now exist under the title </strong><a href="http://www.ottawaartgallery.ca/factoryreadingseries/index-en.php"><strong>The Factory Reading Series, held regularly(ish) at the Ottawa Art Gallery</strong></a><strong>;<br /></div></strong><br /><div><strong>held on the third Tuesday of every month </strong><strong>(upstairs) at </strong><a href="http://www.cafeselect.ca/"><strong>Cafe Select, upstairs, 8404-109th Street</strong></a>; <strong>doors 7pm; readings 7:30pm<br /></strong></div><br /><div><strong>the next reading will take place Tusday, June 17th, 2008 </strong><strong>with readings by:</strong><br /></div><div><br /><blockquote><strong>Kath MacLean<br />Heather Simeney MacLeod<br />Shawna Lemay<br />+ Rudy Wiebe</strong><br /></blockquote></div><br /><div>Recognized as one of Edmonton’s most eclectic poet-performers, <strong>Kath MacLean’s</strong> unique muse and creative delivery attract attention wherever she reads. Known for rich images, “breath-taking lyricism” and musicality, her award-winning poetry, prose, and non-fiction is generating critical acclaim across Canada.<br /><br />MacLean’s first book <a href="http://www.brokenjaw.com/catalog/pg51.htm"><em>For a Cappuccino on Bloor</em> </a>was the recipient of the New Muse Award and was short-listed for the Kalamalka Press New Writers Competition. The winner of many literary competitions, including both the<em> Grain</em> Poetry and Non-Fiction Awards in 2005, <em>Prairie Fire</em> poetry award in 2006, and finalist for the Winston Collins Poetry Prize in 2007, her work has appeared in many Canadian literary journals and broadcast on CBC radio.<br /><br />A strong voice within Edmonton’s thriving arts community, MacLean teaches creative writing at Grant MacEwan College, is a freelance copywriter and editor, and delivers poetry workshops for children in Edmonton. </div><br /><div></div><div><a href="http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/aboriginal/020008-119.01-e.php?=&=&contact_id_nbr=975"><strong>Heather Simeney MacLeod</strong> </a>[<a href="http://albertawriting.blogspot.com/2008/03/12-or-20-questions-with-heather-simeney.html">see her 12 or 20 questions here</a>] grew up in various regions through out British Columbia. Her <a href="http://www.laurahird.com/showcase/heathermacleod.html">first book of poems</a>, <em>My Flesh the Sound of Rain</em>, was published in 1998 by <a href="http://www.coteaubooks.com/awardpgs/SAB.html">Coteau Books</a>; <em>The Shape of Orion</em>, a chapbook with <a href="http://www.arsenalpulp.com/bookinfo.php?index=1">Smoking Lung Press </a>was released in 2002; <a href="http://www.nwpassages.com/profile_book.asp?ISBN=0888012950"><em>The Burden of Snow</em></a>, a <a href="http://www.dominionpaper.ca/review/2005/05/06/may_books.html">second full collection </a>of poetry with <a href="http://www.turnstonepress.com/contributorinfo.php?index=38">Turnstone Books </a>came out in 2004. Her plays have been produced in Canada and Scotland, and she has received honourable mentions from two contests. Her <a href="http://www.dgdclynx.plus.com/lynx/lynx113.html">poetry </a>and fiction have been <a href="http://www.arcpoetry.ca/howpoemswork/features/2005_07_simeney_macleod.php">published in numerous Canadian literary journals</a> and <a href="http://avatarreview.net/AV1/MacLeod/MacLeod1.htm">anthologies </a>as well as appearing in reviews and journals in the United States, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and Israel. She’s currently a doctoral student at the University of Alberta.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>Shawna Lemay</strong> [<a href="http://albertawriting.blogspot.com/2007/11/12-or-20-questions-with-shawna-lemay.html">see her 12 or 20 questions here</a>] is <a href="http://www.crcstudio.arts.ualberta.ca/wwr_magazine/online/summer_05/su05_cre1_lemay.php">the author </a>of <a href="http://mqup.mcgill.ca/browse_archives.php?catalogue=5&page=13"><em>All the God-Sized Fruit</em></a>, <a href="http://www.mcclelland.com/author/results.pperl?authorid=17254"><em>Against Paradise</em></a>, <em>Still</em>, and <a href="http://www.newestpress.com/books/bluefeast.html"><em>Blue Feast</em></a>. Her MA thesis (poetry) is <em>Red Velvet Forest</em>. <a href="http://www.newestpress.com/bios/lemay.html">She</a> recently <a href="http://www.contemporaryverse2.ca/vol29_1excerpts.htm">finished a book of essays </a>about living with still life titled, <em>Calm Things</em>, to appear with Palimpsest Press. Inspired by <a href="http://www.robmclennan.blogspot.com/">rob mclennan </a>and a few other bloggers, she has started her very own blog called, <a href="http://capacioushold-all.blogspot.com/"><em>Capacious Hold-All</em></a>. She lives in Edmonton with her husband, <a href="http://www.robertlemay.com/">Rob Lemay </a>(<a href="http://www.wallacegalleries.com/artists.php?id=Lemay">a visual artist</a>) and their daughter, Chloe.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong><a href="http://www.randomhouse.ca/author/results.pperl?authorid=33129">Rudy Wiebe</a></strong> was born on October 4, 1934, in an isolated farm community of about 250 people in a rugged but lovely region near Fairholme, Saskatchewan. His parents had escaped Soviet Russia with five children in 1930, part of the last generation of homesteaders to settle the Canadian West, and part of a Mennonite history of displacement and emigration through Europe and Asia to North and South America since the seventeenth century. In 1947 his family gave up their bush farm and moved to Coaldale, Alberta, a town east of Lethbridge peopled largely by Ukrainians, Mennonites, Mormons, and Central Europeans, as well as Japanese, who ended up there during WW II.</div><br /><div></div><div>Wiebe is the author of nine novels, four short story collections, and three essay collections on distinctly Canadian subjects ranging from First Nations people to Mennonite settlers, including <em>Stolen Life: The Journey of a Cree Woman</em>, co-authored with Yvonne Johnson. He has won many awards, including two Governor General’s Awards, and is an Officer of the Order of Canada. He is the author of the re-released essay collection <em>Playing Dead: A Contemplation Concerning the Arctic</em>, which takes a critical look at the history of the Canadian Arctic, and is currently working on a biography of Big Bear.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>info:</strong> Trisia Eddy at <a href="mailto:trisia.e@gmail.com">trisia.e@gmail.com</a></div><div><strong>further readings:</strong> July 15th with Ted Bishop & tba.</div><div><a href="http://albertawriting.blogspot.com/2008/04/factory-west-reading-series-may-20-2008.html">previous readings</a>;</div>rob mclennanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07958889643637765864noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412809965647810701.post-86876840131018630302008-04-26T16:04:00.000-07:002008-12-11T03:10:37.521-08:00photos from April's Factory (West);<div><div><div><div>since this reading, <a href="http://robmclennan.blogspot.com/2008/04/ottawa-international-writers-festival.html">I've been in Ottawa</a>, Edmonton, Calgary + <a href="http://robmclennan.blogspot.com/2008/04/what-does-banff-have-to-do-with-it-im.html">Banff</a>, so that's why it's taken me so long to post these (<a href="http://robmclennan.blogspot.com/2008/03/western-swing-slew-of-saskatchewan.html">and in Grande Prairie in a couple of days, and then Calgary again on Friday! </a><em>photos courtesy of that lovely, again, Lainna</em>...); in case you've forgot, <a href="http://abovegroundpress.blogspot.com/2008/03/new-from-aboveground-press-peter-f.html">Jeff Carpenter </a>was nice enough to replace <a href="http://albertawriting.blogspot.com/2008/03/factory-west-reading-series-april-15.html">a cancelled Kim Minkus, with further readings by Christine Wiesenthal, Catherine Owen + Myrna Kostash</a>.</div><div> </div><div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5193695433711826050" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqMwiDj7LoV5gEa7UpxFQfTXTdrAOkYV21ajfIHf9SNI0R8S6nADn-6A6-yg70qVYp1d051bRxZ6sjC81iiFWiXz9IcoRevwKC9rMzRYCzIVTqyz80OupB597H1K6mwgwQzMUhaphsKsIw/s320/factoryapril014.jpg" border="0" /></div><div>Jeff Carpenter, Acting Acting Director of the Alberta Research Group, reading ghazals...</div><div> </div><div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5193695279093003378" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjn_0_dfoLW6-oXMT7vLEuuum7FAZkQtEqrydxVkBr3uVImr4pq0Woar8sHpnb5nrpcoGBsHJ7ZyEpCzsV4cNocvCp-_llhiVzdiED3xOoOKcBLEHzaDAzAreQAM-W7giNr4KpSGoeNMpID/s320/factoryapril018.jpg" border="0" /></div><div><a href="http://albertawriting.blogspot.com/2007/09/12-or-20-questions-with-catherine-owen.html">Catherine Owen </a>reading from <a href="http://abovegroundpress.blogspot.com/2008/01/new-from-aboveground-press_28.html">her ALBERTA SERIES above/ground press chapbook</a>...</div><div> </div><div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5193695171718820962" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqF_FsZcgnI9GswDE-4lPFONViUH7WCS0yJCxrzMg_mf_lK-SElV_-nXxlPDDxzLqVrBPBYyUaiars-oUA0ZKQYlZWP-X_omNoMWLb8Z__Vm4q1KD4GvMFu2MfkeaCeB6DpVa0WazCoSml/s320/factoryapril029.jpg" border="0" /></div><div><a href="http://albertawriting.blogspot.com/2008/01/12-or-20-questions-with-christine.html">Christine Wiesenthal</a>;</div><div> </div><div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5193695042869802066" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeCSqgzycmJZzJ9jHQea-CsdHBI62F0dgAh4Q0K8ROyEQfS9BdNtSM-Jkhwm0EzYayvGhnBMNHL7eQj-mhSOFCS3MbYHWYXKA9o4dMYInZ2tDznrWGCrE18DnUhiMgKl2Kwwc8cjjLyAtP/s320/factoryapril037.jpg" border="0" /></div><div><a href="http://robmclennan.blogspot.com/2008/04/12-or-20-questions-with-myrna-kostash.html">Myrna Kostash </a>being smarter and wiser than everyone else in the room...</div><div> </div><div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5193694939790586946" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilv3KuVBHtm4jfCil0ptKyN3M0kZWYsEbEwEt0LCCA9yyHIc4XgLfM_b0JSJUeS6EVN-yjk5Rhn4wZ1P0kkdwvFu3m9QYU5t-ABOgUUbaGtcFQSPKwK4Eiad7DCfhml01wCtjVq7RzP7qc/s320/factoryapril039.jpg" border="0" /> <div>Lainna sure likes to take photos of <a href="http://www.rednettlepress.ca/welcome.html">Trisia Eddy</a>, who is taking over the reading series post-May...</div><div> </div><div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5193694458754249762" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIF1CadmkXS_TkaFMZJwdPI1k97AiC1uNd1AXI02kD38M9EjLsR8fIjVh6HBCHf644H0YfwyIgeGEsPv3B14hb-1u77by1uPXYPChIP28dNRHIjoc7kpcLbTRzBE0W2KZBCZow97Kmd73a/s320/lainnarob034.jpg" border="0" /></div></div></div></div></div><br /><p>The ghost that is (apparently) me, behind a blue <a href="http://www.cathowenpoet.150m.com/">Catherine Owen</a>...</p><p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5193694841006339122" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIa37LtourA0MWgI-n_DYychGz7cBP1dM1JrA5l6xw5U_SvPwtmbgj5YC9WLpGKu_wJJsN3sMe6irboBB0ssH2JTHoxb0DevcGL_GEzkSt-TiQrIIrcA-gr3wc-x-zRIT664ZwxiRNCNyx/s320/factoryapril049.jpg" border="0" /></p><p>Jeff Carpenter post-reading; I won't even tell you if he can actually <em>play </em>guitar...</p><p><a href="http://albertawriting.blogspot.com/2008/04/factory-west-reading-series-may-20-2008.html">Information for the May event</a>; <a href="http://albertawriting.blogspot.com/2008/03/some-recent-rob-mclennan-adventures.html">previous photos from previous readings here </a>and <a href="http://albertawriting.blogspot.com/2008/02/olive-reading-series-edmonton.html">here</a> and <a href="http://albertawriting.blogspot.com/2008/01/first-factory-west-reading-edmonton.html">here</a>;</p>rob mclennanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07958889643637765864noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412809965647810701.post-82916267369245308392008-04-13T11:37:00.000-07:002008-12-11T03:10:37.664-08:00The Factory (West) Reading Series, May 20, 2008<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWajQrMg7xqitRV-0D9MTPZMKmEsRIK_T5_uEcwy69PaLxx-RUu6hWu-T_idzW3OQk-k9Sd1MHzi4fnuuAhKOunVJI62SD8Yj7UPDbjw-b5qYfnLFooE4lw2reX_rWdLXhZOF-z6hE96JY/s1600-h/mallthird224.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5183238293753057682" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWajQrMg7xqitRV-0D9MTPZMKmEsRIK_T5_uEcwy69PaLxx-RUu6hWu-T_idzW3OQk-k9Sd1MHzi4fnuuAhKOunVJI62SD8Yj7UPDbjw-b5qYfnLFooE4lw2reX_rWdLXhZOF-z6hE96JY/s320/mallthird224.jpg" border="0" /></a><strong>a reading series lovingly hosted by rob mclennan during his tenure as </strong><a href="http://www.humanities.ualberta.ca/english/WIR.html"><strong>writer-in-residence at the University of Alberta</strong></a><strong> (2007-8); the name "Factory (West)" refers to the fact that I have been running readings for years in Ottawa since 1995 that now exist under the title </strong><a href="http://www.ottawaartgallery.ca/factoryreadingseries/index-en.php"><strong>The Factory Reading Series, held regularly(ish) at the Ottawa Art Gallery</strong></a><strong>;</strong> <div><br /><div><strong>a variety of poetry and fiction (etcetera) presented on the third Tuesday of every month from January to May, 2008 in (upstairs) at </strong><a href="http://www.cafeselect.ca/"><strong>Cafe Select, upstairs, 8404-109th Street</strong></a></div><br /><div><strong></strong></div><div><strong>doors 7pm; readings 7:30pm</strong></div><br /><div><strong>The fourth reading will be happening on Tuesday, May 20</strong></div><br /><div><strong></strong></div><div><strong>with readings by:</strong><strong><br /><br /></div><div><blockquote><strong>Laura Farina (Banff)</strong><br /><strong>Priscila Uppal (Toronto)</strong><br /><strong>Christopher Doda (Toronto) </strong><br /><strong>+ Alice Major (Edmonton)</strong><br /></blockquote></strong></div><br /><div><strong>Laura Farina's</strong> first book of poetry, <em><a href="http://www.amazon.ca/This-Woman-Alphabetical-Laura-Farina/dp/1897141041">This Woman Alphabetical</a></em>, was published by Pedlar Press in 2005. It was nominated for the ReLit Award and won the Archibald Lampman Award. She has sat on the editorial board of <em><a href="http://www.arcpoetry.ca/">Arc: Canada's National Poetry Magazine</a></em>, taught writing to young people in Ontario and Chicago and given readings of her work across the country. She is currently working on a book of poetry about cities, seasons and nostalgia.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>Priscila Uppal</strong> [<a href="http://12or20questions.blogspot.com/2007/10/12-or-20-questions-with-priscila-uppal.html">see her 12 or 20 questions here</a>] is a <a href="http://www.writersunion.ca/ww_profile.asp?mem=1307&L=U">poet and fiction writer </a>born in Ottawa and currently living in Toronto. <a href="http://mansfieldpress.net/authors/Uppal.html">Among her publications </a>are five collections of poetry: <a href="http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/books/How-Draw-Blood-From-Stone-Priscila-Uppal/9781550962307-item.html"><em>How to Draw Blood From a Stone</em> </a>(1998), <em>Confessions of a Fertility Expert</em> (1999), <em>Pretending to Die</em> (2001), <em>Live Coverage</em> (2003) and <a href="http://www.podcastdirectory.com/podshows/1668858"><em>Ontological Necessities</em> </a>(2006); <a href="http://www.exileeditions.com/">all with Exile Editions</a>; and the novel <em>The Divine Economy of Salvation</em> (2002), published to critical acclaim by <a href="http://www.randomhouse.ca/author/results.pperl?authorid=31732">Doubleday Canada </a>and <a href="http://www.algonquin.com/">Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill </a>and translated into Dutch and Greek. Her poetry has been translated into Korean, Croatian, Latvian, and Italian, and <a href="http://www.rabble.ca/rpn/episode.shtml?x=56785"><em>Ontological Necessities</em> </a>was <a href="http://www.yorku.ca/ylife/2007/04-April/04-09/uppalgriffinprize-040907.htm">short-listed for the prestigious Griffin Prize for Excellence in Poetry</a>. She has a PhD in English Literature and is a <a href="http://www.yorku.ca/ylife/2005/12-05/uppal-120505.htm">professor of Humanities and English at York University</a>.</div><br /><div></div><div><a href="http://www.arcpoetry.ca/logentries/reviews/000885_christopher_doda_on_bill_kennedy_and_darren_wershlerhenrys_apostrophe.php"><strong>Christopher Doda</strong> </a>[<a href="http://12or20questions.blogspot.com/2007/11/12-or-20-questions-with-christopher.html">see his 12 or 20 questions here</a>] is a poet and editor living in Toronto. He is the author of two collections of poetry, <em>Among Ruins</em> (2001) and <em>Aesthetics Lesson</em> (2007), both from the Mansfield Press. He is an editor at <em>Exile: The Literary Quarterly</em> and Exile Editions, as well as the Book Review editor for<em> Studio</em>, an online poetry journal.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>Alice Major</strong> [<a href="http://albertawriting.blogspot.com/2007/11/12-or-20-questions-with-alice-major.html">see her 12 or 20 questions here</a>] has published <a href="http://www.brokenjaw.com/catalog/pg3.htm">seven collections of poetry </a>and one novel. She has won<a href="http://www.malahatreview.ca/long_poem_prize/info.html"> the Malahat Review’s long poem contest </a>and been short-listed for the <a href="http://www.poets.ca/linktext/awards/lowther.htm">Pat Lowther Award</a>, the <a href="http://www.writersguild.ab.ca/cityedmontonshortlistasp.asp">City of Edmonton Book Prize</a> (twice) and <a href="http://www.writersguild.ab.ca/programs/alberta_book_awards.asp">the Stephan G. Stephanson Award, Writers Guild of Alberta </a>(three times the bridesmaid, never the bride.)She <a href="http://www.writersguild.ab.ca/membership/member_details.asp?intMemberID=626">has been president </a>of the <a href="http://www.writersguild.ab.ca/">Writers Guild of Alberta </a>and of the <a href="http://www.poets.ca/">League of Canadian Poets</a>, and chair of the <a href="http://www.edmontonarts.ab.ca/">Edmonton Arts Council</a>. In 2005, she was named <a href="http://www.edmonton.ca/portal/server.pt/gateway/PTARGS_0_0_375_214_0_43/http;/CMSServer/COEWeb/mayor+and+city+council/Role+of+the+Poet+Laureate.htm">the first poet laureate of the City of Edmonton</a> – a city she has made her home since 1981. She grew up in Toronto, took a degree in English at the <a href="http://www.trinity.utoronto.ca/">U of T’s Trinity College</a>, and first came west to work as a newspaper reporter in the <a href="http://www.greatwildspaces.org/cariboo.html">central Cariboo region of B.C.</a><a href="http://www.poets.ca/Linktext/direct/major.htm">Her most recent collection </a>was <a href="http://www.canlit.ca/reviews-review.php?id=13755">The Occupied World</a>, from the <a href="http://www.uap.ualberta.ca/UAP.asp?LID=41&bookID=679">University of Alberta Press </a>(2006). Her eighth book of poetry, <em><a href="http://www.uap.ualberta.ca/order/Scripts/prodView.asp?idproduct=783">The Office Tower Tales</a></em>, is newly published by UAP.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong><em>further readings:</em></strong> keep watching here for information on June + July events, etc. (as well as the Facebook page for the series), as the reading series is taken over by <a href="http://www.rednettlepress.ca/Site_2/welcome.html">Edmonton poet/publisher Trisia Eddy</a>!</div><br /><div></div><div><a href="http://albertawriting.blogspot.com/2008/03/factory-west-reading-series-april-15.html">previous readings</a>;</div></div>rob mclennanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07958889643637765864noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412809965647810701.post-72133123530113947252008-03-23T10:58:00.000-07:002008-12-11T03:10:40.865-08:00some recent rob mclennan adventures; Ottawa, Edmonton, Red Deer...<div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5180999481920475122" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiUuJdDljMBP8rOkfcojyGqcxX1u1InBI44fh2_6kURaybHw1MGGkUWngDtUC47p7vXQBQlrSt3sOz3EFbruG2KW15p5SqB5UlKpEwAcKnghuGonbpj46TzklNMvQMZNE-xXD_St34oJ6i/s320/jennfarr4.jpg" border="0" /></div><div><em>It's been pretty busy around here lately</em>, what with <a href="http://robmclennan.blogspot.com/2008/02/ottawa-launch-of-rob-mclennans-ottawa.html">travel to Ottawa for the weekend</a>, <a href="http://albertawriting.blogspot.com/2008/02/factory-west-reading-series-march-18.html">a Factory (West) Reading back in Edmonton</a>, and then a reading the next night in the Red Deer College Library. <em>At least the long weekend is allowing me to breathe</em>...</div><br /><div><strong>Ottawa: March 15, 2008; the launch of <a href="http://www.arsenalpulp.com/bookinfo.php?index=273"><em>Ottawa: The Unknown City</em> </a>(Arsenal Pulp Press);</strong> <img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5180999623654395922" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHdrIL_BezMN9_suzkZhRMQCkZW9AjgxFO5XUQKUgdSLMS9V1Rvy7pzO5zr0AAZEEjF7-5KqfLKRyeaGA7O-92XwxZtaghT62edxXT4iPjDE6saI8Q9rNcFJ5jH3KUZFqY18wrutPBwSl5/s320/jennfarr2.jpg" border="0" /></div><div>When launching <em>anything</em>, it's best to do it on your birthday (<a href="http://robmclennan.blogspot.com/2008/03/today-is-my-thirty-eighth-birthday-map.html">see my birthday post here</a>), so people bring gifts. For some reason, there are no photos (<a href="http://www.charlesearl.com/index.php?id=686">apart from this</a>) of <a href="http://robmclennan.blogspot.com/2008/02/ottawa-launch-of-rob-mclennans-ottawa.html">the launch itself, at Nicholas Hoare Books </a>(<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYrD7Xeme4Q">check out the link to me being interviewed for such, on early-morning Breakfast Television</a>), but lovely Jenn Farr took some photos of some of the after-hijinks. We started at the Earl of Sussex Pub, and ended up at Pubwell's, my very own local.</div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5180999688078905378" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZlDBu7j3fdufF7OaprU5FLCtKXrKE2nwukv5qKP7ntbRFrk-_FKkCfe0W8_-voUVrU2szM6oidTvVVDpNRab-XC_1ZGe8ybpMs9OO2oYFl92BHxSTGQ3Cv-5oJL3V99ULsGpcERIIhiqp/s320/jennfarr1.jpg" border="0" />Lovely Jenn Farr (check her green hair for St. Patrick's Day) and her pal Eliza Von Baeyer, sitting at Pubwell's. I also learned, that day, that the Pope had decreed my birthday the official <a href="http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11554a.htm">Feast of St. Patrick</a>, so it wouldn't interfere with Holy Week (just so you know, the "snakes" were, ahem, Protestants, Druids & other "heathens"). <em>Another reason to hate the Irish</em>; bad enough they had the parade on my birthday and refused to acknowledge me. Oh, Irish people, what have I ever done to you?<br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5180999554934919170" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9Q4yo86f4ZwvHJ_HYIkwnUpUMgZnfGEYCUQdPKjZv7zFvqUg0iiepD1lgPEgrZLSHl5Tx-pDACMqvCByI1cO7Q8O7nl0SDkRQdoWUQg3RxWitRBbLwPv3gmNgooki_xLKT8R_9-lHzPrE/s320/jennfarr3.jpg" border="0" /></div><div><a href="http://www.maxmiddle.com/">Max Middle </a>(<a href="http://ottawapoetry.blogspot.com/2006/02/brief-note-on-poetry-of-max-middle.html">the one on the right</a>), who turns 38 but three weeks after I do, flipping through my <a href="http://www.ceotblog.com/2008/03/rob-mclennan-sa.html"><em>Ottawa: The Unknown City</em> </a>(but paying attention to Jenn Farr)</div><div> </div><div>(photos by Jenn Farr; one by <a href="http://individual.utoronto.ca/betts/eng356/MaxMiddle.htm">Max Middle</a>) </div><br /><div><strong>Edmonton: March 18, 2008; <a href="http://albertawriting.blogspot.com/2008/02/factory-west-reading-series-march-18.html">the Factory (West) Reading Series</a>;</strong></div><br /><div>Already some have been talking about how much they'll miss this reading series when I leave, the little monthly I started in January (<a href="http://albertawriting.blogspot.com/2008/03/factory-west-reading-series-april-15.html">see info on the next reading here</a>); worry not! <a href="http://www.cahootsmagazine.com/Joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=271">Trisia Eddy </a>and I have been preparing for her to take over the series, and continue it in June (& beyond).</div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5181002488397582498" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8u1jlGjRLer7x8yvkB0Jnsr1wYQGBHdE1-tClbuCUxuWhaQmt7PsAIExzSB-1TatiADS0TqEmubQ2JWJDXtB0mdoSyo2ivR5MtTKNlm467_Mw05x-mmSqRXCLw7C5q98Azdj7GXkCBLEf/s320/factorymarch051.jpg" border="0" /></div><div><a href="http://www.newestpress.com/catalog/authors/bryan-d.m.html">Calgary author D.M. Bryan </a>(on the right) with her husband; an adorable couple, to be sure.</div><div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5181001973001506914" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikyZPP1Z0D-Di-9ZIpoKhclANSjyx5mSeoW5LdF7SNtsrI4tBCezHysprPyu1XnPUP-EGtKsyvWWrBUqPYmk_c02WJjd1xnTmOTuUFatJwSkItHfKJagLgtuaNCstFgnRO6OJhvyQcYxfs/s320/factorymarch037.jpg" border="0" /></div><div><a href="http://robmclennan.blogspot.com/2007/12/trees-of-periphery-by-christine-stewart.html">Christine Stewart </a>(<a href="http://robmclennan.blogspot.com/2007/09/12-or-20-questions-with-christine.html">see her 12 or 20 questions here</a>) looking at <a href="http://www.canada.com/calgaryherald/news/booksandthearts/story.html?id=dcada73b-9ddf-4e67-851a-db0933f919aa">Bryan's novel</a>.</div><div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5181002376728432786" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSMWOPzjTlPHNdI88uwDWUBAX9rFJIKHq6dX6S9eDvU85ZVteIYqTjeOGHXBxyP4IoB3RF6cfCUmNbTEYMjBU3XLVeYLbOPRXBGb9uVHXzr8m_ARiLyy-6FKBRLv3S93Q9iXeDCUywXSue/s320/factorymarch050.jpg" border="0" /></div><div></div><div><a href="http://www.poets.ca/Linktext/direct/butler.htm">Jenna Butler </a>(<a href="http://albertawriting.blogspot.com/2008/02/12-or-20-questions-with-jenna-butler.html">see her 12 or 20 questions here</a>; <a href="http://abovegroundpress.blogspot.com/2008/02/new-from-aboveground-press.html">see the link to her new ALBERTA SERIES chapbook</a>) & I sitting, apparently.</div><div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5181002290829086850" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDJQwh50uO_WZHn_zhB7sknfhyphenhyphenIqvVARcVYBtxPnFPGN3OjMwXAIK5EnVubE-QDGxG0OdzA_miW2xo3HQrS7JL90r1otZCp1ugSgSkF7EwQw_4b7qTOHnwTys1FlC9r1xoCI1GUxTX0DKu/s320/factorymarch049.jpg" border="0" /></div>We aren't sure what <a href="http://www.seemagazine.com/article/city-life/lifestyle/bookstore/">NeWest Press' Tiffany Regaudie </a>is staring off at, but here's <a href="http://blueskiespoetry.ca/category/poems-by/patti-sinclair/">PEI-resident</a> (& <a href="http://www.rednettlepress.ca/Site_2/about.html">Red Nettle Press co-hort</a>) <a href="http://poet-at-large.blogspirit.com/">Patti Sinclair </a>talking to <a href="http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/ChideThree/DougBarbour.htm">Douglas Barbour </a>(note the <a href="http://www.carseywerner.net/cosbyshow_eng.htm">Bill Cosby-like sweater</a>).<br /><div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5181001822677651538" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVY05kSZWeXyTSCcpDDVnZ4kCZDRImwoNhSg6qKhNjyJmXvxRX06pDxWIsfmTRXZhLHdVDBoRwuMTYrwjYsAJvsnLy-n-qDrL7I5S2RrUtrU9qhGIh3kwx-L4DKEKqnKZrd5aXCoK2NjUA/s320/factorymarch035.jpg" border="0" /></div><a href="http://www.ffwdweekly.com/article/life-style/bookends/look-whos-talking-fetus/">D.M. Bryan </a>presenting the world premiere of her first book & first novel, <a href="http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/books/Gerbil-Mother-Dawn-D-M-Bryan/9781897126240-item.html?ref=Search+Books%3a+%25271897126247%2527&sterm=1897126247+-+Books"><em>Gerbil Mother</em> </a>(NeWest Press).<br /><div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5181002076080722034" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWRtGApHHHKG7D65unt0znBMyn-SbY-AGUEefvOypEx9iXC12smlxSJrPQYGIlkB5dYFuskajCrk0sdav0OTINWj44tSDrEGSTyneBgDaJRp-euBI0-UnSUVBsTibt6GXT0kHeTXZ65lxS/s320/factorymarch038.jpg" border="0" /></div><div><a href="http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/">Douglas Barbour </a>(<a href="http://albertawriting.blogspot.com/2007/09/12-or-20-questions-with-douglas-barbour.html">see his 12 or 20 questions here</a>) reading from <a href="http://abovegroundpress.blogspot.com/2008/03/new-from-aboveground-press_10.html">his new above/ground press ALBERTA SERIES chapbook</a>.</div><div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5181002578591895730" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2wTCdEmkPVYcJUD2oLH9FoJLCT1V6BZ5enlKmh7Z4dWGMEyTboIsH6vjA0N_7FXvPlR2QwKY-Oq7Wj4YGaIuKCKTqbBk3U8uVjoNVtCcEmJRygoHB-Plo21PRkQ_8W9Xgdkj_w-mSSh6T/s320/factorymarch053.jpg" border="0" />The lovely bookseller; why didn't I learn her name?<br /><div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5181002716030849218" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_-0o9ZyiOkwdgpa6RWEUzdynaEm2xkxqjr8NB1rGGrMTe3azA1-I8jV1Z6lXvRiYgaPb3B3qpCUqzYvp5uVBNDp2CiAzmRRUCI8WekU70e7eIGB6gOKSiwIkm8v1PHviL-_BYwzjig93z/s320/factorymarch054.jpg" border="0" /><a href="http://www.spirepoetry.com/">Kristy McKay</a>, looking very cute (as always); <div> </div><div>(photos by Lainna)</div><br /><div><strong>Red Deer: March 19, 2008; rob at the Red Deer College Library;</strong></div><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5181000048856158258" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7tay0GYD_89UnXx_LGPpjdn-DYP0PVxd8lIec7kJ9asfPue9XZm0VVj_Ryhf39f5HB7UsPeSgzcnb-ectmFiEKo-kA5ZlL0MriEhgndp6OCghi039NRC47KHSUUHX_khDr1630MtdP3Tg/s320/reddeer1.jpg" border="0" /> I did a reading at the <a href="http://library.rdc.ab.ca/">Red Deer College Library</a>, lovingly organized & hosted by my new best friend & <a href="http://www.brickbooks.ca/BL-Crate.htm">Brick Books author</a>, <a href="http://www.poets.ca/pshstore/profile_book.asp?ISBN=0919626432">Joan Crate</a>. Even though she handed me the cheque before the reading got started, I stayed & even read to a good group of interested students & non-students alike (despite my attempts to get a few of them, pre-reading, to run off with me).<br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5181000190590079042" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_SCHyBl2Qy9p_ptZGsmkFvHll5v0FINfcu_0byWnZRFnIPc-i4wV1LOea_lp2_kHRBtf6EebGEv7srOEdAwCJFJezN-DiDW5OSkGtPA09wpGQFb13LOkz-mm8K5ErRACWWim_hI88SEMr/s320/reddeer2.jpg" border="0" /></div>This is me answering questions; somehow I ended up having to explain to 20-year-olds that, <em>yes, telephones used to have bells in them</em>, & the "party line" had nothing to do with actual parties. <em>Oh, youth</em>. The reading was plenty fun, & we even went out for drinks after; even further, went to a kereoke hotel bar (the kereoke guy sick, so wasn't happening) & managed to close the place. <em>I'm getting to old for this stuff...