12 or 20 questions: with J. R. Carpenter

J. R. Carpenter is an author of short fiction, long fiction, non-fiction and electronic literature based in Montreal. She is winner of the QWF Carte Blanche Quebec Award 2009, the CBC Quebec Short Story Competition 2003 & 2005, and the Expozine Alternative Press Award for Best English Book for her first novel, Words the Dog Knows (Conundrum, 2008). Her electronic literature has been presented internationally. For more information please visit: http://luckysoap.com/

1 - How did your first book or chapbook change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?

I made my first chapbook at the age of five and tried to sell it to my parents for twenty-five cents. They refused to pay, on grounds that I'd used their paper to make the the book, and argued that I ought to be paying them. What truly changed my life was the photocopier. I started producing photocopied zines in 1992 and started using the internet to create and disseminate non-linear, inter-textual narratives in 1993. Taking a low-tech, do-it-yourself approach to creation and distribution left me free to develop my own forms of writing and electronic literature, without having to ask for permission or wait for approval from anyone. My most recent works have been much larger than anything I'd produced before, and much more collaborative. After a lifetime of independent production it was a revelation to discover that depending on other people could result in a work much greater than the sum of its parts. My first novel, Words the Dog Knows, was published by Conundrum Press in 2008. It builds on smaller, independently produced works, linking together and expanding upon stories started in four zines, three web projects and an assortment of short texts previously published in other forms. All of these small things became one big thing thanks to the editorial insight and creative generosity of Andy Brown and Maya Merrick. They saw things I didn't, made connections I couldn't, set deadlines I wouldn't - they taught me how to write a novel, then published it, and now they're selling it for me! This teamwork thing is great. Asking for help in my new favorite thing to do.

2 - How did you come to fiction first, as opposed to, say, poetry or non-fiction?

I didn't set out to be a writer at all. It didn't occur to me. I started off studying classical guitar. Then I went to art school, where I mostly wrote poetry and made chapbooks. I did some spoken word stuff, but I thought of it as performance art. When I got my first UNIX account in 1993, the internet was a totally textual world. I learned a lot about writing by positing fictional interjections to USENET newsgroups and by posing as improbable characters in MUDs and MOOs; I thought of that as performance art too. My first print publications were art reviews and catalogue essays. I wrote scripts for Radio Canada International for a while. And then, in the late 1990s, I stumbled into a web design contract at a multi-national software company and somehow wound up managing their corporate web development team. That was definitely performance art! And/or an undercover operation of some kind. At first I was terrified that someone would figure out that I had no idea what I was doing. After a while I noticed that most of the people I worked with were also winging it, just making it up as they went along. It finally dawned on me that much of the world is, in fact, performance art - an on-going performance of live-fiction. Stories are happening all the time. People are dialogue generating machines, and all writers have to do is decide which parts to write down. I quit my high-paying corporate job in 2001 and have been writing fiction ever since.

3 - How long does it take to start any particular writing project? Does your writing intitially come quickly, or is it a slow process? Do first drafts appear looking close to their final shape, or does your work come out of copious notes?

I used to think that I was working really quickly making lots of small things. Then I realized that I was actually working really slowly on a few huge things made of many small parts. I often don't notice that I've started working on something new because I'm usually working on a number of different things at once, in a number of different media. Some long-finished small things suddenly resurface as the kernel of some new huge thing. Some huge things spawn small offshoots. Fiction often starts suddenly, with a sentence let's say. Then builds very slowly toward the final word count. It can take me years to write a 1200 word story. I wrote my first novel in 10 months. But that was only because I had an impossible deadline. I had to put everything else aside. Including bathing. And wearing pants.

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

The best way to never write a book is to walk around telling people you're writing a book. Everyday I work on whatever it is possible for me to work on that day and try to put off thinking, for as long as possible, about what the end form of the work will be. This could be called a bottom up approach. I like to think of it as trying to sneak up on myself. My favorite thing in the world is to stumble upon an unfamiliar file in my computer, open it, and discover the underpinnings of a story I have no recollection of starting. This happens alarmingly often.

5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?

I love doing readings. I always learn a lot from them. The first time I did a reading, for example, an audience member came up to me after and told me that I should be a comedian. Until that moment I hadn't had even the slightest inkling that there was even the remotest possibility that one day in the future I might aspire to be funny. On purpose, I mean.

