Wednesday, December 03, 2008
Friday, November 28, 2008
Bernadette gets some attention in the online Quill and Quire
Industry news
News
Girls get Gutsy in new series from Second Story
November 28, 2008 | 5:50 PM | By Danielle Ng-See-Quan
There’s American Girl, there’s Gossip Girl, and now Second Story Press is introducing Gutsy Girl, a YA fiction series inspired by author Susan Glickman’s fall 2008 title Bernadette and the Lunch Bunch.
“They’re stories about girls who confront the world in wonderful and energetic and brave ways,” says Second Story president and publisher Margie Wolfe. “The idea is to inspire the readers to show that the world is truly open to them, and all they have to do is work for it.”
Though Bernadette and the Lunch Bunch was conceived and published as a standalone novel, Wolfe felt there was more there to capitalize on. The series won’t always feature the same characters, says Wolfe, but some may recur, and several different authors have been lined up to pen the books.
The first Gutsy Girl selection, which will be published next spring, is Home Free by Sharon Jennings, a story set in 1960s small-town Ontario about a girl named Lee who is “a bit of a loner and has a huge passion for Anne of Green Gables and loves the whole notion of being an orphan,” says Wolfe. When Cassandra – an actual orphan who has just been adopted – moves in across the street, Lee learns that the reality is a lot different from the fantasy.
The Gutsy Girl idea follows in the vein of Second Story’s Kids’ Power series, which was launched in fall 2007 and focuses on youth activism. Wolfe says the Kids’ Power series has been well received abroad, with international publishers purchasing several installments of the series at once, instead of just individual titles. Wolfe says the international marketplace is where one tends to find an audience for this type of series. “What we found with publishers when we told them about this Gutsy Girl series – everyone got a big smile on their faces,” says Wolfe. “They knew there wasn’t going to be another series out there [like it].”
News
Girls get Gutsy in new series from Second Story
November 28, 2008 | 5:50 PM | By Danielle Ng-See-Quan
There’s American Girl, there’s Gossip Girl, and now Second Story Press is introducing Gutsy Girl, a YA fiction series inspired by author Susan Glickman’s fall 2008 title Bernadette and the Lunch Bunch.
“They’re stories about girls who confront the world in wonderful and energetic and brave ways,” says Second Story president and publisher Margie Wolfe. “The idea is to inspire the readers to show that the world is truly open to them, and all they have to do is work for it.”
Though Bernadette and the Lunch Bunch was conceived and published as a standalone novel, Wolfe felt there was more there to capitalize on. The series won’t always feature the same characters, says Wolfe, but some may recur, and several different authors have been lined up to pen the books.
The first Gutsy Girl selection, which will be published next spring, is Home Free by Sharon Jennings, a story set in 1960s small-town Ontario about a girl named Lee who is “a bit of a loner and has a huge passion for Anne of Green Gables and loves the whole notion of being an orphan,” says Wolfe. When Cassandra – an actual orphan who has just been adopted – moves in across the street, Lee learns that the reality is a lot different from the fantasy.
The Gutsy Girl idea follows in the vein of Second Story’s Kids’ Power series, which was launched in fall 2007 and focuses on youth activism. Wolfe says the Kids’ Power series has been well received abroad, with international publishers purchasing several installments of the series at once, instead of just individual titles. Wolfe says the international marketplace is where one tends to find an audience for this type of series. “What we found with publishers when we told them about this Gutsy Girl series – everyone got a big smile on their faces,” says Wolfe. “They knew there wasn’t going to be another series out there [like it].”
Sunday, November 23, 2008
The Ethics of Governor General's Awards Juries
An unfortunate situation vis a vis the current GG poetry prize has led to some serious discussion -- not for the first time, by any means -- of the jury system, which clearly needs an overhaul. See the following thread from the great blog Bookninja:
http://www.bookninja.com/?p=4770
Just for the record, my last eligible poetry book wasn't even SUBMITTED by my publisher, so couldn't be considered for the prize by any jury, impartial or not. SO some of us have worse obstacles than juries to overcome.
http://www.bookninja.com/?p=4770
Just for the record, my last eligible poetry book wasn't even SUBMITTED by my publisher, so couldn't be considered for the prize by any jury, impartial or not. SO some of us have worse obstacles than juries to overcome.
Friday, November 21, 2008
Monday, November 17, 2008
Link to mp3 file
Queen's University Events - Audio - Common Magic - 2008 - Lyric Poetry - Susan Glickman, Jan Conn and Marie di Michele - Recorded on March 8, 2008 by CFRC 101.9 FM.
http://deimos3.apple.com/WebObjects/Core.woa/Feed/queensu.ca.1310859223.01310730979
http://deimos3.apple.com/WebObjects/Core.woa/Feed/queensu.ca.1310859223.01310730979
Sunday, November 09, 2008
Thursday, November 06, 2008
Books filed by colour
I'm stealing this image from Shawna Lemay's wonderful blog Capacious Holdall, because it's just so damn pretty. Now have a look at her blog! http://capacioushold-all.blogspot.com/
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
Answers to student questions about being a writer
At what point in your life did you decide to be a writer?
I always find this question impossible to answer, because it’s not as straightforward as it sounds! If you decide to become a veterinarian or a plumber or an astronaut or a fireman, you need to undergo a specialized post-secondary training and become certified to practice your trade. That’s not the way it works with writing. Everybody writes in school; those who “decide” to become writers, like me, are those who love it so much they never stop.
What this means is that you are not deciding to start doing something you’ve never done before, but to keep on doing something everybody else gives up; to get really good at something most people do poorly. To that extent, you are like an athlete or a musician, because the only way to get good is to practice, endlessly. Although there are lots of writing programs around, some even granting degrees, no one can actually teach you to write. They can only teach you how to revise and edit what you’ve already written. You still have to produce something from nothing on your own.
Also, writing is not really a profession in the ordinary sense: most writers have to earn money another way and keep working at their writing until they get published, and then keep publishing until they get lucky enough to make money, and even then, most writers still have to hold down another job to pay the bills. So “deciding to become a writer” doesn’t mean that you will earn a living at it; it means that you have made an internal commitment to the craft and will organize your life so that you always have time for it. And recognizing that you may have to give up other things in order to put the writing first.
What motivated you in that direction, and what are some experiences you had that eventually led you to this point?
I worked in publishing for a couple of years and then as a university professor for many more years and found myself obsessively editing everybody else’s work, and yearning for more time to work on my own stuff. I was never very interested in the business side of publishing, or the administrative side of academia; nor was I interested in literary theory for its own sake as so many of my colleagues were. I always wanted to take stories or plays or poems apart and see how they were made.
What do you enjoy about being a writer; what are the perks?
I love writing for two reasons. First and foremost I love making things with words; I love entering that state of intense mental excitement and working towards the best way of saying something. And secondly, writing is how I learn about the world. I find out what I know about things by writing about them, and writing forces me to learn new things all the time.
What do you dislike or wish to change about your occupation?
It can be lonely; you work in solitude all the time and rarely have people to share your work with. It can be frustrating: you send work out to be published and then wait for months and months for a response. It is very poorly paid. The tax laws are not geared towards writers, who may earn virtually nothing for several years and then get paid all at once, at which point they are taxed heavily. And being self-employed, writers have a hard time getting health and disability insurance, and therefore are doubly vulnerable financially.
Another problem is that other people think you are not really working because you’re at home, and they can’t see visible evidence of effort, so they don’t respect your time.
Do you find yourself writing more about personal experiences, or about imagined scenarios? Why?
In my poetry, I draw a lot on personal experiences, though I always see myself as an individual example of events that are universal. That is, I use my life as a repository of people, places, and things that I know about, through which I can explore subjects that interest me. So the “I” of my lyric poems is never straightforwardly me, myself, but the voice of that particular poem, which might or might not borrow something from Susan Glickman’s actual life.
In my fiction there are invented characters, so I have a lot more freedom to imagine experiences I haven’t actually had. Still, I have to draw on my own understanding of the world to be able to make convincing characters so to that extent I am limited by my own “self”, even when I don’t speak as myself.
What is the message you hope to put across to the general public through your writing?
No message; never any message!! Why? Because any message that literature could put across would be so vague and general as to be useless. War is Hell; Life is complicated ; Love one another or die: what use are messages like that?
Contrary to what most high school English teachers tell you, how literature works is not by sending out messages. Literature gives us the space and time to imaginatively inhabit another person’s life and empathize with his or her situation. In daily life we never get to enter anybody’s mind but our own, but literature gives us the opportunity to be lots of other people. This is really the moral dimension to literature: that it insists that we transcend our egos and be empathetic.
As Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote in “A Defense of Poetry, "A man, to be greatly good, must imagine intensely and comprehensively; he must put himself in the place of another and of many others; the pains and pleasures of his species must become his own."
When you write something you are creating a world for the reader to enter, building scenes for that reader to experience. Each individual work may grapple with certain themes that become a moral focus for the characters and therefore for readers as well, but this is not the same as being didactic and having a “message”.
I always find this question impossible to answer, because it’s not as straightforward as it sounds! If you decide to become a veterinarian or a plumber or an astronaut or a fireman, you need to undergo a specialized post-secondary training and become certified to practice your trade. That’s not the way it works with writing. Everybody writes in school; those who “decide” to become writers, like me, are those who love it so much they never stop.
What this means is that you are not deciding to start doing something you’ve never done before, but to keep on doing something everybody else gives up; to get really good at something most people do poorly. To that extent, you are like an athlete or a musician, because the only way to get good is to practice, endlessly. Although there are lots of writing programs around, some even granting degrees, no one can actually teach you to write. They can only teach you how to revise and edit what you’ve already written. You still have to produce something from nothing on your own.
Also, writing is not really a profession in the ordinary sense: most writers have to earn money another way and keep working at their writing until they get published, and then keep publishing until they get lucky enough to make money, and even then, most writers still have to hold down another job to pay the bills. So “deciding to become a writer” doesn’t mean that you will earn a living at it; it means that you have made an internal commitment to the craft and will organize your life so that you always have time for it. And recognizing that you may have to give up other things in order to put the writing first.
What motivated you in that direction, and what are some experiences you had that eventually led you to this point?