<br /></em><br /><div>(photos by <a href="http://www.electionforum.ca/?q=blog/41">Anne Marie Watson</a>, Red Deer College)</div><br /><div><strong>Edmonton: March 22, 2008; rob and Lainna at <a href="http://www.westedmall.com/home/default.asp">West Edmonton Mall </a>(part three);</strong></div></div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5181005795522400466" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzDPkzL8F8o9QFfhoprXCHdCVpFV6KCafpl7tjFCLzEoVyehQrh17ripDg7gdMOHVc8jUc-giV31473LMtvF9vlliFphZTQRb4QhtkUjZ0p6Lm_yWQgRnqaSb7CqaFsbmJ_leM5KDQfPhZ/s320/mallthird144.jpg" border="0" /> <div></div><div>Why do we keep going back to the Maul (<a href="http://albertawriting.blogspot.com/2007/11/rob-mclennan-and-lainna-at-west.html">see a picture here from our first visit</a>)? I mean, really, <em>why not</em>? It's the most fun anyone can have in a day (at least in Edmonton); although the WEM apparently <em>isn't</em> big enough to have a store inside where one might purchase a pork-pie hat... (if only we were in Beijing!); but still, isn't this photo of the bottles behind the bar at Earl's magnificent? (I posted a <em>pile</em> of WEM photos on facebook today...);<br /><div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5181005975911026914" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4fMQWcD0-GqvncsmVCBqxb_3VXMGhA7qfe_3-ZhKNRBbZ8BZkQEeimUsDeEe43bt-14yqk9IoVLTvcst5culjpdi83Dz8l44wmRuOB0gZV6G5TCKNnOupFlj2ooL_NZwjb9O8CGtN7CXN/s320/mallthird149.jpg" border="0" />And then there were these things, that shoot water from the front (I want one);</div><div><br />(photos by Lainna)</div><div> </div><div><em>Oh, what hijinks will I get up to next...?</em></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>rob mclennanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07958889643637765864noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412809965647810701.post-20954213490965281112008-03-20T15:55:00.000-07:002008-12-11T03:10:41.056-08:0012 or 20 questions: with Heather Simeney MacLeod<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-fAVfU0UN2JEdhH27Fzk_o35RgO-1n0fhiwQ5ra1CYqIW-c-cRxcwvKbd4_M1BGP6eKb08xdX59dJd096pRA8HgF_COoQF_-RtBIPp3YVLDUw-mYuCe_afQw94dfAeIE3tSg-bz_5mgDo/s1600-h/heather.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5179962612390711250" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-fAVfU0UN2JEdhH27Fzk_o35RgO-1n0fhiwQ5ra1CYqIW-c-cRxcwvKbd4_M1BGP6eKb08xdX59dJd096pRA8HgF_COoQF_-RtBIPp3YVLDUw-mYuCe_afQw94dfAeIE3tSg-bz_5mgDo/s320/heather.jpg" border="0" /></a><strong>Biography:</strong> <a href="http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/aboriginal/020008-119.01-e.php?=&=&contact_id_nbr=975"><strong>Heather Simeney MacLeod</strong> </a>grew up in various regions through out British Columbia. Her <a href="http://www.laurahird.com/showcase/heathermacleod.html">first book of poems</a>, <em>My Flesh the Sound of Rain</em>, was published in 1998 by <a href="http://www.coteaubooks.com/awardpgs/SAB.html">Coteau Books</a>; <em>The Shape of Orion</em>, a chapbook with <a href="http://www.arsenalpulp.com/bookinfo.php?index=1">Smoking Lung Press </a>was released in 2002; <em><a href="http://www.nwpassages.com/profile_book.asp?ISBN=0888012950">The Burden of Snow</a></em>, a <a href="http://www.dominionpaper.ca/review/2005/05/06/may_books.html">second full collection </a>of poetry with <a href="http://www.turnstonepress.com/contributorinfo.php?index=38">Turnstone Books </a>came out in 2004. Her plays have been produced in Canada and Scotland, and she has received honourable mentions from two contests. Her <a href="http://www.dgdclynx.plus.com/lynx/lynx113.html">poetry </a>and fiction have been <a href="http://www.arcpoetry.ca/howpoemswork/features/2005_07_simeney_macleod.php">published in numerous Canadian literary journals</a> and <a href="http://avatarreview.net/AV1/MacLeod/MacLeod1.htm">anthologies </a>as well as appearing in reviews and journals in the United States, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and Israel. She’s currently a doctoral student at the University of Alberta.<br /><br /><strong>1. How did your first book change your life?<br /></strong><br />When <a href="http://writersunion.ca/ww_profile.asp?mem=1163&L=U">Geoffrey Ursell </a>rang me to tell me <a href="http://www.coteaubooks.com/">Coteau Books </a>wanted to publish my first book I was giddy. I had just returned from <a href="http://www.tourismturkey.org/">Turkey</a> and was staying with my family in the Northwest Territories and had a plane ticket to return to Europe. I kept holding up books at random and saying to my brother, “Different name, different title, different cover, but same idea. This will be me.” This still strikes me as hilarious. I worked with my editor, <a href="http://www.patricklane.ca/">Patrick Lane</a>, from a friend’s flat in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freiburg">Freiburg, Germany</a>. It was a strange feeling to be reworking poems primarily set in Canada, and then to go out onto the canals and cobbled walkways of <a href="http://www.freiburg-home.com/">Freiburg</a>. I returned to Canada for the launch and readings. I think what the first book publication did was indicate to myself that I was, you know, a poet. It said to me: you are a writer.<br /><br /><strong>2. How long have you lived in Alberta, and how does geography, if at all, impact on your writing? Does race or gender make any impact on your work?<br /></strong><br />I moved here, to Edmonton, this past August. I’ve found, in my own work, that geography and race have had a profound impact. My work is influenced by my physical location. The poems I wrote in and after living in Turkey are infused with silk on silk carpets and apple tea, and the poems and stories I wrote in and after living in Scotland are soaked in rain and dipped in that strange, muted light of Edinburgh. My second collection of poetry consists of a series of hauntings of race, ancestry and geography.<br /><div><br />Strangely my plays seem least affected by geography, and the most profoundly affected by gender. When I am writing poems and fiction I don’t think I’m as aware of gender, or it feels as if it is somehow less present. When I am working on plays, though, gender seems omnipresent.<br /><br /><strong>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?</strong><br /><br />I’ve noticed that usually I begin writing from an image, and have noticed that sometimes the image doesn’t even necessarily appear in the final draft. Many of the images, naturally, emerge from my own experiences ―an <a href="http://www.starmyriappaloosas.ca/">Appaloosa</a> in a meadow at daybreak, my grandfather’s cowboy boots, the feel of bit and bridle, the hills and valleys of<a href="http://www.bcinterior.com/"> the interior of British Columbia</a>, Saint Sophia covered in mist, <a href="http://www.robots4farms.com/neckpoint.html">Morningside Road </a>after the first snowfall of winter, <a href="http://www.stcuthbert.ca/">Saint Cuthbert’s </a>in the sunshine.<br /></div><div>My first collection of poetry consisted of short pieces that I ended up combining into a larger project. I found that an awkward sort of thing to do, you know? To try to make sometimes very disparate pieces fit together into a whole. Consequently, after that experience I’ve noticed I tend to work on manuscripts rather than individual pieces. I think of my work as fitting together into a greater whole. It’s important, to me, that each piece stand outside of the whole on its own, and yet that each piece support, weave through the manuscript.<br /><br /><strong>4. Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process?</strong><br /><br />I think of readings as necessary and as fairly uncomfortable, but don’t find they affect my creative process at all.<br /><br /><strong>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?<br /></strong><br />Theoretical concerns emerge, but I’m normally concerned about the nuts and bolts aspect of writing initially. You know, the development of character, plot, consistency, believability takes up most of my attention in the beginning stages. It is in subsequent drafts I’ll notice broader theoretical concerns and themes, and it is at that point I will attempt to tune them, to ensure they are operating in a cohesive manner with the rest of the work.<br /></div><div>I think within much of my work I am concerned with identity and how to articulate it, and the manner it is disrupted and dislocated.<br /></div><br /><div>I’ve noticed within the department (I’m currently enrolled in the PhD program at the University of Alberta) there are numerous theoretical queries going-on, obviously. One of my cohorts is interested in landscape and the ways in which it is manipulated by our intentions as well as the ethics of socio-environmental conflict, which I’ve found (through her discussion) quite interesting. Though, I don’t know if I would go so far as to claim it is a “current question,” but certainly our environment in general is a current concern.<br /><br /><strong>6. Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?<br /></strong><br />It depends on the editor. Really depends on how the editor approaches not only me, but also my work. I think the process is vital and as you said essential for the work. It can be, again depending upon the situation, difficult or exciting and invigorating.<br /><br /><strong>7. After having published more than a couple of titles over the years, do you find the process of book-making harder or easier?<br /></strong><br />I find the writing is about the same. You know, you sit down and you plug away at it. Though I do think in terms of a manuscript ― I don’t allow that to affect the work I’m doing. When writing, I find my attention is pulled directly to the particular piece be it a poem, chapter, or scene. The publishing aspect is as tedious as ever.<br /><br /><strong>8. When was the last time you ate a pear?</strong><br /><br />It was before Christmas. It wasn’t quite ripe. I like to keep most fruit in the fridge so it was sour and cold. It was a crunchy affair.<br /><br /><strong>9. What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?</strong><br /><br />I was in Seattle several years ago. I’d recently returned to North America from Germany, and I was finding the transition (for a number of personal reasons) very difficult. I was sitting in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fremont,_California">Fremont</a> with my friend Katy. We were having café au lait and biscuits. I was really concerned with “sorting” my life as if it were something I could whittle down and compartmentalize. I looked up, and down this long hallway written in large letters on a blackboard was: You can’t change your life over night. At that time I was horrified. Could that be true? Remember thinking, “What a nightmare.” I think of it often with fluctuating emotions. Sometimes when I think, “You can’t change your life over night,” I feel vast waves of relief; other times I feel intense irritation. In any event I think it is the best advice I’ve ever stumbled across.<br /><br /><strong>10. How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to writing plays)? What do you see as the appeal?</strong><br /><br />I naturally move between genres. You know, as a reader I am (obviously) very aware of genre, but as a writer genre somehow sits somewhere else. It isn’t a focus, and genre when I’m writing is barely even a consideration. The image will emerge and it carries with it, I think, genre. I don’t impose the mode of writing, rather I write whatever it wants to be. That sounds strange, I know. I don’t think I’m attracted (for lack of a better word) to one genre over another. As a reader what appeals to me are the genres of fantasy and science fiction neither of which I write.<br /><br /><strong>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?<br /></strong><br />Honestly, I like to stay in bed and stare at the ceiling. I like to stare at the ceiling a lot. I think of staring at the ceiling as a hobby. In my spare time, yep, I like to stare at the ceiling. When I get tired of staring at the ceiling I like café au lait. I picked up a little milk-froth-maker-thingy from Ikea yesterday. I love it. I love it almost as much as I love staring at the ceiling. That’s the beginning of my day. I like to write every day. I usually break it up into patches in the morning and evening, but that really depends on the overall structure of my day. If I’m working I usually write late-afternoon.<br /><br /><strong>12. When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?</strong><br /><br />I usually don’t panic over being stalled as I normally turn my attention to rewriting, but if the “stall” continues I’ll turn to books ―<a href="http://www.brickbooks.ca/BL-Solie.htm">Karen Solie</a>, <a href="http://www.brickbooks.ca/BL-Greenwood.htm">Catherine Greenwood</a>, <a href="http://www.poets.ca/pshstore/profile_book.asp?ISBN=1550502093">Rebecca Fredrickson</a>, <a href="http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1995/heaney-bio.html">Seamus Heaney</a>, <a href="http://www.contemporarywriters.com/authors/?p=auth02C5P102112626707">Kathleen Jamie</a>, <a href="http://www.jeanettewinterson.com/">Jeanette Winterson</a>, <a href="http://www.middlemiss.org/lit/authors/wintont/wintont.html">Tim Winton</a>, <a href="http://www.cormacmccarthy.com/">Cormac McCarthy </a>to name a few.<br /><br /><strong>13. How does your most recent book compare to your previous work? How does it feel different?<br /></strong><br />There was a six year gap between my two collections of poetry. <em>My Flesh the Sound of Rain</em> comes from this melting of experiences ―an undergrad experience at the <a href="http://www.uvic.ca/">University of Victoria</a>, a transitory kind of migratory living between Victoria and Yellowknife as well as a series of long, intense travels to Britain and Europe. The second collection, <em>The Burden of Snow</em>, is not as varied nor as tumultuous. Rather, it is (not unlike my life at the time) centred and solid with guided curiousity. The second book feels far different than the first. It feels much softer and yet more solid.<br /><br /><strong>14. <a href="http://www.parl.gc.ca/Information/about/people/poet/poem-of-the-week/poems-e.htm?param=9">David W. McFadden </a>once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?</strong><br /><br />I like the paintings of <a href="http://www.christopherwood.co.uk/">Christopher Wood</a>, <a href="http://www.thekennygallery.ie/artists/degenhardtgertrude/">Gertrude Degenhardt</a>, <a href="http://www.robertgenn.com/">Robert Genn</a>, Eadain Hunter as well I am often inspired by the photos and paintings of friends such as <a href="http://www.authenticdialogue.com/about/bio_deborah.htm">Deborah Rossouw</a>, Justin Thomas, <a href="http://subliminus.onza.net/">Greg McBrady</a>, Pat Kichen, Kristy Lewis, <a href="http://www.scotlandart.com/standard/arthtml/255.htm">Katy Ellis </a>and the travel photographs by Genevieve Lacourciere. The music of <a href="http://www.rilokiley.com/splash/">Rilo Kiley</a>, <a href="http://www.devendrabanhart.com/">Devendra Banhart</a>, <a href="http://www.siamusic.net/">Sia</a>, <a href="http://www.gillianwelch.com/">Gillian Welch</a>, and <a href="http://www.johnnycash.com/">Johnny Cash </a>inspires me.<br /><br /><strong>15. What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?<br /></strong><br />I’m sometimes influenced by non-fiction work. Books on trains, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Journey-Turtle-Lifecycles-Carolyn-Scrace/dp/053115419X">the journey of the turtle</a>; sometimes I’m influenced by a series of words for example all the names there are for the different formations of clouds; geography endlessly pulls at me for, I think I may have inherited this from my mother, I believe it offers an endless route away from myself. This isn’t true.<br />A few friends have been inspirational through their letters, conversations, their photographs. The writer <a href="http://www.abcbookworld.com/?state=view_author&author_id=8849">Rebecca Fredrickson </a>has often, through her own work and through our conversations, influenced my own writing. The personal writings and photographs from Mary Finlay-Doney have been inspirational. Of course, the writing and photographs of Katy E. Ellis Jr. have inspired and influenced my writing.<br /><br /><strong>16. What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?</strong><br /><br />I haven’t traveled into Asia. I’d like to see the rice paddies, saffron-robed monks, buddhas that defy description. I’d like to stand amid <a href="http://montereybay.com/creagrus/parrots.html">parrots</a> in <a href="http://www.worldatlas.com/webimage/countrys/camerica.htm">Central America</a>, camp amid <a href="http://mayaruins.com/">Mayan </a>and <a href="http://www.moon.com/planner/mexico_city/mustsees/mostimprssaztecruins.html">Aztec ruins</a> (can you do that?). I’d like to go to <a href="http://www.netaxs.com/trance/rapanui.html">Easter Island</a>. I’d like to go <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Petersburg">St. Petersburg </a>and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow">Moscow</a>. My friend, Indio, tells me <a href="http://www.geographia.com/argentina/buenosaires/Index.htm">Buenos Aires </a>has <a href="http://www.easybuenosairescity.com/placestovisit.htm">more neon lights </a>than any city has a right too. I want to see that. Oh, what about <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peru">Peru</a>? I’d like to snorkel, surf ―I’m a bad swimmer (really) and I’m a wee bit afraid of the water (really). Publish a novel, a collection of short stories. Have dinner with <a href="http://www.stephenking.com/">Stephen King</a>? Maybe I’m getting a bit carried away here, whatdaya think rob?<br /><br /><strong>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?</strong><br /><br />I don’t know. If I could pick another occupation maybe architectural design something where the beautiful would be functional, and if I weren’t a writer I’d probably have ended up in photography, or maybe pottery.<br /><br /><strong>18. What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?</strong><br /><br />Again, I really don’t know. I like writing because, of course, I like the sounds of words. I make lists of words: chesterfield, elbow, appaloosa, palomino, bit and bridle. I’m also very attracted to lines in films and television. When <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/st/original/bones.shtml">McCoy</a> says to <a href="http://www.thecaptainkirkpage.com/">Kirk</a>, “<a href="http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0001514/">Good God Jim, I’m a doctor not a bricklayer</a>.” I try to fit that into as many conversations as I can. There’s a line from <em><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104348/">Glengarry Glen Ross</a></em> that has been rippling over the tv screen lately (advertisement for <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glengarry_Glen_Ross_(film)">the movie </a>upcoming on some channel or another), “You see this watch? This watch cost more than your car.” Every time I hear it I smile. It cracks me up. I love many lines from <a href="http://www.buffyworld.com/"><em>Buffy the Vampire Slayer</em> </a>as well as the last sentiments on her gravestone: <a href="http://voyageur.idic.ca/LinsleyBuffy03.htm">She Saved the World. A lot</a>.<br /><br /><strong>19. What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?</strong><br /><br />I’m a fan of <a href="http://www.rushmoreacademy.com/">Wes Anderson </a>and saw his film <em><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0838221/maindetails">The Darjeeling Ltd</a>.</em> just before Christmas. I’m currently reading <a href="http://fictionwriting.about.com/od/interviews/a/oneill.htm"><em>Lullabies for Little Criminals</em> </a>by <a href="http://www.harpercollins.com/books/9780060875077/Lullabies_for_Little_Criminals/index.aspx">Heather O’Neill</a>, and think it incorporates many of the elements I would like to see emerge in my own work. An ease with language, for example, as well <a href="http://www.montrealmirror.com/2006/102606/books.html">O’Neill’s</a> sense of place is loose and yet exact.<br /><br /><strong>20. What are you currently working on?<br /></strong><br />Mostly, as I am a PhD candidate at the <a href="http://www.ualberta.ca/">University of Alberta</a>, I’m working on homework. I’m in a class of <a href="http://www.poets.ca/Linktext/direct/wiesenth.htm">Christine Wiesenthal’s </a>[<a href="http://albertawriting.blogspot.com/2008/01/12-or-20-questions-with-christine.html">see her 12 or 20 questions here</a>] and have been trying my hand at creative non-fiction. When time permits I’m rewriting a novel and working on a series of short fiction.<br /></div><div><a href="http://robmclennansindex.blogspot.com/2007/09/12-or-20-questions-archive.html"><em>12 or 20 questions archive</em></a></div>rob mclennanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07958889643637765864noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412809965647810701.post-39734392361030266712008-03-18T14:59:00.000-07:002008-12-11T03:10:41.210-08:00The Factory (West) Reading Series, April 15, 2008<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKEQcBuVWAGQ7HxIfVGMFvim4jKaOkE7KGYpjnM6sWnkol-8I7PQZnCCrpm9Qcmi2IiAnkxC6iUPdDLz5W1bMKdRsSCscqNEiWy6O132wxSUBU98RuB9j6nQVwamEaTnRdxasjm_8w7RL8/s1600-h/moremall10.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5179209862543656050" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKEQcBuVWAGQ7HxIfVGMFvim4jKaOkE7KGYpjnM6sWnkol-8I7PQZnCCrpm9Qcmi2IiAnkxC6iUPdDLz5W1bMKdRsSCscqNEiWy6O132wxSUBU98RuB9j6nQVwamEaTnRdxasjm_8w7RL8/s320/moremall10.jpg" border="0" /></a>a reading series <strong><em>lovingly hosted by rob mclennan</em></strong> during his tenure as <a href="http://www.humanities.ualberta.ca/english/WIR.html">writer-in-residence at the University of Alberta</a> (2007-8); the name<strong> "Factory (West)"</strong> refers to the fact that I have been running readings for years in Ottawa since 1995 that now exist under the title <a href="http://www.ottawaartgallery.ca/factoryreadingseries/index-en.php">The Factory Reading Series, held regularly(ish) at the Ottawa Art Gallery</a>;<br /><div><br />a variety of poetry and fiction (etcetera) presented on the third Tuesday of every month from January to May, 2008 in (upstairs) at <a href="http://www.cafeselect.ca/"><strong>Cafe Select, upstairs, 8404-109th Street</strong></a><br /><strong><em>doors 7pm; readings 7:30pm</em></strong><br /></div><br /><div><strong>The fourth reading will be happening on Tuesday, April 15<br /></strong></div><br /><div><strong>with readings by:</strong><br /></div><div><br /><blockquote><strong>Kim Minkus (Vancouver)<br />Catherine Owen (Edmonton)<br />Christine Wiesenthal (Edmonton)<br />+ Myrna Kostash (Edmonton)<br /></strong></blockquote></div><br /><div><a href="http://www.vertigowest.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=33"><strong>Kim Minkus</strong> </a>is a Vancouver poet, Librarian and Ph.D. Candidate in the English Department at Simon Fraser University. In April 2006 she was awarded a fellowship at King's College London to research contemporary poetics. Part of her research lead to work that is now appears in 9 freight, her first book of poetry published by LINEbooks in 2007. She has published poems in <em>Bywords</em>, <em>West Coast Line</em> and <em>ottawater</em>. Her most recent review appears in <a href="http://jacketmagazine.com/28/mink-cain.html"><em>Jacket</em> 28</a>.</div><div></div><br /><div><strong>Catherine Owen</strong> [<a href="http://albertawriting.blogspot.com/2007/09/12-or-20-questions-with-catherine-owen.html">see her 12 or 20 questions here</a>] has been <a href="http://www.poets.ca/linktext/direct/owen.htm">publishing and performing poetry since 1993</a>. Her <a href="http://www.authorsaloud.com/readings/readings/readings/owen.html">work</a> has <a href="http://www.arts.org.nz/owen.htm">appeared in periodicals </a>such as <a href="http://dalhousiereview.dal.ca/index.html"><em>The Dalhousie Review</em> </a>and <em>Poetry Salzburg</em>. Titles include: <em>Somatic – The Life and Work of Egon Schiele</em> (<a href="http://www.exileeditions.com/">Exile Editions </a>1998), nominated for the <a href="http://www.poets.ca/linktext/awards/lampert.htm">Gerald Lampert Award</a>, <a href="http://www.wolsakandwynn.ca/title.asp?id=58"><em>The Wrecks of Eden</em> </a>(Wolsak and Wynn, 02), shortlisted for the <a href="http://www.bcbookprizes.ca/">BC Book Prize</a>, and her new collections, <a href="http://www.wolsakandwynn.ca/title.asp?id=89"><em>Shall: ghazals</em> </a>(Wolsak and Wynn, 06) and <a href="http://www.straight.com/article-72934/cusp-detritus-an-experiment-in-alleyways-by-catherine-owen"><em>Cusp/detritus</em> </a>(Anvil Press, 06), both longlisted for the <a href="http://therelitawards.blogspot.com/">Relit Prize</a>, while the latter made the shortlist for the <a href="http://www.abcbookworld.com/?state=view_author&author_id=1321">George Ryga award for socially conscious literature</a>. A selection from <em>Seeing Lessons</em>, on the pioneer photographer, <a href="http://www.virtualmuseum.ca/~dewdney/english/map/hope/img_gunterman.php">Mattie Gunterman </a>was recently nominated for the <a href="http://www.radio-canada.ca/prixlitteraires/">CBC Literary Awards</a>. Her poems have been translated into Italian (Caneide with <a href="http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=A1ARTA0006930">Joe Rosenblatt</a>, 05) and Korean. She has a Masters degree in English (Simon Fraser University, 01), collaborates with painters/dancers, practices photography, and plays bass/sings in the blackmetal band, <a href="http://www.inhuman.150m.com/">INHUMAN</a>.</div><div></div><br /><div><strong>Christine Wiesenthal</strong> [<a href="http://albertawriting.blogspot.com/2008/01/12-or-20-questions-with-christine.html">see her 12 or 20 questions here</a>] is a <a href="http://www.janushead.org/9-2/Wiesenthal.pdf">poet</a>, <a href="http://www.uofaweb.ualberta.ca/arts/news.cfm?story=40590">biographer</a>, and literary critic whose most recent books include <a href="http://www.antigonishreview.com/bi-131/131-review-ruth-panofsky.html"><em>Instruments of Surrender</em> </a>(<a href="http://www.buschekbooks.com/authors.html">BuschekBooks</a>, 2001) and <a href="http://www.utppublishing.com/pubstore/merchant.ihtml?pid=8228&step=4"><em>The Half-Lives of Pat Lowther</em> </a>(UTP, 2005). Her poetry has appeared in numerous literary magazines including <a href="http://www.lib.unb.ca/Texts/Fiddlehead/"><em>Fiddlehead</em></a>, <a href="http://www.geist.com/"><em>Geist</em></a> and <a href="http://www.quillandquire.com/reviews/review.cfm?review_id=4500"><em>In Fine Form: Canadian Form Poetry</em> </a>(eds. <a href="http://www.danforthreview.com/features/interviews/shreve_braid.htm">Kate Braid and Sandy Shreve</a>), and she has also contributed interviews to collections such as <a href="http://www.nightwoodeditions.com/excerpt/WheretheWordsComeFrom/webonly/255">Tim Bowling's <em>Where the Words Come From: Canadian Poets in Conversation</em> </a>(with <a href="http://www.library.utoronto.ca/canpoetry/page/">P.K. Page</a>). <a href="http://www.booksincanada.com/article_view.asp?id=3499"><em>Instruments of Surrender</em> </a>was shortlisted for the <a href="http://www.placesforwriters.com/awards.html">Stephan G. Stephannson </a>and <a href="http://www.poets.ca/linktext/awards/lampert.htm">Gerald Lampert Poetry Awards </a>in 2001 and 2002; <a href="http://www.canlit.ca/reviews-review.php?id=13153"><em>The Half-Lives of Pat Lowther</em> </a>was awarded the <a href="http://www.cha-shc.ca/english/activ/prizes_prix/clio.cfm">Canadian Historical Association's Clio Prize for British Columbia in 2005</a>, and shortlisted for the 2006 Governor General's Literary Award for Nonfiction.</div><br /><div></div><div>Born and raised in Edmonton, Alberta, <a href="http://www.ualberta.ca/~ulec/stus/kostash-bio.html"><strong>Myrna Kostash</strong> </a>is a fulltime writer, author of <em>All of Baba’s Children</em> (1978) [<a href="http://albertawriting.blogspot.com/2007/08/myrna-kostashs-all-of-babas-children-or.html">see my piece on such here</a>]; <em>Long Way From Home: The Story of the Sixties Generation in Canada</em> (1980); <em>No Kidding: Inside the World of Teenage Girls</em> (1987); <em>Bloodlines: A Journey Into Eastern Europe</em> (1993); <em>The Doomed Bridegroom: A Memoir</em> (1997); <em>The Next Canada: Looking for the Future Nation</em> (2000); <em>Reading the River: A Traveller’s Companion to the North Saskatchewan Ri</em>ver (2005). <em>Memoirs of Byzantium</em> is a work-in-progress. Besides writing for diverse magazines, from <em>Chatelaine</em> to <em>Saturday Night</em> to <em>Border Crossings</em>, to <em>Canadian Geographic</em>, Kostash has written radio drama and documentary, television documentary, and theatre cabaret. Her creative non-fiction has appeared in<em> Brick</em>, <em>Border Crossings</em>, <em>Descant</em>, <em>The Camrose Review</em>, <em>Capilano Review</em>, <em>Prairie Fire</em>, <em>Geist</em>, <em>dandeLion</em>, <em>CV II</em>, <em>Literatura na swiecie</em> (Warsaw), <em>Stozher </em>(Skopje), and <em>Mostovi</em> (Belgrade). Her essays and articles have appeared in anthologies such as <em>Going Some Place: Creative Non-fiction Across Canada</em>, <em>Why Are You Telling Me This? Eleven Acts of Intimate Journalism</em>, <em>Fresh Tracks: Writing the Western Landscape</em>, <em>The Thinking Heart: Best Canadian Essays</em>, <em>Two Lands, Two Visions</em>, <em>Threshold: An Anthology of Contemporary Writing From Alberta</em>, <em>Wrestling with the Angel: Women Reclaiming Their Lives</em>, <em>The Vintage Book of Canadian Memoirs</em>, and <em>AWOL: Tales for Travel-Inspired Minds</em>.</div><br /><div></div><div><em>For further information, email rob mclennan at az421(at)freenet(dot)carleton(dot)ca</em></div><br /><div><em><strong>further readings:</strong></em><br />May 20; readings by Laura Farina (Banff), Priscila Uppal and Christopher Doda (Toronto) + tba</div><br /><div><a href="http://albertawriting.blogspot.com/2008/02/factory-west-reading-series-march-18.html">previous readings</a>:</div>rob mclennanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07958889643637765864noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412809965647810701.post-46737887847652168132008-02-17T14:19:00.000-08:002008-12-11T03:10:41.426-08:00The Factory (West) Reading Series, March 18, 2008<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhz1siuuYsDKcg50D7xBUPlTJ0uAQVp2y5PmJW6JPKgUU5jmbMEh1l4wom9JwscCmYbmOpFqn8IWPJxEULHP3EgNhNPvXcQMVS7KSgVWJwgRVN8GVSMtca8qHrF4JeDGCwtNCJWPLVUOem5/s1600-h/moremall6.