notes from turtle valley

Holiday gifts for the budding novelist

2009-12-09T10:39:00.000-08:00

Margaret Atwood recently posted a list of “ten gifts to give beginning novelists” on her blog. http://marg09.wordpress.com/2009/12/06/ten-gifts-to-give-beginning-novelists/

That inspired me to post my own top ten list of gifts to give that budding novelist in your life:

1. A Passion for Narrative by Jack Hodgins. This is the guide I use in my workshops in the UBC CW optional-residency MFA program, and the guide I recommend to the writers I mentor. Jack Hodgins is my own mentor, and a legendary teacher of creative writing. He was just awarded the Order of Canada this year.

2. A thick notebook and a fabulous pen. While most of our writing happens on the laptop these days, good old fashioned pen and paper are still the writer’s most important tools. The best ideas most often hit us at unexpected times, when we’re away from our work station and our minds are not focussed on our writing project: while washing dishes, taking the bus, in bed. So its important to keep a notebook handy. Also, keeping a journal on a given writing project helps the mind stay attuned to and looking for potentially useful details.

3. The 38 Most Common Fiction Writing Mistakes (And How to Avoid Them), by Jack M. Bickhman. Most of us stumble over similar issues as we learn this very complicated craft. This no-nonsense guide points out many of these common problem areas.

4. How to Write a Damn Good Mystery by James N. Frey. A gift to give a writer even if he or she has no intention of writing a mystery. The reason? The structure of a literary novel is tricky to nail down, as it should match the subject and themes of that particular project. So we’re reinventing the wheel each time we take on a new novel project. Taking a close look at genre fiction often helps to clarify basic dramatic structure, and gives the budding novelist a template to work with. The writer can then jump from there, to create his or her own structure, unique to the project.

5. Structuring Your Novel by Robert C. Meredith and John. D. Fitzgerald. A good basic guide to finding the structure for your novel.

6. Self-editing for Fiction Writers by Renni Browne and Dave King. It’s important to take your own manuscript as far as you can before trying to find a home for it. That means a novelist must learn to edit his or her own work. Again, this book is a good basic guide to building those necessary skills.

7. A peer-critique fiction workshop. This can be a pricey gift, but there is no better way to learn how to write fiction than to take a fiction workshop where you are critiquing the work of others. Here is where you really hone those self-editing skills.

8. A brainstorming buddy. Inspiration is hard to come by. A friend who really gets the creative process and who has the time to brainstorm with a writer is a wonderful gift. My brainstorming sessions with my own buddy, my husband Mitch Krupp, often shave months off my writing projects.

9. Encouragement. Writing a novel is a very difficult, time-consuming effort, and there are few rewards for that effort, other the process of writing itself. Many potential novelists simply give up. So encouragement from a friend to keep going is a huge gift.

10. Time. Give your budding novelist the one thing he or she really needs: at least an hour or two a day to work on that damn novel. Novels most often take years to write. But if a novelist writes just 250 words a day, he or she can pull together a rough draft in a year. Most of us, however, have a hard time carving out that hour or two from our hectic days. And many of us, women with families in particular, often feel guilty about it. So you might volunteer to take on a daily household chore so that the budding novelist in your household has the time to make that dream happen.

Stranger than Fiction

2009-10-06T11:22:00.001-07:00

Each year, on Halloween week, I give my students in the UBC optional-residency creative writing MFA program the chance to talk about the strange synchronicities that so often haunt the writing life. Here's one of my own stories on the subject, recently published in the Globe and Mail.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/books/stranger-than-fiction/article1270691/

Thank you Carol

2009-06-10T11:30:00.000-07:00

In May I participated in the inaugural Carol Shields Symposium on Women’s Writing: Festival of Voices at the University of Winnipeg, Winnipeg.

When I was asked to participate in this event, my first thought was how often Carol Shields’ name comes up in discussions in the courses I teach in the UBC creative writing MFA program or in conversation with the writers I mentor privately.

I teach fiction in the optional residency arm of the UBC program, which means our workshops are on-line and our students are working, living and travelling all over the world. So I’ve been delighted to realize from my student’s comments the reach of Carol’s work and life on writers all over the globe. I’d like to share just a couple of these comments from our writers in the UBC program before I talk about Carol’s influence on my own writing.

Jamie Sharpe said: “One of my best book finds is a hardcover copy of Small Ceremonies, with Shields' inscription: In memory of/ a small ceremony/ Toronto 1977.

Jamie said, “When things are dour I pull it off the shelf, read the first two lines ("Sunday night. And the thought strikes me that I ought to be happier than I am."), and remind myself to take pleasure in the small ceremonies like writing, or the hundred coffees that punctuate my day.”

And this comment comes from Jane Warren:

“I have fond memories of Carol Shields. She came to read and speak to our writing class at U of C in the late 80’s. She read from The Orange Fish and then spoke to our small group about writing and process and the writing life.

“Carol was so very generous with her support. I was chuffed when she went out of her way to speak to me and quietly offer support and encouragement. Over the years when things have been slow and plodding and difficult, I have taken great heart from that memory and her generosity.”

It’s these two sentiments that I hear from writers over and over again: writers tell their stories about Carol’s generosity in offering them and other writers support on many levels. But even more often they talk about how, and I’m quoting another of our students, Claudia Mangel, here: “her careful exploration of "domestic" themes has been a great inspiration...” to their own writing.

That has certainly been the case for me, and it was a sentiment that came up again and again over the symposium weekend: how Carol’s writing inspired women in particular to explore the domestic, and the domestic detail, in our writing, as she did in her own.

Carol called domestic life “the shaggy beast that eats up 50 percent of our lives” and recognized its importance by writing about it and in the process, as so many have pointed out, turned the mundane into the extraordinary.

As a young writer I had wanted to pursue the domestic in my own writing but didn’t feel that I could until I read Carol Shields work. Seeing my own mother’s and grandmother’s lives reflected in her writing allowed me the freedom to just go ahead, to sit down and write from the stories of my mother and grandmother’s generation, and from my own, to make use of subject matter and details that I might have otherwise passed over, like recipes and the how-tos that Carol used in her own writing.

Her writing also gave me inspiration for structure. Carol, in her mid and later career was a great experimenter and I found encouragement there to experiment early in my own career.

If, following Carol’s lead, I was allowed to write of the domestic then I could look to the details of domestic life and incorporate them into the structure of the novel itself.

I could use the scrapbook, so important to the lives of my mother and my grandmother’s generations, as a template for the structure in the novel, as I did in The Cure for Death by Lightning, and I could use the index that’s found in any cookbook within that novel.

When Carol wrote The Stone Diaries and included photos in that book – which one critic called a “A kind of family album made into a work of art", I realized I could do the same, and used my own family photos at the heads of chapters in my own work. Later I incorporated photos of everyday kitchen objects in my writing, again elements of the domestic. Like so many other writers, I would not have felt I could do any of this before reading Carol Shields. Her lasting impact has been not only on the subject matter we chose to write about, but on the structure of the writing itself, how we chose to tell the tale.

I didn’t get to know Carol personally, though, like a great many writers and readers, I did come to feel that I knew her through her novels.

And as I mentioned at the start, I also felt I came to know her through her reputation as a person who supported others, particularly young writers, in so many ways. Her example is one I, and a great many writers I know, have tried to follow as we mentor the next generation of writers.

More importantly for me personally, I read and heard in her interviews how she wrote while caring for a large family. In one interview she said, “I don’t think I would have been a writer if I hadn’t been a mother…I wanted to construct something that contained some of these feelings that I had, some of these discoveries or revelations.”

I’m a mom of a blended family of four so I think I understand something of what she meant here. That she wrote of these discoveries and revelations of family life was encouraging to me: it meant that I could too.

When I start to lose patience over the constant stream of interruptions to my work that come from domestic life I remind myself, and I do this daily, that Carol Shields did all that she did and raised five children too. She found a way to make the writing important. And then she found a way to make those domestic concerns not only important, but powerful and entertaining in her writing.

I wish I had had the chance, or taken the time, to tell Carol all this before she passed away.

But maybe I can say it now: thank you Carol for paving the way, for opening doors, and for giving us a model to follow. You helped us to not only acknowledge but to celebrate the small ceremonies that make up the bulk of our lives.

10,000 VOICES FOR BC RIVERS

2009-03-16T08:53:00.000-07:00

Just passing along this press release...I'm adding my voice!

"On Thursday, March 26th, join thousands of British Columbians in standing up for BC’s rivers. On that day, people from across the province will be contacting their MLA and the Premier calling for a moratorium on private power projects on our rivers.

Over the last several years, thousands of people have taken action to protect their rivers and streams throughout British Columbia. People have written letters, attended information meetings, and told their family, friends and neighbours about the threat of private hydro projects to BC’s waterways. Now it’s time for all of us to speak up together.

Join with the Wilderness Committee and a broad range of other groups in the "10,000 Voices for BC Rivers" Campaign. The Wilderness Committee is calling for a moratorium on private power projects until they are regionally planned, environmentally appropriate, acceptable to First Nations, and publicly owned. We want our rivers wild and our power public, and we hope you do too.

Go to 10000voices.org and sign up to participate. The Wilderness Committee will keep you up to date on the 10,000 Voices project, tell you about what other people are doing about this issue, and give you a reminder leading up to March 26th to take action.