I worked in publishing for a couple of years and then as a university professor for many more years and found myself obsessively editing everybody else’s work, and yearning for more time to work on my own stuff. I was never very interested in the business side of publishing, or the administrative side of academia; nor was I interested in literary theory for its own sake as so many of my colleagues were. I always wanted to take stories or plays or poems apart and see how they were made.
What do you enjoy about being a writer; what are the perks?
I love writing for two reasons. First and foremost I love making things with words; I love entering that state of intense mental excitement and working towards the best way of saying something. And secondly, writing is how I learn about the world. I find out what I know about things by writing about them, and writing forces me to learn new things all the time.
What do you dislike or wish to change about your occupation?
It can be lonely; you work in solitude all the time and rarely have people to share your work with. It can be frustrating: you send work out to be published and then wait for months and months for a response. It is very poorly paid. The tax laws are not geared towards writers, who may earn virtually nothing for several years and then get paid all at once, at which point they are taxed heavily. And being self-employed, writers have a hard time getting health and disability insurance, and therefore are doubly vulnerable financially.
Another problem is that other people think you are not really working because you’re at home, and they can’t see visible evidence of effort, so they don’t respect your time.
Do you find yourself writing more about personal experiences, or about imagined scenarios? Why?
In my poetry, I draw a lot on personal experiences, though I always see myself as an individual example of events that are universal. That is, I use my life as a repository of people, places, and things that I know about, through which I can explore subjects that interest me. So the “I” of my lyric poems is never straightforwardly me, myself, but the voice of that particular poem, which might or might not borrow something from Susan Glickman’s actual life.
In my fiction there are invented characters, so I have a lot more freedom to imagine experiences I haven’t actually had. Still, I have to draw on my own understanding of the world to be able to make convincing characters so to that extent I am limited by my own “self”, even when I don’t speak as myself.
What is the message you hope to put across to the general public through your writing?
No message; never any message!! Why? Because any message that literature could put across would be so vague and general as to be useless. War is Hell; Life is complicated ; Love one another or die: what use are messages like that?
Contrary to what most high school English teachers tell you, how literature works is not by sending out messages. Literature gives us the space and time to imaginatively inhabit another person’s life and empathize with his or her situation. In daily life we never get to enter anybody’s mind but our own, but literature gives us the opportunity to be lots of other people. This is really the moral dimension to literature: that it insists that we transcend our egos and be empathetic.
As Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote in “A Defense of Poetry, "A man, to be greatly good, must imagine intensely and comprehensively; he must put himself in the place of another and of many others; the pains and pleasures of his species must become his own."
When you write something you are creating a world for the reader to enter, building scenes for that reader to experience. Each individual work may grapple with certain themes that become a moral focus for the characters and therefore for readers as well, but this is not the same as being didactic and having a “message”.
National Novel Writing Month
There's a huge group of people trying to write a 50,000 word novel in November. Here's the link:
http://www.nanowrimo.org/
My mind just won't go there...
http://www.nanowrimo.org/
My mind just won't go there...
Friday, October 31, 2008
OPEN LETTER TO THE “SMALL TREE MAINTENANCE PROGRAM”
We are extremely unhappy with the damage inflicted on our beautiful Turkish hazelnut tree in the name of the City’s new program, and wish to address the justification given for this program as follows:
1. THE PROGRAM IS REQUIRED BECAUSE THE CITY HAS INSUFFICIENT MANPOWER TO DEAL WITH HOMEOWNERS’ REQUESTS FOR PRUNING.
This is illogical. The number of trees the City has planted and the rate at which they grow remains the same whether you prune all the trees on a schedule or on an as-needed basis. Currently you are pruning all trees planted between 1997-2005. If you waited to see which of those trees actually needed pruning, the likelihood is that you would not, in fact, have to prune as many as you are doing in according to your “proactive” policy.
2. PRUNING THE TREES WHILE THEY ARE YOUNG MAKES IT EASIER FOR THEM TO RECOVER FROM THEIR WOUNDS.
But do you have any evidence that recovering from one or two large wounds, which is all I see on mature trees around Toronto, is any worse than recovering from 20 smaller ones, which is what you inflicted on our tree by adhering to your policy of 8 feet of clearance? If you waited until the tree was taller to see which branches actually cause problems you might not have to prune any at all!
Following your logic, OHIP’s policy would be to take out your child’s appendix, gallbladder, wisdom teeth, adenoids, and tonsils, in one big operation while he’s small, with the justification that kids recover better from their wounds when they’re young than when they are older, and they don’t have the manpower to do surgery on an as-needed basis.
3. THE CITY IS REQUIRED TO KEEP SIDEWALKS AND WALKWAYS CLEAR.
Of course. But in the case of our tree, its lowest branches already cleared all sidewalks and walkways!!! And most of the branches that were removed were over our porch, providing us with privacy, shade, and greenery. They weren’t even over public space.
4. WE HAVE TO MAINTAIN THE TREE’S FORM.
But that’s exactly why we’re upset—you didn’t! A Turkish Hazelnut is meant to be rounded and taper to the top; it has many lateral branches. The arborist went to work with a chain saw and a mandate to clear 8 feet, and no concern whatsoever for the characteristic silhouette of the tree. You say you can’t rely on homeowners, but ANY homeowner would have done a better job than this professional. “The tree’s form” is ruined forever.
5. IT ALWAYS LOOKS BAD AFTER A HAIRCUT.
But haircuts are done for cosmetic reasons, and this was not.
And hair grows back, but these boughs can never grow back.
1. THE PROGRAM IS REQUIRED BECAUSE THE CITY HAS INSUFFICIENT MANPOWER TO DEAL WITH HOMEOWNERS’ REQUESTS FOR PRUNING.
This is illogical. The number of trees the City has planted and the rate at which they grow remains the same whether you prune all the trees on a schedule or on an as-needed basis. Currently you are pruning all trees planted between 1997-2005. If you waited to see which of those trees actually needed pruning, the likelihood is that you would not, in fact, have to prune as many as you are doing in according to your “proactive” policy.
2. PRUNING THE TREES WHILE THEY ARE YOUNG MAKES IT EASIER FOR THEM TO RECOVER FROM THEIR WOUNDS.
But do you have any evidence that recovering from one or two large wounds, which is all I see on mature trees around Toronto, is any worse than recovering from 20 smaller ones, which is what you inflicted on our tree by adhering to your policy of 8 feet of clearance? If you waited until the tree was taller to see which branches actually cause problems you might not have to prune any at all!
Following your logic, OHIP’s policy would be to take out your child’s appendix, gallbladder, wisdom teeth, adenoids, and tonsils, in one big operation while he’s small, with the justification that kids recover better from their wounds when they’re young than when they are older, and they don’t have the manpower to do surgery on an as-needed basis.
3. THE CITY IS REQUIRED TO KEEP SIDEWALKS AND WALKWAYS CLEAR.
Of course. But in the case of our tree, its lowest branches already cleared all sidewalks and walkways!!! And most of the branches that were removed were over our porch, providing us with privacy, shade, and greenery. They weren’t even over public space.
4. WE HAVE TO MAINTAIN THE TREE’S FORM.
But that’s exactly why we’re upset—you didn’t! A Turkish Hazelnut is meant to be rounded and taper to the top; it has many lateral branches. The arborist went to work with a chain saw and a mandate to clear 8 feet, and no concern whatsoever for the characteristic silhouette of the tree. You say you can’t rely on homeowners, but ANY homeowner would have done a better job than this professional. “The tree’s form” is ruined forever.
5. IT ALWAYS LOOKS BAD AFTER A HAIRCUT.
But haircuts are done for cosmetic reasons, and this was not.
And hair grows back, but these boughs can never grow back.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Tree
I was working at home all day yesterday and around midday, heard the sounds of a chain saw outside. Thought nothing of it, as both houses across the street from me are being renovated; just closed the window, and kept on struggling with research for my novel, mainly legal stuff about the youth justice system and the differences between open and closed custody. In the middle of this research, I got a phone call from the vice principal of my son's high school asking for permission for him to be interviewed by the police about being mugged on the way to the school dance last Thursday--an event he never told me about, because he didn't want me to worry.
I spoke to my son, the Vice Principal, the police, and my husband, who came home as soon as he could to discuss further strategy. Naturally, I was surprised when he burst in the door calling "Have you seen the tree? What happened to the tree?"
We have (had) a beautiful spreading hazelnut tree in front of our house; in fact, to most people in the area, we were 'the house with the tree.' It provided a wonderful leafy haven; we loved nothing better to sit on our porch in the green shade, screened from the whole world. Hallowe'en being this week, we were just about to engage in our annual ritual of hanging little witch and ghost and skeleton dolls from its branches, to sway in the breeze and spookify things a little. Almost did it on Sunday; now I keep thinking "if only I had, if only I had..."
This is how the tree looks now:
The City of Toronto Department of Urban Forestry denies doing it. Toronto Hydro denies doing it. But who else goes around the city with a chain saw, and a truck to carry away the branches, blatantly trimming trees, without permission, without sending a notice to homeowners, in the middle of the day? And a neighbour saw a City truck parked on the street. And two other trees on my block were attacked as well, though neither as savagely.
This cannot have been for the health of the tree, for it was thriving. It was not in the way of wires, not a threat to pedestrians, and certainly not a threat to us. No one had complained.
And we have no recourse.
And the branches will not, will not, will not ever grow back.
Monday, October 20, 2008
I love A.L. Kennedy
And if I keep posting these wonderful essays by people other than myself I might get a reputation for a wisdom I don't possess, just by association!
Interview with Scottish writer AL Kennedy in the online journal the Huffington Post, Posted October 23, 2005
SO, WHAT’S HAPPENING WITH THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF PUBLISHING?
Fewer publishing houses concentrated in conglomerate hands trying to produce more books of less quality. No full time readers, no full time copy editors and therefore missed newcomers and pisspoor final presentation of texts on the shelves, silly covers, greedy and simple-minded bookshop chains, lunatic bidding wars designed to crush the spirit of unknown newcomers, celebrity “tighten your buns and nurture your inner pot plant” hard backs and much related insanity. Go somewhere else if you can, there is nothing like watching people who care about books being destroyed by publishing to put a blight on your afternoon.