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5167709909767550338" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhz1siuuYsDKcg50D7xBUPlTJ0uAQVp2y5PmJW6JPKgUU5jmbMEh1l4wom9JwscCmYbmOpFqn8IWPJxEULHP3EgNhNPvXcQMVS7KSgVWJwgRVN8GVSMtca8qHrF4JeDGCwtNCJWPLVUOem5/s320/moremall6.jpg" border="0" /></a>a reading series <em><strong>lovingly hosted by rob mclennan</strong></em> during his tenure as <a href="http://www.humanities.ualberta.ca/english/WIR.html">writer-in-residence at the University of Alberta</a> (2007-8); the name <strong>"Factory (West)"</strong> refers to the fact that I have been running readings for years in Ottawa since 1995 that now exist under the title <a href="http://www.ottawaartgallery.ca/factoryreadingseries/index-en.php">The Factory Reading Series, held regularly(ish) at the Ottawa Art Gallery</a>;<br /><div><br />a variety of poetry and fiction (etcetera) presented on the third Tuesday of every month from January to May, 2008 in the Underdog (downstairs) at <a href="http://www.blackdog.ca/">The Black Dog Freehouse</a>, 10425-82 Avenue, Edmonton AB;<strong> [venue change still in effect; </strong><a href="http://www.cafeselect.ca/"><strong>Cafe Select, upstairs, 8404-109th Street</strong></a><strong>]<br /></strong></div><br /><div>doors 7pm; readings 7:30pm</div><div></div><br /><div><strong>The third reading will be happening on Tuesday, March 18</strong></div><div><br /><strong>with readings by:</strong></div><div><strong><br /><blockquote><p><strong>Jasmina Odor</strong><br /><strong>Mark McCawley</strong><br /><strong>D.M. Brian</strong><br /><strong>+ Douglas Barbour</strong></p></blockquote></strong></div><div><strong>Jasmina Odor</strong> is a writer and an instructor of English at Edmonton's Concordia college. She writes short stories and has recently finished a manuscript of short fiction. You can find her stories in <em>The Fiddlehead</em> and the <em>Coming Attractions 05</em> anthology.</div><br /><div><strong></strong></div><div><strong>Mark McCawley</strong> [<a href="http://12or20questions.blogspot.com/2007/12/12-or-20-questions-with-mark-mccawley.html">see his 12 or 20 questions here</a>] is a <a href="http://ardentdreams.com/bbp/fc/backissues.html">fiction writer</a>, editor, poet, and small press publisher. Since founding Greensleeve Editions in 1988, he has published over fifty chapbooks. Since 1993, he has edited the litzine <a href="http://www.brokenpencil.com/reviews/reviews.php?reviewid=1707"><em>Urban Graffiti</em></a>. From 1986 to 1993, Mark taught poetry and fiction as a creative writing instructor for Continuing Education (now <a href="http://www.metrocontinuingeducation.ca/">Metro College</a>). He has given readings of his own work across Canada: in Montreal, Toronto, Calgary and Edmonton. He is the author of eight chapbooks of poetry and short fiction, most recently, <em>Stories For People With Brief Attention Spans</em> (1993) and <em>Just Another Asshole: short stories</em> (1994), both from Greensleeve Editions. His short fiction has <a href="http://www.harbourpublishing.com/excerpt/Paperwork/262">also appeared in the anthologies</a>: <a href="http://www.nowtoronto.com/issues/18/41/Ent/books.html"><em>Burning Ambitions: The Anthology of Short-Shorts</em></a>, edited by Debbie James (Toronto: <a href="http://www.murderoutthere.com/Revlist.html">Rush Hour Revisions</a>, 1998) and <a href="http://www.danforthreview.com/reviews/fiction/grunt_etc.htm"><em>Grunt & Groan: The New Fiction Anthology of Work and Sex</em></a>, edited by <a href="http://www.laurahird.com/showcase/matthewfirth2.html">Matthew Firth </a>and Max Maccari (Toronto: Boheme Press, 2002). <a href="http://www.ardentdreams.com/blackbilepress/frontandcentrereviews.html">Mark McCawley </a>can be contacted via email: <a href="mailto:mccawley64@hotmail.com">mccawley64@hotmail.com</a></div><br /><div><strong></strong></div><div><strong>D.M. Bryan</strong> was raised in Edmonton, Alberta, where she liked to play dinosaurs in her backyard with the boy from across the alley – until he moved away when they were both four. She remained alone in Edmonton until adolescence when she moved to Calgary, where fate reunited her and her childhood playmate. Taken with this coincidence, they married, moved to Toronto, and produced a son and daughter. Bryan has acquired an assortment of degrees over the years, including a BFA in Photography and an MA in Communications, both from the University of Calgary, and a BFA in Film from Ryerson University. After what she describes as “various yo-yo throws” across the country, Bryan has settled in Calgary where she now teaches at the University of Calgary. <em>Gerbil Mother</em>, her first novel, will be released in March 2008 by NeWest Press.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>Douglas Barbour</strong> [<a href="http://albertawriting.blogspot.com/2007/09/12-or-20-questions-with-douglas-barbour.html">see his 12 or 20 questions here</a>] , <a href="http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/ChideThree/DougBarbour.htm">poet</a>, <a href="http://www.lib.unb.ca/Texts/SCL/bin/get.cgi?directory=vol1_2/&filename=young.htm">critic</a>, and<a href="http://jacketmagazine.com/23/adams-barbo.html"> reviewer</a>, is Professor Emeritus of English at the University of Alberta, where he has taught creative writing, poetry, <a href="http://www.westcoastline.ca/covers/barbourGB.pdf">Canadian literature</a>, twentieth century poetry and poetics, and <a href="http://www.edgewebsite.com/books/tess2/t2-catalog.html">science fiction </a>and <a href="http://www.uleth.ca/edu/runte/ncfguide/authoratod.htm">fantasy</a>. Books of poetry include <em>Visible Visions: The Selected Poems of Douglas Barbour</em> (NeWest Press 1984), which won Alberta's Stephan Stephannson Award for poetry, and <em>Story for a Saskatchewan Night</em> (rdc press 1989). More recently, <a href="http://www.newestpress.com/books/fragmenting.html"><em>Fragmenting Body etc</em></a><em>.</em> (NeWest Press 2000), <a href="http://www.wolsakandwynn.ca/title.asp?id=25"><em>Breath Takes</em> </a>(<a href="http://www.poets.ca/pshstore/profile_book.asp?ISBN=0919897789">Wolsak & Wynn </a>2002), <a href="http://www.greenboathouse.com/chapbooks/douglas_barbour.htm"><em>A Flame on the Spanish Stairs</em> </a>(greenboathouse books 2003), and <a href="http://www.uap.ualberta.ca/UAP.asp?LID=41&bookID=664"><em>Continuations</em></a>, with Sheila E. Murphy (<a href="http://poetryreviews.ca/2006/11/07/continuations-by-douglas-barbour-and-sheila-e-murphy/">University of Alberta Press </a>2006). Critical works include <em>Daphne Marlatt and Her Works</em>, <em>John Newlove and His Works</em>, <em>bpNichol and His Works</em> (<a href="http://www.ecwpress.com/">ECW Press </a>1992) , and <a href="http://www.amazon.ca/Michael-Ondaatje-Douglas-Barbour/dp/0805782907"><em>Michael Ondaatje</em> </a>(<a href="http://gale.cengage.com/twayne/">Twayne Publishers </a>1993). <a href="http://www.newestpress.com/books/lyric.html"><em>Lyric/Anti-lyric: essays on contemporary poetry</em></a> appeared from <a href="http://www.newestpress.com/bios/barbour.html">NeWest Press </a>in 2001. <a href="http://www.marszalek.com.pl/index.php?m=5&aut=1092"><em>Transformations of Contemporary Canadian Poetry in English</em> </a>appeared from <a href="http://www.marszalek.com.pl/">Adam Marszalek in Poland </a>in 2005. Essays have appeared in journals and anthologies in Canada, the United States, Australia, Great Britain, New Zealand, Denmark. He has delivered papers at conferences on Canadian Studies and modern poetry, in Australia, Germany, New Zealand, Poland, Sweden, Scotland, and, of course, Canada. He was inaugurated into the City of Edmonton Cultural Hall of Fame in 2003.</div><br /><div></div><div><em>For further information, email rob mclennan at az421(at)freenet(dot)carleton(dot)ca</em></div><br /><div><em><strong>further readings:</strong></em></div><div>April 15; readings by <a href="http://jacketmagazine.com/28/mink-cain.html">Kim Minkus </a>(Vancouver), <a href="http://albertawriting.blogspot.com/2008/01/12-or-20-questions-with-christine.html">Christine Wiesenthal </a>(Edmonton), <a href="http://albertawriting.blogspot.com/2007/09/12-or-20-questions-with-catherine-owen.html">Catherine Owen </a>(Edmonton) + <a href="http://www.ualberta.ca/~ulec/stus/kostash-bio.html">Myrna Kostash </a>(Edmonton)</div><div>May 20; readings by Laura Farina (Banff) + tba<br /></div><br /><div><a href="http://albertawriting.blogspot.com/2008/01/factory-west-reading-series-february-19.html"><em>previous readings</em></a>:</div>rob mclennanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07958889643637765864noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412809965647810701.post-25830059676020738482008-02-15T12:22:00.000-08:002008-12-11T03:10:42.505-08:00The Olive Reading Series, Edmonton;<a href="http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=171970283">Olive Reading Series </a>co-organizer <a href="http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/">Douglas Barbour </a>[<a href="http://albertawriting.blogspot.com/2007/09/12-or-20-questions-with-douglas-barbour.html">see his 12 or 20 questions here</a>] took a bunch of photos from the most recent event, featuring <a href="http://www.poets.ca/Linktext/direct/butler.htm">Edmonton poet Jenna Butler </a>[<a href="http://albertawriting.blogspot.com/2008/02/12-or-20-questions-with-jenna-butler.html">see her 12 or 20 questions here</a>]. The next reading, on March 11th (7pm), features <a href="http://www.library.utoronto.ca/canpoetry/almon/">Bert Almon's </a>University of Alberta senior creative writing (poetry) class (who could it be? we think Lainna might even be reading, but we don't know for sure...).<br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5167307235108713826" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikS5kfd5TEuWzqm1auTMZjzmOLkaGyzaKyWCdPBsudkFzvu-NScUmYfwXJ78L_OTfboLb6I-IBtvEW7YZXQeojAvewh6P4v6geH0w8J6IrGUQiGkAL_77YfgqAwg_7e_8qfMT9Svl04ZSa/s320/barbour53.jpg" border="0" /><br /><a href="http://www.uap.ualberta.ca/UAP.asp?lid=60">Jeff Carpenter</a>, '<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pataphysics">pataphysician</a>, who recently handed the reins of Olive chapbook production over to his pal and fellow 'pataphysician, <a href="http://www.ualberta.ca/~jekerr/p5_12.html">Glenn Robson</a>; this is obviously a group that endorses moustache use.<br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5167306934461003090" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR1vUTl5ZJS_hi-lzrrijQsomUlaCoEoTM8N4pOqcy7LVHzYTle_dk3XOEvGGD5nE2bhv1nCe5MpIiP4ZF_jX5v1F8eDuc5Cr5_OUZNOmNHv9AYlL-is2DUrThRD71XSQFN-YL-Bka74Dt/s320/barbour55.jpg" border="0" /><br /><a href="http://www.ascentaspirations.ca/newchapbookpress.htm">Jenna Butler </a>(who has a forthcoming and recently-announced first poetry collection with <a href="http://www.newestpress.com/catalog/">NeWest</a>, as well as <a href="http://abovegroundpress.blogspot.com/">a chapbook next month with above/ground press in the ALBERTA SERIES</a>). Behind her, seated, are myself (with devil eyes), Lainna, <a href="http://www.ditchpoetry.com/trisiaeddy.htm">Trisia Eddy </a>(hidden), Jeff and Glenn.<br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5167306105532314946" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRoyMOSSxkwxDndBjyHShMfMHk9fBpf-u9Y7tqSG5mrzOakvNFYIvYGFjhCLKmQBWSot4uHBeECjD8v0GOlzm_BkrV-HS81WU7__tapMxzAq_ma6RT_Ooz7ZolNtl0j1SQxq-FvEASKjnl/s320/barbour56.jpg" border="0" /><a href="http://www.leafpress.ca/Mondays_Poems_2005/Jenna_Butler/Jenna_Butler.htm">Jenna Butler</a> with her eyes closed; knee-deep in poesie.<br /><div><div><div><div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5167305882194015538" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjbO0hOJfpuXr3CpiQMeCR_zuRa_-FA32AWgHNUmE5B6KM_vD00NdVLmV0NoiZn-6D70cn_SCqxH39YqiLLAEzjBMxSSEQ87mkwir5b6Ma4ajXfVIbCEasNJp0_7MbXfOavbrQsNre3SFZ/s320/barbour57.jpg" border="0" /> <a href="http://www.leafpress.ca/books/String_To_Bow.htm">Jenna Butler </a>from a distance; when did Jeff start drinking pints with his pinky in the air?<br /><div></div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5167305615906043170" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr94vPyJ87WMitnbeLPj_faWvJWP3Q1ULyNixYKyPRvFljQr3HQd3M8Lr-wbHKksIA3vLGJhDwQyoZ7ZadfOkIHhnfy8lsd1pbrSg8NSbSyjo31ATHYH0n-eJdct8LJn77dys3FPd56Mjx/s320/barbour61.jpg" border="0" />Being immediately pre-Valentine's Day, the reading included an open set of love/anti-love poems; Lainna might be staring directly into the camera, but <a href="http://www.cahootsmagazine.com/Joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=271">Trisia</a> goes through a copy of <a href="http://www.mcclelland.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780771054587">Daphne Marlatt's </a>[<a href="http://robmclennan.blogspot.com/2008/02/12-or-20-questions-with-daphne-marlatt.html">see her 12 or 20 questions here</a>] last poetry collection, <em><a href="http://www.talonbooks.com/index.cfm?event=titleDetails&ISBN=0889224501">This Tremor Love Is</a></em>, for a poem to read in the open set; <em>she was magnificent</em>. </div><div> </div><div>But was it love, or anti-love she spoke?<br /><div> </div><div><a href="http://hulberts.ca/portal/index.php?option=com_gigcal&task=details&gigcal_bands_id=65&Itemid=65">The next Olive at Hulbert's Cafe is March 11</a>; until then, <a href="http://albertawriting.blogspot.com/2008/01/factory-west-reading-series-february-19.html">why not come out to the next Factory (West) Reading on February 19th</a>?</div></div></div></div></div>rob mclennanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07958889643637765864noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412809965647810701.post-71730985644367321312008-02-14T11:17:00.000-08:002008-12-11T03:10:42.695-08:0012 or 20 questions: with Jenna Butler<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd4a9amV93oiKJaCrn3Ck-OqW1Q4b0mUIhlKajYQBWvE8jJiEDum8nzVs7K2LLJhtkFCnBJwwucJgmd66r4gB-1xj2mOasalxIzozJWxU_n9ySNGMLnsPiwMjYXuY4rz9nqD2GIptXNAkg/s1600-h/jennabutler.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5166919489756198146" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd4a9amV93oiKJaCrn3Ck-OqW1Q4b0mUIhlKajYQBWvE8jJiEDum8nzVs7K2LLJhtkFCnBJwwucJgmd66r4gB-1xj2mOasalxIzozJWxU_n9ySNGMLnsPiwMjYXuY4rz9nqD2GIptXNAkg/s320/jennabutler.jpg" border="0" /></a><strong>Jenna Butler</strong> was born in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwich">Norwich, England </a>in 1980, but has spent most of her life on the prairies of Western Canada. The varied landscapes of the prairies and mountains – their intense harshness and incredible richness – feature prominently in her poetry and fiction. Her work has garnered a number of awards, including the <a href="http://www.humanities.ualberta.ca/English/uprizes.html">James Patrick Folinsbee Prize</a>, and has been produced by the CBC. Her poetry has appeared in <em><a href="http://pages.interlog.com/~oel/">Jones Av</a></em>., <em><a href="http://toddswift.blogspot.com/2005/09/poem-by-jenna-butler.html">Nthposition</a></em>, <em><a href="http://www.leafpress.ca/Mondays_Poems_2005/Jenna_Butler/Jenna_Butler.htm">Leaf Press</a></em>, <em><a href="http://www.pandorascollective.com/">Pandora’s Collective</a></em>, <em><a href="http://toddswift.blogspot.com/2007/11/ts-eliot-prize-2007-shortlist-is.html">The T.S. Review</a></em>, <em>Persephone’s Sisters</em> (Rowan Books, 2000), <em><a href="http://www.rubiconpress.org/books/details/in_the_laughter_of_stones_ma_poets/">In the Laughter of Stones</a></em> (Rubicon Press, 2005), <em>Otherwheres </em>(<a href="http://www.ralphmag.org/DT/new-poetry.html">Pen & Inc. Press</a>, 2005), <a href="http://www.dcbooks.ca/futurewelcome.html"><em>The Moosehead Anthology X: Future Welcome</em> </a>(DC Books, 2005), <a href="http://www.leafpress.ca/books/String_To_Bow.htm"><em>String to Bow</em> </a>(<a href="http://www.leafpress.ca/Mondays_Poems_2005/Jenna_Butler/Jenna_Butler.htm">Leaf Press</a>, 2005), <em><a href="http://www.grainmagazine.ca/341.htm">Grain</a></em>, <em><a href="http://www.contemporaryverse2.ca/home.html">CV2</a></em>, and <a href="http://blueskiespoetry.ca/category/poems-by/jenna-butler/"><em>Writing the Land: Alberta Through Its Poets</em> </a>(House of Blue Skies, 2007), among others. Butler is the author of three short collections of poetry, <em>Forcing Bloom</em>, <em>weather</em>, and <em>Winter Ballast</em>, in addition to an upcoming full-length collection from NeWest Press, <em>aphelion</em>.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.poets.ca/Linktext/direct/butler.htm">Butler is a member of the League of Canadian Poets</a>, and has participated in several League events, including a number of readings, <a href="http://national-random-acts-of-poetry.blogspot.com/">Random Acts of Poetry</a>, and mentorship programs for young poets. She was the <a href="http://www.youngpoets.ca/">League’s inaugural Online Poet in Residence in January of 2007</a>, and sat on the board for the first <a href="http://www.edmontonpoetryfestival.com/">Edmonton Poetry Festival </a>in 2006. In addition to this, she has performed her work widely, both on the air and onstage, for audiences in Canada and Europe. She sits on the editorial committee for <a href="http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=171970283">Edmonton’s Olive Reading Series</a>, where she also serves as Treasurer, and is the <a href="http://www.rubiconpress.org/">Founding Editor of Rubicon Press</a>.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.ascentaspirations.ca/newchapbookpress.htm">Butler</a> holds Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Education degrees (distinction) from the <a href="http://www.ualberta.ca/">University of Alberta</a>, in addition to a Master’s degree in Creative Writing: Poetry (distinction) from Europe’s most renowned creative writing school, the <a href="http://www1.uea.ac.uk/cm/Home">University of East Anglia </a>(UEA). She is currently immersed in her Doctorate of Philosophy from UEA under the supervision of <a href="http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoet.do?poetId=44">contemporary British poet Denise Riley</a>.<br /><br />Jenna Butler makes her home in Edmonton, Alberta, where she is a teacher, editor, and <a href="http://poetryreviews.ca/2007/08/27/one-stone-by-barbara-pelman/">book reviewer</a>. She divides her time between Canada and England in order to remain active in both literary communities, to teach, and to promote the international work of <a href="http://www.rubiconpress.org/">Rubicon Press</a>.<br /><br /><div><strong>1 - How did your first chapbook change your life?</strong></div><br /><div>I think of the chaps coming out now (through <a href="http://hulberts.ca/portal/index.php?option=com_gigcal&task=details&gigcal_bands_id=65&Itemid=65">The Olive Reading Series</a>, through <a href="http://www.abovegroundpress.blogspot.com/">above/ground press</a> & <a href="http://rednettlepress.ca/welcome.html">Red Nettle Press</a>) as firsts in their own way. Different trains of thought, more reading behind them. I go through these phases of dropping everything, clearing the slate, and starting over...these three chaps feel like that kind of beginning for me. Change of direction, more than anything else.</div><br /><div><strong>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?</strong></div><br /><div>I’ve lived here for 24 years, give or take, & not all in one stint; cripes, it does seem a long time when you see it written down! </div><br /><div>Geography has a huge impact on my writing; psychogeography, more specifically – the way we carry our early landscapes with us and find/do not find home in other places because of the places we are already shouldering. Mind you, all my latest writing has been about place (prairies and mountains, in particular), engaging with the idea that the generation I am a part of is the one that, thus far, has walked the lightest on the earth in terms of tangible remnants left behind (buildings and so on). Yet it has had a very profound impact upon the global climate; bit of a paradox there. & I guess I always write from a feeling of displacement, having been born elsewhere, and having a very divided sense of “home.” I love <a href="http://januarymagazine.com/nonfiction/wildstone.html">Sharon Butala’s <em>Wild Stone Heart</em> </a>& the sense of walking a land in all seasons across the years to come to some sense of grounding in it.<br /></div><div><strong>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?</strong><br /></div><br /><div>Wow, that’s a tough one. I tend to dip into a poem as a show of good faith, I guess, & then get yanked all over the map as the poem proliferates madly & becomes a collection.<br /></div><br /><div><strong>4 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process?</strong><br /></div><br /><div>They are (now) very much a part of my creative process. I’ve written and published for years, but have always been young enough to be slightly edgy of reading with an older and much more experienced crowd. Not sure when that changed; perhaps with <a href="http://www.apirg.org/wg/olive.php">The Olive Reading Series </a>– wonderful venue in Edmonton, very supportive and innovative group of people. Reading’s become a joy since then; a chance to test out new work, offer more polished pieces, & just interact with others who read/write/consume poetry.</div><br /><div><strong>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?<br /></strong></div><div>I write to investigate, to inhabit a space. Concerns? Crosscultural identity, displacement; I’m after finding <a href="http://www.poets.ca/pshstore/profile_book.asp?ISBN=0888011687">Canadian prairie poetry </a>that <a href="http://www.talonbooks.com/index.cfm?event=titleDetails&ISBN=0889225230">isn’t just about prairie</a>, & that isn’t just about fighting against landscape & all the baggage that comes with it (Romanticism, etc.). Slipping inside a liminal space and inhabiting it for a while.<br /><br /><strong>6 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?</strong></div><br /><div>Hmm; I’d have to agree with <a href="http://www.amyking.org/">Amy King </a>[<a href="http://12or20questions.blogspot.com/2008/02/12-or-20-questions-with-amy-king.html">see her 12 or 20 questions here</a>] and say that editors don’t necessarily edit anymore. There does seem to be a move away from working with authors to fine-tune a body of work to a simple acceptance/rejection mentality. I’ll admit that does make me feel a little undone – it’s uncomfortable to have someone challenge and poke about in your work, but it’s lively, it’s engaging. I’ve been fortunate lately to work with some fantastic folk on upcoming chapbooks. And I’m really looking forward to working with <a href="http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/">Doug Barbour </a>[<a href="http://albertawriting.blogspot.com/2007/09/12-or-20-questions-with-douglas-barbour.html">see his 12 or 20 questions here</a>] on my upcoming collection from <a href="http://www.newestpress.com/catalog/">NeWest Press</a>. He is a darn fine poet and editor & I know he’ll give me a run for my money; he won’t let me justify my way into keeping bits that need reworking. It’s the most fantastic thing to find an editor who is on your wavelength & knows just when something’s good & when it’s crud and has to go.</div><br /><div><strong>7 - After having published more than a couple of titles over the years, do you find the process of book-making harder or easier?</strong></div><br /><div>My head’s always going in about ten different directions at once, so starting new work is never the issue. Finding the time to finish it often is. At the same time, having several different projects on the go at any one time allows me to shift to whatever I feel most drawn by. Mind you, there are some collections I’ve begun that have sat on the backburner for years, & I feel rather like a neglectful spouse; continuing to promise company somewhere down the road, but never showing up...</div><br /><div><strong>8 - When was the last time you ate a pear?</strong></div><br /><div>Cripes. It’s Edmonton, we’re five months through a winter that’s hanging on by its teeth. And I refuse to eat those green, chemically softballs that pass for pears in most of the chain stores. I’m holding out ‘til summer – Okanagan and pick-you-owns!</div><br /><div>Answer: It’s been way, waaay too long.</div><br /><div><strong>9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?</strong></div><br /><div><a href="http://uk.poetryinternationalweb.org/piw_cms/cms/cms_module/index.php?obj_id=5698">Denise Riley</a>: “<a href="http://jacketmagazine.com/20/pt-riley.html">Speak softly as is needed to stare down beauty. That calms it</a>.”<br /><br /><strong>10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to critical work)? What do you see as the appeal?<br /></strong></div><div>I like the change of scenery, & at the same time, much of the critical writing I’m currently doing is tied to collections already underway. I’m halfway through a PhD at the moment on Creative and Critical Writing – a thesis plus a full-length collection of work – so the jump between the two fields is a fairly friendly one, and manageable. </div><br /><div></div><div><strong>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?</strong></div><br /><div>Oh wow, I wish I could have a writing routine. I teach high school English full-time, so my days at school begin at 7:00 am and often end around 6:00 pm. Then there’s the PhD clamouring for attention, like some bereft puppy, when I get home. Add to that <a href="http://www.rubiconpress.org/">Rubicon Press</a>, which I run from home...Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays between midnight and three are my writing moments right now. Otherwise my students suffer when I come in in the morning after having stayed up all night to write. It’s not remotely ideal, but it’s where I’m at at this point in time. Otherwise, I carry my notebook everywhere I go. I write on napkins. I am keenly attuned to whatever spare seconds the day might drop, & that I can snatch up for writing.</div><br /><div><strong>12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?</strong></div><br /><div>I read a lot of poetry, poetry criticism. Right now, I’m enjoying chewing through <a href="http://robmclennan.blogspot.com/2007/09/long-continual-argument-selected-poems.html">Chaudiere Books’ <em>A Long Continual Argument</em> </a>(<a href="http://jacketmagazine.com/34/derkson-newlove.shtml">John Newlove’s selected</a>). Also reading <a href="http://www.poets.ca/Linktext/direct/brebner.htm">Diana Brebner</a>, <a href="http://www.nightwoodeditions.com/author/TimBowling">Tim Bowling</a>, & a huge whack of a book, <a href="http://www.complete-review.com/reviews/nabokovv/butterfs.htm">Nabokov’s <em>Butterflies: Unpublished and Uncollected Writings</em></a>. Took me ages to get my hands on a copy, & will probably, with work & all, take me ages to read the darn thing...but so very satisfying to sink into for a few moments here & there. Fantasy is a guilty and very enthusiastic pleasure (<a href="http://www.tor.com/erikson/">Steven Erikson</a>, <a href="http://www.bookslut.com/specfic_floozy/2006_11_010217.php">Jo Walton</a>, etc). & when not reading, I turn to work out at the acreage (we’re putting in a road and are doing the clearing by hand ourselves). I love the rote, physical work. A different kind of mindfulness.</div><br /><div><strong>13 - How does your most recent book compare to your previous work? How does it feel different?</strong><br /></div><div>Hmm...three small chapbooks just out, almost one on top of the other, so most recent is somewhat of a difficult term...I’m taking a stint away from anti ghazals, which I feel very at home with (conversely, completely used by; that’s the wonder of the form). Current work still focuses on the breath, & the manipulation of the breath through the structure of the words on the page, but the lines are lengthier, more narrative. & I’m thoroughly immersed in prairie now.<br /></div><br /><div><strong>14 - <a href="http://www.chbooks.com/biographies/index.php?ID=1283">David W. McFadden </a>once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?</strong></div><br /><div>Music, definitely. Photos, artwork, psychology. I devour exhibits, especially arcane & out-of-the-way ones at small museums off the beaten track.</div><br /><div><strong>15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?</strong></div><br /><div><a href="http://www.skwriter.com/search.pl?function=view_detail&auid=41">Sharon Butala</a>, for her vision of how to inhabit a space/how to come to know the land. Anything by <a href="http://www.talonbooks.com/index.cfm?event=titleDetails&ISBN=0889225591">Phyllis Webb</a>. I spent the summer reading <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fyodor_Dostoevsky">Dostoevsky</a>, <a href="http://www.bopsecrets.org/rexroth/essays/lawrence.htm">Lawrence</a>, <a href="http://www.levity.com/corduroy/camus.htm">Camus</a>, <a href="http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poet/318.html">Swift</a> – partly for teaching in the fall, & partly because some of them were starting to slip out of mind. I like <a href="http://www.georgeszirtes.co.uk/">George Szirtes’ </a>stuff; very different from my own, very lyrical; I read him in counterpoint to poets like <a href="http://www.contemporarywriters.com/authors/?p=auth02D4L190512627351">Denise Riley</a>, <a href="http://holloway.english.berkeley.edu/Archives/Archives/robertson/robertson.html">Lisa Robertson</a>. & I’ve been reading more of <a href="http://www.poetics.ca/poetics07/Newlove_poetics.html">Newlove</a>, as I mentioned; I can connect with his attitude toward writing, I envy in some ways his ability to lay everything on the line to be able to have the time to write. I wish I was that brave. </div><br /><div><strong>16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?</strong></div><br /><div>Hike through Alaska; I’d love to walk the <a href="http://www.bcadventure.com/adventure/explore/north/trails/chilkoot.htm">Chilkoot Trail</a>. </div><br /><div><strong>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?</strong> </div><br /><div>Probably something completely counter to expectations – I’ve always wanted to be a park warden or man a lookout tower & keep watch for forest fires. Eep, is that <em><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dharma_Bums">Dharma Bums</a></em>, or what? Something where I wasn’t tied to the clock, or, in my case, the school bell.</div><br /><div><strong>18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?</strong></div><br /><div>There was a choice? I must have missed that one. It’s concurrent with breathing.</div><br /><div><strong>19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?