If you’d like some of the Wilderness Committee’s 10,000 Voices flyers, an action kit for holding a small event, or just want more information, please call Andrew toll-free at 1.800.661.9453 (or 604.683.8220 in the Lower Mainland) or e-mail andrew@wildernesscommittee.org.

Please pass on the 10000voices.org website to all your e-mail contacts, and ask them to do the same.

On March 26th, let’s find out how powerful all of our voices can be!"

Snatching that five minutes

2008-11-10T08:59:00.000-08:00

One of the topics that comes up again and again in the creative writing workshops I teach in the UBC Creative Writing Program is how to juggle the writing life with parenthood. It's certainly a subject that's always on my mind. I used to think I needed a stretch of several hours of quiet time to get any real writing done. But now that I have a blended family of four kids, I know that just ain't gonna happen. So when I have five minutes, I snatch it. I tend to write in little chunks of time now. I also find I'm much more flexible as a writer, that I can get a whole lot done in that small amount of time, that I'm more focussed (I have to be!). I find I now do quite a lot of writing while doing other tasks. I’m “writing” while I wash dishes, or do a load of laundry, or fold laundry, or pick up after the kids. Not always, of course, as wee ones are a distraction, but a good chunk of the time. My honey has grown accustomed to that blank look on my face that means that although I’m here in body, my mind is somewhere else.

Recently I asked several professional writers, including Globe and Mail style editor Sheree-Lee Olson and the successful suspense author Susanna Kearsley what parenthood has brought to their writing. Here's a snippet of that conversation:

Sheree-Lee: The mommy factor in creativity is, I'm sure, as complex and individual a topic as all the women gathered here. But here's a short answer, which I tried to illuminate in a piece for Zoomer magazine (Moses Znaimer's new mag for 45-pluses). Becoming a mother brought back the need to create. I had been an editor for years, doing very little creative writing. But the intense emotions of newborn mothering, being submerged in warm babylove and then smacked down by (the) cold wave of guilt when I went back to work, drew me back to poetry. I needed to channel my feelings. I was in intense distress when I left each of my sons at home to return to the Globe. I also wrote about this in my essay in Cori (Howard)'s Book, Between Interruptions: Thirty Women Tell the Truth about Motherhood. Because I was the family breadwinner, I felt it only fair to cede the emotional territory at home. I had to let the kids bond fully with their dad. So I had a lot of pain to direct somewhere. The book I am working on now, Bad Mommy, is all about mother longing and mother guilt.

Susanna: I know there are scenes in my more recent books that I would never have been able to write if I hadn't had my children, so certainly my characters' lives have been deepened by it. Writers can imagine almost anything, but until you've actually had children of your own you can't wholly imagine the depth of the feelings - the love and the fears - that are part of that. And every day my children keep me balanced in my work. When I'm worrying about deadlines or depressed by a rejection, they remind me that my writing, though it is a large and vital part of who I am, is not the only thing I am. That always helps to ground me again, helps me focus.

Our writing rooms...

2008-11-08T11:36:00.000-08:00

Globe and Mail style editor Sheree-Lee Olson, Cori Howard, editor of the successful anthology Between Interruptions: Thirty Women Tell the Truth about Motherhood, suspense author Susanna Kearsley and Hannah Holborn, author of Fierce, all joined me for an on-line chat at Gail's Kitchen on Saturday, November 8. The topic of discussion? Finding that time to write within our very busy lives. All four authors are parents but still manage writing careers. How do they find time to write? Well, that was the topic of our conversation.

I'll be blogging that conversation over the coming weeks. To start, here's an excerpt where we discussed the spaces in which we write:

Gail: To say my office is small is an understatement. It’s a hallway! Mitch and I have a blended family of four kids ranging in age from 4 to 20 years old. Before I met Mitch I had a grand writer’s home, a small mansion really, with a top floor that was mine alone. I had an office and separate library as well as a storage room nearly the size of my current bedroom. When Mitch and I married, I moved into his house, a small house meant for three. So how were six of us going to fit in here? Well, in the end, the back hallway, leading outside to the backyard, became my office. I can look out my window to the kid’s play area and watch over them as I work. Needless to say, working in the hallway the kids use, my work day is full of interruptions.

Where we write is an important factor in finding time to write, so to kick off today’s discussion, I’d like to hear about where you’re writing from. Do you have a home office? Or an office outside the home? Is it a “do not enter” zone, or do your kids run through it regularly?

For a snapshot of my writing room, click on:

http://www.gailanderson-dargatz.ca/2008_05_01_blog-archive.html#9043808290913879962
and scroll down to “Writers’ Rooms.”

Hannah: Today I’m writing from my office dungeon where I get natural light for about forty minutes a day. My office is in the kitchen, and was in the living room beside the television for years. I wrote much of Fierce, my first collection, while working night shift at a group home for dual diagnosed adults. One of the clients, an insomniac, found the sound of my typing soothing, so I wrote most of the book with this man pacing back and forth about a foot behind me. He had aggressive tendencies which kept me focused.

How have you found going from a mansion to a hallway?

Gail: Oh, this made me laugh, Hannah! I won't ever complain again about my six year old breathing down my neck, demanding waffles (as he is right now!) Before kids I used to think I needed a leisurely eight hour day to write. That may never happen again! I guess the biggest thing I've learned is that I can, in fact, write "Between Interruptions." I snatch my five minutes of writing when I can. When the kids are playing outside in the yard in front of me, or playing in their rooms, or getting their TV time, or are at school or preschool. Much of my writing happens when I'm at the kitchen sink, doing dishes. I do quite a lot of thinking while doing chores!

Cori: Well, I have my office in my bedroom which my two kids, ages 4 and 7, often share. It's tucked in the corner where I have about 8 inches of space to store my computer, printer and all my papers. And I work full-time from home! It's obviously been a big change since my pre-kid days where I had a whole room to myself, and I could get upset about it, but who's got time? And I've got no choice. My kids need more space than me, and having such a small space keeps me very, very organized. I've come to appreciate what I have, a little desk is all I need, and a big window overlooking my street where I can see the changes in the season and feel grateful when I have enough work, and very anxious and depressed when I don't.

Susanna: Hi Gail! Sorry I'm a little late joining in. Ironically (or maybe appropriately) it was a mothering thing that delayed me: my daughter was having a Difficult Moment and needed a bit of a cuddle...

Anyhow. When we bought our current house we decided to turn what was meant to be the dining room into a writing room for me. I had grand visions of a private space with a perfectly cleared desk and my laptop and no interruptions, but of course the reality is a bit different! I do have the desk (permanently covered in piles of Things To Be Filed), and an armchair that my kids and dog love sitting in, but there's not a lot of privacy, given that I'm right beside the kitchen and the kids pop in and out when they need help with something. When they're both in school, I use the writing room for working in, but on weekends I retreat upstairs with my laptop and work on the edge of another cluttered table in our bedroom, with the door locked and the ensuite bathroom fan on full blast to drown out any distracting noises!

Gail: This is something I've had to do for myself as well. I have a little writing desk in the corner of our bedroom. Sometimes I just have to escape to a quiet place!

Susanna: Just realized I have a picture of mine, as well, taken a few years ago when the kids were a lot smaller (they've just turned 9 and 6 last month). You can't see much of the writing space, and my desk is different now, but I think you can get an idea of how private it is! http://www.susannakearsley.com/page23.html#NoIvoryTower

Gail: I love it! The reality is that a mother who writes will never have a room of her own...

I remember writing while breastfeeding both my two youngest. I won't go into details, but I rigged up my desk so I could have my wee one on my lap, breastfeed and type at the same time. Now that's obsession! But, given that breastfeeding can take up six to eight hours of your day in the early months, I just had to do it. My income supported my two youngest!

Sheree-lee: I wrote Sailor Girl in bed, on a series of laptops. It was the quietest place in the house, and anyway we never had enough space in this skinny Victorian semi-detached for an office. It took me about four years to write the book, early mornings before work, all day on Sundays, in my pajamas. I was lucky that my partner gave me that time: he was a stay at home dad, but he still could have rightfully expected more participation from me. He is no longer a stay at home dad, but I am still working in bed (where I am right now). The difference is that my teenage boys now barge in demanding money and food. It's like a home invasion!

******

Sheree-Lee Olson is editor of Globe Style for The Globe and Mail and author of a new novel, Sailor Girl. For more, check out Sheree-Lee’s website at: http://www.sheree-leeolson.com/. Sheree-Lee also has an essay in Between Interruptions: Thirty Women Tell the Truth about Motherhood.

Cori Howard is a Vancouver based journalist, writer and editor who has started up a series of writing courses for moms who are, as Cori puts it, "interested in learning how to translate their personal experience with motherhood into words." The classes are held at coffee shops in Vancouver and Toronto. For more on this, check out the Momoir Project at http://www.themomoirproject.com./. Cori is also the editor of the successful anthology, Between Interruptions: Thirty Women Tell the Truth about Motherhood, and a contributor to the anthology Double Lives: Writing and Motherhood.