HOW DO I GET PUBLISHED?
Write as well as you possibly can. Markets won’t help you, networking might (Although it will probably also involve the removal of your soul and will only help a little if you can’t write). Sleeping with writers makes them very happy, but as the ability to type with any kind of skill is not contagious, it won’t actually help you. And then we get into sleeping with/ selling drugs to/ blackmailing editors, agents and so on – and if you have the knack of doing that, you don’t need my help.
NO REALLY, HOW DO I GET PUBLISHED?
Find someone you can trust to look at your work, get it into the best possible shape, ruthlessly. Take advice from The Writer’s and Artist’s Yearbook on agents and editors that might suit and then contact them, one at a time. You will probably need an agent to help you catch any editor’s eye, these days—no one really has the time to read any more. And you could try praying, or voodoo. The market is now probably beyond saving and access is ever-decreasing. If I were starting now, I'd be nowhere. Sorry.
WILL I MAKE MONEY OUT OF LITERARY FICTION?
No. Or not quickly, unless you are incredibly lucky. Fiction is not exactly fashionable right now and never really has been a big earner. Then again, if you are writing literary fiction, you probably do it fairly helplessly, because you love it. The fact that we do it for love is, sadly, well-known amongst publishers, editors and so forth and this means we will receive the bare minimum and still be quite happy in an odd kind of, blood-soaked way. Welcome to wonderful world of literary fiction.
WHO WILL MAKE THE MONEY?
Your agent will make a little. Your publisher will mess up making what they could.
And if they mess up too badly you’ll end up out of print. But who needs money?—be happy if you’re in print at all—you can sell your organs to foreign businessmen, you have possibilities, get on with it… And you could be a poet – they don’t make anything…
WHAT ABOUT THE GLAMOUROUS JET-SETTING LIFE OF THE NOVELIST, THEN?
Endless community halls and libraries, immensely tiring tours of places that might be interesting if you ever got to see them, food you can’t eat, or never get, not enough sleep, crushing isolation, little or no chance of a cup of tea on the road, endless working to subsidise the writing… oh yes, it’s all a breeze. Sometimes, you may get to meet the former Bishop of Edinburgh, that’s one of the few high points.
Sometimes it is nice. Sometimes it is immensely grisly. I would recommend tours of Germany, the Leukerbad Festival, The Edinburgh Book Festival, the Victoria Festival, the Vancouver Festival and a few others, but it’s not a roller coaster of unlimited fun out there. Then again, it's nowhere near as lousy as waking up in Fallujah, or being a coal miner—so the whining should be limited.
ISN’T ALL LANGUAGE ESSENTIALLY MEANINGLESS?
I’ve told you before—keep away from those academics.
Of course, when I say “table”, I don’t mean quite the “table” you do—but that’s a good thing. It means you help me to make my “table” mean more.
Language used carefully unites more than it divides, communicates more than it obscures, but it’s also like a gun—it can do as much damage as the person in control of it has the power to inflict. So it’s our duty to learn how to use and understand the words around us. Hint—rush into a room full of Wittgenstein fans and yell "Fire !"—check if they interrogate your meaning for a fortnight, or run for the exits.
WHAT IS THE KEY TO WRITING GOOD FICTION?
Years of practice and observation.
Which isn’t the answer you wanted. I could say “capturing point of view”—but that comes back to years of practice and observation. Or learning a lot about your soul—same problem, if not worse. Just try to be aware of how you work and how that could help you tell other human beings about human beings who don’t exist, but could. Help us to dream together—that’s something we like to do. Tell me a story, I like stories. Tell me as if I were someone you care for, someone you trust and respect, someone as bright as you are, who deserves the best.
BUT FICTION IS ALL JUST RECYCLED FACT AND SCRAPS YOU OVERHEARD ON BUSES, SURELY ?
You can rip off your life and other people’s stories if you like, but that’s more theft than fiction and it will leave you with precious few friends and very little life remaining. Practically speaking, things you make up (it’s called fiction, remember) will fit your story better and be more fun for all concerned. This is, at one level, a meditative flight from self –that’s surely rather better than rummaging round in other people’s leftovers
I WANT TO BE A WRITER, WHAT SHOULD I DO?
Give yourself a severe talking-to. But if you can’t persuade yourself otherwise (and probably you can’t) then what you have to do now, and ever after, is write to the best of your ability and then a little bit better than that.
Then better than that.
And read everything you can, always.
Interview with Scottish writer AL Kennedy in the online journal the Huffington Post, Posted October 23, 2005
SO, WHAT’S HAPPENING WITH THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF PUBLISHING?
Fewer publishing houses concentrated in conglomerate hands trying to produce more books of less quality. No full time readers, no full time copy editors and therefore missed newcomers and pisspoor final presentation of texts on the shelves, silly covers, greedy and simple-minded bookshop chains, lunatic bidding wars designed to crush the spirit of unknown newcomers, celebrity “tighten your buns and nurture your inner pot plant” hard backs and much related insanity. Go somewhere else if you can, there is nothing like watching people who care about books being destroyed by publishing to put a blight on your afternoon.
HOW DO I GET PUBLISHED?
Write as well as you possibly can. Markets won’t help you, networking might (Although it will probably also involve the removal of your soul and will only help a little if you can’t write). Sleeping with writers makes them very happy, but as the ability to type with any kind of skill is not contagious, it won’t actually help you. And then we get into sleeping with/ selling drugs to/ blackmailing editors, agents and so on – and if you have the knack of doing that, you don’t need my help.
NO REALLY, HOW DO I GET PUBLISHED?
Find someone you can trust to look at your work, get it into the best possible shape, ruthlessly. Take advice from The Writer’s and Artist’s Yearbook on agents and editors that might suit and then contact them, one at a time. You will probably need an agent to help you catch any editor’s eye, these days—no one really has the time to read any more. And you could try praying, or voodoo. The market is now probably beyond saving and access is ever-decreasing. If I were starting now, I'd be nowhere. Sorry.
WILL I MAKE MONEY OUT OF LITERARY FICTION?
No. Or not quickly, unless you are incredibly lucky. Fiction is not exactly fashionable right now and never really has been a big earner. Then again, if you are writing literary fiction, you probably do it fairly helplessly, because you love it. The fact that we do it for love is, sadly, well-known amongst publishers, editors and so forth and this means we will receive the bare minimum and still be quite happy in an odd kind of, blood-soaked way. Welcome to wonderful world of literary fiction.
WHO WILL MAKE THE MONEY?
Your agent will make a little. Your publisher will mess up making what they could.
And if they mess up too badly you’ll end up out of print. But who needs money?—be happy if you’re in print at all—you can sell your organs to foreign businessmen, you have possibilities, get on with it… And you could be a poet – they don’t make anything…
WHAT ABOUT THE GLAMOUROUS JET-SETTING LIFE OF THE NOVELIST, THEN?
Endless community halls and libraries, immensely tiring tours of places that might be interesting if you ever got to see them, food you can’t eat, or never get, not enough sleep, crushing isolation, little or no chance of a cup of tea on the road, endless working to subsidise the writing… oh yes, it’s all a breeze. Sometimes, you may get to meet the former Bishop of Edinburgh, that’s one of the few high points.
Sometimes it is nice. Sometimes it is immensely grisly. I would recommend tours of Germany, the Leukerbad Festival, The Edinburgh Book Festival, the Victoria Festival, the Vancouver Festival and a few others, but it’s not a roller coaster of unlimited fun out there. Then again, it's nowhere near as lousy as waking up in Fallujah, or being a coal miner—so the whining should be limited.
ISN’T ALL LANGUAGE ESSENTIALLY MEANINGLESS?
I’ve told you before—keep away from those academics.
Of course, when I say “table”, I don’t mean quite the “table” you do—but that’s a good thing. It means you help me to make my “table” mean more.
Language used carefully unites more than it divides, communicates more than it obscures, but it’s also like a gun—it can do as much damage as the person in control of it has the power to inflict. So it’s our duty to learn how to use and understand the words around us. Hint—rush into a room full of Wittgenstein fans and yell "Fire !"—check if they interrogate your meaning for a fortnight, or run for the exits.
WHAT IS THE KEY TO WRITING GOOD FICTION?
Years of practice and observation.
Which isn’t the answer you wanted. I could say “capturing point of view”—but that comes back to years of practice and observation. Or learning a lot about your soul—same problem, if not worse. Just try to be aware of how you work and how that could help you tell other human beings about human beings who don’t exist, but could. Help us to dream together—that’s something we like to do. Tell me a story, I like stories. Tell me as if I were someone you care for, someone you trust and respect, someone as bright as you are, who deserves the best.
BUT FICTION IS ALL JUST RECYCLED FACT AND SCRAPS YOU OVERHEARD ON BUSES, SURELY ?
You can rip off your life and other people’s stories if you like, but that’s more theft than fiction and it will leave you with precious few friends and very little life remaining. Practically speaking, things you make up (it’s called fiction, remember) will fit your story better and be more fun for all concerned. This is, at one level, a meditative flight from self –that’s surely rather better than rummaging round in other people’s leftovers
I WANT TO BE A WRITER, WHAT SHOULD I DO?
Give yourself a severe talking-to. But if you can’t persuade yourself otherwise (and probably you can’t) then what you have to do now, and ever after, is write to the best of your ability and then a little bit better than that.
Then better than that.
And read everything you can, always.
Friday, October 10, 2008
Monday, September 29, 2008
Read about my desk, Friday October 3rd
In Evie Christie's very entertaining blog:
http://desk-space.blogspot.com
It's scary how much this image evokes me as a child! Clearly Evie is psychic...