</strong></div><br /><div>Hey, how is that fair? I read like I write – lots, simultaneously. <a href="http://www.newestpress.com/catalog/authors/barbour-douglas.html">Barbour’s <em>Lyric/Anti-Lyric</em> </a>is one always under perusal; it’s good stuff. Also <a href="http://www.press.umich.edu/titleDetailDesc.do;jsessionid=C1744674168FE5D11934D0AFC52EDAC2?id=11790">Alice Notley’s <em>Coming After: Essays on Poetry</em></a>. Just finished <a href="http://mqup.mcgill.ca/book.php?bookid=1738">Diana Brebner’s <em>The Ishtar Gate</em></a>. &, for something completely off that tack, <a href="http://www.greenmanreview.com/book/book_walton_farthing.html">Jo Walton’s <em>Farthing</em> </a>is some fine, fine dystopic fantasy. GREAT film has been something sorely lacking lately...I always come back to faves like the original <em><a href="http://imdb.com/title/tt0017136/">Metropolis</a></em> & <a href="http://imdb.com/title/tt0068182/">Werner Herzog’s <em>Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes</em> </a>(<em><a href="http://www.eclectica.org/v7n4/hefny_aguirre.html">Aguirre, the Wrath of God</a></em>).</div><br /><div><strong>20 - What are you currently working on?</strong><br /></div><div>The PhD. Plus a collection based on <a href="http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/nabokov.htm">Nabokov’s </a>writing and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Nabokov">his lepidoptery</a>, called <em>Blues for Nabokov</em>. Also a collaborative collection featuring poetry and photography of little-known or forgotten incidents from Canadian history. & a collection of prairie poetry. Working on a few papers for presentation at conferences in Britain in the fall/winter of this coming year. And, of course, the ubiquitous marking for my English classes.</div><br /><div><a href="http://robmclennansindex.blogspot.com/2007/09/12-or-20-questions-archive.html"><em>12 or 20 questions archive</em></a></div>rob mclennanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07958889643637765864noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412809965647810701.post-28596427239134053952008-01-20T11:36:00.000-08:002008-12-11T03:10:45.639-08:00The (first) Factory (West) Reading, EdmontonHere are some pictures, courtesy of <a href="http://robmclennan.blogspot.com/2007/12/ongoing-notes-early-december-2007.html">Lainna</a> [<a href="http://albertawriting.blogspot.com/2008/01/some-recent-alberta-adventuring.html">see previous photos from a previous Calgary etc adventure here</a>] from the first installment of my Edmonton monthly reading series (January-May, 2008) at the <a href="http://www.blackdog.ca/">Black Dog</a>, <a href="http://robmclennan.blogspot.com/2007/12/factory-west-reading-series-reading.html">The Factory (West) Reading Series </a>(<a href="http://albertawriting.blogspot.com/2008/01/factory-west-reading-series-february-19.html">information on the second event here</a>). A good crowd of about twenty-five plus people, with readings by <a href="http://www.ditchpoetry.com/trisiaeddy.htm">Trisia Eddy</a>, <a href="http://www.leafpress.ca/Mondays_Poems_2005/Jenna_Butler/Jenna_Butler.htm">Jenna Butler</a>, <a href="http://www.danforthreview.com/fiction/09_04/joel_katelnikoff.htm">Joel Katelnikoff </a>and <a href="http://logogryph.blogspot.com/">Thomas Wharton </a>(<a href="http://logogryph.blogspot.com/2008/01/black-dog.html">see his note on the same here</a>).<br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5157648926306496898" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEi98_5xceVh3B3dq3AmeyA3XgBx4ncwNwRnrqoVxfiLKWldZbYLoDgs5b7aOtKYkSx3kg0nbVrakG94GJMFXDrMmwiXgItD1fpCuVIpNWcM4DQvRc3LqaE7H3E9VfPqWwl1txmIeLQ5bH/s320/olive16.jpg" border="0" /><br />I am just, apparently, introducing <a href="http://www.antigonishreview.com/bi-146/146-fiction-joel-katelnikoff.html">Joel</a> from <a href="http://www.lit.org/view/14835">the author bio </a>at the back of the <em><a href="http://www.oberonpress.ca/titles/?v=2006">Coming Attractions 06</a></em> (Ottawa ON: Oberon Press, 2006) anthology he was in; three authors, three stories each (he still has copies for $15 if you're interested).<br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5157648582709113202" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWBeZ4X83bStc5BpepyjrZRxG5DNir9B44WBf1AvjUH_4yTdyjA4bq8a_6g8MpxdHGvP3h0c213aLRvJtOfv-rtwWbOQTEpfjBe633wMWeKDAh-xZciOC5pZqOTznQC_cEVcMJBJDaB2MU/s320/olive26.jpg" border="0" /><br /><a href="http://www.brokenjaw.com/catalog/pg95.htm">Joel </a>appearing to read a story of some sort. I met him moons ago when he came west to one of <a href="http://www.smallpressbookfair.blogspot.com/">the ottawa small press book fairs </a>to represent that magazine he used to be part of, <em><a href="http://www.lib.unb.ca/Texts/QWERTY/Decade_06/">QWERTY</a></em>.<br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5157648428090290530" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib8BBqpGv1OkRBFIxk9_noh3OwWLMSfe5qgHVkxmVcZxIgSPzepgCBrTWqUb5VMhlVq-yjvnA2zYrOCIEcoO2R9qtpIGIF9UCe2JW7MkQjaX85prgmGamfExpBDH2mxv_GLWwX9ncaU35l/s320/olive28.jpg" border="0" /><br />Trisia Eddy, looking over her shoulder at something.<br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5157648243406696786" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggCK7Kzt3XlEaLt97sZAx2Tut3HcotWvpbb9XAPptI9S6MaSazHo4Kb63JKGG5WTi8hib70iHg_zOU35LrRCcpnFmj1O4JSD6qBvLpHYzYp4tHfXXUyLuDf7uzKaIUWK8-yF7YX6mxSveE/s320/olive31.jpg" border="0" /> We don't know why <a href="http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/books/Coming-Attractions-06-Mark-Anthony-Jarman/9780778012894-item.html">Joel</a> looks like this; something about sitting at the bar?<br /><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5157648084492906818" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7y6_PWdjNUWX1EoSLkw4KiB4YdXmMHqFYEj_vxmOw8U_0cKODaoBUgwuTyme2f_4Y1-OuwJps_9HdAqEZ0dgPOy6Gi80CWdvXTgSz52zd9r6xME07ugURF0WsCVmNuh_PcvyTYM_IIQLG/s320/olive33.jpg" border="0" /> <a href="http://www.rubiconpress.org/about.htm">Jenna Butler</a>, just starting to read some of her prairie poems, perfectly timed for <a href="http://www.canlit.ca/reviews-review.php?id=13090">Winnipeg poet/critic Dennis Cooley's </a>arrival.<br /><div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5157647916989182258" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2e6zjBhJsNrVljTKJ97YOExhFkQHkwQMgdu65dJTvn1-ORGP-TuMtpo8YO5Dcj8-aJYWCTLEeAShBaQ70u7C4fyNgWC9dAGLlJXtoqieOQTJtw3zO4nOb8lrDJ3_MKAKinVFcpl6Ww-sU/s320/olive36.jpg" border="0" /> <a href="http://toddswift.blogspot.com/2005/09/poem-by-jenna-butler.html">Jenna Butler </a>and her husband looking adorable. She will also be reading at <a href="http://albertawriting.blogspot.com/2008/01/john-newlove-documentary-screening-book.html">the upcoming Edmonton John Newlove launch/screening</a>.<br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5157647633521340706" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwP1r1bIIne_Y_fyTeLhnOX6ow7UBNRDkNUBdvu18183fsiAm_HaQbVtmRUj_J8DpqeHL0TTtEQo1GusMeS4hyt9qt0VkA2N2CB475vrTAdQnHa_h46oCNEU1psk6lJihE_RkEK4ZdvMGy/s320/olive37.jpg" border="0" /><a href="http://www.cbc.ca/wordsatlarge/blog/2008/01/an_extended_meditation_thomas.html">Thomas Wharton </a>[<a href="http://albertawriting.blogspot.com/2007/09/12-or-20-questions-with-thomas-wharton.html">see his 12 or 20 questions here</a>] gritting his teeth for some reason; he read a magnificent non-fiction piece about bears.<br /><div><div><div><div><div><div><div></div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5157647380118270226" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEge6lZQYSc1ihbkqw7TrG34WZgYDg6xAmijFRsLq6YFyRmGiH87hN4a1ezC3xfiNqUKbwXQ_1dyWe6HWtbLNhtaq7ahV5Q8M2uMb4tAU7e6-7HheUiPRMz-tyGVolGAgGZDCFuDSHGC3scj/s320/olive38.jpg" border="0" /> Some of the crowd; note <a href="http://www.poets.ca/linktext/direct/cooley.htm">Dennis Cooley </a>lurking on the stairs...<br /><div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5157647199729643778" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQMo_1VaCOJx_bZTdqfl_MfmbfaYRYf_B9mi7nUQrYp6hAQVNvYiHzpeu9fxiYC0cl4AivryBg1lksqKLrts-yTV1i4P9-pM2dlRMp_5lUtqNTus3scmrQwWjExfwkvquxNvu49-yEs_av/s320/olive41.jpg" border="0" /></div></div><div>Diane Cameron, who opens <a href="http://albertawriting.blogspot.com/2008/01/factory-west-reading-series-february-19.html">the second reading</a>; that's <a href="http://www.ardentdreams.com/blackbilepress/frontandcentrereviews.html">Mark McCawley </a>[<a href="http://robmclennan.blogspot.com/2007/12/edmontons-mark-mccawley-urban-graffiti.html">see my note on his publishing here</a>; <a href="http://12or20questions.blogspot.com/2007/12/12-or-20-questions-with-mark-mccawley.html">see his 12 or 20 questions here</a>] in the background, with his sister to the right. His son also works at the Black Dog Freehouse.</div><div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5157647019341017330" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglO7WBSwgiLsBqAzGRYMgV4q91QJCd48RaubYfBiPm1UPvvLXvWlZJUKDlpa0mvAgkGh4bgLGpYABGtTXfo2-SbmwGba0WXuooHW8-LLD6kDxEFbkZCo52qItfWnU7hKfCQH8qYHmoOWFB/s320/olive44.jpg" border="0" /> We don't know who this guy is, or why Lainna took his photo; he was "hanging around" by the payphone upstairs as we were leaving the reading. Is that creepy or what?<br /><div></div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5157646757348012258" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFlqvPXWqq0T_QgwgkibDg-u-aNwnSdGJqWECy_EeElyaY-88A0CFHGIMBNfPm5x0dRiRKyn10CsgZAmgzQZBl4T0Qg-7y0a91oiy29mD-jkCp4WTtJndXK9grPl1kn-j4ZNHLU7IVunnc/s320/olive48.jpg" border="0" /> <a href="http://www.quillandquire.com/authors/profile.cfm?article_id=2051">Thomas Wharton </a>and Christine Stewart (<a href="http://calgaryblowout.blogspot.com/2008/01/lisa-robertson-and-christine-stewart-at.html">who reads in Calgary this week with Lisa Robertson</a>); Lainna suggested "twins separated at birth," perhaps.<br /><div></div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5157646551189582034" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiu6NIkUieT77kYf7S3aXn7HYjBrA6C9PDDV-12YfTLDlJ7GJPt3oUP1RqMgL7knTTItDgNlmqwH7_vWrCJHFL4lngbbOqXTKXRwIcrCFtf23vScwkX0nA5bzPUnWW7avAJ90VInGFyXnty/s320/olive49.jpg" border="0" /> <a href="http://www.ualberta.ca/~hmacleod/biography.html">Heather MacLeod </a>and unknown; I mean, she's <em>known</em>, I've only met her half a dozen times, but <em>why can't I remember people's names</em>?<br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5157646379390890178" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizKsaBcAneXyfZGhJIrh6GeSwRVTuA_CsuHJ9ittr2aWH2E2YDwCtjzwYaswxDtCFOPvhoY2cOYKkiEP4xyrb0nUfD9nFL_j0mhcPAjElRwKVByAumKaj6_rWeK58Y_xE5imltzg5UVC2t/s320/olive52.jpg" border="0" /> <a href="http://ca.geocities.com/alterra@rogers.com/stew.htm">Christine Stewart </a>[<a href="http://robmclennan.blogspot.com/2007/09/12-or-20-questions-with-christine.html">see her 12 or 20 here</a>] listening to something that <a href="http://robmclennan.blogspot.com/2007/12/ongoing-notes-early-december-2007.html">Trisia Eddy </a>is saying.<br /><div></div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5157646233362002098" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvDIh3p_KIodXws2endF-l5dX7dmdUk8bnC_lmLtLYzy_bTr5LdYP3SK5GYKg2X5owxYLC_nbiVRjQ-Ij9SWJIkSD_p1lpKmI1rDsrdQFxG0zS2Kg9J0EmMHoXoHGXQnfQl_DbLDAyEYdo/s320/olive56.jpg" border="0" /> <a href="http://ca.geocities.com/alterra@rogers.com/csbio1.htm">Christine Stewart </a>(again) and Trisia Eddy (again).<br /><div></div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5157646018613637282" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicniGymdh-Pgko9A1iWe9DQ7K9iPF-LonGOiZupIfTQO8XLQ1Gz-ml5IQCjItBw7mAZTy-VtvN0xddL08Z1kFlszsXYsLgbzhEM1pAA_H5z2x7kvsJamQlg2rYmjfuqHZSJJhdrUEK5az4/s320/olive57.jpg" border="0" /><a href="http://www.contemporaryverse2.ca/vol26_4toc.htm">Winnipeg poet/critic Dennis Cooley </a>[<a href="http://12or20questions.blogspot.com/2007/12/12-or-20-questions-with-dennis-cooley.html">see his 12 or 20 here</a>] and <a href="http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/">Edmonton poet/critic Douglas Barbour </a>[<a href="http://albertawriting.blogspot.com/2007/09/12-or-20-questions-with-douglas-barbour.html">see his 12 or 20 here</a>]; <a href="http://www.antigonishreview.com/bi-146/146-review-rob-mclennan.html">Cooley </a>had actually read <a href="http://www.uap.ualberta.ca/UAP.asp?LID=41&bookID=665">earlier in the afternoon at the University of Alberta</a>, and was nice enough to come by the reading to hang around.<br /><div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5157645855404880018" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7tdDV0A977N_2EUVnFIW1SosRr22h_dTdgQ2Onwav2bOBn4C223MRHxUreVYnSOrGrcw7YV7bh-imya-DbU1OTO2FIyK9PTp5jweRpYOtEr1ZMQoqYx-iDmxoUY29GIe3CwMJUEUBQXaC/s320/olive59.jpg" border="0" /></div>Somewhere else after the reading; the side of <a href="http://www.ascentaspirations.ca/ascentspring2008winners.htm">Trisia Eddy's </a>head and the side of my face at the <a href="http://www.elephantcastle.com/content/locations/edmonton_whyte_ave">Elephant & Castle on Whyte</a>; <em>Trisia was hungry</em>, so we had to get some food.</div><div> </div><div><a href="http://albertawriting.blogspot.com/2008/01/factory-west-reading-series-february-19.html">Information on the next reading here</a>; <em>will we see you there</em>? Aren't you sorry you missed all of <em>this</em>?</div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>rob mclennanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07958889643637765864noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412809965647810701.post-43031723286234643202008-01-16T10:02:00.000-08:002008-12-11T03:10:45.877-08:00The Factory (West) Reading Series, February 19, 2008<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjP98sBIkkX6YX5LJYcoqetFsLW7bnrckPyNbzxng7D3W5SwYBDOWtjpDPwb6IHfBGIG81CpWTT4VJI9Y_lh1d7fT2OkipkEuoMjXp2hSyoXKwPQQ6Ydf0zEUSFrqPC2d-qXR0RQJ1m04c/s1600-h/mall027.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5155871033184252002" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjP98sBIkkX6YX5LJYcoqetFsLW7bnrckPyNbzxng7D3W5SwYBDOWtjpDPwb6IHfBGIG81CpWTT4VJI9Y_lh1d7fT2OkipkEuoMjXp2hSyoXKwPQQ6Ydf0zEUSFrqPC2d-qXR0RQJ1m04c/s320/mall027.jpg" border="0" /></a>a reading series<em> <strong>lovingly hosted by rob mclennan</strong></em> during his tenure as <a href="http://www.humanities.ualberta.ca/english/WIR.html">writer-in-residence at the University of Alberta</a> (2007-8); the name <strong>"Factory (West)"</strong> refers to the fact that I have been running readings for years in Ottawa since 1995 that now exist under the title <a href="http://www.ottawaartgallery.ca/factoryreadingseries/index-en.php">The Factory Reading Series, held regularly(ish) at the Ottawa Art Gallery</a>;<br /><div></div><br /><div>a variety of poetry and fiction (etcetera) presented on the third Tuesday of every month from January to May, 2008 in the Underdog (downstairs) at <a href="http://www.blackdog.ca/">The Black Dog Freehouse</a>, 10425-82 Avenue, Edmonton AB; <strong>[<em>venue change, this event only</em>; <a href="http://www.cafeselect.ca/">Cafe Select, upstairs, 8404-109th Street</a>]</strong></div><br /><div></div><div><strong>doors 7pm; readings 7:30pm</strong></div><br /><div><strong></strong></div><div><strong>The second reading will be happening on Tuesday, February 19</strong></div><br /><div></div><div><strong>with readings by:</strong></div><div><br /><blockquote><strong>Diane Cameron<br />Kristy McKay<br />Natalie Simpson<br />+ Janice Williamson<br /></strong></blockquote><strong></strong></div><div><strong></strong></div><div><strong>author bios:</strong></div><br /><div><strong></strong></div><div><strong>Diane Cameron</strong> is currently attending the University of Alberta for a combined program in English and Creative Writing. She lives in a ridiculously small apartment in Edmonton with her bad-ass cat and a large collection of books. She currently works as a cocktail waitress to support her furthering education. In her spare time she is a prolific reader, and likes to write, play guitar, jog, and take in some good live theatre. She currently has one publication in the November addition of <em><a href="http://www.ois.ualberta.ca/nav03.cfm?nav03=61944&nav02=61089&nav01=58630">Fait Accomplit</a></em>.<br /><br /><a href="http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=58351714"><strong>K.L. McKay</strong> </a>is originally from the North Shore of Lake Superior. After a long stay in Ottawa, she now resides in Edmonton, where she is completing her MA in Comparative Literature at the University of Alberta. In the spring of 2007 she attended <a href="http://www.banffcentre.ca/writing/">The Banff Centre for the Arts Writing Studio</a>. Poems she worked on there are included in the anthology <em>The Hoo Doo That You Do So Well</em> (<a href="http://littlefishcartpress.ca/">littlefishcartpress</a>). A chapbook collection of her poems, <em>Barefoot Through the Pickybushes</em>, was released in October 2005 (<a href="http://www.fridaycircle.uottawa.ca/">University of Ottawa Friday Circle imprint</a>). Other publications have appeared in <em>Tempu</em>s (<a href="http://www.rubiconpress.org/">Rubicon Press</a>), <em><a href="http://www.ottawater.com/">Ottawater 3.0</a></em>, <a href="http://www.bywords.ca/"><em>Bywords</em> </a>and <a href="http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=45271525">Pooka Press</a>. Since 2003 she is the founding editor of <em>Spire Poetry Poster</em> (<a href="http://www.spirepoetry.com/"><em>spirepoetry.com</em></a>). She is a member of <a href="http://www.apirg.org/wg/olive.php">the Olive Reading Series Collective</a>.<br /><br /><strong>Natalie Simpson’s</strong> [<a href="http://12or20questions.blogspot.com/2008/01/12-or-20-questions-with-natalie-simpson.html">see her 12 or 20 questions here</a>] first collection of poetry, <em><a href="http://www.nataliesimpson.blogspot.com/">accrete or crumble</a></em>, was published by <a href="http://www.westcoastline.ca/linebooks.htm">LINEbooks </a>in 2006. She has also published chapbooks through <a href="http://www.commutiny.net/micropress/micropressay-end.html">housepress</a>, <a href="http://individual.utoronto.ca/betts/eng356/ryan_fitzpatrick.htm">MODL press</a>, <a href="http://www.abovegroundpress.blogspot.com/">above/ground press</a>, <a href="http://calgaryblowout.blogspot.com/2005/12/no-press-year-in-review.html">NO press</a>, and edits all over. More of her poetry can be found in <a href="http://www.ottawaxpress.ca/books/books.aspx?iIDArticle=8153"><em>Shift & Switch: New Canadian Poetry</em> </a>(The Mercury Press) and <a href="http://www.talonbooks.com/index.cfm?event=titleDetails&ISBN=0889225230"><em>Post-Prairie: An Anthology of New Poetry</em> </a>(Talonbooks). Natalie is a former managing editor of <a href="http://www.fillingstation.ca/"><em>filling Station</em> </a>magazine, and she lives in Calgary, and her chapbook <em>Dirty Work</em> was recently reissued as part of the <a href="http://www.abovegroundpress.blogspot.com/">above/ground press ALBERTA SERIES</a>.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.arts.ualberta.ca/~jwilliam/moi.html"><strong>Janice Williamson</strong> </a>writes and teaches in Edmonton. Her work in progress is on adoption and mothering. Past publications include documentary, memoir, poetry, interviews and fiction.</div><br /><div></div><div><em>For further information, email rob mclennan at az421(at)freenet(dot)carleton(dot)ca</em></div><br /><div></div><div><em>further readings:</em></div><div>March 18; readers tba</div><div>April 15; readings by <a href="http://jacketmagazine.com/28/mink-cain.html">Kim Minkus </a>(Vancouver), <a href="http://www.ualberta.ca/~ulec/stus/kostash-bio.html">Myrna Kostash </a>+ tba</div><div>May 20; readings by tba</div><br /><div></div><div><a href="http://robmclennan.blogspot.com/2007/12/factory-west-reading-series-reading.html"><em>previous readings</em></a>:</div>rob mclennanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07958889643637765864noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412809965647810701.post-70457264327781770782008-01-15T10:11:00.000-08:002008-01-15T11:13:04.539-08:00In Conversation: Kimmy Beach and Shawna Lemay<span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">What follows is a conversation between <a href="http://albertawriting.blogspot.com/2007/11/12-or-20-questions-with-shawna-lemay.html">myself</a> and <a href="http://albertawriting.blogspot.com/2007/09/12-or-20-questions-with-kimmy-beach.html">Kimmy Beach </a>that took place over email mainly in the month of December, 2007. </span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Shawna,</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">I was rereading <a href="http://albertawriting.blogspot.com/2007/07/conversation-between-ki-press-and-rob.html">rob's informal discussion about geography and writing with K. I. Press</a>, and he seems to have hit upon that great unanswerable question of writing in a particular location: "What does it mean to be an Alberta writer?" Put another way, <a href="http://www.amazon.ca/Likely-Story-Robert-Kroetsch/dp/0889951039">Robert Kroetsch, in A Likely Story</a>, says that he is "asking how the plains or the prairies enable us to recognize ourselves as writers [and] enable us to write" (73). Of course, in typical Kroetschian fashion, he does nothing to answer his own question, but leaves the answer (if there is one) to the reader. </span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">I don't find myself spending a great deal of time thinking about what it means to be an Alberta writer, so this idea has got me thinking about place and my place in that place. I know, solidly, that I am from here, that I live here, and that I will always come back here. It has less to do with the landscape itself (though I love it), but with the people I want near me. The majority of the people I love are in Alberta, most accessible within a few hours drive. I love people in B.C., Saskatchewan, Ontario, Liverpool, London, China, and Cape Town, South Africa as well, but these people are not accessible, physically, in a way that my Alberta people are. If a place is defined by its people (and I believe that to be absolutely true), then Alberta, for me, is a composite of the people I love and need to have near me.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">I spend a great deal of time traipsing through the <a href="http://www.city.red-deer.ab.ca/Connecting+with+Your+City/City+Services+and+Departments/Recreation+Parks+and+Culture/default.htm">park system of Red Deer</a>. The parks run the length and breadth of our city: a wise and forward-thinking decision on the part of the city's founders, and there exists a complex network of nearly unspoiled wilderness areas connected through the city by a maze of concrete bike trails and foot paths. I know that this kind of park system exists in very few urban places on earth, and I'm protective and proud of it. That said, I feel as close to the trails north of <a href="http://www.stpetersabbey.ca/">St. Peter's Abbey in Muenster</a>, Saskatchewan and know them just as well. Does it make me less of an Albertan because I love walking through the woods of Saskatchewan as well? I don't think so. I don't want to say that I'm part of the landscape of central Alberta (a home Kroetsch and I share, and, as he has pointed out, is parkland not prairie), as that sort of assertion invites all kinds of accusations of cliché. What I will say is that anytime I am away from Alberta, the sight of the Welcome to Alberta sign on whatever highway I'm on gives my heart a little thrill. Home! I can't explain the province's hold on me other than to say that when I'm away, I miss it (no matter how exotic a place I find myself in), and when I'm here, I am home. I am careful to point out to people who find Alberta less than desirable (usually people not from here), that it's kind of rude and Grade 4 to make fun of other people's stuff and that I wouldn't do the same to them. Sometimes we end up playing on opposite sides of the sandbox, but I'll stick up for Alberta any old time. Anyone from away who wastes my valuable time telling me everything that's wrong with Alberta doesn't get to come to my birthday party anyway.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Is it possible to be a writer and an Albertan, but not to identify as an Alberta Writer primarily in one's work? I think so. My second and fourth books are set in Alberta for the most part, but my first doesn't mention my home province at all, and my third exists mainly in the U.K. of the past. I do not spend time writing about things that are particularly "Albertan." My concerns in my work are my characters and the (mostly indoor) experiences they have. I have attempted, in my career, not to fall into the regionalism that rob and Karen talk about in their informal discussion. My books strive to have a wider appeal than the idea of "Alberta." That concern is not motivated by potential book sales outside of my region, but by a desire to look at my characters as people who can exist outside of a particular "place". </span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">I wonder if it's important as some think it is to have this discussion at all. As a person, I identify as Albertan, through and through, but I do most of my writing in central Saskatchewan, and my books are published in Winnipeg. I don't identify in any way as a Winnipeg writer, as I've maybe spent two weeks there in my entire life. I also don't see myself as a Saskatchewan writer, though I spend months there every year generating new work. I love Saskatchewan, but I'm always anxious to get home to Alberta. No matter where I write (Saskatchewan, Greece, Liverpool, Grande Cache), I write from the Alberta in me: the Alberta into which I was born. Do we not take our home with us when we travel, when we write elsewhere?</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Kimmy</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Kimmy,</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">I couldn't agree more, that it's possible to be a writer and live in Alberta, and not self-identify as an Alberta Writer. I also know that this line of thinking isn't popular in every quarter. This was evident to me when reviews of <em>Against Paradise</em> came out. Amid generally positive reviews, there was the one by someone thought of as a Quintessential Alberta Writer, who was not willing to travel, shall we say. I could be wrong but it seemed to me that the subtext of his dislike for the book was that he'd have to know something about Venice, somewhere other than where he very firmly was. (He was also angry that the cover was beautifully designed and didn't have a mountain scene or wheat field on it I have a feeling). Some days I think maybe it's a precarious place to be writing from, Alberta. My first two books were published in the east - Montreal and Toronto. I was treated like gold by my publishers - can't speak highly enough of them. And maybe I'm imagining things but I did feel some tiny bits of resentment (yes, I'm sure I'm imagining that) at the time from some of the writing community back home - though certainly not from my friends. Maybe I mention all this precariousness, or seeming precariousness, because I haven't figured out my place in the Alberta writing scene, or if I even have one, though this is mostly because I'm first and foremost <a href="http://www.hermitary.com/">an apprentice recluse</a>.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">While my first two books were about things, and places, works of art, that were usually outside Alberta - I came to them from the point of view of looking from outside the so-called center. My last book of poetry, which exists only as a bound M.A. thesis, <em>Red Velvet Fo</em>rest, is completely informed by the landscape of my childhood and also my current landscape. I wandered the forest on our farm near Lake Isle quite constantly as a child, and that is the home in my heart, my soul-home, if you will. Today I live on a house near a major highway. So noisy! Out my study window I can see the utilities corridor, and I walk out there nearly every day. It's a remnant forest, a residue, a faint echo of my childhood landscape. There are a few stands of trees, the half wild, half planted field with foot paths through where people walk their dogs. It's a pretty interesting place. There's a duck pond, and some brush where grouse hide out. There used to be rabbits, but the coyotes feasted on them. Walking, one has to keep an eye out for the coyotes, because they're hungry, mangy looking, trapped feeling and will stalk. </span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">For me, Kristjana Gunnar's essay, "Poetry and the Idea of Home" captures my feelings on finding a place in the world as a writer. She says, "Home is a 'mystery' that exists inside the poet's sense of longing." Maybe when I have written about art or the forest, I am mainly tracing my sense of longing, both for the forest of my childhood, that wildness, and also for the great museums of Europe, and particularly Italy. But more important than a place, I find it essential to be alone and silent, and to connect with writing that comes from a similar stance. Gunnars quotes <a href="http://www.hermitary.com/solitude/merton.html">Merton</a>: "It is necessary to be alone, to be not part of this, to be in the exile of silence, to be in a manner of speaking a political prisoner." Is it possible to have lived in Alberta all of one's life, as I have, and to relate to it as a chosen exile of silence? Maybe it's possible to say this only because I exist in a position of privilege that I can more or less take for granted? </span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Shawna</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Shawna,</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">I ran into the same thing you describe regarding reviews with narrow outlooks with my third book, fake Paul. It seemed to me that while most reviewers "got it", a couple were put off by the decidedly "away" tone of the book. I pride myself on my research for my books, and I believe that it's necessary to travel (whether through books, videos, or actually going) to the place about which one is writing. For that book, I went back to Liverpool for a week, having not been there for five years. I'd been there several times in my life, but never for the purposes of collecting infomation about what the Bold street market smells like, and how the benches on the <a href="http://www.merseyferries.co.uk/">Mersey Ferry </a>feel on a rainy day. Those kinds of details are very important to my work, and I am so meticulous in order to make my reader feel okay and still feel like reading the book even if they have never travelled to Liverpool. Perhaps I escaped your critic's cover issues, as the cover of that book featured a man from Alberta, though he resembles Paul McCartney quite uncannily.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">I understand the precariousness you describe, although I don't feel that it applies to me. Though all of my books are published in Winnipeg, I don't sense any resentment from the local community because of it. I think it has partly to do with the fact that my publisher supports my Alberta activities. They send me hither and yon, they're always up for tossing a few bucks my way for wine at a Red Deer launch, and they never fail to send cards of support. I suppose that I have figured out where I belong on the writing landscape, and that's in the Alberta that's in me, as I mentioned in my earlier note.