Susanna Kearsley is a popular and award-winning suspense author. Her ninth book, The Winter Sea, set on the west coast of Scotland, was released in Canada in May. A lover of history and travel, she still travels widely to research her settings, which are mostly European. She's also a stay-at-home mom to two young children who, she says, keep her very busy when she isn't writing! For more on Susanna and her work, visit her two websites:http://www.susannakearsley.com/
http://www.emmacole.ca/

Hannah Holborn’s debut collection Fierce will be published by McClelland & Stewart at the end of December. The influence of her various parents—foster and otherwise—has lent her fiction a unique blend of British humour, Slavic melancholy, naturalism, and First Nations sensibility. Her prize winning stories have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies including "Love You to Pieces: Creative Writers on Raising Special Needs Children.” She is the manager of a rehabilitation program for survivors of acquired brain injury. She is the mother of two teenage sons. For more on Hannah, check out her website at: Hannah Holborn.com

The bags we carry

2008-09-06T11:34:00.001-07:00

I was asked a curious question by writer and blogger Shawna Lemay this week: what kind of bag do I carry and what do I carry inside it? Shawna is asking this question of a number of writers over the coming weeks, and the responses to date are fascinating.

So what kind of bag do I carry? One inspired by my grandmother's, that I made myself. Read all about it at: http://capacioushold-all.blogspot.com/

The photo above is of my grandmother's carpetbag, one pictured in my latest novel, Turtle Valley. Mitch Krupp photo (http://www.mitchkrupp.com/).

Mentorships and manuscript evaluations

2008-07-18T10:07:00.001-07:00

This past week the topic of mentorships and manuscript evaluations came up on the Indigo Community Forum, so I thought I'd bring it up here as well.

Outside my work teaching advanced novel and advanced fiction at UBC, in the optional-residency CW MFA program, I do take on private mentorships and manuscript evaluations for fiction when I have time, and if I think I can really help the writer. Anyone interested can contact me at books@gailanderson-dargatz.ca and I'll send back a sheet with details and fees.

Booming Ground (the UBC non-credit CW program) also offers a great mentorship and manuscript evaluation service with some of Canada's best writers, as does the Writers Union of Canada.

I'm also interested in hearing from other professional writers who offer mentoring as I'm often approached by apprentice writers looking for mentorship, but I don't always have time to provide it, and would like to have a list of writers on hand that I can pass along. If you're interested, let me know, again at books@gailanderson-dargatz.ca.

Mentorship is one-on-one teaching or guiding a writer through process. The writer submits a story or portion of their manuscript by email once a month over the course of several months. I use the writer's own material as an opportunity to discuss elements of craft. So I'll give notes about the manuscript that are instructive, and I also give detailed comments on the manuscript itself (using the comment function on word). The writer and I discuss these notes, and then the writer goes off to rewrite and prepare the next month's submission.

Manuscript evaluation is also an opportunity for mentorship, so I offer instruction on elements of craft as I offer advice on how to improve the manuscript itself.

On her blog, Sandra Gulland points out that mentorships are not only for apprentice, or unpublished writers. She writes, "I enrolled in a Humber correspondence course while writing Tales of Passion, Tales of Woe. I was fortunate enough to have Carol Shields, a correspondence I treasure. I realize now, too, that I'm in the process of setting up a mentorship with Dan Smetanka for my next novel. Writers work alone, but it's important to set up a support system, be it a writers' group, a teacher, an editor, friend, family -- or (in my case) all of the above."

Ain't that the truth? I still have readers who offer feedback on my manuscripts. The legendary writer and teacher Jack Hodgins has not only been one of those readers, but my mentor right from the start of my career. I understand, now, just how generous he has been with his time. The fees I charge for mentorships never, ever cover the time involved. But the act of mentoring feeds my soul, makes me feel a part of a continuum and a community. Here's to all those who pass on the torch.

Summer break

2008-06-20T15:27:00.000-07:00

Ah, summer. Relaxing days, time to get lots of writing done, right? Well, not if you're a mom. June is a string of field trips, end of school year sports days and parties and Mom has to be there at most of them. Then school's over and the kids are home. So, Mom isn't getting a whole lot done.

I'm taking a break from blogging and our monthly author chats for the summer so I can fit a little work in there. But I plan to be back at 'er come September with a forum on juggling parenthood and writing. One of my guests on that forum will be Cori Howard. Cori, a Vancouver based journalist, writer and editor, has started up a series of writing courses for moms who are, as Cori puts it, "interested in learning how to translate their personal experience with motherhood into words." The classes are held at coffee shops in Vancouver and Toronto, and will also be offered online this fall.

"What I've found most interesting is the level of emotion in the classes," Cori told me. "There are a lot of tears and my students have told me repeatedly how therapeutic they find writing about their experiences. So in addition to fostering a daily (or weekly) writing practise that many moms can't figure out how to start on their own, the classes really help mothers feel less isolated and alone."

It's a terrific idea. For more on this program, check out www.themomoirproject.com.

Symposium on the Book

2008-06-07T10:47:00.000-07:00

This year's Symposium on the Book at SFU is titled "From Thrillers to True Crime: Inside the Art and Craft of Crime Writing" and tackles the differences in approach between writing literary and writing thriller/crime fiction.

Suspense/thriller writer Susanna Kearsley (The Winter Sea) was my guest on my forum Gail's Kitchen in May to talk about just this issue. Here's part of our conversation:

Gail: How close do you stick to the classic five act mystery/suspense/thriller structure? From what you told us during the conversation at the UBC forum, your approach to writing seems “literary” in the sense that the project evolves for you and your process is less structured than much of the advice you find in writing guides. I found this a bit of a relief as, though I do plan and outline, my own writing process is “organic.” I wonder if you could talk a little about your approach to planning out plot. How much is planned? How much is surprise for you?

Susanna: When I'm starting a new book I start with a binder (which probably has more to do with my being an engineer's daughter than anything else) and I put down the date that I start, and I have a sort of "writing log" that I fill in each day to keep my honest -- it's easy sometimes to let things slip and go a few days without writing, but the log won't lie! It also helps to give me a sense of progress, even if I've only done a paragraph or two that day because the kids were sick, or I was tired or on tour.

In the binder I also have a section for characters, but that stays mostly empty except for their names. I've never been good at writing character studies. I tend to meet my characters like strangers at a party, and I learn about them as I go along. They do their own thing, for the most part, and that makes the writing fun.

I also have a section I call "Plotting", but again this isn't very structured. It's where I keep all those scenes and stray ideas that I have when I'm on trains or in the bathtub! I'm not sure where they'll fit in, or if they will at all, but at least in the binder they don't get lost.

And I have a place to write down things I need to check, and things that change as I am writing that I'll have to fix in second draft.

The rest of the binder is where I keep pages of research, and notes.

And that's it.

I just sit down and start, and the characters move, and I see what they do and I hear what they say, like I'm watching a movie. And then I just write it all down. Sometimes I have a sense of where I'd like to move them, or of what scene might come next, but mostly I just try to let them go.

For example, in the book I'm writing now, I know the ending that I want, but I have no idea how I'm going to get there. I'll just have to wait and see.

*******

For more of our conversation, go to: Gail's Kitchen

For more on Susanna and her new book The Winter Sea, go to: http://www.susannakearsley.com

For more on The Symposium on the Book, go to: www.ccsp.sfu.ca/pubworks/symposium+book.html

Those pesky literary labels

2008-05-31T10:40:00.000-07:00

I've always struggled to come up with an answer when people ask, "What kind of books do you write?" My novels are literary, I guess, which is a tough one to define to begin with, but they have elements of the supernatural thriller, romance, and the good old fashioned ghost story. So when suspense writer Susanna Kearsley joined me on my forum Gail's Kitchen this week, I asked for her help in sorting out these categories. Here's part of our conversation:

Gail: "I really don't like how books are labeled in North America. Too much emphasis on genre, literary or no. My books have been stuck with the handle “Pacific Northwest Gothic.” I prefer to call it good old fashioned story-telling.

Your writing doesn’t fit neatly into a category either as it crosses genres. How do others define your writing? How would you define it? One of our students at UBC asked about niche-markets for thrillers in the US which interests me personally as I wouldn’t know what to call this current project I’m working on. Supernatural literary eco thriller? Silly handles."

Susanna: "You're right, I'd rather simply call it storytelling, because I don't fit into a genre very neatly, and that always causes problems for the marketing departments of my publishers!

Readers have compared my books to those of Mary Stewart or Daphne du Maurier, because like them I write about ordinary characters caught up in extraordinary circumstances, usually in European settings, with a good deal of suspense, and with a love story, although that isn't always the main focus of the book.

My husband once said that my books remind him of old Hitchcock movies like The Birds or Vertigo or Marnie, where there's something mysterious going on, and a thread of romance, and you're never sure what's going to happen.

I like that comparison."

Gail: "I like that comparision too. Really fits!"

Susanna: "In my experience, "commercial fiction" is a derogatory term used by people who want to imply that the work is somehow produced solely for commercial reasons and is therefore of less literary value than "real" writing. But in my opinion, writing is writing. Different writers choose different subjects, but fiction is fiction, and the stories are either good or they aren't.

...I happened to pick up the latest copy of Mystery Scene magazine last week, and in it was a profile of the Irish writer John Banville, a "literary" writer and past winner of the Booker Prize, who also writes mysteries as "Benjamin Black", and he says it very neatly when he's asked about the idea of "genre", which he says has no appeal for him. He says, "There is simply good writing and writing that is not so good...Good writing can occur anywhere." That's pretty much my opinion. Category designations change with times and fashions. Books that would have been considered "commercial" in their day, such as those written by Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, George Eliot, and others, are now considered "literary" novels. So maybe it's more a function of whether the author is dead or alive!"