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

In theory, I am concerned about many things. I do a fair amount of critical and academic writing on various subjects in which theory plays a major role, but when writing fiction or electronic literature I try to save the theorizing until long after I'm done. For me, theory is a means to understand what exist already, not a mode of creation. Occasionally I write essays exploring the theoretical concerns behind my own writing, but only after the fact. Most recently, in April 2009, I presented an academic paper on my work at a conference at MIT. "A Book-ish Novel: Transmediation in Words the Dog Knows" explored the migration of certain texts across multiple media and argued that the novel is a highly elastic form that ought to be considered as one form in a continuum of forms. Now I'm working on a hypertext version of an essay on my web-based work Entre Ville, in which the form of the essay takes on the form of the piece.

7 – What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Does s/he even have one? What do you think the role of the writer should be?

Vaclav Havel once wrote that the thing that writers and politicians have in common is the ability to encapsulate in a few words what the majority of people are thinking. I try to articulate things that I think many of us have a hard time articulating, and bring to light small yet salient details that might otherwise be overlooked. I value courage over all else and try, in writing and in life, to do as Grace Paley and others have commanded: Speak truth to power.

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

A good editor is a rare and beautiful thing. Andy Brown is a brilliant editor and I'd work with him again in a heartbeat.

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

When I first started writing fiction I was a bad-advice magnet. People kept telling me that my short stories weren't technically short stories. Apparently there are rules about this sort of thing. I did a residency at the Vermont Studio Center in 2003. Amy Hempel was there. She read four of the stories that everyone said weren't stories and said: You tell them what's a story. I've never worried about what is or isn't a story again.

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

I wake up at eight. I think until nine. I work at my computer from nine until between four (if I have errands or reading to do) and six. Then it's time walk the dog, cook, eat and maybe talk on the phone for a while. Then either there's an event to go to or I do some more reading. I do this every day. Especially on weekends. As my friend the brilliant Montreal-based artist jake moore said to me recently, "The luxury of our labour is that we love it."

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

Online Scrabble.

12 - If there was a fire, what's the first thing you'd grab?

Laptop and dog. And now that you've put this horrible question into my head, I believe I will set about training my dog to fetch my laptop in case of fire..

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

I read pretty much constantly, but I don't buy that "books come from books" argument. It disavows orality, for one thing. Most of my stories start with something I've heard, or overheard, or miss-heard - a sentence, play on words, a conversation. Gertrude Stein once wrote, "Writing may be made between the ear and the eye and the ear will be well and the eye will be well." The interconnected yet discontinuous processes of speaking, listening, understanding and translating work together to transform transient exchanges of conversation into a writing that Derrida describes as already separated from life and community, a writing “displaced on the broken line between lost and promised speech.” That displacement is where books come from. I love this bit from Deleuze and Guattari's indispensable writing on the book as rhizome: “there is no difference between what a book talks about and how it is made.” Words the Dog Knows talks about small details and is made from an assemblage of small pieces, fragments; previously discreet stories interlinked to form a whole.

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

Ovid, Spinoza, Isaac Babel, Italo Calvino, Rilke, Borges, Gertrude Stein, Virginia Woolf, Elizabeth Bishop, Amy Hempel, Lydia Davis.

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

Oh hundreds of things. Most that come to mind are small things - books I have yet to read, tricks I have yet to teach the dog. There have been some near misses involving far-away places and/or expensive food items that I'd like to rectify. I've been inside La Scala, but have yet to see an opera there. I've eaten truffles in Umbria, but have yet to personally hunt them down with a sniffer pig or dog or however it is that it's done these days. I wish we could still take steamer ships to Europe. I'd like to write a play one day. Possibly set on a steamer ship. I should probably read some plays. And learn the other half of French. Stuff like that.

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

I've gone through quite a few of the other occupations already. I've worked as a baby sitter, a runway model, a calligrapher, a cashier, a receptionist, a librarian, a teacher, a set designer, a web designer, a web programmer, a programming coordinator... I've worked on fishing boats and on haying crews. I've picked fruit and piled hundreds of cords of firewood. I worked as a sandblaster for a year and a half. And I've done all sorts of odd jobs in wood shops. My name is Carpenter after all. I grew up on a farm and I studied sculpture. Pretty much everything in my history predisposes me to manual labour. If the writing career doesn't pan out at least I'll always have my degree in studio art to fall back on.

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

It took me a long time to realize that not everybody can write, that I can, that some things need to be written, that someone has to do that writing, and that, in some cases, if I don't do that writing it won't get done, at least not in the way I would like it to get done. Of all the things I do, writing is the thing that feels the most imperative.