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
The Sorted Books Project
wherein you make sentences out of titles, is too much of a time-waster even for me, but I appreciate what others have done. Especially this one!
from: http://www.ninakatchadourian.com/languagetranslation/sortedbooks.php
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Three interviews about my poems on the Canadian Literature Website
http://www.canlit.ca/poetry-canlitpoets.php?poemid=69
http://www.canlit.ca/poetry-canlitpoets.php?poemid=70
http://www.canlit.ca/poetry-canlitpoets.php?poemid=71
http://www.canlit.ca/poetry-canlitpoets.php?poemid=70
http://www.canlit.ca/poetry-canlitpoets.php?poemid=71
Monday, September 15, 2008
Monday, September 08, 2008
Before teaching my first class on Writing the Novel at Ryerson, I re-read these words...
from “Behind the curtain”
an essay by Milan Kundera
published in The Guardian Saturday March 3, 2007
The Novel as Utopia of a World That Has No Forgetting in It
The perpetual activity of forgetting gives our every act a ghostly, unreal, hazy quality. What did we have for lunch the day before yesterday? What did my friend tell me yesterday? And even: What was I thinking about, three seconds ago? All of that is forgotten and (what's a thousand times worse!) it deserves no better. Against our real world, which, by its very nature, is fleeting and worthy of forgetting, works of art stand as a different world, a world that is ideal, solid, where every detail has its importance, its meaning, where everything in it - every word, every phrase - deserves to be unforgettable and was conceived to be such.
Still, the perception of art does not escape the force of forgetting either. Though it should be said that each art has a different relation to forgetting. From that standpoint, poetry is privileged. A person reading a Baudelaire sonnet cannot skip a single word. If he loves it he will read it several times and perhaps aloud. If he adores it, he will learn it by heart. Lyric poetry is a fortress of memory.
The novel, on the other hand, is a very poorly fortified castle. If I take an hour to read 20 pages, a novel of 400 pages will take me 20 hours, thus about a week. Rarely do we have a whole week free. It is more likely that, between sessions of reading, intervals of several days will occur, during which forgetting will immediately set up its worksite. But it is not only in the intervals that forgetting does its work; it participates in the reading continuously, with never a moment's lapse; turning the page, I already forget what I just read; I retain only a kind of summary indispensable for understanding what is to follow, but all the details, the small observations, the admirable phrasings are already gone. Erased. Someday, years later, I will start to talk about this novel to a friend, and we will find that our memories have retained only a few shreds of the text and have reconstructed very different books for each of us.
And yet the novelist writes his novel as if he were writing a sonnet. Look at him! He is amazed at the composition he sees taking shape before him: the least detail is important to him, he makes it into a motif and will bring it back in dozens of repetitions, variations, allusions, like a fugue. And so he is sure that the second half of his novel will be even finer, stronger, than the first; for the farther one progresses through the castle's halls, the more the echoes of phrases already pronounced, themes already set out, will multiply and, brought together into chords, they will resonate from all sides.
What should the novelist do in the face of that destructive forgetting? Snap his fingers at it and build his novel as an indestructible castle of the unforgettable, even though he knows that his reader will only ramble through it distractedly, rapidly, forgetfully, and never inhabit it.
an essay by Milan Kundera
published in The Guardian Saturday March 3, 2007
The Novel as Utopia of a World That Has No Forgetting in It
The perpetual activity of forgetting gives our every act a ghostly, unreal, hazy quality. What did we have for lunch the day before yesterday? What did my friend tell me yesterday? And even: What was I thinking about, three seconds ago? All of that is forgotten and (what's a thousand times worse!) it deserves no better. Against our real world, which, by its very nature, is fleeting and worthy of forgetting, works of art stand as a different world, a world that is ideal, solid, where every detail has its importance, its meaning, where everything in it - every word, every phrase - deserves to be unforgettable and was conceived to be such.
Still, the perception of art does not escape the force of forgetting either. Though it should be said that each art has a different relation to forgetting. From that standpoint, poetry is privileged. A person reading a Baudelaire sonnet cannot skip a single word. If he loves it he will read it several times and perhaps aloud. If he adores it, he will learn it by heart. Lyric poetry is a fortress of memory.
The novel, on the other hand, is a very poorly fortified castle. If I take an hour to read 20 pages, a novel of 400 pages will take me 20 hours, thus about a week. Rarely do we have a whole week free. It is more likely that, between sessions of reading, intervals of several days will occur, during which forgetting will immediately set up its worksite. But it is not only in the intervals that forgetting does its work; it participates in the reading continuously, with never a moment's lapse; turning the page, I already forget what I just read; I retain only a kind of summary indispensable for understanding what is to follow, but all the details, the small observations, the admirable phrasings are already gone. Erased. Someday, years later, I will start to talk about this novel to a friend, and we will find that our memories have retained only a few shreds of the text and have reconstructed very different books for each of us.
And yet the novelist writes his novel as if he were writing a sonnet. Look at him! He is amazed at the composition he sees taking shape before him: the least detail is important to him, he makes it into a motif and will bring it back in dozens of repetitions, variations, allusions, like a fugue. And so he is sure that the second half of his novel will be even finer, stronger, than the first; for the farther one progresses through the castle's halls, the more the echoes of phrases already pronounced, themes already set out, will multiply and, brought together into chords, they will resonate from all sides.
What should the novelist do in the face of that destructive forgetting? Snap his fingers at it and build his novel as an indestructible castle of the unforgettable, even though he knows that his reader will only ramble through it distractedly, rapidly, forgetfully, and never inhabit it.
Saturday, September 06, 2008
Friday, September 05, 2008
wonderful comic strip: "The Bookseller". Enjoy!
http://community.livejournal.com/scans_daily/5408800.html
Friday, August 29, 2008
Red-Headed Bernadette
The sketch you see below is not the completed cover; for some reason I was unable to copy and save the cover pdf in a way that I could transfer to this blog. But it gives you a good idea of artist Melanie Allard's delightful vision of Bernadette (in front) and her friends Annie, Keisha and Megan. Now, the latter three differ only slightly from the images I had of them in my head while writing. I had always imagined Megan MacDonald as a blond. But what this whole exercise of being illustrated has revealed to me is how important it is to guide the reader's perception of your characters! Something I had done much more consciously in The Violin Lover, since that was conceived from the start as a novel, than in Bernadette, which started off as a little picture book, which I thought I would work on in tandem with an illustrator.
But Bernadette's Experiment, the original story written seven years ago, grew, and grew, and grew, and now is an early novel for readers from the ages of 7-10. (I will blog another time about the long tortured road from picture book to novel.) And rather than having full colour illustrations on every page, it has just a handful of line drawings. Moreover these drawings were executed by Melanie without my input.
When I saw Melanie's first image of Bernadette as a girl with long tangled red curls I was shocked, since in my mind she had short dark hair. But of course NOWHERE in the book had I described her, since I had been writing from her point of view and the only thing about her appearance she commented on was how short she was! Nonetheless, it took all of a minute for me to totally accept Melanie's vision of Bernadette and fall in love with it. And now I've written those red curls right into the text, and can't see her as anything but a redhead.
But Bernadette's Experiment, the original story written seven years ago, grew, and grew, and grew, and now is an early novel for readers from the ages of 7-10. (I will blog another time about the long tortured road from picture book to novel.) And rather than having full colour illustrations on every page, it has just a handful of line drawings. Moreover these drawings were executed by Melanie without my input.
When I saw Melanie's first image of Bernadette as a girl with long tangled red curls I was shocked, since in my mind she had short dark hair. But of course NOWHERE in the book had I described her, since I had been writing from her point of view and the only thing about her appearance she commented on was how short she was! Nonetheless, it took all of a minute for me to totally accept Melanie's vision of Bernadette and fall in love with it. And now I've written those red curls right into the text, and can't see her as anything but a redhead.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Saturday, August 02, 2008
Monday, July 14, 2008
Saturday, July 12, 2008
Wednesday, July 09, 2008
Saturday, July 05, 2008
Thursday, July 03, 2008
About the cartoons
Yes, I am the "artist", although they aren't actually drawn, just assembled from online components. The name "Susan" was already in use on the site and since my friend Carrie, an Egyptologist, always calls me "Lotus", I adopted that as my nom de plume. (The name "Susan" comes from the Egyptian word for lotus flower, "she-she," which in Hebrew became "Shoshanah" and took on the meaning of rose.)
Wednesday, July 02, 2008
Tuesday, July 01, 2008
Monday, June 30, 2008
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
In My Opinion
There are a heck of a lot of opinions out there. Some days they come at you as thick as black flies over Lac Ouareau on a July afternoon. Small, insistent opinions: some winging singly and some blackening the sky in noisy hordes. Some are meaningful and some mean well and some are just mean, but most are superfluous to our peaceful co-existence on the planet—or at least to the quiet enjoyment of a summer afternoon in the Laurentians. You can swim out to the dock to work on your tan, you can bury your head in an Agatha Christie novel so venerable that it’s lost its cover and smells not of paper but of wood smoke and mildew, but unless you stay under water holding your breath, you just can’t escape the plague of modern opinion.
I should know. I can trace my descent from a series of givers of advice both requisitioned and unsolicited; a long wiggly conga line of experts and teachers and doctors and social workers and other avatars of professional wisdom. Indeed, I myself have been, in my time, guilty of opinion-mongering in mixed company. I was a professor. I was an editor. I was a book reviewer. These learned occupations may seem sufficient justification for one's dispensing one's notions like so much aspirin, since people expect that anyone with a capital P small H capital D after their name ought to have profound thoughts about subjects of passing import. And in fact, in those bad old days, flattered by the merest quiver of interest, I complied whenever possible. I improvised opinions instante, trying to sound witty, informed and sardonic, or sincere, passionate and moral, depending on the subject in question and the degree of engagement of my interlocutor. Nonetheless my belly churned with shame, knowing intimately (as such organs do) that I had no right to trumpet opinions on subjects with which I had insufficient familiarity.
Before Borat declared open season on satirizing Americans, Rick Mercer had a TV show in which he got over-eager Yanks to expose their ignorance of Canada by asking them trick questions like whether the city of Winnipeg should outlaw the annual polar bear hunt. Not wanting to admit they’d never heard of such a thing, they would happily spout nonsense, which the camera obligingly recorded for posterity. Watching them in their enthusiastic innocence being bludgeoned as heartlessly as baby seals, I found myself wondering why people always find it so hard to say, “I don’t know.” Why are we more ashamed of not being able to express an opinion than of expressing a stupid one?
A question worth pondering, my friends, the next time you find yourself tempted to respond to a telemarketer or doodle in the answers to a quiz while waiting for the dentist.