Ain't that the truth? For more of our conversation, go to: Gail's Kitchen

For more on Susanna and her new novel, The Winter Sea, go to: http://www.susannakearsley.com/

Save the salmon, save ourselves

2008-05-25T12:27:00.000-07:00

The novel I’m working on right now is called The Spawning Grounds and it’s about the land use conflicts that threaten the salmon of our province. Unfortunately, I’m finding a whole lot of inspiration for my fiction in my own backyard, the Shuswap-Thompson region of British Columbia.

A 40-day community based protest to stop one development in particular was at least partly successful last week. While protestors at a rally at the Peace Park Gazebo at the Salmon Arm Wharf spoke (and shouted) about the danger of several developments that threatened the Shuswap Lake, just across the street the CSRD decided to bring some of those developments to a halt, including one at the mouth of the world's most renowned salmon spawning rivers, the Adams. I added my voice to that protest, and you can read more about the story in the Vancouver Sun at: http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/westcoastnews/story.html?id=1e627d46-16f3-4e59-8809-89c574834be1

You can also view a CHBC television story at: http://www.chbc.com/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=16021

While the headlines of these stories are positive, the reality is that developments continue to threaten the fragile and precious enviroment of the Shuswap. To find out what you can do to help, go to: http://www.seas.ca/ and http://www.casssa.ca/.

The image above is of a spawning salmon at Adams River. Mitch Krupp photo from his show of last fall.

When the novel is over

2008-05-19T15:02:00.000-07:00

James Macgowan, books columnist of The Ottawa Citizen, recently asked several writers, including myself, a really good question: what goes through our minds when we’ve finally finished that book?

Here was my response:

I have a confession to make: I have an "affair" with my next project before I finish the first, just so I avoid many of the feelings of separation that come when I "divorce" my main novel project and move on. And I do go through real separation at the end of a project, with many of the accompanying feelings of grief, anger, exhaustion and general stress, before finally coming to an acceptance that yes, the relationship is over and it's time to move on. After all, I've spent the better part of five years with this novel. Moving on to that new project before the old "marriage" is over means I have something exciting to look forward to, a place to redirect my focus, so I don't stay in the doldrums as long. So a little fling is a good thing. I think those feelings of separation as we move out of a project are necessary in giving us distance from it, so we can move into the editing process with a new perspective. It's very much like that moment when you see your old love on the street (after the divorce is over) and you can see the guy for who he really is, and can judge him accordingly, without the fuzz of love to distort your perceptions.

For other writers' responses, go to: http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=fb0c5d29-5d43-475c-97ce-4839b29707a1

Writers' Rooms

2008-05-11T15:52:00.000-07:00

This past week I received a fun invitation from the lovely Hal Wake, artistic director of the Vancouver International Writers and Readers Festival. Each week the festival website will feature the writing room of a different BC writer, both in photograph and essay. It's a great idea, borrowed from The Guardian. You'll see my contribution up there shortly. But in the meantime, check out the writers rooms on
the website at:

www.writersfest.bc.ca/community/rooms

and at The Guardian at:
books.guardian.co.uk/writersrooms

Here's a sneak peek into my own writing room, overlooking my kids play area.

BC Book Prize authors on handling success

2008-04-26T07:15:00.000-07:00

Well, folks, tonight's the night! Winners of the 24th Annual BC Book Prizes will be announced tonight, Saturday April 26, at the Lieutenant Governor’s BC Book Prize Gala at The Fairmont Waterfront Hotel, in Vancouver.

All five authors on the short-list for the prestigious Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize visited our forum Gail's Kitchen earlier this month. Shaena Lambert (Radiance), Mary Novik (Conceit), David Chariandy (Soucouyant), Heather Burt (Adam's Peak), and Claire Mulligan (The Reckoning of Boston Jim) talked about being on the short-list for this prize, about the writing life, books, and life in general. All five writers are on this list with their first novels so I asked them how they were handling all the attention. Here's part of our chat.

Gail Anderson-Dargatz: Receiving success with a first book can be exciting, but overwhelming as well. As I was telling my students at UBC this past week, when my first novel, The Cure for Death by Lightning, came out, I went from farm wife milking cows to international literary star. It was really, really fun. And really, really weird and very often frightening. I told my students, “If I could wish anything on you, it would be only moderate success. At least at first.” I gained more weight than I care to mention overeating chocolate in an attempt to cope...It was very hard indeed to suddenly find myself in front of cameras. A CBC crew followed me all over the UK, even into dressing rooms, as I was such a "Cindarella story"; I remember the makeup artist shooing the camera crew out as she covered up my zits saying, "That's just not nice!" Terry David Mulligan came to our very humble farm home to interview me and threw open the door to our very messy junk room and invited the cameraman in there! To say I felt exposed was an understatement! This is an issue that we often don’t talk about as writers, how overwhelming being thrust into the media can be. I wonder how it’s been for each of you, and how you cope? Have you come up with a public persona of sorts?

Claire Mulligan: This tour will be the first time I've really been on show. I'm looking forward to the dressing up, and such. I think if this sort of thing happened when I was younger it might have been harder. I do know that I can't listen to any of my recent radio interviews. I thought I could, but it just makes me cringe. I did an TV interview way back with Terry D for a short story prize and I can't watch that either. Terry is my cousin by the way! He's living in Pentiction now and will be sure to come to at least one of our Okanagan events if he's in town. Gail, I can just see him throwing open the door for the cameraman!

Gail: Ha! That's funny! You'll have to give him heck for me! Boy that guy has energy! Has he slowed down any?

Claire: Yes, Gail, Terry is still so full of energy. He always got three or four things on the go at once. He's very much into wine now and doing shows about that, which is one of the reasons he's now in the Okanagan.

David Chariandy: That's certainly something I'm wrestling with right now. I'd have to admit that I'm very (very!) far from anything like stardom, but I'm normally a very private person, and so the publicity I've been lucky enough to receive has been both thrilling and a bit alarming. My novel is about a son who, at one point, abandons his mother who is suffering from dementia. There's a little note on the first page of the novel that says, outright, that this is a novel, a work of fiction, etc. Then, a couple weeks ago, my mother visits me for supper and says that she saw a promotional poster for a reading from Soucouyant. The poster read: "David Chariandy abandoned his mother who was suffering from dementia, and he wrote a novel about it." A somewhat distressing collapse of author and fiction, of course... Anyway, my mother has a good sense of humour about these sorts of things. But I guess that's another part of the "public persona" issue -- suddenly, not only me, but my parents -- ordinary, loving, and rather intensely private working-class folk -- have public identities that we can't quite control. To google or not to google -- that is the question...

Shaena Lambert: That's really awful, David. Your book is beautiful, and I never once thought it happened to you! I struggled a great deal with the issue of exposure after I published my first book, The Falling Woman. The stories, I see in retrospect, weren't particularly exposing, but I still felt alarmed and turned inside out -- so that my deeper self was on display. I both loved the feeling of publishing, and felt really WEIRD about it. And also felt that there wasn't much point kvetching as, really, the alternative -- let's face it -- is obscurity. I found it easier with Radiance -- perhaps because nobody mistakes the book for autobiography (thank god).

Gail: This is one I run into all the time, especially since I'm upfront about my inspirations. Readers and even reviewers just assume, then, that I'm writing memoir. I think ultimately this stems from our very human need to believe the stories we're told. I see it in my kids. I see it in myself. We want to "believe" in these characters that become so real to us. In then end I suppose its a compliment of sorts...

For more of this conversation between many of BC's best writers, visit Gail's Kitchen

For more on the BC Book Prizes, go to: http://www.bcbookprizes.ca/

BC Book Prize short-list authors on writing about a different gender or culture

2008-04-20T10:55:00.000-07:00

All five authors on the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize short-list were on our forum Gail's Kitchen earlier this month and inevitably chat turned to craft. Mary Novik, David Chariandy, Shaena Lambert, Heather Burt, and Claire Mulligan all had something to say on the subject of writing from the perspective of a culture and/or gender that is not the author's own. Other BC writers, including SPiN member June Hutton also shared their thoughts on the subject. Here's a bit of that conversation:

Heather Burt: "In many ways I had an easier time writing about the Sri Lankan characters and settings in Adam's Peak than about the Scottish-Canadian ones (I have close connections to SL, but it's not my background). I also find male characters easier than female ones ... "

Mary Novik: Did you visit Sri Lanka for an extended period of time, Heather? A fabled, torrid romance at one time?

(Heather), you have very strong male characters in Adam's Peak, but your female protagonist is a marvel also. Claire has two wonderful male characters in The Reckoning of Boston Jim. I have to tell you that Boston Jim is gonna take his place up there next to Falstaff as a literary original. Shaena, I love Walter in Radiance. He's so convincing and troubled. We should also compliment David for his gift with female characters--Soucouyant has a powerful, moving portrait of a Trinidadian woman with dementia."

Shaena Lambert: "I find it so interesting Heather, that you find it easier to write men & to write more distanced settings. I feel that way at times too. I suppose it is the objectivity - the knowledge that we are definitely shucking our skins if we're writing from the point of view of a 60 year old chainsmoking logger (male), for instance. Or at least I'd be shucking my skin if I did that. Ditto with Mary on David's female characters -- I found them tremendously convincing and involving. And Boston Jim, with his eidetic memory is a marvel -- where did he come from, Claire? I also like how your Eugene keeps picturing Dora with her clothes slipping off her body, her hair coming undone. I felt his sexuality was very particularly male."