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

I finally got around to reading Don Quixote in January. It totally lived up to the hype. Other books that have blown my mind lately include Mark Z. Danielewski, House of Leaves; Gary Lutz, Stories in the Worst Way. I am addicted to the new NFB site. Amazing archive. Current favorite short: Arthur Lipsett, Very Nice Very Nice (1961).

19 - What are you currently working on?

Short Stories.

12 or 20 questions archive (second series);

12 or 20 questions: with Daniel Allen Cox

Daniel Allen Cox is an ex-Jehovah’s Witness turned pornstar, and author of the hit novel Shuck (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2008), which was shortlisted for the 2008 Lambda Literary Award for Gay Debut Fiction. His novella Tattoo This Madness In (Dusty Owl Press, 2006) was shortlisted for a 2007 Expozine Alternative Press Award. In the 2009 Montreal Mirror readers poll, Daniel was voted one of the top 10 best local authors.

Daniel has performed widely, including at the Ottawa International Writers' Festival, the Lammy Finalist Reading Series in New York City, the San Francisco Sex Worker Arts Festival, and on Canada's national radio network,CBC Radio One. His work has appeared in many magazines and anthologies and he writes the column Fingerprinted for Capital Xtra! Daniel lives in Montreal.

1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?

My novella Tattoo This Madness In (Dusty Owl Press, 2006) taught me about how writing connects me to the communities I’m a part of, and to those I orbit. It gave me confidence in my voice as a writer, and taught me how to sharpen my writing with potency. This book deals with my upbringing in the Jehovah’s Witness cult/religion—a belief system founded on literature published by a relatively clandestine society of leaders in Brooklyn, New York. The literature can’t be questioned, because it is “inspired of God.” Writing Tattoo, you can say, was my way of deconstructing the authority of literature: to prove that I can do it too, without a ‘green light’ from above.

I got to explore different terrain with my novel Shuck (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2008), this time using desperation as a motivator. I needed to capture my memories of pre-millenial New York City before I forgot too much of it; I haven’t owned a camera in 15 years. I recognize many of the same themes as in my first book, namely, young outcasts using sexuality to discover more about themselves and to achieve their notions of freedom. Shuck, unlike Tattoo, is a novel of place, and New York City is very likely the main character. It mourns a city that where sexual outlaws have slowly lost many of their institutions over the past two decades. Tattoo, on the other hand, celebrates loss, the shucking of religion. Est-ce que c’est clair?

2 - How did you come to fiction first, as opposed to, say, poetry or non-fiction?

When I first started writing, I thought that to write non-fiction, you had to know shit about shit, which I knew nothing about. I eventually discovered that no matter what format you use, writing pours out most deliciously when you frame it as personal truth.

3 - How long does it take to start any particular writing project? Does your writing intitially come quickly, or is it a slow process? Do first drafts appear looking close to their final shape, or does your work come out of copious notes?

My writing projects have a gestation period, during which I take notes in a Moleskine notebook. That can last for days or months, depending on the size and scope of the project. In general, I edit all drafts about 10 times before I’m satisfied with them. Of course, after 5 drafts the story says more or less what I want it to say, but it takes another 5 to shape the words into objects the reader can use in their own lives. I enjoy editing as much as I do writing.

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

As they often say in Poland, “It depends.” Shuck was written in snippets, and then assembled using giant poster boards, hundreds of snippets of paper, and Scotch tape. With my novella Tattoo, it began as a 300-page work, and I trimmed it down to 100. I keep on breaking all of my habits. Is that a good thing?

5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?

Until recently, I have always been afraid of readings, because I stutter. My stuttering is heightened when I read, because there are words on the page that I can’t substitute if they are rife with consonants that give me trouble (if you’ve spoken to me or heard me speak, then you know what they are.) And so, I have organized performances where I do everything except read: retell scenes improv-style, hold game-show quizzes, give author talks, and have other people read for me. This has all been great, giving my events an interactive spin. It was a treat to hear my work come alive in Steve Zytveld’s brassy baritone, and in Adriana Palanca’s sauciness.

I finally decided, though, to try reading in public, after much urging—and encouraging—from friends. I picked one of my favourite passages from Shuck, rehearsed it, and realized that it was no different than the last stage of my editing process, where I mouth the words in a final read-through. I guess I found my physical voice in the confidence of my literary voice. It was quite a moment, and then I replicated that success at Hard Cover: A Book Club for Men into Men, in Ottawa. My stutter is not an enemy. It’s a friend. Coming to a reading near you!

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

What things go unsaid? Why are people afraid of sex, and how can we reverse that? What can we do to empower young queers in a homophobic world? What can I do to link the disparate parts of my life together, and how desperate am I to find those threads?