<br /></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Where you say you are an "apprentice recluse", my M.O. is community getting-out-there-ness and trying to raise the profile of the writing scene in my town. Though it's already very vibrant (we've had everyone from Michael Ondaatje to John Lent to Robert Kroetsch come through our city), every writing scene needs work and a higher profile. I'm fiercely protective of my town and how it fits into the centre of the province, and I work very hard to ensure that people speak of Red Deer and the arts with respect and an appreciation of what we've accomplished in this relatively small city in a relatively short time. A lot of that is due to the efforts of the late Birk Sproxton, whose work we now all strive to carry on down here. There are a few writers from away who hate it here and have no problem publicly saying how much they hate it. I've never understood that but my feeling is that those people should stop reading here and just carry on up or down the QE2. </span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Your view as an outsider looking into the centre is one I occasionally share: certainly in my first book, <em>Nice Day for Murder: poems for James Cagney</em>, and in my third, <em>fake Paul</em>. But the idea of Alberta (or growing up and working in Alberta) are central to <em>Alarum Within: theatre poems</em> and <em>in Cars</em>. In those books, my personal experience is the meat of the material. I speak from a knowledgeable place in both of them, as they are based (very loosely) on particular events in my own life. Having said that, though, the themes are not limited to Alberta. Theatre takes place everywhere, and teenagers grow up and suffer loss on every corner of the planet. My intent is not be "universal" in these books, but I think they do stretch outside the borders of my province - or at least I hope they do.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Gunnars' sentiments about "longing" and "mystery" don't resonate with me as a poet. The text I refer to most when thinking about all things writing is <em>A Likely Sto</em>ry by Robert Kroetsch. Kroetsch proposes a poetics of listening and noticing and asking the right questions of people one encounters. I like that better than the ideas of longing and mystery, as I feel that my work is solidly grounded (too grounded for some critics; I'm often accused of tipping over into prose). My poetics follow Kroetsch's more closely than they do Gunnars', and I work toward a conscious noticing of the world. After all, that's where the poetry is: in the noticing. I think so, anyway. </span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">To address your concern about the possibility of taking privilege for granted, I think that to fight against that is to deny the world where poetry is waiting to be found. I live where I live, privileged or no. I know that we live in a wealthy province and occasionally, I feel that that's the rub where a lot of critics of Alberta are concerned. But quite honestly, I write anyway, without taking that into account. My latest book, <em>in Cars</em>, is stuffed full of gas-guzzling muscle cars owned by privileged kids who seem to have no visible means of support, but I did that on purpose. I wanted the world I created for that book to both reflect my growing up and to not reflect anything real at all. There is no world where an entire generation of kids can keep their big cars gassed up without ever having to go to work. I tried to create an Alberta that never existed and I hope I've been successful. I love my province with my whole heart (warts and all), it's not difficult for me to write and rewrite its past (however disguised), while keeping open its place in my heart and in my history.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Kimmy</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Kimmy,</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">This is an important part of my work as well - listening and noticing. But for me these are directly linked to the mystery and longing! I want to know why we see things the way we do, the 'how' of seeing. In the end, I only have questions. But the way I see the world is connected to where I sit, whether I like it or not. All I can do is let it all filter into what I write, be open to that process. I'm often thinking of the Dutch 17th century still lifes, that tell all these stories of trade and wealth and the domestic life, the everyday life, without exactly setting out to tell them. Or maybe they were. I know Rob, my husband, is always considering where the objects come from in his still lifes. How you can set up a still life in the middle of winter with all these exotic fruits and flowers. What does this tell about our position in the world? I think it adds layers of meanings, nuances, when one is sensitive to where things come from and how they get there. </span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">I think that when you notice the world you live in, let that filter into your work, stories are told that are beyond you. What I love about this place we live in, is that two writers like us can connect. While some readers might see our work as quite different from each other, we really have a lot of common ground. I mean, the details in your latest book are incredible. While I'm intent on observing an apple or pomegranate, you capture the nuances of a pair of rollerskates and also locate them in a time and place with incredible precision. I think both of our approaches though, speak to the freedom we have as writers. Is that due to the fact that we live in Alberta? or Canada? I don't know.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">I do feel grateful for the education that I received here. I wonder what type of writer I would have become had I not had the opportunity to go to the U of A? I know that I developed in certain ways thanks to that education. I feel a huge debt to so many of the professors there, not only the creative writing instructors. But the courses I took with Doug Barbour, Kristjana Gunnars, Greg Hollingshead and Bert Almon were formative. My first writing group emerged from a class with Bert, and I wrote my first book with them. These things are huge. Then you and I ended up meeting in the next incarnation of that group of which Bert was also a member. I can't say what an Alberta writer is, but I can say what a supportive, encouraging group of people they are in my experience. </span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Shawna</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Shawna,</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Thanks for the kind words about my work. And I agree that our work is different, but in some ways, it's the noticing we share that connects us. You are twice the poet I am in terms of the craft of poetry, while I focus on the precision of detail you mention. Surely that doesn't make us Albertan, or locate us in any place at all except inside the moment of the work.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">I feel exactly as you do regarding the excellent education I received at the University of Alberta. For one thing, we met because of our shared history there and that's extremely valuable to me. The more we discuss this idea of place, of Alberta, of the education and friendships we have here, the less I understand about it all. Would we not have had an equally valuable education elsewhere? My meaning is that while I live here, I'm looking so forward to going to a yearly writers' colony in Saskatchewan in February. I do realize that it's the atmosphere, the shared writing life of the participants, and the fact that I know I can write out there, but it's clearly away. Why the need to go away? I don't try to explain it; I just do it because it works.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">I'll be travelling to many rural Alberta libraries over the next few months as part of my work as Writer in Residence, and the experience I'm looking most forward to is the exploration of the main streets of tiny towns I've never seen. There is nothing so terrific (to my mind) as finding an amazing treasure of a place an hour's drive from my home. So, in every sense, I am Albertan, and by necessity, that has to extend to my identity as a writer as well.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><br />Yer pal,<br />Kimmy<br /><br />Kimmy<br />I think this has been a wonderful opportunity to think about place - something, as you mentioned at the beginning of this conversation, that we ordinarily don't spend a great deal of time pondering. In retrospect I wonder what it might have revealed about us as Alberta writers had we simply discussed what it is to be a writer? I have a feeling our ongoing conversation (the one that occurs over <a href="http://www.hotelsbycity.net/blog/can_alberta_edmonton/wp-content/uploads/2007/02/img_0941_1.JPG">bacon and eggs </a>in cheesy diners, and Chinese food restaurants, and over email...) is only going to deepen....<br />in friendship,<br />Shawna</span><br /><br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412809965647810701.post-7230724582979542672008-01-11T12:43:00.003-08:002008-12-11T03:10:46.180-08:0012 or 20 questions: with Christine Wiesenthal<a href="http://www.poets.ca/Linktext/direct/wiesenth.htm"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5154332751992483746" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitZQ7bYLgvgIDk6ZAAj0rLi71FJKOWkuW83nPhYwJkOm4WIq9rueOqEkyEiJ4ZgStqpbMaQ98KVIFd0YSb7PFaygwExX2kU5z7Tgl_ONQeNk07_t1Nv_UpeDoB9DAvqmpDARnLfR5gG5_l/s320/Chris_Wesenthal.jpg" border="0" /><strong>Christine Wiesenthal</strong> </a>is a <a href="http://www.janushead.org/9-2/Wiesenthal.pdf">poet</a>, <a href="http://www.uofaweb.ualberta.ca/arts/news.cfm?story=40590">biographer</a>, and literary critic whose most recent books include <a href="http://www.antigonishreview.com/bi-131/131-review-ruth-panofsky.html"><em>Instruments of Surrender</em> </a>(<a href="http://www.buschekbooks.com/authors.html">BuschekBooks</a>, 2001) and <a href="http://www.utppublishing.com/pubstore/merchant.ihtml?pid=8228&step=4"><em>The Half-Lives of Pat Lowther</em> </a>(UTP, 2005). Her poetry has appeared in numerous literary magazines including <em><a href="http://www.lib.unb.ca/Texts/Fiddlehead/">Fiddlehead</a></em>, <em><a href="http://www.geist.com/">Geist</a></em> and <a href="http://www.quillandquire.com/reviews/review.cfm?review_id=4500"><em>In Fine Form: Canadian Form Poetry</em> </a>(eds. <a href="http://www.danforthreview.com/features/interviews/shreve_braid.htm">Kate Braid and Sandy Shreve</a>), and she has also contributed interviews to collections such as <a href="http://www.nightwoodeditions.com/excerpt/WheretheWordsComeFrom/webonly/255">Tim Bowling's <em>Where the Words Come From: Canadian Poets in Conversation </em></a>(with <a href="http://www.library.utoronto.ca/canpoetry/page/">P.K. Page</a>). <a href="http://www.booksincanada.com/article_view.asp?id=3499"><em>Instruments of Surrender</em> </a>was shortlisted for the <a href="http://www.placesforwriters.com/awards.html">Stephan G. Stephannson </a>and <a href="http://www.poets.ca/linktext/awards/lampert.htm">Gerald Lampert Poetry Awards </a>in 2001 and 2002; <a href="http://www.canlit.ca/reviews-review.php?id=13153"><em>The Half-Lives of Pat Lowther</em> </a>was awarded the <a href="http://www.cha-shc.ca/english/activ/prizes_prix/clio.cfm">Canadian Historical Association's Clio Prize for British Columbia in 2005</a>, and shortlisted for the 2006 Governor General's Literary Award for Nonfiction.<br /><div></div><br /><div><strong>1 - How did your first book change your life?</strong><br /><br />My first book was a critical monograph, on representations of madness in nineteenth-century literature. I think what it did, in effect, was give me "permission" to turn back to the creative writing I'd put on hold while working on my academic degrees. Suddenly I discovered a lot of pent-up creative energy -- and so my next book was a collection of poems.<br /><br /><strong>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?</strong></div><br /><div><a href="http://www.humanities.ualberta.ca/english/full.html">I have lived in Edmonton</a>, on and off, since 1989, which amazes me! Two brief out-migrations, to Halifax and Winnipeg, but I've always managed to come back. I like the city, and it has long since felt like a good home. <a href="http://www.activedmonton.ca/how_active/river_valley">The river valley parks and ravines are Edmonton's best feature</a>; I hope new developments don't ever encroach on these green spaces. </div><br /><div>As for the impact of geography, yes, that's there in both my poetry and nonfiction -- the badlands, the prairies, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Winnipeg">Lake Winnipeg</a>, local flora and fauna in my poems; the West Coast in my <a href="http://www.library.utoronto.ca/canpoetry/lowther/index.htm">biography of Pat Lowther </a>-- whose physical world also figured sensuously in her writing. But I think <a href="http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/31">Charles Wright </a>says it best in one of his poems from <em><a href="http://www.powells.com/biblio?isbn=0374254273">Scar Tissue</a></em>, "The Minor Art of Self-Defense": "Landscape was never a subject matter, it was a technique/ a method of measure/ a scaffold for structuring." I'm intrigued by that idea of landscape as a "scaffold for structuring" some other understory about experience and language. </div><br /><div>And lived experience is always inflected by aspects of identity such as gender, race, ethnicity, age, religion, etc., isn't it? I grew up in the seventies when sexual double standards were still pretty obnoxiously obvious and enforced. (Which is not to say they don't still exist today.) Poems like "The Laundry Cycle" from <a href="http://www.poets.ca/pshstore/profile_book.asp?ISBN=1894543076"><em>Instruments of Surrender</em> </a>recalland question that whole adolescent experience of being trained in the "arts" of domestic femininity, and of gender roles more generally. <a href="http://www.canadianencyclopedia.ca/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=A1ARTA0004794">Pat Lowther </a>was also a feminist poet, and gender politics are a central theme of that book, <em><a href="http://www.straight.com/article/the-half-lives-of-pat-lowther-by-christine-wiesenthal">The Half-Lives of Pat Lowther</a></em>, as well. </div><br /><div><strong>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?</strong><br /><br />For me, a poem usually starts as a resonant line, phrase, or image. It sticks with me as an insistent sort of wish -- to exfoliate or grow into something fuller, awhole poem, a complete emotion/image complex, a larger "scaffold" to recall <a href="http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/s_z/c_wright/c_wright.htm">Wright</a>. Sometimes that development happens right away; sometimes I have to leave my fragments lie about for a year or more before I can hear or see what they want to yield, if anything. Concept poems -- "hey, why don't you write a poem about X or Y" -- rarely work for me. </div><br /><div>My process is similarly inductive for larger projects. Start with small pieces that at some point group or gather into constellations that suggest a larger picture. This is true for my nonfiction as well as poetry. I mean, I knew that I intended to write a whole book on <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_Lowther">Pat Lowther </a>when I started, but it wasn't until I had done a lot of gathering and fiddling with little pieces of the puzzle --until I hit upon a central organizing metaphor for the book -- that I knew HOW it could work as a book. I remember the moment that idea came to me. We were driving across the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Level_Bridge_(Edmonton)">High Level Bridge</a>, on our way to <a href="http://www.audreysbooks.com/">Audrey's Books </a>to hear <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Stenson_(writer)">Fred Stenson </a>read from <em><a href="http://www.douglas-mcintyre.com/book/9781550548167">The Trade</a></em>. I said to my husband, hey, what about this idea of the half-life? He heard me out, then said, "I think you're onto something. Go for it." So good to have a patient and trustworthy sounding board at exactly the minute you need to try and articulate some inchoate flashes of thought!<br /><br /><strong>4 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process?</strong><br /><br />Depends on whether those readings are mine or not! Good readings by other authors are a cherished part of my process -- nothing more stimulating than hearing work that impresses/moves/stuns you. Readings like that often make me want to go right home and start writing. And often I do, if only journal entries on the reading event I've just attended. </div><br /><div>My own readings, on the other hand, are somewhat counter -- if not to my process, then certainly to the inclination of my personality. Though I teach for a living, which obviously involves routine public performance, I am at heart a pretty shy introvert. I like writing my work much more than reading my work in public. That said, I can't say I've ever regretted any reading I've agreed to do. They've often proven a lot more fun and rewarding in the end than I'm willing to imagine beforehand. (Guess that makes me a pessimist, too.)</div><br /><div><strong>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?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div>[I would have to write a dissertation if I tried to answerthis one, so I'm going to skip it!]<br /><br /><strong>6 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?<br /></strong></div><br /><div>Depends on the editor, the level of difficulty, I suppose, but I'd have to say it's an essential part of the process, even when work has been workshopped prior to publication. Getting someone else's fresh eyes/ears to inhabit your work is invaluable, even when the feedback may be unwelcome. It forces you to go back and figure out what you're ready to change, or not, and why. I find that can be the most taxing phase of writing, though: you're already exhausted from having written a book, and then you have to have another go at it.... sometimes you feel like you never want to see the damn thing again by the time it's all over.<br /><br /><strong>7 - After having published a couple of titles over the past few years, do you find the process of book-making harder or easier?</strong><br /></div><br /><div>Harder. Because who wants to write the same book, or even poem, twice? And I don't know why, but it seems to take more and more extreme measures and efforts to clear out and protect time for research/writing -- perhaps a symptom of of our 24/7 wired connectivity, in part.<br /><br /><strong>8 - When was the last time you ate a pear?</strong></div><br /><div>I am not a fan of the pear. They bruise too easily when ripe, and are woody if you try to eat them before they get that soft. I have the same bias against bananas, which I will only eat if sliced up in fruit salad, and then sparingly. Give me just about any other kind of fruit, though, especially cherries and berries.<br /><br /><strong>9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?</strong><br /></div><div>Well, one such nugget comes indirectly to me from <a href="http://www.leonardcohen.com/">Leonard Cohen's </a>"<a href="http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/leonardcohen/anthem.html">Anthem</a>": "<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2PqbZ_-4p8">Forget your perfect offering/ There is a crack in everything/ That's how the light gets in</a>." A reminder for fuss-budgets that imperfections can also reveal beauty, value.<br /><br /><strong>10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to non-fiction)? What do you see as the appeal?</strong></div><br /><div>The move from poetry to <a href="http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/victorian_poetry/v039/39.3wiesenthal.html">nonfiction</a> felt smooth for me, perhaps because (and this was part of the appeal), the nonfiction biography project was about a poet and poetry. Good prose can be poetic, anyway. Prose is so capacious: it can handle so many different modes and voices. The move back to poetry now, more recently, has felt tougher, partially because it takes time and energy to tap into that left brain unconscious (or whatever it is) that speaks in a real voice. I think it was <a href="http://www.harpercollins.ca/geddes/default.asp">Gary Geddes</a>, when <a href="http://robmclennan.blogspot.com/2007/11/readings-in-edmonton-again-past-few.html">he gave a reading here recently</a>, who said he'd given up on the lyric form because it was too exhausting: every lyric is a little world re-invented from the ground up. Finding time for sustained writing of my own is my biggest challenge at the moment -- as it usually is for so many of us, right?<br /><br /><strong>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?</strong><br /><br />I don't really adhere to a writing "routine." I cram it in where and when possible. If I'm really going on something, almost everything else will give way to the writing --first and foremost being sleep, house work, socializing etc. I tend to write at night, but again, if I'm in serious production mode, I can work for long stretches, morning, afternoon, evening, night. Bit compulsive that way, I've been told. </div><br /><div>I do, however, adhere to a yoga practice that is more "routine" than my writing life, and any typical day for me begins with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Tibetan_Rites">Tibetan Rites</a>, a short series of exercises that get the kinks out and stretch me out a little.<br /></div><div><strong>12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?</strong></div><br /><div>To other writing, books and authors that I admire. And also to my journals, where all the raw material and fragments that would otherwise go forgotten get scribbled down. Sometimes returning to that source material serves as a trigger for new work. </div><br /><div>And sometimes I just go for a long walk, or do something physical, like go for a bike ride or (usually) do some yoga. On that note, I don't think "inspiration," the intake of breath, is such a bad word....<br /><br /><strong>13 - How does your most recent book compare to your previous work? How does it feel different?</strong><br /><br />Every one of my books so far has been in a different genre -- critical monograph, poetry, biography. So I'm one of those jacks of all trades, master of none. The biography was unlike anything I'd ever attempted before. Had I known, in fact, how much work it would actually involve, I may not have tried it. It was different in that it involved different sorts of research that stretched me in new ways. I spent a lot of time doing stuff like trying to track people and things down; interviewing people; visiting places that had been important to <a href="http://www.brocku.ca/canadianwomenpoets/Lowther.htm">Pat or her family</a>; walking around Vancouver endlessly, and usually in the rain, of course. It was a very active and immersing research experience. Evenwhen I took a break and went to the art gallery, say, the things I would be looking at would connect in some way to <a href="http://www.abcbookworld.com/?state=view_author&author_id=2944">Pat's history </a>and world, generating new ideas. The writing of the book also demanded a kind of balancing act between narrative and analysis that I found challenging: how to keep the momentum of a life story going, but also do the work of literary biography and cultural history.<br /><br /><strong>14 - <a href="http://www.library.utoronto.ca/canpoetry/mcfadden/poems.htm">David W. McFadden </a>once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?</strong></div><br /><div>All the above, in terms of content or substance. In terms of form, science provided the crucial metaphors for the structure of my biography, especially in <a href="http://www.colorado.edu/physics/2000/isotopes/radioactive_decay3.html">the notion of the half-life</a>. But I also read a lot about theoretical physics for that book, which is really fascinating stuff. It eventually also informed my re-thinking of linear narrative time, chronology, etc.<br /><br /><strong>15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?</strong><br /><br />I was trained as a <a href="http://www.victorianweb.org/vn/litov.html">Victorian scholar</a>, and I still love to go back and read nineteenth-century literature, including works in translation like the <em><a href="http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/hfs.cgi/00/1014.ctl">Tales </a>of </em><a href="http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/hoffman.htm"><em>E.T.A. Hoffman</em></a>. I always have some history and biography books on the go --most recently, some histories of Berlin and of Germany after <a href="http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005141">the fall of the Third Reich</a>. And <a href="http://www.contemporarywriters.com/authors/?p=auth123">Claire Tomalin's </a>most excellent biography of <a href="http://www.pepysdiary.com/">Samuel Pepys</a>, <a href="http://www.penguin.ca/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9780140282344,00.html">a book I was sorry to finish</a>.</div><br /><div>And when I need a break from too much text and too much thinking, trash magazines are my favorite little indulgence, the trashier the better.<br /><br /><strong>16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?</strong><br /></div><div>At least two projects in two different genres. But I'm too superstitious to commit them to print here: it could jinx them. (See "pessismism," above.)<br /><br /><strong>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?</strong></div><br /><div>I like to delude myself by thinking it'd be something outdoorsy and tough, like being a park warden or a rancher. (I have a color advertising poster in my writing study with pictures of glorious ranch vistas and the heading, IMAGINE: YOUR OWN RANCH.") The sad reality, though, is that I am too much of a citified wimp to take that sort of work on. Besides which, I have a healthy fear of the wilderness and break out in hives on contact with most animals, horses included. So, so much for my fantasy life. But I do really like being active outside and in rural/natural places, as often as possible -- even if it's just messing around in my back yard or gardens at home. </div><br /><div>Either that, or, if I had a scientific bone in my body, a geologistor an archeologist. I have a friend who works as an editor for professional geologists and she says the writing is really boring -- totally technical. But I love rocks and old things, and have this glamorized idea of people who get to head off to remote and lovely places to dig around and do "field work." What fun!</div><br /><div><strong>18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?</strong><br /><br />That's a really good question, because I grew up drawing and sketching almost as much as writing poems and stories and journals. I don't know at what point exactly, or why, I stopped using my sketch book and focussed on writing -- I think it must have been around the time I started university -- my studies were all book and reading oriented. But my partner, Brad, last year bought me a sketch book when my writing got stalled. I think I've been afraid to use it, because it's sitting there almost untouched, except for a few doodles. . . </div><br /><div><strong>19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?<br /></div></strong><div>This summer I finally got around to reading <a href="http://web.eku.edu/flash/inferno/">Dante's <em>Inferno</em></a>. It's <a href="http://www.nybooks.com/shop/product?usca_p=t&product_id=4153">Ciaran Carson's translation</a>, which some people object to for it's anachronistic contemporization of <a href="http://www.everypoet.com/Archive/poetry/dante/dante_contents.htm">Dante's language</a>, but which I found playful and inventive. I also have <a href="http://bostonreview.net/BR18.1/dante.html">Pinksy's translation </a>lying around here somewhere; maybe this summer, I'll read that version and compare. What an incredible book. Both terrifying and hilarious in its visionary power. I mean, the precision of the architecture of Hell is incredible! -- Not just the <a href="http://www.divinecomedy.org/">Nine Circles</a>, but all the ditches, zones and "arrondissments" of each circle, all for separate shades of sinners. And the description of the City of Dis is the stuff of nightmares. Dante would have made one hell of an urban planner, pardon the pun. </div><br /><div>As for films, "great" might be stretching it, but the German film, <em><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0405094/">The Lives of Others</a></em>, impressed me deeply. It's about the culture of espionage and political paranoia in communist East Germany -- and about the power of perception, especially perceptions of betrayal. It's also about a silent sort of heroism and gratitude that are vastly under-rated in our contemporary Western, especially North American, culture. Maybe this film also resonated for me because of my family history --I had a great aunt, whom I never met, who was caught in East Berlin when the wall went up. Her three sisters had all moved to Western sectors of the city in time, but she lived and died there alone. Although I passed through East Berlin and communist East Germany several times as a teenager and young woman, I had no real sense of what it might be like to live there, based on those visits, or the rumors swapped by my relatives in West Germany. It wasn't exactly a place Westerners dallied or got off the beaten path. It just struck me as incredibly dreary and depressing: grey and run down. Also scary. The border guards and inspections at places like <a href="http://www.dailysoft.com/berlinwall/history/checkpoint-charlie.htm">Checkpoint Charlie </a>were really unnerving at times.<br /><br /><strong>20 - What are you currently working on?</strong></div><br /><div>I'm currently working on some poems, and an editing project -- an edition of <a href="http://www.poets.ca/pshstore/profile_book.asp?ISBN=0921881541">Pat Lowther's </a>poetry. That'll be a new challenge, and I'm looking forward to getting back to work on that project again later this spring.