Heather Burt: "I get this question from students, too. I try to encourage them to think about the particularities of *their* individual character, and not whether or not this character is a convincing Man or Woman -- for what, really, would a generic man or woman be like? Obviously writers need to do their research when it comes to the physiology of, and typical social forces working on, the opposite sex. But I tell students not to hesitate at all if there's a character living in their head who happens not to be the same sex (or race or culture ...) as they are.

I think someone famous (don't ask me who!) said that if writers couldn't write outside their own personal experience, then all writing would be autobiographical. Such a restriction would also mean a certain shutting down of the imagination -- perhaps the writer's most important tool."

Claire Mulligan: "In regards to the gender discussion though, I can't see why it's a worry. All characters have elements of ourselves. What did Flaubert say? "Madame Bovary, c'est moi." We'd have to nix a lot of fabulous literature if the writers could only write from their own gender and experience. I do, however, agree with Heather that male characters can be easier to write. I'm sure it's not politically correct to say but men are often more tragic. They are often in such positions of power and 'control' as Heather says, that their fall or transformation can be more dramatic."

Heather Burt: "Oh ... by "control" I was getting more at the control I feel as a writer when I'm in a more "objective" mode, far out of my own skin. But, yes, there can certainly be an appeal for women writers in taking on the traditional authority of men through their characters."

Mary Novik: "June, if you're still there, maybe you can talk about this as well since your novel is entirely from Al's point of view. In fact, I sometimes imagine you slouching about Pender St wearing men's trousers with a hat pulled down over your brow ....

The first character that I climbed into in Conceit was John Donne. Not surprising, because the novel began from immersing myself in his poems and then moving out from there into his prose, sermons, etc. Then I began waking up at night and jotting things down in his voice! By the time I finished his chapters, I no longer knew which phrases he'd written and which I had. It was a strange feeling. I had to fight to extricate myself from him, in fact, if not for Thomas Wharton (I was in a workshop with him at the time), I'd probably still be stuck in JD. Thomas insisted it was time to move on. His actual words were, "If you don't write about Ann More, I will!" I guess this is one of the perils of writing a novel with several voices--has that happened to the rest of you? I'm glad the voices came to me in this order, though, because I ended up totally immersed in Pegge, who is the main character."

June Hutton: "I was always a tomboy, so that helped. But my protagonist is a soldier and I've never been in battle. That could have been a problem for me but it proved to be my mantra. I kept asking myself, Why do men go to war? And why this war (the Spanish Civil War) in particular? It became my reason for writing the novel. I agree with Claire that male characters have great potential to be tragic-- they take part in such risky endeavors as war, exploration, and so on."

David Chariandy: "I'm struck by the fact that you too, Shaena, take on circumstances and characters that I'm assuming (perhaps naively?) are remote from your own experience, but which you manage to bring alive so vividly and convincingly. I was struck precisely the same way when reading Mary's book (the first of the shortlisted books I had the pleasure of reading), as well as Claire and Heather's."

Here's to all the authors who step outside their own shoes to explore different cultures and lives, so we can explore it with them!

For more of our conversation, go to: Gail's Kitchen

The winner of the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize will be announced along with the winners of all the BC Book Prizes this coming Saturday, April 26. For more on that, go to: http://www.bcbookprizes.ca/.

What to wear to the BC Book Prize gala

2008-04-16T09:04:00.000-07:00

All five authors on the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize short-list were on our forum Gail's Kitchen in April to talk about being on the short-list for this BC Book Prize. I asked Mary Novik, David Chariandy, Shaena Lambert, Heather Burt, and Claire Mulligan what being on this short-list meant to them. Inevitably chat turned to what the authors would wear to the gala on April 26. Other BC writers, including SPiN members Jen Sookfong Lee and June Hutton piped in with their thoughts on the subject. Here's a bit of that conversation:

Gail: "You’re all on the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize short-list. This is so exciting! I won this award back in 1997 with The Cure for Death by Lightning and what I remember most, of course, was the gala, a rare chance to dress up and feel elegant (such a rarity that, as I recall, I made a point of telling the audience I had even shaved my legs for the event). Just being on the short-list was a real boost for me. This was my first novel and being on this list with so many other wonderful authors made me feel like a “real” writer. I wonder if you can tell me a little about what being on this short-list has meant to you?"

June Hutton: "I remember that shaving legs comment. You called them your gams!"

Shaena Lambert: "Yes, the chance to dress up is a thrill, requiring that amazing final effort, the shaving of the legs! I also feel so pleased it's The Ethel Wilson Award. As I mentioned to you Gail, I read Swamp Angel a while ago, while off in a cabin in Howe Sound, and was entranced by the writing. She is a cross between Virginia Woolf and Ernest Hemingway -- she writes about fly fishing, but while tracing the flights of the mind. I also reread "Mrs Golightly and the First Convention" -- a famous short story of hers, much anthologized. I had last read it in highschool I think. And again, I was struck by how luminous and original the writing is. It really stands the test of time, better than Hemingway in fact, I think. So being nominated for her award does feel really wonderful."

Mary Novik: "I was thrilled to be on the short-list. It was a genuine surprise, since I thought that books had to be set in BC or nearabouts. Mind you, I've lived here the longest (age helps with that one!). I've read the other four novels, which are all terrific, and am humbled by the thought of being on the same list."

David Chariandy: "For me, the best thing about being on the shortlist is that it's enabled me to meet other people in BC who are passionate about literature -- other writers and readers. I'm a fairly lonely writer, perhaps by choice. But there's absolutely nothing more inspiring than to realize, in the midst of a difficult period of writing, that you're not alone, that others are going through this too, that others are interested, and that, in the end, literature matters."

Mary Novik: "I agree ... it's great to be seen as a BC writer and to connect with other writers here. Like Heather, I'm really looking forward to meeting secondary students and readers in smaller communities. It's also going to be great fun to be on the road with three other writers (Theresa Kiskkan, Kari-Lynn Winters, and Nan Gregory). We'll be driving from place to place in a van--imagine the variations on "99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall"! I think the most isolating time is before you're published when you are doing the work but not being recognized as a writer. You get bushed staying at home all the time and you've got to get out. I used to attend readings by writers just to soak up the atmosphere. I'd have to say, though, that I've been extraordinarily lucky because I belong to a writing group that includes June and Jen Sookfong Lee, http://www.spinwrites.com/ We've been together almost six years and have seen one another through just about everything you can imagine."

Shaena Lambert: "I really agree, David. It is so nice to feel connected to other writers. And to realize we are a community of likeminded people, in that we are all struggling to get better at our craft, and we all love words."

Jen Sookfong Lee: "I have two questions. One, what are you going to wear (imagine that I'm Joan Rivers on the Oscars' red carpet--hee)? Two, do you feel any additional pressure for your new books because of the shortlist?"

Heather Burt: "I guess I do feel quite a bit of pressure when it comes to my next book, but I think the feeling predates the shortlist, or even any of the other public attention. It's mostly self-imposed. I worry that I won't be able to do it again -- to write something that *I* like, never mind what the reviewers etc. like. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I find myself comparing the second book to the first one in a way that's not usually helpful. In a way I'll be glad when Adam's Peak drops off my own radar for a while."

David Chariandy: "I think I'll go for an urban cowboy look, but I'm not sure..."

Jen Sookfong Lee: "Oh, you totally should! I'm thinking of the father in your novel, with his cowboy suit, but yours should be more 21st century, you know? Maybe throw in some chaps with winking LED lights."

Go for it, David. We'll be watching!

For more of this conversation, go to Gail's Kitchen.

For more comments on what to wear at the gala, see Mary Novik's blog at http://www.marynovik.com/.

For more on the gala itself, go to: http://www.bcbookprizes.ca/.

In memory of Ethel Wilson

2008-04-12T08:59:00.001-07:00

Over the next couple of weeks leading up to the announcement of the winner of the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize (a BC Book Prize), I'll be blogging the conversation we had with the five authors up for this award on our forum "Gail's Kitchen." But before I get to that, I wanted to take a moment to remember Ethel Wilson, for whom the prize is named. Here's what some of the writers at our forum event had to say about this wonderful BC writer:

Gail Anderson-Dargatz: "I had read Wilson's Swamp Angel years ago, of course, but I took this as an opportunity to take another look at this novel and at Wilson’s life. Glancing through Swamp Angel now, I'm struck by the power of the writing, especially of the images of parts of the world that I’m quite familiar with (and yet have changed so much since the novel was released in the early 1950’s). I hope my own writing reads as fresh as hers fifty plus years from now!"

Shaena Lambert: "Isn't she amazing? Her language is so original. And yes, she must really speak to you, Gail, with her amazing descriptions of the interior, the lakes, fly fishing, nature. I picked up a book by Roderick Haig Brown a few months ago and read bits, and was also struck by the great magic of his writing. I feel both with RH Brown and with Ethel Wilson that I open a door and get a blast of fresh BC air, from beyond my childhood (I grew up in Horseshoe Bay); more like from my mother's childhood. And it feels so satisfying."

Heather Burt: "Swamp Angel had been on my to-read list for ages, but I just kept not getting around to it. The prize nomination made the book feel like required reading, which was great -- just the push I needed. I found it quite mysterious and moving, and I feel as if I need to read it again. The evocations of the landscape and the fishing scenes are fantastic."