I speak here only of opinions, mind you. Judgments are something else again. There's nothing quite as impressive as a well-considered judgment, robed in evidence and crowned with citations, sturdily shod in footnotes and trailing yards and yards of bibliography. Those guys wind my clock, I tell you; they make me proud to be a primate with opposable thumbs and the two-volume edition of the OED. But judgments deserve respect precisely because they’ve paid their dues. It takes time to arrive at a considered judgment: time to noodle around in libraries, to wander and ponder and get good and lost; time to find your way out of the woods again, older and wiser, following a bread-crumb trail by the light of the moon.
Time is equally essential to all Judgment’s respectable friends and relations: the well-founded Belief, the reasonable Surmise, the profound Conviction, or even the oft-maligned but really rather fetching old-fashioned Doctrine. Stuff that's weathered years and stood up to skeptics, scoffers, and one's own doubts—now that's stuff with substance.
But opinions ... well, opinions give me the heebie-jeebies, and opinions seem to be, increasingly, what people expect writers to have. And I don't mean opinions about books, which are, after all, one's business if one is a writer. I mean opinions about daily life, or politics, or the environment; the kind of opinions people seem compelled to share with each other on talk shows and editorial pages, and even, alas, on Via Rail. Opinions are to judgments what sushi is to bouillabaisse: superficially pretty and chic, but ultimately raw and indigestible. The fast food of the pseudo-intelligentsia; something to be ingested on the run in that heedless North American way so disdained by the French. Insubstantial sound bites prepared by food-stylists instead of chefs.
Think about it for a minute. Why should a writer be expected to be a social commentator? Why would someone whose principal occupation is making a single cup of coffee last for two hours be an authority on how to end violence in the Middle East or shrink the ozone hole over the Antarctic, save the rainforest from the axe or our cultural freedoms from multinational corporations (well, I might just have an opinion worth listening to about that last subject ...) But seriously: how can someone who spends her days changing dashes to parentheses and then to commas have the inside track on anything of world-shaking import? Writers are like mushrooms, thriving best in moldy basements, where they are happiest checking facts and doing the cryptic crossword puzzle. Don't bring them up, blinking, into the merciless light of day, where they will have to reveal their ignorance to people with more money than they, people who have different kinds of shoes for every kind of sport.
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Writers and the Net
I spent all weekend attending the Writers Union of Canada's annual general meeting in Toronto. A major topic of discussion was the effect of digital media upon writing: in creation (are we stringent enough editors of our own work when we write on the computer?), production (print on demand? e-books?), dissemination (who holds electronic rights? who is recompensed, if anyone is, for them? how free should information be? when is our work not "information"?), and promotion (web presence seems to be mandatory for writers these days, as publishing houses do less for backlist and midlist writers; some writers have cultivated readership almost entirely through their blogs).
According to the experts, I am not using this blog properly! I should update it much more often, and tell the world what I'm reading and writing,so that you will all eagerly anticipate my next book and line up to buy it. Can there actually be anyone out there who actually wants to know what I'm reading (just finished two books of short stories by Ali Smith and started Fabrizio's Return by Mark Frutkin), much less what I'm writing (revising my book of linked short stories for kids as a novel, leaving out two stories to save for later books in the projected series and writing new chapters instead; writing a murder mystery set in contemporary Toronto; working on some new poems), much less what other literary projects occupy my time (going over the proofs for a big book on the geography of aging in Canada that I edited for McGill Queens University Press). And if I tell you this stuff, will you tell all your friends to read my blog and buy my books?
Because that's the real issue, isn't it.
According to the experts, I am not using this blog properly! I should update it much more often, and tell the world what I'm reading and writing,so that you will all eagerly anticipate my next book and line up to buy it. Can there actually be anyone out there who actually wants to know what I'm reading (just finished two books of short stories by Ali Smith and started Fabrizio's Return by Mark Frutkin), much less what I'm writing (revising my book of linked short stories for kids as a novel, leaving out two stories to save for later books in the projected series and writing new chapters instead; writing a murder mystery set in contemporary Toronto; working on some new poems), much less what other literary projects occupy my time (going over the proofs for a big book on the geography of aging in Canada that I edited for McGill Queens University Press). And if I tell you this stuff, will you tell all your friends to read my blog and buy my books?
Because that's the real issue, isn't it.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Cats&Dogs
DOG'S Diary
8:00 am - Dog food! My favourite thing!
9:30 am - A car ride! My favourite thing!
9:40 am - A walk in the park! My favourite thing!
10:30 am - Got rubbed and petted! My favourite thing!
12:00 pm - Lunch! My favourite thing!
1:00 pm - Played in the yard! My favourite thing!
3:00 pm - Wagged my tail! My favourite thing!
5:00 pm - Milk bones! My favourite thing!
7:00 pm - Got to play ball! My favourite thing!
8:00 pm - Wow! Watched TV with my people! My favourite thing!
11:00 pm - Sleeping on the bed! My favourite thing!
CAT'S DIARY
Day 983 of my captivity.
My captors continue to taunt me with bizarre little dangling objects. They dine lavishly on fresh meat, while the other inmates and I are fed hash or some sort of dry nuggets. Although I make my contempt for the rations perfectly clear, I nevertheless must eat something in order to keep up my strength.
The only thing that keeps me going is my dream of escape.
In an attempt to disgust them, I once again vomit on the carpet.
Today I decapitated a mouse and dropped its headless body at their feet. I had hoped this would strike fear into their hearts, since it clearly demonstrates what I am capable of. However, they merely made condescending comments about what a "good little hunter" I am.
There was some sort of assembly of their accomplices tonight. I was placed in solitary confinement for the duration of the event. However, I could hear the noises and smell the food. I overheard that my confinement was due to the power of "allergies." I must learn what this means, and how to use it to my advantage.
Today I was almost successful in an attempt to assassinate one of my tormentors by weaving around his feet as he was walking. I must try this again tomorrow -- but at the top of the stairs.
I am convinced that the other prisoners here are flunkies and snitches. The dog receives special privileges. He is regularly released and seems to be more than willing to return. He is obviously retarded.
The bird has got to be an informant. I observe him communicate with the guards regularly. I am certain that he reports my every move. My captors have arranged protective custody for him in an elevated cell, so he is safe. For now...
Thursday, May 08, 2008
Friday, April 25, 2008
Squirrel
Had an oddly moving experience with a wild critter over the last 24 hours. Last night around 7, I found a wide-eyed baby squirrel between some bedding plants (hostas, very cheap actually) outside a corner store near Rachel's dance class on Parliament Street. I started talking to it and put my hand out, and it jumped into my arms and snuggled in, so I couldn't put it down.
According to the proprietor of the store, the squirrel's mother had drowned on Sunday (I have no idea how; in retrospect I should have asked) and the baby had just stayed there, frightened, for the past four days. They'd given it some peanuts but clearly it was too little to eat them. So I offered to take care of it, and they were happy to see it go.
First I went to a pet store across the street to see if they had formula for baby mammals, and maybe an eyedropper to dispense it with, but they were closed. So I bought some milk, and asked the singing waiter at Jet Fuel to heat it up. He foamed some in the cappuccino machine and I fed the squirrel from my finger. She (I thought it was a boy but it turned out to be a girl) was absolutely ravenous. I kept putting foamy milk on my palm where she was sitting, and she was very happy sucking and licking it off for the whole hour Rachel was at the Canadian Children's Dance Theatre.
A lot of little girls waiting for their class enjoyed the squirrel as well, and made helpful suggestions about names. "Jamie" was popular, as being adaptable to either a boy or a girl. But when Rachel came out of her class, we decided to call the squirrel "Misha" - after Barishnikov - since we thought it was a boy and found it outside a dance studio.
We rummaged through the back of the car, where a couple of bags of old clothes were stowed en route to Goodwill, and made a nice little nest for baby in a purse stuffed with teeshirts. She immediately curled up with her tail over her face and went to sleep. Then we drove to the Village Gate veterinarian at the corner of Bathurst and Nina, knowing he always works late; sure enough, he was still around, and gave us the number of the Toronto Wildlife Centre, but they had already closed. So we made a little cage for the squirrel full of towels and put her in a dark quiet place for the night.
Before I went to bed I checked on her, and offered her a little water in a tiny plastic cup. She reached out with her hands and held tight to the cup, lapping the water up with enthusiasm. In the morning she was quite perky and happy to see me. I gave her some more water and put in another call to the Wildlife Centre. They told me I shouldn't have been handling her or giving her water, but it was clear to me that the squirrel had really needed the comfort of touch and something to drink. She loved being petted just as much as my guinea pigs always do. And I felt confident that I hadn't overfed her.
With her still snuggled in the purse, I drove to the Wildlife Centre, made a hefty donation, and relinquished her care to others with more experience of rehabilitating wild animals. They agreed with my estimate of her age as about 6 weeks old, and her condition as very good. She will be boarded with other baby squirrels and released back to her original area of Toronto in about 8 weeks.
I cried all the way home.
According to the proprietor of the store, the squirrel's mother had drowned on Sunday (I have no idea how; in retrospect I should have asked) and the baby had just stayed there, frightened, for the past four days. They'd given it some peanuts but clearly it was too little to eat them. So I offered to take care of it, and they were happy to see it go.
First I went to a pet store across the street to see if they had formula for baby mammals, and maybe an eyedropper to dispense it with, but they were closed. So I bought some milk, and asked the singing waiter at Jet Fuel to heat it up. He foamed some in the cappuccino machine and I fed the squirrel from my finger. She (I thought it was a boy but it turned out to be a girl) was absolutely ravenous. I kept putting foamy milk on my palm where she was sitting, and she was very happy sucking and licking it off for the whole hour Rachel was at the Canadian Children's Dance Theatre.
A lot of little girls waiting for their class enjoyed the squirrel as well, and made helpful suggestions about names. "Jamie" was popular, as being adaptable to either a boy or a girl. But when Rachel came out of her class, we decided to call the squirrel "Misha" - after Barishnikov - since we thought it was a boy and found it outside a dance studio.
We rummaged through the back of the car, where a couple of bags of old clothes were stowed en route to Goodwill, and made a nice little nest for baby in a purse stuffed with teeshirts. She immediately curled up with her tail over her face and went to sleep. Then we drove to the Village Gate veterinarian at the corner of Bathurst and Nina, knowing he always works late; sure enough, he was still around, and gave us the number of the Toronto Wildlife Centre, but they had already closed. So we made a little cage for the squirrel full of towels and put her in a dark quiet place for the night.