<br /></div><div><a href="http://robmclennansindex.blogspot.com/2007/09/12-or-20-questions-archive.html"><em>12 or 20 questions archive</em></a></div>rob mclennanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07958889643637765864noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412809965647810701.post-76319614797412049322008-01-10T11:23:00.000-08:002008-01-10T11:39:50.888-08:00John Newlove documentary screening & book launch, Edmonton<strong>John Newlove Documentary Screening / Book Launch</strong><br /><strong>Hosted by <a href="http://ottawapoetry.blogspot.com/2006/06/john-newloves-ottawa-poems.html">rob mclennan</a>, with readings/talks by <a href="http://www.arcpoetry.ca/howpoemswork/features/2004_10_mclennan.php">rob mclennan</a>, <a href="http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/">Douglas Barbour</a>, <a href="http://www.poets.ca/Linktext/direct/butler.htm">Jenna Butler </a>& Jeff Carpenter</strong><br /><strong></strong><br /><strong>7pm, Thursday, January 31</strong><br />L-1, <a href="http://www.campusmap.ualberta.ca/index.cfm?campus=1&sector=3&feature=36">Humanities Centre, University of Alberta</a><br /><br /><strong>Come celebrate the life and work of </strong><a href="http://www.poetics.ca/poetics07/Newlove_poetics.html"><strong>poet John Newlove </strong></a><strong>with a screening of the documentary </strong><a href="http://movingimages.ca/catalogue/Art/whattomakeofitall.html"><strong><em>What to make of it all?</em> <em>The life and poetry of John Newlove</em></strong></a><strong>, and the Vancouver launch of </strong><a href="http://robmclennan.blogspot.com/2007/09/long-continual-argument-selected-poems.html"><strong>Chaudiere Books' <em>A Long Continual Argument: The Selected Poems of John Newlove</em></strong></a><strong>, edited by </strong><a href="http://www.movingimages.ca/catalogue/Cultdiverse/fiddlersmap.html"><strong>Robert McTavish</strong></a><strong>.<br /></strong><br />About <em>A Long Continual Argument: The Selected Poems of John Newlove</em>:<br /><br /><blockquote><a href="http://robmclennan.blogspot.com/2007/09/long-continual-argument-selected-poems.html"><em>A Long Continual Argument</em> </a>is the comprehensive statement of an acknowledged poetic master craftsman. It includes all the poems John Newlove chose for his previous selected poems with substantial additions from all his major collections. All of his later poetry has been included, as well as integral, critically-acclaimed works such as the long poem "Notes From And Among the Wars," and many of the cynically lyric poems that established his early reputation. From his first chapbook in 1961 to his final epigrammatic poems of the late 1990s, Newlove has been a quiet poetry dealing with unquiet themes. A poetry that, in the words of Phyllis Webb, "doesn't struggle for meaning. It emerges out of his thinking." </blockquote><strong>John Newlove</strong> (1938-2003) was born and raised in Saskatchewan. He began publishing while working various jobs in Vancouver in the 1960s. His many honours included the 1972 Governor General's Award for his book <em>Lies</em>, and the Saskatchewan Writers Guild Founders Award. His works have been internationally published and translated.<br /><blockquote><p>"Newlove was the best of us, the great line, the hidden agenda, tough as nails and yet somehow with his heart on his sleeve. There was always a double-take involved when reading his work. His lyrics, such as "The Weather" were faultless. I devoured and loved his work. --<a href="http://www.mcclelland.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780771068720">Michael Ondaatje</a></p><p>To call him "the voice of prairie poetry" misses the target by as broad a margin as if you called John Milton "the voice of Cromwell's London." This was the voice of a man who knew what it was like to almost drown, to gasp for air, to almost drown again. His poetry delivered a blow to the head then, and it does now. It will be seen again for what it was, and is: major in its time and place. --<a href="http://www.mcclelland.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780771008801">Margaret Atwood </a>(from <em>John Newlove: Essays on His Works</em>, forthcoming)</p></blockquote>For information on the event, the book, or anything else, contact the publisher, rob mclennan, at <a href="mailto:az421@freenet.carleton.ca">az421@freenet.carleton.ca</a><br />Ordering information on the book <a href="http://robmclennan.blogspot.com/2007/09/long-continual-argument-selected-poems.html">here</a>; info on <a href="http://chaudierebooks.blogspot.com/2008/01/john-newlove-documentary-screening-book.html">the subsequent Vancouver launch here</a>;rob mclennanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07958889643637765864noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412809965647810701.post-73263248335356264152008-01-05T10:03:00.000-08:002008-12-11T03:10:49.785-08:00some recent alberta adventuring;<img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5152058227506835218" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhroWlhCLO8SS9GFaw7M176nHT1084IjUBBjIji0l8PxuZTjm80ePMJ3FlkD-s05L9gATrBvQu3RLoz1uLaU7E_RCgCy_kBp0Eq2gbNCHT-XPt_3mS1ir3MRTiKX86Ke4STbtDtCHrGeDtc/s320/calgary049.jpg" border="0" /> <div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div>Finally got a chance to look at the photos Lainna took during our recent trip to Calgary for the <a href="http://www.canada.com/calgaryherald/news/entertainment/story.html?id=d527636c-b790-4c6b-95d1-ccebddc4f55d">Calgary Extravaganza </a>(including this one, above, of <a href="http://www.ditchpoetry.com/trisiaeddy.htm">Trisia Eddy </a>looking back through the rear-view mirror as we head south), and the subsequent <a href="http://www.apirg.org/wg/olive.php">Olive Reading Series in Edmonton </a>featuring <a href="http://ca.geocities.com/alterra@rogers.com/content.htm">Christine Stewart </a>[<a href="http://robmclennan.blogspot.com/2007/12/some-further-edmonton-and-calgary-and.html">see my note on both here</a>]. I always forget how close the two cities actually are to each other, and wonder why there isn't more interaction between the two? <a href="http://www.ucalgary.ca/markinflanagan/events">I'm going down again in February to read at the University of Calgary </a>(a week or two before the <a href="http://www.ucalgary.ca/markinflanagan/writer-in-residence">writer-in-residence down there</a>, <a href="http://www.chicagopostmodernpoetry.com/queyras.htm">Sina Queyras</a>, <a href="http://www.humanities.ualberta.ca/english/news.html">comes up to read here</a>); very much looking forward to it. Here's a photo of <a href="http://www.ditchpoetry.com/biographies.htm">Trisia Eddy </a>(note the vintage CBC Radio t-shirt) and <a href="http://www.danforthreview.com/features/interviews/cara_hedley.htm">Cara Hedley </a>(she tagged along for the ride to her reading) having lunch in Red Deer; Red Deer is the only place I can think of that has opposing newspaper boxes side-by-side, the <a href="http://www.calgarysun.com/"><em>Calgary Sun</em> </a>and the <em><a href="http://www.edmontonsun.com/">Edmonton Sun</a></em>. I think a fun game would be to see how often the same photos appears on both covers; because Lainna left her sunglasses there, we had lunch at the same place again the next day, except <a href="http://www.facebook.com/people/Trisia_Eddy/768641423">Trisia</a> & I filled up on milkshakes & then couldn't finish lunch. Heh.</div><div></div><div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5152058867456962370" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJM33Xk7HrvVw5DF_dtAGBVgay7HP-svT8H9xMh6-YiT562bfqRoGCY8qM4c3WnoY6mvURiVh2aRabkbnJdcDvbdd_xs0tLS4imamXP23kIHnmvlw4nltEwNrjNQcO2PAQQNVcjDwQ3ho9/s320/calgary046.jpg" border="0" /></div></div><div><a href="http://www.ffwdweekly.com/article/life-style/bookends/office-shenanigans/">Cara Hedley</a>, myself and <a href="http://perspectivesmagazine.googlepages.com/online">Trisia Eddy </a>in <a href="http://www.cindysteapotgallery.com/">Cindy's Tea Room & Gift Shop</a>, Red Deer; I was going to purchase something for my kid, but most of the stuff was either <em>too tacky</em> or <em>not tacky enough</em>;</div><div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5152058674183434034" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsiPGv1TcMYNUUym-1IJjxpJ0DKNiVwafUkfbMgyYK_Xk-yph_8ckCdqoD6r1OTzz6-gpb2wyOzhHA_pWs2f6Ud7MXkQxp6iI2OP9yvNWaBLbH-Egmo6KAwD37nr1nnTeGEEBta5iuPMaA/s320/calgary047.jpg" border="0" /> <div><a href="http://www.uptownmag.com/2007-12-13/page1389.aspx">Cara Hedley </a>in the car, figuring out what she was going to read that night;<br /></div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5152058373535723298" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRWLKOMZ3EaDeL0IjgTmaU88g2DEh88ShgGuCIjo9lnyHMZMrDsOdBNBiT5Iqx5ruNgpspFbvrzGynlGoolIDX3uwcU99M3DgyWEzTjVId4hxhyH2STX2o3I-MJSiboIjDF8wnuhU5wmAd/s320/calgary048.jpg" border="0" /> <a href="http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/beaulieu/">derek beaulieu </a>[<a href="http://robmclennan.blogspot.com/2007/10/12-or-20-questions-with-derek-beaulieu.html">see his 12 or 20 here</a>] launching <em><a href="http://www.littleredleaves.com/LRL1/beaulieu.html">flatland </a></em>(<a href="http://vispoets.com/index.php?showtopic=11990&pid=12212&st=0&#entry12212">Information as Material</a>);<br /><div></div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5152057956923895554" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpqof-coHX6rvCtxpFoi4Yxo0vmGbK84PZqIrSy02s1KHk3cTSoWUN3GGTPlFrUm3bMBkuy4qSbZreaIr4ywDGpmtwmkTFer0ImiQXxN9QAWx1n3oaFXbLa4Aii7cbv8CWxUdVPWe9BIFP/s320/calgary064.jpg" border="0" /> <div><a href="http://literatechildbride.blogspot.com/">Natalie Zina Walschots </a>launching <a href="http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/books/Thumbscrews-poems-Natalie-Zina-Walschots/9780973943863-item.html"><em>Thumbscrews</em> </a>(<a href="http://snarebooks.wordpress.com/">Snare Books</a>);</div><div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5152057733585596146" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhDPhjDK42G1G4bXrwh_qZN6weOsq5nsoGj-uiCchtwC4Na8SAY1YONXEDrZ6SPW9RMCOmBpA57BLulTsV30L9E-VzwkhCayhZ8cz3r1VQL_LcCN8PuC17cGslAPY1NqxmhinSM6HpgtQK/s320/calgary068.jpg" border="0" /></div></div><div><a href="http://www.ffwdweekly.com/Issues/2006/1214/book7.htm">kevin mcpherson-eckhoff & Mark Hopkins </a>getting a wee bit personal (but still adorable, somehow);</div><div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5152057424347950802" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFQC8GbMWU3MYPuJelhcdE1zh06R5OmN7Zs06wuSuw82KDjtmhQCeoackK3Wg7KM2sb20F_OxzP829ibdp_Ubf3Em0qYiU4ZHgsJrglYivwnpiOKKphumcrCTUX-DjkUyWrbk_LYTiKf7M/s320/calgary075.jpg" border="0" /><a href="http://individual.utoronto.ca/betts/eng356/ryan_fitzpatrick.htm">ryan fitzpatrick </a>& <a href="http://www.ffwdweekly.com/article/life-style/books/hell-blind-you-science/">Ian Glen Kinney</a>;<br /><div></div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5152057295498931906" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuGWWOCQSFBPUzinqYwT0mCMaNN_nnKe8arI0p9ehiq2ha9ryg_u5ZxgkI1B41RzMZ91hcNWnO59_zReboOFCOu6otgpOzOBMa0Yhwlzuzd49bEMp97DPFnvJqpHyKbM-AAab_EkAPgJuT/s320/calgary079.jpg" border="0" /> a very lovely photo of <a href="http://robmclennan.blogspot.com/2007/12/ongoing-notes-early-december-2007.html">Trisia Eddy</a>;<br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5152057123700240050" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBFAdUIziKWJhq5KBKBwyL0S0omnyZ2l5E02-s5konjiqb7gRHbZg469KI7Zb4oictUxpZXyqU_Fdjb7NBMdBw6AZ4XBsfeKfp99c4DxwyRy_WtNc-6G3w3wm-0CrRCk2o-O7BAE9hkkl6/s320/calgary080.jpg" border="0" /><a href="http://www.cordweekly.com/cordweekly/myweb.php?hls=10034&news_id=1030">Cara Hedley </a>and <a href="http://www.themercurypress.ca/?q=authors/brea_burton">Brea Burton </a>(she <a href="http://www.atwaterlibrary.ca/en/node/596">reads here with Jill Hartman </a>at the Olive Series on January 22) deep in conversation;<br /><div></div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5152056788692790930" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVLAQzF3Bq0nz2URkyo4LTJChEwQGNfJVWi3MR3aHXN0-QjC0JI06RJgcJ0Xmo-A5xQmVU7Eq-eG1e48xWRs_FDG3ADd6nbwpvkax91Cdw5wwFFI0tLITwQ8f44RCCDOFBq1mE8OzZ26bO/s320/calgary086.jpg" border="0" /> </div><div><a href="http://2006.calgaryspokenwordfestival.com/artist.php?artist=13">Paul Kennett </a>(co-host) & <a href="http://www.poets.ca/pshstore/profile_book.asp?ISBN=1552451178">Jill Hartman </a>looking <em>adorable</em> together;</div><div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5152056943311613602" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLM32s1O088XNBveqRYAZzrt3jv51VPQdrx_KV-6N-yrwK9E8reWsJk_9LL52St2fjm85BTjlmCkSe4oVVkq6qx-7M0l2R8TTtvc34muf9FIRg7DMVL4Vc0F-fdj6dcbmz0KeKHuAIMMf3/s320/calgary085.jpg" border="0" /> </div><div><a href="http://processdocuments.blogspot.com/">ryan fitzpatrick </a>(right) wondering what the hell, exactly, I'm on about [<a href="http://robmclennan.blogspot.com/2007/12/some-recent-poetry-collections-ive-been.html">see the brief review I did of his first book here</a>]... & who is this "Heather"?</div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5152056582534360706" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR-H5paaMmGHqik28nXYDINzQK20btkH8i9w5e9Zh4UaHh38deS58-Bo8ZpesNpnube8gWlxAipFEnqfXNDUi0uucPyRqT4EwdDPDU6SX4pX1L6qnZfOm6csV_Joi3-ddb1d-BeihxTbu_/s320/calgary090.jpg" border="0" />Makyee Mak and <a href="http://vispoets.com/index.php?showuser=42">kevin mcpherson-eckhoff</a>, looking mournful & artistic-like;<br /><div></div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5152056427915538034" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh7v_S4Ln7zzp4_7dQVwsT_-7YSNe9vLWfCoRL65MTq9yUk24dDZfYGCZrnUbSmHyPRxqZMlWBFDSE1S7LlA7zCtcw_cy28BUQmrXk7f4X3bw6SWdXmalN9xBJaiYxs_GdWjM8wyrnqjvD/s320/calgary091.jpg" border="0" />group photo at the pub post-reading, with myself, <a href="http://www.chbooks.com/catalogue/index.php?ISBN=1552451860">Cara Hedley</a>, <a href="http://www.ffwdweekly.com/author/mark-hopkins/">Mark Hopkins </a>(co-host), <a href="http://individual.utoronto.ca/betts/eng356/jill_hartman.htm">Jill Hartman</a> [<a href="http://albertawriting.blogspot.com/2007/10/12-or-20-questions-with-jill-hartman.html">see her 12 or 20 questions here</a>], <a href="http://darkmucus.blogspot.com/">Frances Kruk</a> (<a href="http://www.onedit.net/issue5/francesk/francesk.html">she has come cool visual poems here</a>), <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kt2-bXXQgdg">Andre Rodgrigues</a>;<br /><div></div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5152055964059070034" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi76raNcNHjMKSUvcXoVzJgorOYjzVrDfpHfmr_p93VN3eg8hbAR35etWn0MD04Fg-EFO0sRl8CdRyi8Bi5hMsUF2Sm5iI-ZWNRGVnQ6ibdgFzCVQ_jBpK-v53-hwrQ0s7qjZqUhWLsNcLr/s320/calgary098.jpg" border="0" />Also, a few photos from that December Olive reading at <a href="http://hulberts.ca/portal/index.php">Hulbert's</a> [note that the next one won't be on January 8th, but January 22nd, as the venue is closed next week]. This photo: Olive co-organizer & chapbook producer Jeff Carpenter;<br /><div></div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5152055783670443586" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifon5VeKAm70p6PWwofBF91nuH3Ys7pD7cpYVC-nvu796ni_VR4dnu-_L4L8IzMx1JQBuZKXI8n4mNy424xskCC0tVqw2aB_m1340XeLOtBYty__bTUVhuklfp7M8S_LXszTnAQh_bnpmJ/s320/calgary115.jpg" border="0" /><a href="http://amandaearl.blogspot.com/2005_05_31_archive.html">former Ottawa resident</a>, current Olive co-organizer & <a href="http://www.spirepoetry.com/">Spire the Poetry Poster </a>editor/publisher <a href="http://www.myspace.com/klmckay">Kristy McKay </a>making an odd gesture to <a href="http://www.ditchpoetry.com/trisiaeddy.htm">Trisia Eddy </a>(<a href="http://robmclennan.blogspot.com/2007/12/factory-west-reading-series-reading.html">be sure to come hear her read at the first Factory (West) Reading on January 15</a>);<br /><div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5152055641936522802" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrfLVxGsgB7Xt4MUMYBZfqLVo3Hey0UVWZoZSuaTrUtDgtbDspqRTyYdlByA89Xf4frPR3H0Fy-jJD_91YNKP3zvs6Qm188SEKhdBanQ7n_NAgyAFDTHe50UI3up4aieDWdCV1K0rxdnPY/s320/calgary116.jpg" border="0" /></div>the lovely <a href="http://www.soapboxgirls.com/soapboxgirls/jul02/articles/underwriting.html">T.L. Cowan</a>, Olive co-organizer;<br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5152055525972405794" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXKO7IBDGNJzi-FsClo2xt1uOl1s87PMi-JQa9hmd20wS5cMlQy1GRzNvhHFvksnBF3zrUQdK1cr1BUk5Ai-4d_bdn7jS9F1lMZLTKju8w6hPdQzBVqy-K9_yYOsPAIHJEvHvURmoG4t1O/s320/calgary117.jpg" border="0" />And finally, <a href="http://www.canlit.ca/reviews-review.php?id=13213">Lisa Szabo </a>(<a href="http://alecc.ca/gpage2.html">co-editor of the online journal <em>The Goose</em></a>) with <a href="http://www.sfu.ca/~pquarter/nomados.htm">Christine Stewart </a>[<a href="http://robmclennan.blogspot.com/2007/09/12-or-20-questions-with-christine.html">see her 12 or 20 questions here</a>].</div><div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5152055208144825858" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOR89qZZ5Rb9bYe721qrnPYHsA8BrK3dH2ovnpvFux5RwhPsMcvmh4MawJgLYT0_r2HIq3I9ledPFcFQsOyeifu5lY58h8PBLbO24-s_5psLFWBEyBN7Nc2h-7VZ1EspZya7w21hl_LscL/s320/calgary123.jpg" border="0" />It makes me wonder what I will do once I finally have to leave this place? It makes me envious, somewhat, that <a href="http://www.uofaweb.ualberta.ca/drama/nav03.cfm?nav03=61494&nav02=41334&nav01=28956">the playwright-in-residence, Kevin Kerr </a>(husband of poet <a href="http://www.harbourpublishing.com/author/MaritaDachsel">Marita Dachsel</a>) has a <em>two-</em>year post, where mine is only<em> one</em>... </div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>rob mclennanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07958889643637765864noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412809965647810701.post-66216971243511703182007-12-08T10:12:00.000-08:002008-12-11T03:10:49.918-08:0012 or 20 questions: with Robert Majzels<a href="http://www.danforthreview.com/features/interviews/robert_majzels.htm"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5141668413410154018" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhx0NiRmndrSmhAgAxPV_7b0-6YuTEBqLM12hYwnHqH0Crzoj3tvldRccLfdt_PDMImZPu-NS9L0SjQZeRopFlc2HcRjbit6yN_crumEGQglpIn3OVHO6LueLymVH4cF8oU3rKIWEETnchO/s320/Majzels&Wordcropped.jpg" border="0" /><strong>Robert Majzels</strong> </a>is a <a href="http://www.themercurypress.ca/?q=authors/robert_majzels">novelist</a>, playwright, <a href="http://www.vehiculepress.com/chapbook/teeth.html">poet</a> and <a href="http://semi-p.blogspot.com/2007_02_01_archive.html">translator</a>, <a href="http://quebecbooks.qwf.org/authors/view/89">born in Montreal, Canada</a>. After a misspent youth ending up in the guerrilla zones of the Philippines, he returned to graduate from Concordia University (MA, English Literature) in 1986. He taught creative writing workshops in prose, poetry and drama there for thirteen years, before <a href="http://ctr.concordia.ca/2000-01/Dec_7/03-Majzels/index.shtml">he escaped to China </a>for a couple. He is presently back in Canada, masquerading as <a href="http://www.english.ucalgary.ca/RobertMajzels">an Associate Professor in the English Department of the University of Calgary</a>.<br /><div><br /><a href="http://www.vehiculepress.com/montreal/gallery/majzels.html">Robert</a> is <a href="http://www.themercurypress.ca/?q=books/humbugs_diet">the author of three novels</a>, a full-length play, and a number of translations. Two of his novels have been translated into French by <a href="http://www.exilequarterly.com/164b.html">Claire Dé</a>.</div><br /><div><a href="http://www.writersunion.ca/ww_profile.asp?mem=438&L=M">Majzels’ work </a>has been a continuing exploration of the forms and ethical underpinnings of writing. </div><br /><div>About his first novel, <a href="http://muse.jhu.edu/demo/shofar/v024/24.3kertzer.html"><em>Hellman's Scrapbook</em> </a>(<a href="http://www.cormorantbooks.com/">Cormorant Press</a>, 1992): </div><br /><div><blockquote>"... a huge, complex and extraordinarily rewarding novel." <em>The Globe and Mail</em><br />"... daring in form, political, eclectic in setting and character and masterfully threaded with an intriguing story line." <em>The Montreal Gazette</em></blockquote></div><div>About <a href="http://www.richardgagnon.com/jack/Majzels.htm"><em>City of Forgetting</em> </a>(<a href="http://www.themercurypress.ca/?q=books/city_forgetting">Mercury Press</a>, 1997), short-listed for the <a href="http://www.qwf.org/awards/archive.html">1998 Hugh MacLennan Fiction Award</a>: </div><br /><div><blockquote>“...a novel of Beckettian inertia combined with Joyceian allusiveness... a formidable and esoteric discourse on power, decadence and remembering.” <em>The Globe and Mail</em></blockquote></div><div>About his third novel, <a href="http://www.robertmajzels.com/home.htm"><em>Apikoros Sleuth</em> </a>(<a href="http://www.themercurypress.ca/?q=books/apikoros_sleuth">Mercury Press</a>, 2004): </div><br /><div><blockquote>“...the mysterious, murderous architecture of Majzels’ gesture, in which language is both victim and description of victimization, and in which standard narrative has been put in a compressor and squeezed into more interesting ways of thinking... The reader won’t encounter another book like this one anytime soon.” <em>Review of Contemporary Fiction</em><br /><br />“[<em><a href="http://www.aelaq.org/mrb/article.php?issue=14&article=393&cat=2">Apikoros Sleuth</a></em>] takes the reader back to the primal scene of the book, where reading is ritual and where eyes, of their own magical accord, unlock terrible knowledge.” <em><a href="http://www.aelaq.org/mrb/">The Montreal Review of Books</a></em></blockquote></div><div><a href="http://www.themodernword.com/columns/cole_004.html">Robert Majzels </a>is presently completing a book of poetry, excerpts of which have appeared in <a href="http://www.nojournal.com/"><em>NO: A Journal of the Arts</em> </a>(#5, 2006), and <a href="http://www.sleepingfish.net/"><em>Sleeping Fish</em> </a>(Summer 2006). Excerpts from his visual poetry project <em>85</em> were part of the group exhibition, <a href="http://mathematicalpoetry.blogspot.com/2006/04/blends-bridges-survey-of-international.html">Blends & Bridges </a>in Cleveland, Ohio April, 2006.</div><br /><div><a href="http://www.cipherjournal.com/html/bios.html">Robert</a> has also translated, from the French, a novel and a collection of stories by <a href="http://www.themercurypress.ca/?q=authors/anne_dandurand">Anne Dandurand</a>, as well as four novels by <a href="http://www.anansi.ca/authors.cfm?author_id=24">France Daigle</a>, including <a href="http://www.anansi.ca/titles.cfm?pub_id=148"><em>Just Fine</em> </a>(House of Anansi, Toronto, 1999), for which he won the 2000 Governor General’s Award of Canada. With <a href="http://www.anansi.ca/authors.cfm?author_id=83">Erín Moure </a>he translated three books of poetry by <a href="http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/brossard/">Nicole Brossard</a>: <a href="http://www.poets.ca/pshstore/profile_book.asp?ISBN=189623965x"><em>Installations</em> </a>(Muses Company, 2000), <a href="http://www.poets.ca/pshstore/profile_book.asp?ISBN=0887846866"><em>Museum of Bone and Water</em> </a>(House of Anansi, 2002), and <a href="http://www.chbooks.com/content/?q=catalogue/notebooks_of_roses_and_civilization"><em>Notebook or Roses & Civilization</em> </a>(Coach House Books, 2007), for which <a href="http://www.poets.ca/linktext/direct/moure.htm">Moure </a>and he were nominated for a GG.<br />His full-length play <a href="http://www.theatrebooks.com/theatre/canadian_plays/mcanadian.html"><em>This Night the Kapo</em> </a>won first prize both in the 1991 <a href="http://www.clevejcc.org/Dorothy_Silver_Playwriting_Competition.asp">Dorothy Silver Awards </a>(Cleveland Ohio, USA) and the 1994 Canadian Jewish Playwrighting Competition. It was produced by <a href="http://www.teatrontheatre.com/">Teatron in Toronto </a>at the <a href="http://www.canstage.com/2004-2005/company/theatres/directions_berkeley.asp">Berkley Street Theatre (CanStage) in March 2004</a>, and published by <a href="http://www.playwrightscanada.com/">Playwrights Canada Press </a>in 2005. </div><br /><div><em>Photo Credit: <a href="http://www.themercurypress.ca/?q=authors/claire_huot">Claire Huot</a></em></div><br /><div><strong>1 - How did your first book change your life?</strong></div><br /><div>I was introduced to the work of <a href="http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1988/mahfouz-bio.html">Naguib Mahfouz</a>, because his were the books on all those bookstore shelves next to the spot where I had hoped to find my own.</div><br /><div><strong>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?</strong></div><br /><div>I've been in Calgary for only a year and a bit now. I haven't started writing about it. I find I'm always a few years behind in writing about the places I've been. So I'm mostly still in China (in my writing imagination). Race and gender, on the other hand, impact all writers' work all the time; it's just that some don't realize or recognize it. These are two of the elements in the construction of identity, which is certainly at the heart of my writing practice. </div><br /><div><strong>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?</strong></div><br /><div>I always begin by thinking of how many books my publisher wants to fit into the standard sized cardboard boxes they use for distribution. That then determines the number of pages, words and so on. </div><br /><div>No, that can't be right. I don't think of my work in terms of working within the short story form or the novel, long or short, or prose or poetry. That doesn't mean I don't think about the forms and genres in writing, about how and why they have evolved over time. I often work against those limits and delimitations. When I begin a project, it usually starts with a problem raised by the last project. The problem is always a combined formal, philosophical and political issue. For instance, now I'm thinking about the book itself, as an object, about the visual, sound and tactile elements, the material components of the book as an object imbedded in national and transnational cultural industries, and how to write within that structure at a time when my own country is deeply involved in the invasion of Afghanistan and the murder of its people (I have to get that in, it's not much, but I find it distressing that Canadian writers can intervene in public life these days, through readings, talks, interviews or accepting prizes, without addressing the fact that our country is waging war at this very moment). </div><div><br /><strong>4 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>Depends on the project. They're irrelevant mostly, except in my current project, <em>85</em>, in which the visual presentation of the poems and taped readings on video are part of the work. And to an extent with my novel <em>Apikoros</em>, in which reading sections of it is like a performance. Unfortunately, except in the case of work specifically created for performance, readings seem to me to be mostly just an excuse for writers to rub up against a microphone, pretend they're rock stars, and sell themselves rather than the work. </div><br /><div><strong>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?</strong></div><br /><div>All my writing is concerned with the intersection of language, self and world and the possibilities of resistance to structures that are constraining or oppressive. I'm trying to explore how we are constructed by the stories, the narrative and poetic forms, even the grammar we've learned. I'm interested in contemporary philosophy and critical theory that can help me to think otherwise and to imagine alternative modes of resistance, alliances and coalitions. I also try to keep informed about the political and economic situation in the world; I'm particularly encouraged by developments in Latin America, new initiatives in grassroots social organization, health and education in Venezuela and Bolivia, for example, and in the progress of the Chinese political and economic experiment; I'm discouraged by the refusal of the USA to step down and aside, and by Canada's participation in the invasion of Afghanistan (there, I got it in again). </div><br /><div><strong>6 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?</strong></div><br /><div>I sometimes show drafts of my work to one or two friends who have been very helpful. And I've found the proofreaders and editors at <a href="http://www.moveable.com/">Moveable Inc. in Toronto </a>to be the most thorough final readers; nothing gets past them. As for outside editors, I don't know if they still exist in the sense they did fifty years ago. I try to submit my work in a final draft that requires no changes.</div><br /><div><strong>7 - After having published more than a couple of titles over the years, do you find the process of book-making harder or easier?</strong></div><br /><div>It's neither harder nor easier; it's just very hard. But I think I've become accustomed to the difficulties and I don't panic as much as I used to. I even enjoy the process.</div><br /><div><strong>8 - When was the last time you ate a pear?</strong></div><br /><div>This is another question about theory. I like pears and eat them often. By the time you, rob, read this reply, I will have probably eaten another pear, so what is the last time to me now as I write this will no longer be the last time I ate a pear when you read this. And by the time readers of your blog read my reply, I will probably have eaten yet another pear... Unless by "last time" you are referring to a time after which I will never eat another pear. Every time I eat a pear, I hope it will not be my last one. And yet, the state of the environment being what it is, I imagine the day will come when someone will be eating the last pear. This is a political problem: what we are doing to save the pear (not to mention the other fruit and fauna) from extinction. As for mortal me, there will certainly come a time when I will eat what will be for me my last pear, though I will most probably not know it is my last pear at that moment. This is the problem of writing, the relationship between the author, the text and the reader.</div><br /><div><strong>9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?</strong></div><div><strong></strong></div><div>Don't let school interfere with your education.</div><div><br /><strong>10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (fiction to translation)? What do you see as the appeal?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>The division into prose and poetry, translation and original creation is a problem that needs to be explored. These divisions are historical, of course, and in flux. I think, in particular, the opposition between prose and poetry is no longer as simple or useful as it might once have been. In any case, I think of my work as writing. I like to unsettle those divisions. So I'm trying to move within and between, beyond and before genres as I write. </div><br /><div><strong>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?