David Chariandy: "I completely agree about the special beauty and freshness of Swamp Angel. I was also struck by Wilson's williness to represent risky and tender relationships between people of very different backgrounds."

Mary Novik: "I read it (Swamp Angel) years ago out of a sense of obligation to read something BC. (This was when you could take a PhD at UBC without studying a single work of Canlit.) I was very pleasantly surprised, but it's really only recently that her talent has been fully recognized. I was looking for my copy, but it's disappeared, so I tried to get one at Indigo, which didn't have any. Obviously, she still is not getting the attention that she deserves."

At least she is remembered through this prize. Here's hoping the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize continues to bring readers to Wilson's work.

For more on Ethel Wilson, check out her bio on the BC Book Prizes site: www.bcbookprizes.ca/wilson.htm

The photo above is a little of the BC landscape she wrote of. Mitch Krupp photo.

Websites for writers

2008-04-06T14:50:00.000-07:00

The woman behind my website is our own very talented daughter Lydia Krupp Hunter. Her website design company is www.dreamindustri.com and as you can see from my site, she has a real flare for matching design to the unique personalities of her clients. It's a given that a writer needs a good website these days, and during our Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize event on my forum on Sunday the conversation turned to websites and blogs. The question? To blog or not to blog. Here's what some of the authors at our event had to say.

Heather Burt (http://www.heatherburt.ca/): "I've been mildly tempted, but I'm quite certain that if I blogged I'd never get any fiction written. Whether or not it's a good idea depends, I suppose, on the nature of the writer. I can certainly imagine someone firing up their creative juices by blogging and then being more productive in the other stuff ... don't think that would be me, though! I guess I'm also not very interested in going public with my life. I know I could focus the blog on writing, and in a sense that's what I do on my website and on Facebook (ack! the dreaded Facebook!)."

Gail Anderson-Dargatz (http://www.gailanderson-dargatz.ca/): "This has been the case for me, that ideas for fiction and non-fiction projects come out of blogging, but I do find I really have to limit the amount of time I spend on it. Saturday is usually my web day, where I do events like this one, or write a blog. I'm with you when it comes to facebook. I like the idea of community building, but I can't imagine finding the time for it in my own life."

Mary Novik (http://www.marynovik.com/): "I have a blog integrated in my website. It begins on the home page and then continues inside. Jen, you've got a blog page that is part of your website also, http://www.sookfong.com/ I think one of the main advantages of a real blog, at blogspot or whatever, is that google etc. picks postings up instantaneously. There's a fair bit of pressure to blog regularly and it can really suck up time, shifting attention to the persona instead of the writing. What do the rest of you think? Maybe we should just spend more time writing?"

David Chariandy: "I'll have to admit I'm pretty bad when it comes to those things. I enjoy visiting the blogs or websites of other writers (I've visited SPIN's on a number of occasions, and Jen's blog always make me crack up), but I haven't set up anything like that for myself. I guess my life is pretty hectic right now, and I'm a bit intimidated about taking on another responsiblity. Still, I think these forms of electronic promotion and community are very valuable and exciting, as this very forum has certainly proven to me."

Karen X. Tulchinsky (http://www.karenxtulchinsky.com/): "I created my web site several years ago. Did it very cheaply, myself using Netscape composer, though it took a long time. A few years ago I got a friend who has HTML skills to re do it, which was great for a while. But now I find it's not professional looking enough and am in the process of having it redone by a pro. It's worth the investment. Readers are media savy. An interactive web site (such as Gail's!) is an important way to communicate with readers and keep a dialogue going."

Mary Novik: "Gail, the really fine thing about your website is that it has become a hub for other writers... Today's chat has been terrific. Just the thought that five finalists for a prize can get together and chat in such a a friendly, non-competitive way is wonderful."

Thanks for that, Mary! But as I mentioned at the opening of this blog, it's Lydia and my husband Mitch Krupp who really made these events possible with their techy skill set. Praise be for the geeks of the world!

I'll be blogging Sunday's Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize event in the weeks to come, so watch for that. In the meantime, you can see the conversation for yourself at http://www.gailanderson-dargatz.ca/ and click on forums.

BC Book Prizes 2008 finalists announced

2008-03-08T10:57:00.000-08:00

The BC Book Prize finalists were announced this week and I was delighted to see several of my own personal favorites were on the short list for the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize. The short-list includes:

Heather Burt's Adam's Peak
Mary Novik's Conceit
Shaena Lambert's Radiance
Claire Mulligan's The Reckoning of Boston Jim
David Chariandy's Soucouyant

I had the opportunity to talk to two of the authors on that list about their nominations.

Shaena Lambert (Radiance) said that she read Ethel Wilson's Swamp Angel last summer while she was at a cabin in Howe Sound. She said she was "amazed by the strangeness and beauty of her fiction. So it's a huge honour," she said, "not just to be nominated with such wonderful BC writers, but also for a prize in Ethel Wilson's name."

Mary Novik (Conceit) told me she was also thrilled. "The other novelists on the list are all writers I admire," she said, "so it's a real pleasure to be in their company. It's interesting that all the books are debut novels--I wonder if this is the first year this has happened? I am already an admirer of Shaena Lambert's Radiance, David Chariandy's Soucouyant, and Heather Burt's Adam's Peak, and am going out to buy Claire Mulligan's (The) Reckoning of Boston Jim this afternoon."

Like Mary I'm a fan of Shaena Lambert's Radiance and David Chariandy's Soucouyant (I admit I simply haven't had the chance to read Heather Burt's Adam's Peak or Claire Mulligan's The Reckoning of Boston Jim). In fact several of the books nominated were also books named as favorites by authors who joined us for the holiday book wish list event on the forum on this website, Gail's Kitchen. Jen Sookfong Lee (The End of East) named Soucouyant as the book she was giving friends for Christmas, and Mary Novik's novel Conceit was the book I was giving as gifts. Shaena Lambert's Radiance had been named by several authors, including myself, as a favorite on the forum.

All five writers on the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize short-list -- Mary Novik, Shaena Lambert, David Chariandy, Heather Burt and Claire Mulligan -- will visit our forum Gail's Kitchen on Sunday, April 6 from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Come join us! You can bring a coffee and listen in on April 6, or join the chat by clicking on "register" at the top of the forum page. To get there click on: Gail's Kitchen. For more on this event, go to http://www.gailanderson-dargatz.ca/ and click on "news." It's a chance for readers to meet and chat with these wonderful writers on-line.

Readers in communities throughout BC will also have the opportunity to meet many of the authors who are finalists for the BC Book Prizes face-to-face, as events are planned throughout the province. Of the events planned, Mary Novik said, "I'm really looking forward to getting to know the writers better in all the events... Apparently some of us will be touring the province to visit libraries and schools, which sound like great fun."

To see the touring schedule and the entire list of finalists click on: BC Book Prizes

Release of Andrea MacPherson's Away

2008-03-01T15:47:00.000-08:00

Andrea MacPherson's second poetry collection, 'Away', has just been released.

Here's a taste of the collection, used with Andrea's permission:

blue salt

At eleven, my mother swam
in an outdoor pool in Arbroath.
She had come for grieving, but instead
found tight bands of blue held above her head,
broom surrounding the water.

They stayed in a caravan, avoiding
the sea port where her mother had
grown up, where her grandmother
had died while they were hovering
over the Atlantic. Landing, her mother cried,
sagging against their broken suitcases,
and my mother held her arm. Felt sorrow
most in the soft skin there.

They spent days in Broughty Ferry, listening
to the cry of gulls, and peering in store windows;
or Carnoustie where they ate at tiny fish shops
where my mother learned the texture of gills.

Her mother left with only a rose-gold
wedding band, a few porcelain figurines:
dogs, women in fancy dress, lambs.
And my mother took with her the memory
of water, smoked fish on her tongue.

MacPherson's novel Beyond the Blue has also just been released in paperback. Last fall Andrea joined me on my forum "Gail's kitchen." Here's an excerpt from our conversation, where Andrea describes how Beyond the Blue came together:

Gail: Beth Powning, author of The Hatbox Letters, says of this novel that “Andrea MacPherson writes with compassion and honesty of women working in the jute factories of Dundee during WWI, who toil beneath ‘the foolish secrets of women.’ This beautiful novel, written in lyrical, strong prose, is a compelling, clear-eyed account of what constitutes hope and bravery, not only in the lives of mill workers, but in any life distorted by false memories and illusory dreams.” I agree: Beyond the Blue is a wonderful novel. Andrea, in order to give our readers a sense of this novel, can you tell us a little about why you chose this subject matter?

Andrea: The subject matter. It had been speaking to me for years, whispering in my ear. My grandmother was from Dundee - she came to Canada as a war bride - and she talked about the city and the mills. Her mother had worked at Bowbridge Jute Mill, and had died from a respiratory disease associated with the work. So, I heard the stories from a young age and was always intrigued by them. There was something about the city, and about the hopelessness of mill work that really spoke to me...

Family stories were definitely the starting point for the novel. There was a lot of listening in the beginning. I had the great opportunity to go back to Dundee again, this time solely for research, while I was writing the novel. I spent ten days there, wandering the city, learning the back roads and side alleys. It brought everything to life again for me, seeing the city that way and being completely immersed in the research. I visited churches and jute mill museums and newsagent stands; all the places I imagined my characters were going. Then, when I got home and back to writing, I realized I had missed things - and isn't this always the case?!? So, I went at the research from a more academic stand point. I couldn't stand in those places anymore, so I got books and emailed relatives and asked more and more questions. I knew I wanted to tell the story of these people, and I knew what their story was. But I also knew that to get it right, I had to wade around in research. I needed to understand them and the constraints put upon them at that time.