Before I went to bed I checked on her, and offered her a little water in a tiny plastic cup. She reached out with her hands and held tight to the cup, lapping the water up with enthusiasm. In the morning she was quite perky and happy to see me. I gave her some more water and put in another call to the Wildlife Centre. They told me I shouldn't have been handling her or giving her water, but it was clear to me that the squirrel had really needed the comfort of touch and something to drink. She loved being petted just as much as my guinea pigs always do. And I felt confident that I hadn't overfed her.
With her still snuggled in the purse, I drove to the Wildlife Centre, made a hefty donation, and relinquished her care to others with more experience of rehabilitating wild animals. They agreed with my estimate of her age as about 6 weeks old, and her condition as very good. She will be boarded with other baby squirrels and released back to her original area of Toronto in about 8 weeks.
I cried all the way home.
Sunday, March 23, 2008
spring maybe, maybe spring
At Cedarvale Ravine, red-winged blackbirds are out in full force, swaying from the cattails, as are robins, prodding the slush hopefully in search of hidden worms. A few green sprouts have nosed their way up under bridges and in any other area not still two feet deep in snow. There is more sunlight, longer. So although this has been un vrais hiver canadien, and the first such for a very long time, it seems to be on the way out, if not on schedule (the spring equinox having already passed with no discernible effect) at least in conformity with the winters of my youth: to whit, the snow should melt by the May 24 weekend, when gardening begins in earnest.
Like the no white shoes after Labour Day rule of that same distant childhood, the no gardening until Victoria Day ban seems to have eased. Whether this is the result of global warming or the general laxity of modern civilization remains to be seen.
Like the no white shoes after Labour Day rule of that same distant childhood, the no gardening until Victoria Day ban seems to have eased. Whether this is the result of global warming or the general laxity of modern civilization remains to be seen.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Monday, February 11, 2008
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Thought of the Day
“A writer is a person for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.”
--Thomas Mann
--Thomas Mann
Sunday, December 02, 2007
Saturday, December 01, 2007
Reading and Rereading: Part 1
Today the Globe and Mail came out with its annual "top 100" books. And as usual, I've read very few -- three, to be precise. It's daunting how, with each passing year, I get further behind in my reading. Certain masterworks by, say, Proust or Henry James, which I pick up every other once-in-a-while fully intending to read, slide back on the shelf, abashed, their mature beauties shunned for the flash and dazzle of something new. Moby Dick: never made it past the first 100 pages. But there may certainly be a time in my life when an obsessively encyclopaedic novel about whale-hunting is the true and only thing I need to read and then it will be waiting, open-armed.
And there are those that I did read 30 or even 40 years ago which I want to reread, mostly the great Russians, but also things like Madame Bovary and Don Quixote, touchstones of literary culture that are not as vivid in my mind as I would like them to be. Books I enjoyed so much once that I would like to experience the resonant pleasure of rereading them. For if reading a good book for the first time is like drinking wine, rereading it is like drinking cognac.
When my daughter was in Grade Six her teacher, who had the kids keep a chart of every book they read and awarded stickers to those who read the most, called her a cheater for her habit of rereading favourite books, sometimes as soon as she had finished them the first time. This teacher insisted that there was no point rereading books when there were so many others one hadn't read yet. My daughter, as besotted with words as I am, reported this nonsense to me with justifiable indignation. We agreed that her teacher obviously didn't "get" reading, seeing it as a chore rather than one of life's most profound pleasures.
No one would ever counsel a child not to listen to a piece of music a second time, or not to view a painting more than once! How could anyone suggest that books don't repay a second encounter? Or even a third. You never read the same book twice, anyway, since you miss so much the first time and if the time between readings is long enough, have changed significantly in the interval.
To keep my bearings, I need to reread, from time to time, certain nonfiction texts that have shaped my deepest understanding of the world: among them Gombrich's Art and Illusion, Diane Ackerman's A Natural History of the Senses, In Patagonia by Bruce Chatwin, The Periodic Table by Primo Levi, The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks, Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott... And I reread poetry all the time. Certain poets, like Hass and Amichai, CK Wright, Rilke, Neruda, Seferis, Milosz, Transtromer--a long long list--are the stars I steer by. But I continue to feel the compulsion to go forward rather than backwards when it comes to fiction. Why is that, I wonder?
Perhaps it's the residue of having been an academic. In my youth I was driven to master the canon, and so read little contemporary writing except the odd faddish novel until I started writing poetry seriously and realized that my accent was archaic. And even then it was just poetry that I tried to keep up with; not fiction.
I have to go pick up the aforementioned daughter from gymnastics, so will pursue these thoughts further at another time..
And there are those that I did read 30 or even 40 years ago which I want to reread, mostly the great Russians, but also things like Madame Bovary and Don Quixote, touchstones of literary culture that are not as vivid in my mind as I would like them to be. Books I enjoyed so much once that I would like to experience the resonant pleasure of rereading them. For if reading a good book for the first time is like drinking wine, rereading it is like drinking cognac.
When my daughter was in Grade Six her teacher, who had the kids keep a chart of every book they read and awarded stickers to those who read the most, called her a cheater for her habit of rereading favourite books, sometimes as soon as she had finished them the first time. This teacher insisted that there was no point rereading books when there were so many others one hadn't read yet. My daughter, as besotted with words as I am, reported this nonsense to me with justifiable indignation. We agreed that her teacher obviously didn't "get" reading, seeing it as a chore rather than one of life's most profound pleasures.
No one would ever counsel a child not to listen to a piece of music a second time, or not to view a painting more than once! How could anyone suggest that books don't repay a second encounter? Or even a third. You never read the same book twice, anyway, since you miss so much the first time and if the time between readings is long enough, have changed significantly in the interval.
To keep my bearings, I need to reread, from time to time, certain nonfiction texts that have shaped my deepest understanding of the world: among them Gombrich's Art and Illusion, Diane Ackerman's A Natural History of the Senses, In Patagonia by Bruce Chatwin, The Periodic Table by Primo Levi, The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks, Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott... And I reread poetry all the time. Certain poets, like Hass and Amichai, CK Wright, Rilke, Neruda, Seferis, Milosz, Transtromer--a long long list--are the stars I steer by. But I continue to feel the compulsion to go forward rather than backwards when it comes to fiction. Why is that, I wonder?
Perhaps it's the residue of having been an academic. In my youth I was driven to master the canon, and so read little contemporary writing except the odd faddish novel until I started writing poetry seriously and realized that my accent was archaic. And even then it was just poetry that I tried to keep up with; not fiction.
I have to go pick up the aforementioned daughter from gymnastics, so will pursue these thoughts further at another time..
Saturday, November 17, 2007
Thursday, November 15, 2007
How to waste time when not reading other people's blogs
or, alternatively:
http://www.freerice.com
or best of all
Sunday, October 21, 2007
poetry versus prose: the cage match
SO I just got back from Montreal via Kingston, having read, in the space of 4 days, to students and profs at Queens' and McGill universities, Queen of the Angels High School for relatively well-behaved Catholic girls, and a large audience of mostly older people at the Jewish Public Library. The last event (the only paid one) was a talk about and reading from The Violin Lover, and the high school trip was to teach the girls how to write poetry; at Queens' and at McGill I did a mixture of poetry and prose, groping towards some kind of understanding of what I myself am doing and, not entirely coincidentally, nudging me towards writing a paper for the Bronwen Wallace conference next March.
was that all one sentence? no? good.
ANYHOW initially I was kinda stuck on the polarities of lyric and narrative, the former being a vertical slice of time, an exploration of all the qualities of the moment, resulting, most often, in images, while the latter is the engine of plot, horizontal, sequential cause and effect, etcetera. I've generally understood these not as genres but as aesthetic imperatives: "stop and explore the now" in tension, always, for the artist, with "go on and tell the story". But when someone at Queens' actually asked me what was the big difference for me,in my own work, between writing prose fiction and writing poetry I realized that it wasn't that at all, it was dialogue. After all, dialogue is the imitation of speech while the rest of it is unambiguously textual.
This may help me think more clearly about Bron's decision to write stories after so many years arguing that narrative poetry could do everything fiction could. Obviously her short stories are longer than her poems, and have flashbacks, and are written in sentences rather than lines, etcetera, but perhaps the polyphony -- the sense of many voices talking -- was key for her.
Have to think about this more. If anyone else out there is thinking about it too, I'd love to hear from you!!
was that all one sentence? no? good.
ANYHOW initially I was kinda stuck on the polarities of lyric and narrative, the former being a vertical slice of time, an exploration of all the qualities of the moment, resulting, most often, in images, while the latter is the engine of plot, horizontal, sequential cause and effect, etcetera. I've generally understood these not as genres but as aesthetic imperatives: "stop and explore the now" in tension, always, for the artist, with "go on and tell the story". But when someone at Queens' actually asked me what was the big difference for me,in my own work, between writing prose fiction and writing poetry I realized that it wasn't that at all, it was dialogue. After all, dialogue is the imitation of speech while the rest of it is unambiguously textual.
This may help me think more clearly about Bron's decision to write stories after so many years arguing that narrative poetry could do everything fiction could. Obviously her short stories are longer than her poems, and have flashbacks, and are written in sentences rather than lines, etcetera, but perhaps the polyphony -- the sense of many voices talking -- was key for her.
Have to think about this more. If anyone else out there is thinking about it too, I'd love to hear from you!!
Monday, October 15, 2007
I'm sorry but it seems to be my week for posting only UK items! But you have to read this.
http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,,2190553,00.html
Thursday, October 11, 2007
hysterical British skit about agents and authors on Youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zo1XFz0kac0&v3
Monday, October 08, 2007
Andrew Motion on the 13 volume OED
Every time I peer into it, which is several times a day, I think: "All the words I'll ever need are here; the only thing I have to do is get them out in the right order."
from this weekend's Guardian Review.
from this weekend's Guardian Review.
Monday, September 24, 2007
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Last week of summer
INDIAN SUMMER
Emily Dickinson [1830-1886]
These are the days when birds come back,
A very few, a bird or two,
To take a backward look.