</strong></div><br /><div>When I can I like to get up around 6AM, walk the dog, grab some breakfast, and work until noon. Then, a nap after lunch, and back to work, either writing or catching up on admin stuff. Of course, there are periods in my life when, to stave off starvation, I have to stick some wage labour in there. That screws up the routine.</div><br /><div><strong>12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>I don't really get stalled. I think people who get writer's block should give up writing. Writer's block is really that voice inside the sufferer's head telling him or her that their work is not very interesting or worthwhile. But if we're talking about getting stuck on a problem in the writing, then I read, usually philosophy or whatever text I'm working with/on in the project I'm stuck on: the <a href="http://www.sacred-texts.com/jud/talmud.htm">Talmud</a> in <em>Apikoros Sleuth</em>, <a href="http://www.hornbill.cdc.net.my/e-class/oldchina/qt_inte.htm">Tang dynasty poets</a>, <a href="http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/316">Paul Celan </a>or <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bada_Shanren">Bada Shanren </a>in <em>85</em>.</div><br /><div><strong>13 - How does your most recent book compare to your previous work? How does it feel different?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>My most recent book is a murder mystery in a form that looks deceptively conventional. It differs from all my previous books, as each of them differs from the others, and from what I'm working on now, which is a kind of visual poetry. </div><br /><div><strong>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?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>Books come from trees, unless they're made from recycled pulped books. Music and visual arts, a great deal. My <em>85</em> series is very engaged with visual art. And I'm working on a project involving <a href="http://www.baroquemusic.org/barcomp.html">European Baroque </a>countertenor and <a href="http://www.chinapages.com/culture/jj_home.htm">Peking Opera</a>. </div><br /><div><strong>15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?</strong></div><br /><div>This question tempts one to either show off, or promote friends. But I guess the best response may be to mention some authors the reader may not have encountered. So... <a href="http://www.learnkabbalah.com/abraham_abulafia/">Abraham Abulafia </a>(<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Abulafia">13th century poststructuralist philosopher</a>), <a href="http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/ecanetti.htm">Elias Canetti</a>, <a href="http://www.humanities.mcmaster.ca/~history/facultystaff/profile_gauvreau.html">Michel Gauvreau</a>, <a href="http://homepage.ntlworld.com/davepalmer/cutandpaste/schwitters.html">Kurt Schwitters</a>, <a href="http://studiocleo.com/librarie/barnes/djunabarnes.html">Djuna Barnes</a>, <a href="http://www.chinapage.com/painting/badashanren/chrysantheme.html">Bada Shanren</a>, <a href="http://www.renditions.org/renditions/authors/caoxue.html">Cao Xue Qin</a>. And, of course, many contemporary writers in Canada and abroad engaged in experimenting with language and the world, most of whom you already know. On the anglo-www, I like to browse some sites from time to time: <a href="http://www.ubu.com/">Ubu.com</a>, <a href="http://www.writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/">PennSound</a>, <a href="http://www.eciad.ca/">Emily Carr Institute's site in Vancouver</a>, <a href="http://www.slought.org/">Slought</a>, <a href="http://jacketmagazine.com/00/home.shtml">John Trantor's site</a>.<br /><br /><strong>16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?</strong></div><div></div><br /><div>I'd like to finish answering these questions.</div><br /><div><strong>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?</strong></div><br /><div>I would have liked to be a cat burglar, so that I get my money directly from the taxpayers without having to go through the troublesome process of applying for grants.</div><br /><div><strong>18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?</strong></div><br /><div>I tried a number of other things and failed. As a writer in Canada, there's no pressure to succeed; everyone expects you to fail.</div><div><br /><strong>19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>See Question 8.</div><br /><div><strong>20 - What are you currently working on?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>These 20 questions. But I'm done now.</div><br /><div></div><div><a href="http://robmclennansindex.blogspot.com/2007/09/12-or-20-questions-archive.html"><em>12 or 20 questions archive</em></a></div>rob mclennanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07958889643637765864noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412809965647810701.post-75870124871147788122007-12-04T14:14:00.000-08:002007-12-04T14:17:17.476-08:00*Talk and Poetry Reading by Ricardo Sternberg *<strong>Wednesday, December 12, 12:00 noon, HC L-3, University of Alberta *</strong><br /><br />Born in Brazil, <strong>Ricardo Sternberg</strong> teaches at University of Toronto. He was trained at University of California, Riverside and Los Angeles and was also a Junior Fellow of the Society of Fellows at Harvard. In 1974, he was awarded first place in The Nation Poetry Prize and, in 1978, he won a Pushcart Prize. Among his recent publications are <em>Bamboo Church</em>, McGill Queens University Press, 2003 (Republished 2006); <em>Map of Dreams</em>, Montreal: Vehicule, 1996; <em>The Invention of Honey</em>, Montreal: Vehicule Press, 1990 (Republished 1996, 2006).<br /><br />More information on the poet at <a href="http://ricardosternberg.com/" target="_blank">http://ricardosternberg.com/</a>rob mclennanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07958889643637765864noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412809965647810701.post-72592164427297987262007-12-03T10:29:00.000-08:002008-12-11T03:10:50.242-08:0012 or 20 questions: with Sheri Benning<a href="http://www.artsboard.sk.ca/Tribute/tribute_LG_Benning.htm"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5139820980472419778" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidp-_Gd__dLy6Q10BmcyzYqKV5EFEkHlWW6mMJRSUDZnK9kZYk-DAkN244mA_fNuUIZs-Vn6rs0CRBLyxkhpu9lEd_lXiJNVv_rTnTGV4SKXTiuqIac_4ITS7xhyphenhyphen6huTt-cGndVQH88GDc/s320/benning.jpg" border="0" /><strong>Sheri Benning</strong> </a>grew up on a small farm in central Saskatchewan. Her second book of poetry, <em><a href="http://www.youngpoets.ca/english/thin_moon_psalm">Thin Moon Psalm</a></em>, <a href="http://www.brickbooks.ca/NewBooks.htm">Brick Books</a>, 2007, recently won <a href="http://www.brickbooks.ca/News--Oct2007-sask.html">two Saskatchewan Book Awards </a>-- The Poetry Award and The City of Saskatoon Award. In 2004 <a href="http://www.thestar.com/article/257072"><em>Thin Moon Psalm</em> </a>was the recipient of the <a href="http://www.umce.ca/wfnb/litcomp.htm">Alfred G. Bailey Manuscript Award</a>. <a href="http://www.uofaweb.ualberta.ca/researchandstudents/news.cfm?story=57851">Her first book of poetry</a>, <em>Earth After Rain</em>, <a href="http://www.thistledownpress.com/">Thistledown Press</a>, 2001, also won two Saskatchewan Book Awards. <a href="http://upturnedsoapbox.blogspot.com/2006/12/from-sheri-bennings-notes-toward-love.html">Sheri </a>is the recipient of the Earle Birney Poetry Prize, the second place recipient of the Bliss Carmen Poetry Award and in 2004 she was awarded <a href="http://www.artsboard.sk.ca/Tribute/tribute_LG_Benning.htm">the Saskatchewan Lieutenenant Governor's Award for Achievement in the Arts</a>. <a href="http://www.forgetmagazine.com/060106aa.html">Her poetry </a>has been published in numerous Canadian literary journals and anthologies including <em><a href="http://www.harbourpublishing.com/title/BreathingFire2">Breathing Fire 2</a></em>; <a href="http://www.hagiospress.com/?s=recentreleases&pid=3"><em>Fast Forward: New Saskatchewan Poets</em> </a>and <em>Third Floor Lounge</em>. <a href="http://www.poets.ca/Linktext/direct/benning.htm">She's</a> currently a doctoral student at the University of Alberta.<br /><p><strong>1 - How did your first book change your life?</strong> </p><div></div><div>My first book gave me a momentary feeling of legitimacy as a writer, but then you have to put that book aside and get back to reading and writing. It’s always wonderful to run into people who are kind enough to mention that they’ve read your work, isn’t it? It feels good to know you’ve communicated something.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>2 - How long have you lived in Saskatoon, and how does geography, if at all, impact on your writing? Does race or gender make any impact on your work?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>I’ve lived in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saskatoon">Saskatoon</a> for a year and a bit. Though I’m a doctoral student at the U of A, I moved out here from Edmonton, in part, to teach at <a href="http://www.stpeterscollege.ca/">St. Peter's College</a>. I previously lived in Saskatoon for a couple of years while I was an undergrad at the U of S. Place bears a huge impact on my writing; my thinking often returns to <a href="http://saskatchewan.worldweb.com/Photos/RuralLife/">rural Saskatchewan </a>where I grew up. Race and gender impact my work in the way that they impact all I do, I suppose.<br /><br /><strong>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?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div>An individual poem starts with an image or gesture – <a href="http://www.online-literature.com/dickinson/830/">a certain slant of light</a>, to borrow a phrase. Larger projects start with an unrelenting question.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>4 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div>Readings used to make me quite nervous. They still do, but <a href="http://www.gaspereau.com/e3.shtml">Don McKay </a>said something to me once that really helped. He suggested that I think of the audience as a tuning-fork which might help me to better hear my own work. You hear your work differently if you’re trying to communicate it to an audience.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>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?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div>How our identity is a precipitate of the place-worlds we inhabit; how to make sense of the alienation of displacement; how to articulate a landscape that is heavily manipulated by human intention such as that of rural Saskatchewan; how to move beyond nostalgia for lost places to forge an ethics that might keep pace with socio-environmental conflict.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>6 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)? </strong></div><br /><div></div><div>Essential. I have two friends, <a href="http://esu.queensu.ca/seeds/instructors/sarahtsiang.php">Sarah Tsiang </a>and Tim McIntyre, with whom I share all my work. <a href="http://kingstonwrites.com/resources.html">Tsiang</a> is wonderful poet and McIntyre a PhD student at Queen’s. They’re rigorous and honest first readers. <a href="http://www.antigonishreview.com/bi-140/140-article-don-mckay.html">Don McKay </a>edited <em><a href="http://www.brickbooks.ca/Reviews-benning1.html">Thin Moon Psalm</a></em>. <a href="http://www.poets.ca/linktext/direct/mckay.htm">Don</a> could understand what I was trying to say and then provided sensitive suggestions regarding how I might say it better. Working with him was invaluable. <a href="http://www.lib.unb.ca/Texts/SCL/bin/getPrint.cgi?filename=lil.html&directory=Vol22_1/">Tim Lilburn </a>was the first person ever who I showed my poetry to. <a href="http://www.wlu.ca/press/Catalog/calder.shtml">His conversation </a>is crucial to me.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>7 - After having published a couple of titles over the past few years, do you find the process of book-making harder or easier?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div>When writing, I’m never thinking about book-making exactly. I’m thinking about seeing my way through the poem, or the series of poems, or the essay at hand. I’m thinking about how to answer that unrelenting question.<br /><br /><strong>8 - When was the last time you ate a pear?</strong></div><br /><div>This morning.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)? </strong></div><br /><div></div><div>My dad is a fantastic storyteller. Once, in the context of a story that involved a fight at the Burr bar, he said something like this: “Skinny guys like us have to get the jump on people; we have to do it hard and do it first.” A friend of mine pointed out that, if you unhinge it from its context, that statement can be pretty good advice for a lot of things.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to non-fiction)? What do you see as the appeal?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div>Genre distinctions can be distracting. I didn’t really set out to move between genres. I think it was <a href="http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/161">Ezra Pound </a>who said that form bears the content of meaning. So certain questions, sentiments, experiences, etc. require different forms to be best articulated. </div><br /><div></div><div><strong>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?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div>I prefer to write in the early mornings before the tasks of the day take over. I like the quiet of a still sleeping world.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div>I read. I met <a href="http://hubcap.clemson.edu/~sparks/dillard/bio.htm">Annie Dillard </a>several years ago and her advice was to read unlikely – books that might only tangentially inform the project at hand, books that’ll make you stretch. Also, it’s sometimes good to pull yourself out, to go for a walk around the block, as <a href="http://www.bobdylan.com/moderntimes/home/main.html">Bob Dylan </a>would say.</div><br /><div><strong>13 - How does your most recent book compare to your previous work? How does it feel different?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div><em>Earth After Rain</em> came out in 2001. In the interim I read a lot, traveled, etc. So the books are fueled by fairly distinct preoccupations. At the same time, I guess both books are overwhelmingly focused by my engagement with the places I’ve inhabited.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>14 - <a href="http://paulvermeersch.blogspot.com/2007/08/david-w-mcfadden-round-up.html">David W. McFadden </a>once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?</strong></div><br /><div>My sister, <a href="http://www.canadianart.ca/articles/Articles_Details.cfm?Ref_num=349">Heather Benning</a>, is a visual artist; she creates site-specific, sculptural installations. Lately she’s been compelled by <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/arts/artdesign/story/2007/06/11/benning-dollhouse.html">how we relate to abandoned places</a>. Her work and our conversations inspire me.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div>Here are but several writers whose work I consistently return to: <a href="http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/aakhma.htm">Anna Ahkmatova</a>, <a href="http://www.contemporarywriters.com/authors/?p=auth02A2H183312626308">John Burnside</a>, <a href="http://www.fyodordostoevsky.com/">Dostoevsky</a>, <a href="http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/316">Paul Celan</a>, <a href="http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/1275">Jack Gilbert</a>, <a href="http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/g_l/gluck/gluck.htm">Louise Glück</a>, <a href="http://www.nightwoodeditions.com/author.php?id=329">Sean Johnston</a>, <a href="http://www.mts.net/~mlhome/">Margaret Laurence </a>(especially <em><a href="http://www.mcclelland.com/author/results.pperl?authorid=16845">The Diviners</a></em>), <a href="http://www.mcclelland.com/author/results.pperl?authorid=17658">Tim Lilburn</a>, <a href="http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/mandelst.htm">Osip Mandel’stam</a>, <a href="http://www.mcclelland.com/author/results.pperl?authorid=20001">Don McKay</a>, <a href="http://jacketmagazine.com/34/newlove-3.shtml">John Newlove</a>, <a href="http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/rmrilke.htm">Rilke</a>, <a href="http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/27">Charles Simic</a>, <a href="http://www.brickbooks.ca/BL-Solie.htm">Karen Solie</a>, <a href="http://www.brocku.ca/canadianwomenpoets/Szumigalski.htm">Anne Szumigalski</a>, <a href="http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/trastt.htm">Tomas Tranströmer</a>, <a href="http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/31">Charles Wright</a>, and <a href="http://www.parl.gc.ca/Information/about/people/poet/poem-of-the-week/poets-e.htm?param=50">Jan Zwicky</a>. </div><br /><div><strong>16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>I wish I could really know another language; I wish I could speak another language without hesitancy or shame.<br /><br /><strong>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?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div>I don’t know. My mom has a photograph from when my siblings and I were preschoolers. In the photo we’re playing dress-up. My costume is hilarious to me – I’ve got my grandmother’s old eyeglasses perched on the end of my nose and I’m pretending to pore over an encyclopedia. I guess I’ve always wanted to read, write and teach. </div><br /><div></div><div><strong>18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div>Again, I don’t know. Writing’s just always been the mode through which I make sense of the world. I can say this--the fact that I write has been helped along by my supportive, immediate family. </div><br /><div></div><div><strong>19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?</strong> </div><br /><div><a href="http://www.ellenmeloy.com/eatingstone.html"><em>Eating Stone: Imagination and Loss of the Wild</em> </a>by <a href="http://www.ellenmeloy.com/">Ellen Meloy</a>.</div><br /><div>I don’t think I’ll ever get the film <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0460989/"><em>The Wind that Shakes the Barley</em> </a>out of my head. </div><br /><div></div><div><strong>20 - What are you currently working on?</strong> </div><br /><div>New poems that might articulate the changes in land-use in rural Saskatchewan and essays that are focused by my sister’s sculptural installations.</div><br /><div><a href="http://robmclennansindex.blogspot.com/2007/09/12-or-20-questions-archive.html"><em>12 or 20 questions archive</em></a></div>rob mclennanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07958889643637765864noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412809965647810701.post-87130548600262924202007-11-25T10:14:00.000-08:002008-12-11T03:10:50.595-08:0012 or 20 questions: with Shawna Lemay<a href="http://www.robertlemay.com/shawna.html"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5136858668462533874" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUMdUdj_JbBxMTUUMnsgwI-17D63_n6sEuyLMGQ9FRLJQof9uJwQJPE-63uOMCQn70DIxTCKeHnMfsUgws21F9zWoPjYXfd7wNFFZASHco3Zsgzjqg9jX8k-BhB87Q6pA0SXImdV5mpbbH/s320/shawna+with+sunflowers.jpg" border="0" /><strong>Shawna Lemay</strong> </a>is <a href="http://www.crcstudio.arts.ualberta.ca/wwr_magazine/online/summer_05/su05_cre1_lemay.php">the author </a>of <em><a href="http://mqup.mcgill.ca/browse_archives.php?catalogue=5&page=13">All the God-Sized Fruit</a></em>, <em><a href="http://www.mcclelland.com/author/results.pperl?authorid=17254">Against Paradise</a></em>, <em>Still</em>, and <em><a href="http://www.newestpress.com/books/bluefeast.html">Blue Feast</a></em>. Her MA thesis (poetry) is <em>Red Velvet Forest</em>. <a href="http://www.newestpress.com/bios/lemay.html">She</a> recently <a href="http://www.contemporaryverse2.ca/vol29_1excerpts.htm">finished a book of essays </a>about living with still life titled, <em>Calm Things</em>. Inspired by <a href="http://www.robmclennan.blogspot.com/">rob mclennan </a>and a few other bloggers, she has started her very own blog called, <em><a href="http://capacioushold-all.blogspot.com/">Capacious Hold-All</a></em>. She lives in Edmonton with her husband, <a href="http://www.robertlemay.com/">Rob Lemay </a>(<a href="http://www.wallacegalleries.com/artists.php?id=Lemay">a visual artist</a>) and their daughter, Chloe.<br /><br /><strong>1 - How did your first book change your life?</strong><br /><br />I was pregnant when the book (<em><a href="http://www.poets.ca/pshstore/Profile_book.asp?ISBN=0773519025">All the God-Sized Fruit</a></em>) was in the editing stage. The goal was to have it done before the baby came – but she came a week early. When the book came out the next spring everything had changed. Because of these two birthings, I felt like I had begun to ‘make something mythical of my life,’ which is a line from the title poem.<br /><br /><strong>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?</strong><br /><br />Indeed, I’ve lived in Edmonton my entire life. When I was a kid my family also had a weekend/summer cabin out near <a href="http://www.mattlife.ca/trip/">Lake Isle </a>which is deeply embedded in my consciousness. I spent half my childhood walking in the trees, hanging out at the barn with the horses, just moseying around looking at nature, and collecting odd little bits of it, pieces of bark, berries, interesting rocks, feathers, birds’ nests, moss. A favourite pastime was lighting fires in the burning barrel by the barn so the horses could have a smudge to keep the mosquitoes away. So that’s all there somewhere. Writing poetry has something to do with lighting fires, I’ve found. As for gender, yes, it’s been a constant question, whether I’m writing about women and creativity or motherhood. My goal is to further explore what obstacles women face by interviewing women poets of my generation on my new blog with hope they might be collected into a book at some point.<br /><br /><strong>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?</strong><br /><br />I’m definitely thinking ‘book’ from the beginning. What I’ve found interesting is how one book flows into the next. Themes recur, images, obsessions. At the end of a book, you think you’re all written out, you’ve said all you can about those themes which have obsessed you. I like then, what <a href="http://www.literarytraveler.com/authors/marguerite_duras.aspx">Margeurite Duras </a>says, “To be without the slightest subject for a book, the slightest idea for a book, is to find yourself, once again, before a book. A vast emptiness. A possible book. Before nothing.”<br /><br /><strong>4 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process?</strong><br /><br />I’m quite terrified of public readings. In the car on the way to a reading I begin swearing, uncontrollably, like a sailor. It’s ugly. When my essay ‘Shy’ was published in <em><a href="http://www.prairiefire.ca/">Prairie Fire</a></em>, and then was nominated and became a finalist for the personal journalism category at the <a href="http://www.magazine-awards.com/index.cfm/ci_id/1/la_id/1.htm">National Magazine Awards</a>, I was insanely, ridiculously nervous. If I won would they want me to go and read it at the ceremony? (I didn’t win). The essay was about, of course, being shy and what that means, and there’s a description in it of a particular reading. (The launch of <em><a href="http://www.danforthreview.com/reviews/poetry/lemay.htm">Against Paradise</a></em> along with 3 other excellent books by <a href="http://www.mcclelland.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780771006777">Sonnet L’Abbe</a>, <a href="http://www3.sympatico.ca/georgemurray/gm/">George Murray </a>and <a href="http://www.mcclelland.com/author/results.pperl?authorid=10505">Lorna Goodison</a>). This was one of the most terrifying moments of my life, reading with these poised, gifted people. For me it was a huge accomplishment that I didn’t faint. I do understand how ridiculous I am, and mainly I try to forget about the business that happens after a book comes out, while I’m writing.<br /><strong>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?</strong><br /><br />Here, for me, is the main question, cribbed from the desert fathers: why not be totally changed into fire?<br /><br /><strong>6 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?</strong><br /><br />I’ve been beyond blessed with editors. <a href="http://www.greenwood.com/catalog/author/C/Nathalie_-_Cooke.aspx">Nathalie Cooke </a>was my editor for <a href="http://www.expressnews.ualberta.ca/article.cfm?id=669"><em>All the God-Sized Fruit</em> </a>and that was simply an incredible experience. <a href="http://www.lib.unb.ca/Texts/SCL/bin/getPrint.cgi?filename=lil.html&directory=Vol22_1/">Tim Lilburn </a>edited <em><a href="http://www.poets.ca/pshstore/Profile_book.asp?ISBN=0771052278">Against Paradise</a></em>. Brilliant, kind. And <a href="http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/">Doug Barbour </a>was my editor for <a href="http://poetryreviews.ca/2006/02/11/blue-feast-by-shawna-lemay/"><em>Blue Feast</em> </a>and it was <a href="http://www.brickbooks.ca/Reviews-Wheeler-Habitat1.htm">so great working with someone </a>I knew quite well. I knew what to expect with <a href="http://www.newestpress.com/bios/barbour.html">Doug</a> as I’d had him as a poetry instructor in my undergrad. Sharp-eyed, passionate about the craft of poetry, and extremely supportive of the book.<br /><br /><strong>7 - After having published more than a couple of titles over the past few years, do you find the process of book-making harder or easier?<br /></strong><br />It’s difficult, always difficult. But there’s joy too. Writing is what makes the world magic. ( I think I’m stealing all that from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marguerite_Duras">Duras</a>…)<br /><br /><strong>8 - When was the last time you ate a pear?</strong><br /><br />We forget to eat the pears very often in this house. We’re too busy watching the drama of the pear – the way it turns from green, to yellow and then into a pale speckled ghost pear. There is the way the brown spots appear, the bruises., the gashes and in the summer flies will alight. We watch and watch, mesmerized, until it’s inedible. Rob, my husband, <a href="http://www.robertlemay.com/72.html">is a still life painter who has painted numerous pears</a>.<br /><br />I blame him entirely for my lack of pear eating.<br /><br /><strong>9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?</strong><br /><br />Give. I’ve learned this from a few sources. During the editing of <em><a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=CSwCInSn3DkC&dq=shawna+lemay+all+the+god+sized+fruit&printsec=frontcover&source=web&ots=sddI9hTtGf&sig=C_0ErThlxQ7SndNd9-NqlTJbuyk#PPP1,M1">ATGSF</a></em>, <a href="http://www.arts.mcgill.ca/english/people/cooke.html">Nathalie Cooke </a>recommended a book to me by <a href="http://onthecommons.org/lewishyde">Lewis Hyde </a>called <em><a href="http://southerncrossreview.org/4/schwartz.html">The Gift</a></em>. But she also taught this by example. It’s also in <a href="http://www.doyletics.com/arj/twlrvw.htm">Annie Dillard’s <em>The Writing Life</em></a>: “the impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give feely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes.”<br /><br /><strong>10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to non-fiction)? What do you see as the appeal?</strong><br /><br />It’s been a natural move to non-fiction. I can’t really say why, but I’ve lost heart for poetry. I hope it comes back. Perhaps I’m foolish to expect it to. There’s consolation in <a href="http://www.mcclelland.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780771015915">Roo Borson’s <em>Upriver to Oishida</em></a>. She talks about having ‘given up’ poetry twice, and then poetry replies: “Throw it Away, / it comes back. // Throw it away harder, / it still comes back.” So, I’ll see if it returns. It’s been quite a long while now…<br /><br /><strong>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?<br /></strong><br />I’ve always had a writing routine and I’m always strict about it. The routine has changed so many times since we had our daughter 9 years ago. And then we got her a puppy (black lab) in June so that’s forced yet another change. A good one though. I walk the dog in the morning in <a href="http://www.vredmonton.com/fullTerwillegarP.htm">Terwillegar park </a>– which is very similar to my childhood forest. Every day, it’s a different forest. The light is different, the leaves change colour, drift to the forest floor, slowly, over weeks. And now the beginning of the winter forest which has its own beauty. I look and look, drinking in every tree branch. Then home to write until it’s time to collect my daughter from school.<br /><br /><strong>12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?</strong><br /><br />I turn to books – always to <a href="http://www.upress.umn.edu/Books/L/lispector_stream.html"><em>The Stream of Life</em> </a>by <a href="http://www.vidaslusofonas.pt/clarice_lispector2.htm">Clarice Lispector</a>. To the work of <a href="http://www.poets.ca/pshstore/Profile_book.asp?ISBN=1550502026">Kristjana Gunnars</a>, <a href="http://www.anniedillard.com/">Annie Dillard</a>, <a href="http://www.engl.niu.edu/wac/cixous_intro.html">Helene Cixous</a>, <a href="http://womenshistory.about.com/library/bio/ucbio_duras_margaret.htm">Margeurite Duras</a>, <a href="http://www.enotes.com/dead-house/author-biography">Hannah Green</a>, <a href="http://www.depts.drew.edu/wmst/corecourses/wmst111/timeline_bios/SGriffin.htm">Susan Griffin</a>. And then to many poets, <a href="http://www.ithl.org.il/author_info.asp?id=209">Dahlia Ravikovitch</a>, <a href="http://www.alicejamesbooks.org/macari_poem.html">Anne Marie Macari</a>, <a href="http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/153">Eavan Boland</a>, <a href="http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/g_l/levertov/levertov.htm">Denise Levertov</a>, <a href="http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/tsveta.htm">Marina Tsvetaeva</a>, <a href="http://www.uwo.ca/english/canadianpoetry/cpjrn/vol32/potvin.htm">Phyllis Webb </a>and more of course.<br /><br /><strong>14 - <a href="http://www.ucalgary.ca/UofC/faculties/HUM/ENGL/canada/poet/d_mcfadden.htm">David W. McFadden </a>once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?