*****

For more of our conversation, visit our forum Gail's Kitchen.

For more on Andrea and this novel, visit: http://www.randomhouse.ca/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780679314233&view=excerpt

Andrea is doing a number of events to celebrate the release of her books. To check these out, visit her website at: http://www.andreamacpherson.com/

Holiday gift ideas from some of Canada's best authors

2007-12-01T13:17:00.000-08:00

James Macgowan, books columnist at the Ottawa Citizen, asked me to name the one book I'd love to get for Christmas, and why, and to also name the one book I would give for Christmas, and why (evidently I couldn't name my own books, dang blast it!). I decided to steal this rather classic idea and had a festive event on my forum on Saturday, December 1. I invited a few of my favorite booksellers and many of my own favorite authors to my on-line kitchen party and together we compiled a list of favorite books, and the reasons why we love 'em. Many of the authors who turned out for the party had just made The Globe and Mail or Quill and Quire best book of the year list themselves. Here's an except from that conversation:

Neil Smith (Bang Crunch):

Some of my favourite books of the year did make the G&M list. One of those was The End of the Alphabet written by CS Richardson. Scott is a book designer at Random House of Canada (he designed the cover for Bang Crunch). His novel is a marvel of concision. The G&M also listed five first novels to pick up. One of them I highly recommend: Anthem of a Reluctant Prophet by Joanne Proulx. I blurbed this book.

... Barbara Gowdy's Helpless is the book I'll give for Christmas. I have always been a fan of Barbara Gowdy, and Helpless cemented her status as my favourite Canadian author. The title sounds almost Orwellian: Hell Plus. That's what a mother would go through if her young daughter were kidnapped. But what fascinates me most about the novel is the portrayal of the kidnapper. Barbara Gowdy doesn't make Ron a monster. She makes him a human being, granted a very confused one. Ron deludes himself. He feels a kind of love most of us don't feel. But we almost sympathize with the guy, even though his actions might revolt us. Gowdy helps us understand the things we fear most. So I was pleased to see Helpless on the G&M list.

Jen Sookfong Lee (The End of East):

The book I want to receive this Christmas is A Social History of Dying by Allan Kellehear. Why? Because I'm a morbid broad, but also because I'm fascinated by how different people fear, view and venerate death. It's one of the things that makes us human, but unlike eating or communicating, death is something that most of us would rather forget. Also, as a writer, I'm always looking for ways to look at humanity in a different way, and there's nothing more backwards than looking at life through the rituals and preparations we make for death.

The book I'm giving away this Christmas is Soucouyant by David Chariandy, because he's a nice guy and I like supporting nice people, but also because it's a family story and everyone can relate to feelings of loss and guilt.

Mary Novik (Conceit):

The book I'd give for Christmas is Jen Sookfong Lee's new novel The End of East. Set in Vancouver's East Side, it spans the twentieth century, from Seid Quan's arrival from China in 1913 to his granddaughter Samantha Chan's return from Montreal to make her peace with her cultural history. It's a beautifully-written novel--fresh, spare, and lyrical. The cover is so gorgeous, all it needs is some cellophane and a green silk bow.

The book I'd most like to receive is Peter Ackroyd's The Thames: Sacred River, which I hope will be as diverting as his London: The Biography. Since I have a fascination with London's river, I wouldn't object if it came bundled with Jerome K. Jerome's classic Three Men in a Boat, a hilarious account of a cruise along the Thames that was an instant bestseller when it was published in 1889.

Richard Bachmann (legendary owner of A Different Drummer Books in Burlington, Ont.):

I'd give Alan Weisman's The World Without Us, not so much a WHAT-IF as a THEN-WHAT. Thoroughly engrossing and mentally provocative. If I'm allowed an extra: the brilliant short novel Kindergarten by Peter Rushforth has just been reissued. An obvious motive of book giving, and not just by booksellers, is to make a lesser-known title better known. Kindergarten is some decades old, but still strongly topical memorable and moving.

A book I'd like to receive: any handsome edition of a classic. This year your best choice would be the new translation of War and Peace. (When we were living in England I bought a second-hand copy of the Maude version, a Macmillan hardcover, that still had a wonderfully useful bookmark with all the characters names printed on both sides. But I read it years ago and would like to think I'm ready for another go).

Ameen Merchant (The Silent Raga):

Here's what I want to give: Leilah Nadir's "The Orange Trees of Baghdad."

Here's what I want to take: Robert Weirsema's "Before I wake."

... I chose Leilah's book because we are both Banff Writing Studio Alumni, and we both have our first books out this year.

Robert's book...How could I resist your (Gail's) persuasion? Actually, I am quite looking forward to reading his book. Last year was eaten up by final edits and copy edits and all those wonderfully banal things, and I completely missed it. If I get the book this season, I'll take it to India with me! (I am off in January for The Silent Raga's South Asia launch).

Robert Weirsema (reviewer, bookseller at Bolen's, and author of Before I Wake):

Sadly, I seem to have placed myself in a position where I can no longer either get or give books as gifts. If I'm giving books, people assume I received it as a gratis copy and I'm just passing it on (I know, I know, it's not what you pay but the thought that counts...). And people are afraid to give me books as gifts, knowing that I have a tendency to already have anything I might want (which is ridiculous, but try to explain to a less bookish person that a reader can NEVER have all the books they might want?)

But in the spirit of the day, I did come up with a few picks. I'd look at giving Bob Mersereau's The Top 100 Canadian Albums - a lot of my friends and family are almost as big of music junkies as I am, and this is the sort of book that will foment good discussion over a glass of yer poison and a quality evening spent listening to things like Trooper's Armageddon and wondering how you manage to have that in your cd collection in the first place.

My mother is getting Old Canadian Cemeteries by Jane Irwin and John de Visser -- she's fascinated by boneyards, and this is a fairly exhaustive look at Canada's cemeteries from coast to coast, with a good historical and social overview.

Catherine Bush (Rules of Engagement):

... just wanted to throw in a pitch here for Gil Adamson's The Outlander, which I recently read; its language and remarkable meeting of interior and exterior wildness are still humming through me. A young widow tears off into the 19th-century Rockies pursued by her dead husband's two near-maniacal brothers. I'm looking for the perfect person to give it to.

As for me, all I want for Christmas is ... the illustrated Elements of Style (Strunk and White). I still have the old tiny turquoise used copy a high-school boyfriend passed on to me let's just say a while back. The new weirdly illustrated version is weirdly luscious and I dream of having it on my desk as I ponder the difference between 'that' and 'which.'

Richard Van Camp (Lesser Blessed):

My favourite novel to come out of 2007 by an Aboriginal author is Drew Hayden Taylor's The Night Wanderer ...

The Night Wanderer takes place on the Otter Lake First Nations Reserve in Ontari--where the author now lives. The novel opens with Tiffany's father, Keith, deciding to make extra cash for the family by renting out a guest suite in their house. What they don't know is their first guest, Pierre L'Errant, is Ojibwa and a vampire. What sounds like a plot that could turn into a sitcom or campy is actually the opposite. Annick Press calls the novel "a mesmerizing blend of coming-of-age novel and pulse-pounding thriller", and I agree.

Gail Anderson-Dargatz (Turtle Valley):

The book I'm giving at Christmas::I've been championing Mary Novik's Conceit because it's a wonderfully written book that bucks conventions. It's playful, erotic, and puts a literary spin on the classic historical novel. Very fresh. (And aside from making the Giller long-list, it just made the top five "A feast of firsts" list in the Globe and Mail.)

The one book I would love for Christmas: Geeze, do I only get one? If it has to be only one, then I want Elizabeth Hay's Late Nights on Air. It's not because Elizabeth just won the Giller Prize (though, of course, that makes me want it all the more). The first reason why I want this book is pure embarrassment: I did three events with Elizabeth this year and travelled the festival circuit with her and didn't get a copy. And worse, I didn't get her to sign a copy! How silly can I get? All I can say for myself is that it was book tour season and no one thinks straight during book tour season (I didn't get anyone's book).

The second, more important reason that I want Late Nights on Air is that Elizabeth Hay is simply a lovely person and I want the book to remember her by. The last event I did with her, in October, was memorable. There were three of us reading this night, Elizabeth, myself and the wonderful Bernice Morgan. Our event was at the Knox Presbyterian Church in Waterloo and we started our trip from Toronto at 4:30 p.m. The traffic was terrible and we didn't arrive in Waterloo for our 7:30 p.m. event until 7:30 p.m. Then our driver got lost. And panicked. As I was sitting in front, I phoned up the bookstore hosting the event for directions and handed our driver the phone and he wandered around town trying to find our venue. At 8 p.m. we finally found the church. After that many hours on the road, all three of us ladies made a bee-line for the washrooms.

The audience was patient and lovely and the event itself went very well indeed. But none of us had eaten anything since lunch, so once signings were over, Elizabeth asked the driver to take us somewhere to get a snack to take with us on the road back to Toronto. He parked the limo by the front door of a Tim Horton's, which seemed like the perfect ending to a Canadian literary evening somehow, as the three of us, dressed in our performance rhinestones, stepped out of the limo to buy chilli and sandwiches. None of us felt at home in that damn limo. We wanted donuts.