These are the days when skies put on
The old, old sophistries of June, -
A blue and gold mistake.
Oh, fraud that cannot cheat the bee,
Almost thy plausibility
Induces my belief,
Till ranks of seeds their witness bear,
And softly through the altered air
Hurries a timid leaf!
Oh, sacrament of summer days,
Oh, last communion in the haze,
Permit a child to join,
Thy sacred emblems to partake,
Thy consecrated bread to break,
Taste thine immortal wine!
Monday, August 20, 2007
Not the south of France. But you can feel the warmth anyway.
My friend Michael Redhill has started a blog, On the Via Domitia, charting his family's adventures in the south of France. So far they have been entirely positive, dominated by extraordinary food, generous people, and affable lizards. Were I to try something analogous here, in my own backyard, what would I write about? The acrobatic squirrel who sways back and forth on the giant sunflower head while chomping around it, like a kid on a swing negotiating a melting ice cream sandwich? The brilliant yellow of the goldfinches, who also like to feed upside down? The overabundance of "Roma" tomatoes on every vine, ripening faster than I can cook or eat them? The indefatigable "Roxanne" cranesbill geraniums, in bloom for eight weeks and still going strong? The way the basil releases waves of scent whenever I water it?
I love my garden. I love that everybody on my street loves their gardens (the Roma tomatoes were a gift from my next door neighbour Diana, and the cranesbill geraniums were planted next to "moonbeam" coreopsis because that combination worked so well at Christie's house across the street). I've lived in Toronto since 1977 but only recently have I begun to feel at home here, largely because of this neighbourhood. When you walk down the street everyone says Hi and invites you onto their porch for coffee or wine; the lovely old couple at the corner store gets a New York Times just for my husband and lets the kids buy candy on credit; we look after each others dogs.
Toronto is often described as a city of neighbourhoods. Therein lies its charm. It is, in a microcosm, what Canada is in macrocosm: a loose confederation rather than a staunch republic. Its outlines are hazy-- who can tell exactly where the Annex ends and Seaton Village begins, or what the difference is between Riverdale and Danforth Village? And does anyone care except real estate agents?
And yes, I'm from Montreal. Call me a traitor if you will, but I like it here. C'est pas pire.
I love my garden. I love that everybody on my street loves their gardens (the Roma tomatoes were a gift from my next door neighbour Diana, and the cranesbill geraniums were planted next to "moonbeam" coreopsis because that combination worked so well at Christie's house across the street). I've lived in Toronto since 1977 but only recently have I begun to feel at home here, largely because of this neighbourhood. When you walk down the street everyone says Hi and invites you onto their porch for coffee or wine; the lovely old couple at the corner store gets a New York Times just for my husband and lets the kids buy candy on credit; we look after each others dogs.
Toronto is often described as a city of neighbourhoods. Therein lies its charm. It is, in a microcosm, what Canada is in macrocosm: a loose confederation rather than a staunch republic. Its outlines are hazy-- who can tell exactly where the Annex ends and Seaton Village begins, or what the difference is between Riverdale and Danforth Village? And does anyone care except real estate agents?
And yes, I'm from Montreal. Call me a traitor if you will, but I like it here. C'est pas pire.
Thursday, August 09, 2007
We are stardust, we are golden
The Universe Invites You
to an exclusive viewing
of
to an exclusive viewing
of
The Perseid Meteor Shower
on
Saturday night August 11th
between 9 pm and 4 am.
on
Saturday night August 11th
between 9 pm and 4 am.
Don't miss it!
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Famous Poems as Limericks.
OK, so as if I didn't find enough ways to procrastinate, over at Bookninja that fiend, George Murray, issued an irresistible challenge: to rewrite famous poems as limericks. Here are my best ones:
There once was a mariner old
who wanted his damn story told
so he fixed passers-by
with a glittering eye
and bored them to death in the cold.
Larkin sat on a train and was grim
because no one was marrying him
no girls in loud dresses
would offer caresses
to someone so scornful and dim.
A traveller in lands antique
dug in the sand for a week
when he came up for air
he was filled with despair—
“This writing’s Egyptian, not Greek!”
Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
went chortling through tulgey groves
“The Jabberwock’s dead!
Beamish cut off his head!”
“So what?” said the borogoves.
Sunday, July 29, 2007
The Empty Nest, Part one
Briefly, this summer, we were alone. Both kids were away at camp for two and a half weeks.
We were almost too busy to notice, but not quite. No one needed to be driven anywhere or suddenly discovered his or her soccer cleats (bathing suit, jeans) didn't fit anymore; nobody rejected a healthy home-cooked meal prepared according to rigorous nutritional guidelines in favour of Lipton's chicken noodle soup a la salt, nobody spent an hour in the shower or monopolized the DVD player night after night watching Smallville and refusing to share the obligatory glimpse of Tom Welling's six-pack.
There was more hot water, and more space; more movie-watching time, more time in general. Also a lot more quiet. A spooky amount of quiet. Which is strange because even when they are home, our kids aren't home all that much. But still.
Up and down our street people are having babies. Gosh, those babies are noisy, and insistent! They cling until they can toddle, then toddle until they fall down , then cry and cling again. Their parents are so burdened with buggies and diaper bags and toys and snacks they can barely move. By contrast, my kids grab a cell-phone and a house key and are out the door so fast I can barely get a kiss goodbye. And one day, too soon, they will take the rest of their stuff with them, and the house will not only be big, and quiet, it will be very very empty.
Luckily, not yet.
We were almost too busy to notice, but not quite. No one needed to be driven anywhere or suddenly discovered his or her soccer cleats (bathing suit, jeans) didn't fit anymore; nobody rejected a healthy home-cooked meal prepared according to rigorous nutritional guidelines in favour of Lipton's chicken noodle soup a la salt, nobody spent an hour in the shower or monopolized the DVD player night after night watching Smallville and refusing to share the obligatory glimpse of Tom Welling's six-pack.
There was more hot water, and more space; more movie-watching time, more time in general. Also a lot more quiet. A spooky amount of quiet. Which is strange because even when they are home, our kids aren't home all that much. But still.
Up and down our street people are having babies. Gosh, those babies are noisy, and insistent! They cling until they can toddle, then toddle until they fall down , then cry and cling again. Their parents are so burdened with buggies and diaper bags and toys and snacks they can barely move. By contrast, my kids grab a cell-phone and a house key and are out the door so fast I can barely get a kiss goodbye. And one day, too soon, they will take the rest of their stuff with them, and the house will not only be big, and quiet, it will be very very empty.
Luckily, not yet.
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Why do I keep taking these quizzes? Because they come up with answers like this!!
***You Are a Purple Flower***
A purple flower tends to represent success, grace, and elegance.
At times, you are faithful like a violet.
And other times, you represent luxury, like a wisteria.
And more than you wish, you find yourself heartbroken like a lilac.
What Color Flower Are You?
http://www.blogthings.com/whatcolorflowerareyouquiz/
A purple flower tends to represent success, grace, and elegance.
At times, you are faithful like a violet.
And other times, you represent luxury, like a wisteria.
And more than you wish, you find yourself heartbroken like a lilac.
What Color Flower Are You?
http://www.blogthings.com/
Thursday, July 05, 2007
Friday, June 29, 2007
facebooooooooook
OK. So like everyone else, I got sucked in to joining Facebook. And now when I sit down to work in my ergonomically correct chair, I can procrastinate indefinitely by reading my e-mail (3 accounts), updating my blog, browsing Bookninja and various other web-blogs, before finally prowling around on Facebook and sinking into a swamp of complete inertia. I suspect I am going to have to disconnect from it, as I formerly did from instant messaging, as being too much of an interruption to my already-sufficiently-distracted-and-undisciplined self. But I must say, it's fascinating to see how the format of cyber-chat brings out everyone's flip side: everyone's much wittier on Facebook than they are in person.
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Bookstores shake down publishers and dupe public
Insiders in the publishing industry have long been appalled by the practice of "co-op"-- the outrageous fees demanded by big box bookstores to promote books. It's no longer enough to write a decent book and make it past the agents and editors and reviewers: to get your baby into the loving hands of an actual READER you have to bribe Books R Us to put it somewhere the public can actually see it.
Here's an article from the Times revealing the fees charged in the UK. I would love to know what it costs to be "New and Hot" "Recommended" or something "Canada Need More" of at Chapters/ Indigo.
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article1945931.ece
Here's an article from the Times revealing the fees charged in the UK. I would love to know what it costs to be "New and Hot" "Recommended" or something "Canada Need More" of at Chapters/ Indigo.
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article1945931.ece
Sunday, June 17, 2007
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Outside of a Dog
"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read."
-- Groucho Marx
(This is when Tobytheincrediblycutedog starts getting fan mail from people who never comment on my blog. But after disconsolately wandering the aisles of Book Expo all day Monday, I'm the one who really needs a hug...)
-- Groucho Marx
(This is when Tobytheincrediblycutedog starts getting fan mail from people who never comment on my blog. But after disconsolately wandering the aisles of Book Expo all day Monday, I'm the one who really needs a hug...)
Friday, June 08, 2007
4 things meme
Four Jobs I’ve Had:
- Chicken inoculator (Kibbutz Barkai, Israel)
- Receptionist (Sidgwick and Jackson Publishers, London, England)
- Chambermaid (Oxford University, England)
- Waitress (Carroll's Colonial Diner, Medford, Massachusetts)
Four Movies I Can See Over And Over:
- The Princess Bride
- Monty Python and the Holy Grail
- Casablanca
- Le Roi de Coeur (it's been many years since I last saw it, but I remember it fondly)
Four Places I’ve Lived:
- Athens, Greece
- London, England
- San Miguel de Allende, Mexico
- Boston, USA
Four TV Shows I Love:
- Dalziel & Pascoe
- Star Trek Next Generation (who is more adorable--Picard or Data?)
- Hercule Poirot with David Suchet
- Sherlock Holmes with Jeremy Brett
Four Places I’ve Vacationed:
- San Francisco
- Prince Edward Island
- Quintana Roo (I just love saying that! great birdwatching.)