</strong><br /><br />I’m most influenced by visual art, especially since I live with a still life artist. We’re obsessed with objects, with still life, but we both love pouring over art books, all kinds of art. On the floor of my study right now I have books on <a href="http://www.essentialvermeer.com/">Vermeer</a>, <a href="http://www.menil.org/twombly.html">Cy Twombly</a>, <a href="http://www.leninimports.com/leonor_fini1.html">Leonor Fini</a>, and a couple of colour theory books. Also <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Reading-Women-Stefan-Bollmann/dp/1858943329"><em>Reading Women</em> </a>– images of women reading, from <a href="http://gallery.euroweb.hu/html/s/simone/6annunci/ann_2st.html">Simone Martini’s <em>Annunciation</em></a>, to <a href="http://www.magnumarchive.com/c/htm/TreePf_MAG.aspx?E=29YL53IQ59I">Eve Arnold’s </a>photograph of <a href="http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/news/newsletters/2002/fall/8.html">Marilyn Munroe Reading <em>Ulysses</em></a>.<br /><br /><strong>15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?</strong><br /><br />(I think I sort of answered this in number 12?…)<br /><br /><strong>16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?</strong><br /><br />The most important thing to do will be to drink more champagne. I don’t want to have regrets, as <a href="http://cepa.newschool.edu/het/profiles/keynes.htm">John Maynard Keynes </a>did. (“<a href="http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/columnists/story.html?id=fe172a3d-0fdd-4516-bbd5-0381fbc5aa4d">My only regret in life is that I did not drink more champagne</a>”)<br /><br /><strong>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?<br /></strong><br />I would attempt to become a visual artist – though I’m not nearly talented enough to succeed. If I’d not become a writer I would have ended up as a librarian type – answering reference questions, digging and delving. Trying to find that next perfect book for someone.<br /><br /><strong>18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?</strong><br /><br />I’ll quote <a href="http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/duras.htm">Duras</a>: “No matter what I say, I will never discover why one writes and how one doesn’t write.”<br /><br /><strong>19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?</strong><br /><br /><em><a href="http://www.ralphmag.org/DB/housekeeping.html">Housekeeping</a></em> by <a href="http://www.powells.com/interviews/robinson.html">Marilynne Robinson</a>.<br /><br />We watch a lot of cartoons in this house, sadly. But <a href="http://www.amazon.ca/Cat-Returns-Hiroyuki-Morita/dp/B0006J28BO/ref=sr_1_2/701-2751569-9674766?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1194401611&sr=8-2"><em>The Cat Returns</em> </a>was excellent.<br /><br /><strong>20 - What are you currently working on?</strong><br /><br />I’m working on a long piece about the possibility of a woman art forger. I’m attempting to push the boundaries of creative non-fiction (who isn’t these days?). I’ve really just begun so I’m at that fearful, elated, wild and somewhat incomprehensible stage when it comes to explaining anything about it.<br /><br /><div></div><div><a href="http://robmclennansindex.blogspot.com/2007/09/12-or-20-questions-archive.html"><em>12 or 20 questions archive</em></a></div>rob mclennanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07958889643637765864noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412809965647810701.post-49674696986926675902007-11-24T16:53:00.000-08:002008-12-11T03:10:50.741-08:00rob mclennan (and Lainna) at the West Edmonton Mall<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsZ8k8J2iTRuyP_GUvsP3XbwQ6AQRgZHSNe0CNTFJaNID51ElHlcSDPyFfu2IVdBfeiMS0YNnd1Jwz4WUWLMMR1w44obw22nQJcR7anQUmjSZj6uq1rLzUAe2WGDBoH415jwowjf4VrLhJ/s1600-h/mall006.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5136575952240274642" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsZ8k8J2iTRuyP_GUvsP3XbwQ6AQRgZHSNe0CNTFJaNID51ElHlcSDPyFfu2IVdBfeiMS0YNnd1Jwz4WUWLMMR1w44obw22nQJcR7anQUmjSZj6uq1rLzUAe2WGDBoH415jwowjf4VrLhJ/s320/mall006.jpg" border="0" /></a> <div><div>After my two post referencing the <a href="http://www.westedmall.com/home/default.asp">West Edmonton Mall </a>[<a href="http://robmclennan.blogspot.com/2007/11/ongoing-notes-notes-more-notes-heres.html">here</a> and <a href="http://robmclennan.blogspot.com/2007/11/edmonton-first-snow-today-first-snow-in.html">here</a>], a photo (courtesy of Lainna El Jabi) during our adventures there, Saturday, November 3, 2007. Me in my new leather standing in the centre of all the roller-coasters.</div></div>rob mclennanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07958889643637765864noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412809965647810701.post-24985461321390170912007-11-22T13:05:00.001-08:002008-12-11T03:10:51.027-08:00rob mclennan at Catherine Owen's Troubadour<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcCTnOnnvuds3b0OIShQ_BnY3ata-UtihtAS3vEQ4ib6bs4GQi9tVtTQ4vKc-N4OmgFC67HPo6cKG8Gma8guLtcCMcM62qOiOEHZ5R0MP2Q28IC2aR-uUV93bSlC5hyphenhyphen6VBKnx3zrNFU-lw/s1600-h/robmclennantrub.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5136566456067583154" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcCTnOnnvuds3b0OIShQ_BnY3ata-UtihtAS3vEQ4ib6bs4GQi9tVtTQ4vKc-N4OmgFC67HPo6cKG8Gma8guLtcCMcM62qOiOEHZ5R0MP2Q28IC2aR-uUV93bSlC5hyphenhyphen6VBKnx3zrNFU-lw/s320/robmclennantrub.jpg" border="0" /></a>rob mclennanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07958889643637765864noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412809965647810701.post-77072496663615303812007-11-15T11:22:00.000-08:002008-12-11T03:10:51.043-08:0012 or 20 questions: with Alice Major<a href="http://www.library.utoronto.ca/canpoetry/major/index.htm"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5133152360794188370" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVX2LJ-0iXBDZssiha_bz9v-lECbPcX43o0lbLfObAE_6_blJguv8GKMtUGBIpBMF3xlJr9C9ZrRG8qoCKnBr2tRzFdNgRNJ6tzdZI4VNr5anZQxQFzpAKABouhz_8guBufBPeAWT3LmvZ/s320/AliceMajor_jul+27+06(3).jpg" border="0" /><strong>Alice Major</strong> </a>has published <a href="http://www.brokenjaw.com/catalog/pg3.htm">seven collections of poetry </a>and one novel. She has won<a href="http://www.malahatreview.ca/long_poem_prize/info.html"> the <em>Malahat Review’s</em> long poem contest </a>and been short-listed for the <a href="http://www.poets.ca/linktext/awards/lowther.htm">Pat Lowther Award</a>, the <a href="http://www.writersguild.ab.ca/cityedmontonshortlistasp.asp">City of Edmonton Book Prize</a> (twice) and <a href="http://www.writersguild.ab.ca/programs/alberta_book_awards.asp">the Stephan G. Stephanson Award, Writers Guild of Alberta </a>(three times the bridesmaid, never the bride.)<br /><br />She <a href="http://www.writersguild.ab.ca/membership/member_details.asp?intMemberID=626">has been president </a>of the <a href="http://www.writersguild.ab.ca/">Writers Guild of Alberta </a>and of the <a href="http://www.poets.ca/">League of Canadian Poets</a>, and chair of the <a href="http://www.edmontonarts.ab.ca/">Edmonton Arts Council</a>. In 2005, she was named <a href="http://www.edmonton.ca/portal/server.pt/gateway/PTARGS_0_0_375_214_0_43/http%3B/CMSServer/COEWeb/mayor+and+city+council/Role+of+the+Poet+Laureate.htm">the first poet laureate of the City of Edmonton</a> – a city she has made her home since 1981. She grew up in Toronto, took a degree in English at the <a href="http://www.trinity.utoronto.ca/">U of T’s Trinity College</a>, and first came west to work as a newspaper reporter in the <a href="http://www.greatwildspaces.org/cariboo.html">central Cariboo region of B.C.</a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.poets.ca/Linktext/direct/major.htm">Her most recent collection </a>was <em><a href="http://www.canlit.ca/reviews-review.php?id=13755">The Occupied World</a></em>, from the <a href="http://www.uap.ualberta.ca/UAP.asp?LID=41&bookID=679">University of Alberta Press </a>(2006). Her eighth book of poetry will also be published by UAP in spring, 2008.<br /><br /><strong>1 - How did your first book change your life?</strong><br /><br />Do you mean writing it or having it published? Realizing that I could write a whole book was life-changing, but publishing it was like watching the silt settle over one more trilobite on its way to fossilization.<br /><br />That first book was a novel and therefore something of an aberration. I haven’t published fiction since, so in retrospect it seems like an evolutionary blind alley.<br /><br /><strong>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?</strong><br /><br />I’ve lived in Edmonton since 1981. Geography absolutely affects my writing, though it took me a while to notice the plains landscape that now surrounded me. It’s a subtler kind of beauty than the coast or the mountains, and for a while I only noticed what wasn’t here. But poetry is based on the art of attentiveness, so in some ways a plains landscape is excellent training for that faculty.<br /><br />As for gender and race – I’m aware of writing from the point of view of a woman, and the issues of roles and expectations are important. (One of my collections, <em><a href="http://www.danforthreview.com/reviews/poetry/major.htm">Some Bones and a Story</a></em>, is a collection of dramatic monologues in the voices of different female saints.) However, having grown up in a blue-collar family, I think that economic class tends to trump gender as a formative experience. That’s what really shapes my ideas about what poetry is and does.<br /><br /><strong>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?</strong><br /><div><br />Oh, a poem always has to begin as sound, an ‘ear-worm.’ I typically like to work on big projects, sequences and so on. But however lofty and well-formed the overall idea might be, nothing’s going anywhere until some combination of sound and rhythm clicks.<br /><br />I find it interesting that it the process is so opposite from fiction. To create fiction, I have to see something –to visualize where the action is going on, who’s going to move into the scene, what they’re going to do. The words to encode that can come afterwards. For poetry, though, some words have to come first.<br /><br />And it feels as though they literally come from different parts of my brain. Fiction seems to start at the back of my head, poetry at the side.<br /><br /><strong>4 – Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process?</strong></div><br /><div>They are part of the polishing process. That’s how you find out what lines work, how people respond to a piece overall.<br /><br />I like reading. Not as much as I like writing – it’s a thrill when you feel you’ve landed an audience, but it doesn’t last anywhere near as long as the rush of feeling something new click in your brain.<br /><br /><strong>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?</strong></div><br /><div>I think a great deal about poetic theory, because it concerns the relationship between my work and a reader. I don’t think we’ve adequately incorporated the new discoveries of <a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/cognitive-science/">cognitive science </a>and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuropsychology">neuropsychology</a> into critical theory. By and large, I find that<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant%C3%B3nio_Dam%C3%A1sio"> Damasio</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Dennett">Dennett </a>and <a href="http://www.oliversacks.com/">Oliver Sachs </a>are more valuable in shaping my own ideas of what I do when I write than people like Derrida or <a href="http://prelectur.stanford.edu/lecturers/cixous/">Hélène Cixous</a>.<br /><br /><strong>6 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?</strong></div><br /><div>I’ve never had the luxury of working with an editor intensively on a manuscript, except for the copy-editing process. I am profoundly grateful for good copy-editing, though I suspect I might become a bit ornery with substantive editing. I do enjoy workshopping with my poetry group.<br /><br /><strong>7 - After having published more than a couple of titles over the years, do you find the process of book-making harder or easier?</strong></div><br /><div>I’d say that, on balance, it gets harder – though that may be an illusion fostered by our inability to really remember previous pain. Certain technical things come more easily, but the challenge of finding something new to do with the tools you’ve mastered becomes greater. You don’t want to go on writing the same poems that you did when you were thirty.<br /><br /><strong>8 - When was the last time you ate a pear?</strong></div><br /><div>I’m the kind of woman who constantly buys pears, leaves them on the window sill to ripen, then forgets them. I can’t remember one that didn’t go brown and gooey into the garbage pail.<br /><br /><strong>9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?</strong></div><br /><div>“Poets take on enormous challenges of technique, first of all in fun.” It’s from <a href="http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/walcott.htm">Derek Walcott’s </a>book, <em><a href="http://www.english.emory.edu/Bahri/Walcott.html">What the Twilight Says</a></em>.<br /><br /><strong>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?</strong></div><br /><div>If I have the enormous good fortune to be able to get up and stare out the window in my bathrobe for a couple of hours, that’s wonderfully productive – but rare. I really don’t have a routine. I just write when I can.<br /><br /><strong>11 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?</strong></div><br /><div>Oh, the usual writer’s tricks – trawl through a thesaurus for interesting words, make up silly metaphors (cat is to book as air is to ….? ), scribble in my journal.<br /><br />But the main thing I’ve learned is to depend not on external inspiration, but to trust the inner space. If I’m quiet enough, the connections come.<br /><br /><strong>12 - How does your most recent book compare to your previous work? How does it feel different?</strong></div><br /><div>It’s longer :-)<br /><br />This newest book <em>The office tower tales</em> will be coming out in spring, 2008 from the University of Alberta Press. I’ve been working on the darn thing for ten years. It has a frame narrative based on the lives of a group of office workers over the millennial year, and one of the characters (Sheherazad, the girl from public relations) tells a series of stories that illuminate issues of power, beauty, love and fear that they are facing.<br /><br />I’ve always had an interest in tale-telling and the creation of mythologies, which comes out in this work. It continues my love of narrative poetry. It adds more rhyme – I developed a stanza form for the frame narrative that includes a variable end-rhyme pattern to swing the material firmly over the prose-poetry divide.<br /><br />I hope it has a feeling of lightness for readers. Its tone is meant to be comic in the large sense. I like entertaining people – in the original sense of ‘entretenir,’ to hold together.<br /><br /><strong>13 - <a href="http://www.wier.ca/DMcFadden.html">David W. McFadden </a>once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?</strong></div><br /><div>Science, absolutely. Physics, mathematics, chemistry – they are full of wonderful metaphors to work with. Cognitive science fascinates me.<br /><br /><strong>14 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?</strong></div><br /><div>Gawd, even in blogspace it would be too long to print. <a href="http://www.courses.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer/">Chaucer</a>, <a href="http://www.lucidcafe.com/library/96mar/browning.html">Browning</a> (<a href="http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoet.do?poetId=1545">both of them</a>), <a href="http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/donne/">Donne </a>– more recent poets like <a href="http://www-users.cs.umn.edu/~safonov/brodsky/">Brodsky</a>, <a href="http://www.contemporarywriters.com/authors/?p=auth104">Carol Ann Duffy</a>, <a href="http://www.geocities.com/storeez1/AlbertGoldbarth.html">Albert Goldbarth</a>. <a href="http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1992/walcott-bio.html">Derek Walcott </a>is absolutely one of my favourites. (Another quote of his: “<a href="http://www.geocities.com/nobel123za/Derek-Walcott.html">To be told you are not yet a city or a culture requires this response. I am not your city or your culture</a>.” It allows me to feel it’s all right to live in a place that is not considered the centre.)<br /><br />But probably the biggest influence is <a href="http://www.robertburns.org/">Robert Burns</a>. Not fashionable to admit, I suppose. But I can’t avoid it – I was born in Scotland; my father wrote poems that were modeled on <a href="http://www.nls.uk/burns/index.htm">Burns’ </a>work (including a reply to the poet by the mouse), and I can’t help putting a dimeter at the end of stanzas. It took me years to figure out where that tic came from.<br /><br />I feel a great liking for <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Burns">Burns</a> – his ideals, his wry compromises, his interest in preserving popular folk song, his belief in a decent humanity, the way he can switch between <a href="http://www.lallans.co.uk/lallans.html">Lallans</a> and the high-falutin’ poetic diction of his day, and his wonderful, wonderful command of rhythm and sound.<br /><br /><strong>15 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?</strong></div><br /><div>Write a decent haiku. I can’t do short.<br /><br /><strong>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?</strong></div><br /><div>I was going to toss off a flippant answer like “depressed.” But then I thought it over.<br /><br />I have taken a circuitously single-minded path to being a poet. I’ve had quite a few occupations in my life: bank teller, bookkeeper, newspaper reporter, technical writer, arts administrator, teacher. I could have gone on progressing in the corporate world because I was rather good at that. All that time, it has been very difficult to give myself permission to be a poet – an occupation that does not look spectacularly useful and, deep inside me, seems self-indulgent. But poetry is what I always returned to.<br /><br />I have often felt at a disadvantage because of this diffident approach. Had I been a ‘career poet’ sooner, had I made the connections in university, then perhaps I’d have been able to give my poetry a sturdier shove out from the shore of anonymity. Instead, I was forty before I published my first collection and the rowboat may never get past the sandbar.<br /><br />Still, I think that to be a poet (as opposed to being other sorts of writer), it helps when you do other kinds of work too. Poets should be in the world of humanity. Maybe fiction writers need to sit at their desks to churn out twenty pages a day, but I need to find out something about the world that I can compress into a few lines. I couldn’t have written my latest book, for instance, without years of working in office towers.<br /><br /><strong>17 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?</strong></div><br /><div>I like doing it more than I like doing anything else.<br /><br /><strong>18 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?</strong></div><br /><div>Film remains pure escapism for me, so I tend to miss new films and to watch old black-and-white movies from the ‘30s and ‘40s. So ‘great’ would have to refer to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Astaire">Fred Astaire </a>in <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0027125/"><em>Top Hat</em> </a>or something like that.<br /><br />The most recent ‘great’ book that I read has been <a href="http://www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com/catalog/titledetail.cfm?titleNumber=682020">Richard Dawkins’ <em>The Ancestor’s Tale</em> </a>– an absolutely wonderful book on evolution.<br /><br /><strong>19 - What are you currently working on?<br /></div></strong><div>Elegy. Life takes you there sooner or later.</div><br /><div><a href="http://robmclennansindex.blogspot.com/2007/09/12-or-20-questions-archive.html">12 or 20 questions archive</a></div>rob mclennanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07958889643637765864noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3412809965647810701.post-58833675721872191402007-10-11T10:06:00.000-07:002008-12-11T03:10:51.279-08:0012 or 20 questions: with Jill Hartman<a href="http://processdocuments.blogspot.com/2003/09/process03-champhlet-fylfot-jill.html"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5120193927333116466" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7Jvtj-eZihgldOIc8S5SVIE67Tqa55e4n-BrPdtPP3ei2RrNabjvICIg0McwL2FOLWw292DvldvJp-ovmmoY574-zKaVsLCflpAyOjIGG0_KcfQg10LHv3VQ5zjQxpeA3q8bDzLseiyaK/s320/jillhartmanphoto.jpg" border="0" />Calgary poet <strong>Jill Hartman</strong> </a>writes <a href="http://www.quillandquire.com/events/?id=80">disjunctive narrative poetry </a>about pachyderms, pirates, belly dancing, Ouija, Scrabble, and <em>The Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth</em>. She’s presented and <a href="http://individual.utoronto.ca/betts/eng356/jill_hartman.htm">performed her poetry </a>across <a href="http://www.atwaterlibrary.ca/en/node/598">Canada </a>and as far afield as Scotland, and her <a href="http://www.commutiny.net/micropress/micropressay-end.html">writing’s appeared </a>in <em><a href="http://robmclennan.blogspot.com/2005/03/queen-street-quarterly-final-with.html">Queen Street Quarterly</a></em>, <em><a href="http://fillingstation.ca/">filling Station</a></em>, and <em><a href="http://thediagram.com/comprehensive.html">DIAGRAM</a></em>, in the anthologies <a href="http://www.talonbooks.com/index.cfm?event=titleDetails&ISBN=0889225230"><em>Post-Prairie</em> </a>(Talonbooks) and <a href="http://www.themercurypress.ca/?q=books/shift_switch"><em>Shift & Switch</em> </a>(Mercury), and in chapbooks from <a href="http://individual.utoronto.ca/betts/eng356/ryan_fitzpatrick.htm">MODL Press</a>, <a href="http://www.myspace.com/olivereadingseries">Olive Press</a>, and <a href="http://semi-p.blogspot.com/">her own chapbook series semi-precious press</a>. Her first book of poetry, <em><a href="http://www.poets.ca/pshstore/profile_book.asp?ISBN=1552451178">A Painted Elephant</a></em>, (<a href="http://www.chbooks.com/content/?q=contributor/hartman_jill">Coach House </a>2003) was shortlisted for both the <a href="http://www.writersguild.ab.ca/programs/alberta_book_awards.asp">Stephansson </a>and <a href="http://www.poets.ca/linktext/awards/lampert.htm">Lampert Awards</a>, and was featured on the program “<a href="http://www.heartofapoet.ca/">Heart of a Poet</a>,” which you can see on <a href="http://www.booktelevision.com/">BOOK TV </a>and <a href="http://www.bravo.ca/">BRAVO</a>. Her second book of poetry, <em><a href="http://www.themercurypress.ca/?q=books/booty_hurricane_jane_and_typhoon_mary">Booty: Hurricane Jane and Typhoon Mary</a></em>, was co-written with Brea Burton and comes out November 2007 form the Mercury Press.<br /><div><strong></strong></div><br /><div><strong>1 - How did your first book change your life?<br /></strong><br />When I got an offer of publication for <em><a href="http://www.ffwdweekly.com/Issues/2003/0807/book2.htm">A Painted Elephant</a></em>, 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.<br /><br /><strong>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?</strong><br /><br />This so counts as two questions, rob!<br /><br />I grew up in Calgary, I’ve lived here most of my life so far. My family’s <a href="http://commutiny.blogspot.com/2006/12/albertaviews-jill-hartman.html">been in Alberta </a>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.<br /><br />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 <a href="http://processdocuments.blogspot.com/2005/04/chap-06-pirate-lore-brea-burton-jill.html">Brea Burton </a>coming out this fall, <em>Booty</em>, 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!<br /><br /><strong>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</strong>?<br /><br />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 <a href="http://calgarystampede.com/">Calgary Stampede</a>, then I can start colouring it in. “The Big Four Building” section title leads me to </div><div><br />tip holy cows<br />bulldoze Victoria Park<br />bull-in-a-china one-stop-shop for all your lottery, casino, junk food needs<br /><br />Big Four building<br />bigger than the Famous Five<br />more than famous the biggest rodeo around<br />The Greatest Outdoor Show greater than<br />ten thousand dancing girls kicking cans<br />vaudeville baudeville Red-Mile-wide smiles<br /><br />I’ll tell you the tale of the west<br />as the tale of the rest of us<br />what it’s like to love a cowboy before brokeback<br />when I was still ashamed to be a hick<br /><br />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.<br /><br /><strong>4 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process?<br /></strong><br />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.<br /><br /><strong>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?</strong><br /><br />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 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrabble">Scrabble</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ouija">Ouija</a>. 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?<br /><br /><strong>6 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?<br /></strong><br />Both.<br /><br /><strong>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?</strong><br /><br />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! <a href="http://semi-p.blogspot.com/2006/01/my-alberta-beef-ice-cream-haiku-in.html">The last chapbook I completed </a>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?<br /><br />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 <a href="http://jacketmagazine.com/18/c-will.html">Julia Williams </a>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.<br /><br /><strong>8 - When was the last time you ate a pear?</strong><br /><br />I had a bite of a wild pear in early September. Or I suppose it was a feral pear. <a href="http://northender1.blogspot.com/">Paul</a> 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.<br /><br /><strong>9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?<br /></strong><br />Probably <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Wah">Fred Wah’s </a>“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.<br /><br />Me:<br />“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!”<br />My Inner <a href="http://www.wtc.ab.ca/tedyck/RN.1.R.td.wah.htm">Fred</a>:<br />“so what?”<br />Me:<br />“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.”<br /><br /><strong>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?<br /></strong><br />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.<br /><br /><strong>11 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?<br /></strong><br />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.<br /><br /><strong>12 - How does your most recent book compare to your previous work? How does it feel different?<br /></strong><br />As the author of <em><a href="http://www.ecampus.com/book/1552451178">A Painted Elephant</a></em>, 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 <em>Booty: Hurricane Jane</em> (my half of the co-written book) isn’t really narrative or disjunctive. It’s serial and iterative. So as the author of <em>A Painted Elephant</em> and <em>Booty</em>, 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 <a href="http://semi-p.blogspot.com/2006/05/shes-master-burton-now.html">Brea Burton</a>, 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 <em>Booty</em>—working with <a href="http://www.atwaterlibrary.ca/en/node/596">Brea</a> (and with <a href="http://www.mcnallyrobinson.com/event-7007/Jessica-Westhead-&-Cara-Hedley">Cara Hedley </a>in <a href="http://thediagram.com/5_1/menage.html">the project’s early days</a>) has been one of the most rewarding creative endeavors I’ve tried out so far. I would love to write collaboratively more. <a href="http://individual.utoronto.ca/betts/eng356/jasonchristie.htm">Jason Christie </a>and I keep threatening to co-write a fantasy novel.<br /><br /><strong>13 - <a href="http://www.insomniacpress.com/author.php?id=166">David W. McFadden </a>once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?</strong><br /><br />Well, culture. So all of those things excluding nature. But also nature. And of course books!<br /><br /><strong>14 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?<br /></strong><br /><a href="http://www.chbooks.com/biographies/index.php?ID=2067">Julia Williams</a>, <a href="http://www.themercurypress.ca/?q=authors/brea_burton">Brea Burton</a>, <a href="http://www.chbooks.com/catalogue/index.php?ISBN=1552451860">Cara Hedley</a>, <a href="http://www.chbooks.com/content/?q=folksonomy/angela_rawlings">angela rawlings</a>, <a href="http://www.edgewebsite.com/books/irobotpoetry/ir-catalog.html">Jason Christie</a>, <a href="http://lemonhound.blogspot.com/2007/09/natalie-simpson-accrete-or-crumble.html">Natalie Simpson</a>, <a href="http://www.drunkenboat.com/db8/canadapoetry/scott/">Jordan Scott</a>, <a href="http://www.newestpress.com/books/faking.html">Fred Wah</a>, <a href="http://www.poets.ca/linktext/direct/kroetsch.htm">Robert Kroetsch</a>, <a href="http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/brossard/">Nicole Brossard</a>. 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…<br /><strong><br />15 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?</strong><br /><br />I would like to go to New Zealand and Spain.<br /><br /><strong>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?</strong><br /><br />I like to fantasize about vineyards. Hot air balloons. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arboriculture">Arboriculture</a>. Soup entrepreneurship. <a href="http://www.facade.com/stichomancy/">Stichomancy</a>. And I like to sew.<br /><br /><strong>17 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?<br /></strong><br />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.<br /><br /><strong>18 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?<br /></strong><br /><em><a href="http://www.anansi.ca/titles.cfm?pub_id=1156">Yesno</a></em> by <a href="http://www.library.utoronto.ca/canpoetry/lee/">Dennis Lee</a>, and we watched <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081505/"><em>The Shining</em> </a>again the other night, what a great movie!<br /><br /><strong>19 - What are you currently working on?</strong><br /><br />I’m working on a novel. It’s a ghost story.<br /><br /><a href="http://robmclennansindex.blogspot.com/2007/09/12-or-20-questions-archive.html"><em>12 or 20 questions archive</em></a></div>rob mclennanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07958889643637765864noreply@blogger.com0