Throughout that evening, Elizabeth Hay was gracious and patient and funny. As we were stuck in traffic, that long car ride would have been rather tedious, but along with Bernice, Elizabeth turned it into a real adventure. So, that's why I want Late Nights on Air. And geeze I'd like a signed copy!

For much more of our rather lively kitchen talk, visit http://www.gailanderson-dargatz.ca/ and click on "forums."

A rising tide raises all boats

2007-11-27T09:33:00.000-08:00

I invited the ladies of the writing group SPiN to visit our classes at UBC this past Monday. Jen Sookfong Lee, Mary Novik and June Hutton are the three novelists who make up the writing group SPiN and it's been a great year for these three writers. Jen's debut novel The End of East was published in March and Mary's Conceit in September. June’s Underground was just sold to Cormorant Books. Conceit made it to the Giller Prize longlist, and The End of East was sold to U.S. publisher Thomas Dunne.

Apart from their successes, I invited the ladies of the SPiN group in to talk to our students for several reasons: they each have just had, or are about to have their first novels published, they have stuck together as a writing group, and most importantly, they continue to support each other in a number of practical ways including promotion. If one has an event or interview, she talks about the other writers in her group. Their mantra? "A rising tide raises all boats."

The ladies of SPiN offer all of us working in the publishing industry an example to follow. Imagine a world where we, as writers, were thrilled to see each other published and achieving success, rather than somewhat envious. Is that possible? I believe it is. If we are generous with ourselves and others, and celebrate each others' successes, then that generousity is returned.

This Saturday, December 1, from 9 to 11 a.m. PST, a writers from across Canada, including the ladies of SPiN, are getting together on my forum to do just that, to celebrate the writing of others.

Whether you're a writer or a reader, we'd love it if you could join us. To get there go to http://www.gailanderson-dargatz.ca/ and click on "forums" on the website table of contents. You can bring a cup of coffee and listen in, or join the conversation by clicking on "register" at the top of the forum page. Please allow up to a day for activation.

If forums are new to you, or a little scary, but you'd like to give it a try, email our admin at admin@gailanderson-dargatz.ca and we'll help you out. We have a practice forum set up that the general public and most registered users can't see, so you can practice a little. It's really very easy. Again, please allow at least a day for us to get back to you.

For more on the ladies of SPiN, please visit their website at: http://www.spinwrites.com/.

Interviews from the author's perspective

2007-11-19T08:34:00.000-08:00

Robert Weirsema and I talked a little about interviews during our on-line conversation last Saturday and both Mary Novik (who was just on the Giller long-list with her novel Conceit) and the legendary Jack Hodgins piped in on the subject over the weekend. Here's that excerpt from our conversation:

Gail: Before we wrap things up, I have one rather silly question to ask you. I've had a great many wonderful interviews over these last few months, and a few really poor ones. I was discussing this one with several authors in the hospitality suite at Wordfest: what is the worst question you've been asked by an interviewer?

Robert: Worst question... hmm... I don't think I have any that really stand out (I tend to black out during interviews, and have little recall of the conversation later)... I just hope that I wasn't cited in anyone else's answer as to 'worst question' or 'worst interviewer'!And what was your worst question? (He asked, cautiously.)

Gail: Well, there were a few. I had one very young reporter (who reminded me of myself in my first year of small town newspaper), who started the conversation by saying she hadn't read the book, and didn't have a copy of the book, which is fine. Who has the time to read everything these days? But she then said, "So, you're self published then?" and went on to ask THAT series of questions: can you sum up your book for me, why did you write it, what are you working on next. Then she sneezed and said, "Oh, I've got to go wipe my nose." (This was a telephone conversation). I think the one question I get asked, even by good interviewers, that rubs me the wrong way is: "Is there anything else you'd like to say?" The question they're asking, of course, is, is there anything more I want to get across in their piece. But I really don't know how to answer that one. Mary, if you're still there, what was your worst interview question?

Mary: Worst interview question .... I guess it was the one that implied that a reader has to be familiar with John Donne's love poems in order to really engage with my novel Conceit, which is so opposite what I intended in writing the novel. I was struck dumb--then started to talk mumbo-jumbo. I don't want to offend people who ask questions out of genuine interest, but I want to be honest to the book as well. I guess the hardest questions are the ones that don't really "get" fiction, that treat the novel as some sort of nonfiction manqué.

Jack: Memorable interviews. There have been many. Too many, memorable for the wrong reasons. Here's one -- This was in Toronto while I was there doing the rounds to promote The Invention of the World, my second book. The Macmillan publicist seemed to have booked me onto every show in town. During the noon hour of one of those days she drove me to a radio station for a national program called "The Farm Show." Inside the station, the publicist handed the interviewer a copy of my book right in front of my eyes. The interviewer read the back flap. I knew I was on my own (once again)! So we sat across the table from one another, the red light came on, and the interviewer said, "I see this book is about the Irish in Canada. The Irish really did contribute a lot to agriculture in this country, didn't they?" I could see in her eyes that this was her one and only question and yet I had ten minutes to sit at that microphone. So I answered the question: "Yes." Then, after a pause just long enough to recognize either panic or hatred, I opened my mouth and just talked non-stop, answering all the questions she didn't ask, glad of all my classroom experience of thinking on my feet. There were many others.

Well, one more. I won't say which city. Live television interview. Beautiful glamorous interviewer. Her first comment, "You're such a wholesome writer! I think of you as the XXX of Canadian literature!" (XXX = name of famous wholesome woman singer). I don't know if it was the "wholesome" or that particular singer's reputation amongst serious music lovers that would lose me readers instantly -- or if it was just the surprise -- but I'm afraid my immediate unthinking shocked and indignant response ("My God, that's a terrible thing to say!") caused her to get the giggles, which made me laugh, which made her laugh even more and become unable to ask her first question. We tried to recover, but never did. Eventually the session ended, the producer stepped out from behind the cameras with a murderous look on his face, grabbed my arm, and held on tight while he escorted me to the door, saying "NOBODY HAS EVER DONE THAT TO HER BEFORE!" He made it clear I was not welcome at that station ever again. I have discovered that, despite many experiences like the ones I've mentioned, most interviewers are sincere, have done their preparation, and are willing to be interested in what you have to say. At the same time, it makes sense for you to go in to the interview already knowing some of the things you want to say... just in case. The really good interviewers will take you somewhere new, but it's a good idea to have something prepared anyway.

Gail: Yeah, this is great advice, Jack. I'll pass it along to my students. And I guess what I said earlier about reviews holds for interviews: in these days of disappearing book pages (and even fewer television/radio book shows), even a bad interview is a good thing.

*****

For more of our conversation, visit the forum at www.gailanderson-dargatz.ca and click on "forums." And if you're a reader, writer or bookclub member we'd love it if you joined our community. To join, click on "register" at the top of the forum page. Allow a day or so for your account to activate.

Good advice from Robert J.Wiersema

2007-11-18T19:03:00.000-08:00

Writer and reviewer Robert J. Wiersema was my guest on my forum last Saturday. His first novel, Before I Wake, was a national bestseller last year, and is now out in paperback. In addition to his daily duties as bookseller and event coordinator for Bolen Books in Victoria, Robert J. Wiersema is also a respected writer and critic, whose reviews and articles appear in the Vancouver Sun, the Globe and Mail, National Post, Toronto Star, Ottawa Citizen and other newspapers with, as he puts it, "alarming regularity."

I was excited to have him on my forum because as author, bookseller and reviewer, he has a unique perspective on this industry. I asked him for some advice to pass on to my students at UBC. The following was his response, in an excerpt from our conversation:

Robert: I think the advice is comprised of so many truisms as to border on cliche, at this point. I'll assume that they're already reading everything, and writing everyday, and all that stuff, so I'll just kick in with one piece of advice: Write the novel only you can write. However you determine your truth -- whether it's writing the book you would want to read, or writing the book you feel driven to write, or whatever -- write according to its dictates. Don't write to everyone else's tastes. Don't write to be popular in a workshop or writing group -- write from your guts. Take chances. Be true... (And to address one of the staples of the first-time novelist: be careful with "write what you know". Your own life and experiences are probably very interesting to you - they should be. But are they REALLY the stuff of a good book?)

Oh, and one more thing: you only get one chance to make a first impression. Don't rush yourself toward publication: when you debut, you want to lead with your absolute best.

Gail: Wonderful advice, Robert. This last one is particularly important. I've had students who have been offered publication too soon and regretted it. Jack Hodgins always said the worst thing that can happen to a young writer is to get published. I agree. It can happen to an established writer as well. There are many reasons why an established writer ends up putting out a book that should not have been published, and this hurts that writer in a number of ways. So it's always about getting out your best effort. Hard work!

Robert: There's a friend of mine in that very position -- he had a novel that he HAD to write, a novel that he had been obsessing about and mulling over in his mind for years. He wrote it -- agonizingly -- and I had to tell him that he probably shouldn't push for it to be published, that he should write something else, then take another look at it. The novel he's just about done now is definitely the one he should lead with -- the drawered novel might show up later, or it might be a good source to be mined, only time will tell. It was, I have to say, an uncomfortable conversation to have, but I shudder at the thought of what would have happened had one of my four or five previous first novels been published... Yech.

For the rest of our conversation, visit www.gailanderson-dargatz.ca and click on "forums."