- The Pays Basques
Four Of My Favorite Dishes:
- Moules marinieres
- Greek salad
- A simple perfect omelette
- really dense stone ground whole wheat toast with ginger marmalade
Four Places I’d Rather Be Now:
- Anywhere on the Mediterranean, but especially Crete
- Kew Gardens
- At Les Granges, the most amazing bed and breakfast near Giverny, France, drinking Normandy Cider
- At my friend Natalie's cottage on Lake Kashebog in the Kawarthas (Natalie, call me)
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
Tuesday, June 05, 2007
my favourite word
At the Hay on Wye festival they were polling people for their favourite English word. I didn't see mine anywhere. It's
MANGELWURZEL!!!
as in
SEE ALL THE HAPPY SHEEP IN A PEN FULL OF MANGELWURZELS?
Thursday, May 31, 2007
The Violin Lover wins award!
Was on the way out the door to Pilates when I received the kind of phonecall worth delaying virtuous exercise for! The Violin Lover is the fiction winner of the 2006 Canadian Jewish Book Award. The ceremony will be at the Leah Poslun Theatre in Toronto on June 21. Robert Fulford will be the invited speaker, preceded by a strawberry & champagne reception. Now, if there's anything I like almost as much as winning awards, it's strawberries & champagne. So I'll be the small person with the large smile.
Cheers!
Cheers!
Saturday, May 26, 2007
Are you in your right mind?
This is a fun test.
http://www.wherecreativitygoestoschool.ca/toronto/left_right/rb_test.htm
http://www.wherecreativitygoestoschool.ca/toronto/left_right/rb_test.htm
Thursday, May 17, 2007
I am the Empress! Who knew?
You are The Empress
Beauty, happiness, pleasure, success, luxury, dissipation. (well 3 out of 6 ain't bad...)
The Empress is associated with Venus, the feminine planet, so it represents, beauty, charm, pleasure, luxury, and delight. You may be good at home decorating, art or anything to do with making things beautiful. (I really love spray painting pasta gold and gluing it to paper plates)
The Empress is a creator, be it creation of life, of romance, of art or business. While the Magician is the primal spark, the idea made real, and the High Priestess is the one who gives the idea a form, the Empress is the womb where it gestates and grows till it is ready to be born. This is why her symbol is Venus, goddess of beautiful things as well as love. Even so, the Empress is more Demeter, goddess of abundance, then sensual Venus. She is the giver of Earthly gifts, yet at the same time, she can, in anger withhold, as Demeter did when her daughter, Persephone, was kidnapped. In fury and grief, she kept the Earth barren till her child was returned to her.
(Don't mess with me!)
from What Tarot Card are You?
http://www.flarn.com/~warlock/tarot"
Take the Test to Find Out.
Beauty, happiness, pleasure, success, luxury, dissipation. (well 3 out of 6 ain't bad...)
The Empress is associated with Venus, the feminine planet, so it represents, beauty, charm, pleasure, luxury, and delight. You may be good at home decorating, art or anything to do with making things beautiful. (I really love spray painting pasta gold and gluing it to paper plates)
The Empress is a creator, be it creation of life, of romance, of art or business. While the Magician is the primal spark, the idea made real, and the High Priestess is the one who gives the idea a form, the Empress is the womb where it gestates and grows till it is ready to be born. This is why her symbol is Venus, goddess of beautiful things as well as love. Even so, the Empress is more Demeter, goddess of abundance, then sensual Venus. She is the giver of Earthly gifts, yet at the same time, she can, in anger withhold, as Demeter did when her daughter, Persephone, was kidnapped. In fury and grief, she kept the Earth barren till her child was returned to her.
(Don't mess with me!)
from What Tarot Card are You?
http://www.flarn.com/~warlock/tarot"
Take the Test to Find Out.
Sunday, May 13, 2007
Gardenmania
It's finally spring and I'm gardening like a mad thing. Today I got some nifty hostas at Ye Olde Loblaws for only $5.99 each-- those Epic Perennials are always a good deal though they tend to be a bit forced and leggy so need calming down once they're transplanted. We've spent the past couple of weeks laying a winding flagstone path in the back with discarded stones scavenged from fancy neighbourhoods. Rather a lot of work but lovely looking, especially now I've planted thyme between the cracks.
Nice metaphor for most of what I do -- planting thyme in the cracks...
Here's a poem influenced by all this recent activity.
YARROW
Nice metaphor for most of what I do -- planting thyme in the cracks...
Here's a poem influenced by all this recent activity.
Faded, bent, and obdurate
its yellowing lace deceptive
the delicacy of old ladies who survive their mates
to work on in the garden
season after season
with arthritic fingers
who know the names of all winged visitors
and can recognize their songs across the twilight
as the nicotiana releases its scent
who plant verbena, penstemon, lobelia and monarda
for the butterflies and birds
and David Austin roses for themselves
who do not deadhead the sunflowers
so the creatures will have something to eat
who keep cats, but never set mousetraps
who use their best china every day
and jump the queue at the grocery store
because they have so little in their baskets
and no more time to waste
copyright Susan Glickman 2007
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
About Writers in Electronic Residence
I’ve been thinking about what to say about this term’s crop of WIER students for several days. I was going to talk about their wit and liveliness, their love of suspense and trick endings, their wonderful ease at writing dialogue, their sophisticated manipulation of stock plots and genres (the western, sci fi, fantasy, horror, even soap opera). I intended to applaud their seriousness, the willingness of so many to revise, and at the same time, their confident defense of their writing choices in the face of other people's criticism and advice. I doubt I would have had such conviction about what I wanted to say when I was in High School! But anyone who wants to write has to be stubborn and strong and have a sense of humour, which so many of these students do.
And then there was a massacre at Virginia Tech University, 33 people slaughtered by a friendless, solitary young man who never talked to anybody but whose creative writing projects alerted his teachers to the possibility that his jaws were clamped shut not in shyness but in rage. And I started to think about how communication is not just a “subject” to study but a means of staying alive, and well, and connecting to each other.
One of the things I appreciate most about WIER is that way that it liberates kids to listen to each others’ work with attention and respond to it with respect. Obviously, some of these kids aren’t in the same classroom and would never have seen each others’ work except for WIER! But for others, the opportunity to experience someone else’s writing isolated on the computer screen, out of the busy give-and-take of the school environment, inspires a higher degree of responsiveness than usual.
So often in daily life we are distracted, preoccupied, eager to speak our own piece, impatient to get on to the next activity. WIER makes us stop and focus on someone else’s words. It invites us into the space of those words and asks us to engage only with them, to let our imaginations fill up that space. And that active listening, my friends, is a huge life skill not just for writers and editors, but for all of us, all the time, who need to connect to each other in order to stay alive.
Peace.
Saturday, April 14, 2007
Friday, April 13, 2007
There's no SPRING in my step ...
because of the blustery, bullying, cloudy weather, slinging sleet, cold wind and lots of mud, that saps the spirit -- or mine at least. Plus I recently finished another novel and am feeling more useless than usual. Plus I fell down a hill! One of the more shocking things that can happen to a grownup, I think, is to go ass over teakettle. My illusion of control is already so fragile.
SO I'm on the hunt for jollification. The news re Canadian domination of the International Booker Prize was welcome, as was a simultaneous sighting of cardinal, mockingbird, grackle,house finch, house sparrow, junco and squirrel all companionably noshing at the backyard feeder. But these are transient flares of sunshine. I need more cheering up!! You are welcome to send in your jokes and funny stories as part of this ongoing campaign.
SO I'm on the hunt for jollification. The news re Canadian domination of the International Booker Prize was welcome, as was a simultaneous sighting of cardinal, mockingbird, grackle,house finch, house sparrow, junco and squirrel all companionably noshing at the backyard feeder. But these are transient flares of sunshine. I need more cheering up!! You are welcome to send in your jokes and funny stories as part of this ongoing campaign.
Saturday, March 17, 2007
Anti-Romantic Rent
Just returned from a March break of excessive driving - to Long Island and back by way of Montreal. Took my 12 year old daughter to see RENT in New York as a present for her upcoming birthday; she adores the movie and has watched it countless times. I guess I never realized how sexually explicit it was, or perhaps seeing live actors made it seem more so than it did on film. Still, my little girl, having grown up on hip-hop music videos, seemed unperturbed by Mimi's pornographic writhing, transforming it, as the play expects you to, into romantic yearning.
Like Mimi herself, the play is an odd combination of vulgarity and tenderness: no wonder it is such a hit with teenagers! "La Vie Boheme", a scene set in a cafe, explains charmingly that the two main incentives of its characters, as refugees from conventionality, are to get laid and to piss off their parents. There really aren't any artists in Bohemia anymore: Mark (Marcello) is no longer a painter but instead a documentary filmmaker; Maureen (Musetta ) has been demoted from a singer to a narcissitic "performance artist." Aesthetic idealism is hardly even alluded to, except perhaps by Roger (Rodolfo) who wants to write one true song before he dies.
It is the omnipresence of death, in the form of AIDS, which transforms these mediocrities into Romantic figures, because they are condemned to die for love. Of course, sex and death are the standard themes of opera, but opera usually aspires to transcendence through extraordinary music, which RENT does not attain except, perhaps, in one great song, "Seasons of Love." It is, in fact, resolutely ordinary in its singing, in its musical compositions, and in its characters.
I find this fascinating. And disturbing.
Like Mimi herself, the play is an odd combination of vulgarity and tenderness: no wonder it is such a hit with teenagers! "La Vie Boheme", a scene set in a cafe, explains charmingly that the two main incentives of its characters, as refugees from conventionality, are to get laid and to piss off their parents. There really aren't any artists in Bohemia anymore: Mark (Marcello) is no longer a painter but instead a documentary filmmaker; Maureen (Musetta ) has been demoted from a singer to a narcissitic "performance artist." Aesthetic idealism is hardly even alluded to, except perhaps by Roger (Rodolfo) who wants to write one true song before he dies.
It is the omnipresence of death, in the form of AIDS, which transforms these mediocrities into Romantic figures, because they are condemned to die for love. Of course, sex and death are the standard themes of opera, but opera usually aspires to transcendence through extraordinary music, which RENT does not attain except, perhaps, in one great song, "Seasons of Love." It is, in fact, resolutely ordinary in its singing, in its musical compositions, and in its characters.
I find this fascinating. And disturbing.
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