7 – What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Does s/he even have one? What do you think the role of the writer should be?

To ask questions, and to motivate readers to take personal risks.

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

I have always prized the relationships I’ve had with my editors. The key to doing that is to understand what they bring to your writing that you can’t, and to beat down your ego with a crowbar, if necessary. Your editor may have different reading influences than you do, and can bring such richness to a text with the most minor suggestion. Because I enjoy editing so much, this shared refining is key to my writing process. It’s great when you can achieve a symbiosis; you know you’ve learned something when you can predict what language your editor will flag.

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

“Don’t be afraid to read in public. People will love to hear your voice, because it’s you.” Francisco Ibañez-Carrasco, on the steps of his East Vancouver home.

10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (fiction to more performative works)? What do you see as the appeal?

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

There are two periods of the day when I’m a firecracker. I’m at peak “creative mode” between 9 pm and midnight, and at peak “execution” mode between 8 and 11 am. I try to get most of my writing work done in those slots, even though much of it is bound to happen on the subway, against my will.

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

This may sound silly, but I turn to the shower for inspiration. There’s something about the hot water hitting my cerebral cortex that gets my brain’s sleepy neurons jiggling again. Maybe the smell of Irish Spring soap plays a part, too.

13 - If there was a fire, what's the first thing you'd grab?

Funny you should ask. My apartment building burned down on November 2, 2007, while my lover was asleep in it (he escaped, holding our wriggling cat). After the firefighters had extinguished the flames, they gave us 10 minutes to collect essential items. Our home was a soot-covered battle zone—the firefighters trashed it when they chopped the walls, floors and ceilings to see if the fire had spread, breaking whatever furniture was in the way. They have a tough job, so I’m not complaining.

What do you pick up when you have 10 minutes, not sure if you’ll ever be allowed back in again? Our loving friends turned out en masse to help in this 600-second rescue. I directed them to hunt for my photos, and then my passport. This intrigues me, because prior to that, I hadn’t cared enough about photos to even own a camera. And I recently let my passport expire, not renewing it until days before a trip to New York City. It seems that fire brings out priorities in me that otherwise lay quite dormant.

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

A loamy, summer wind will always tint whatever piece of writing I’m working on. Low-quality Youtube videos—the ones that look how vinyl sounds—have the same effect.

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

There are dozens of authors—many of them friends of mine—who have taught me much about writing. I’ve had a few intense author crushes in the past, though they abated when I learned how to pull off some of their literary tricks.

Extravaganza by Gordon Lish has had a lasting hold over me. It is a novel told in the form of a vaudeville routine between showprincesses Smith and Dale. It’s not until the last few pages that you realize this joke-book is about the holocaust, and then you’re mortified that you’ve been laughing all along. I lost that book and I miss it. I would kiss profusely anyone who sends me a copy.

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

Meet Karim Nasser Miran, the guy who’s been living in Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris for the past nineteen years.

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

I would love to be baseball player or a baseball announcer, to either steal bases or to announce the thefts. It would be amazing to coin a new phrase for a home run, like “that ball just flew standby”, or something of the kind. Know what I mean?

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

My stutter made me take up writing. I’ve never been quite satisfied with my verbal articulation (for those of you who have never heard me, my speech is peppered with hesitations, prolonged sibilants, and compensatory clicks). It used to be more severe when I was younger, and I think I learned quickly that if I wanted to communicate what I was thinking with the best clarity, I had better write it down, rather than subject it to a speech rollercoaster where who knows what would come out on the other side.

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

Rat Bohemia by Sarah Schulman is the only book I have ever read in a single sitting. The last great film is Naked States, a documentary about the work of photographer Spencer Tunick, famous for his public nudes. I’ll never forget how he brought a volunteer model to the streetcorner where she had been raped, and then asked her to undress for the camera. She later said “Doing the shoot with Spencer was 90% of my self-therapy. It was like I am free to be me, and I like that a lot.”

20 - What are you currently working on?

I’m working on a new novel. More details to follow.

12 or 20 questions archive (second series);

12 or 20 questions: with Pete Smith

English grammar-school dropout in the 60s. Attuned to poetry when the hormones started running. Blessed with a teacher who went outside the curriculum & continued his self-education through magazines: Agenda, Stand, Grosseteste Review. Strives to maintain catholic taste (not RC). Trained as a Psych Nurse “for something to fall back on”: failed to fall & retired in 2007. Emigrated to BC in 1974. Two marriages (one current): two kids, 4 grandkids (1 in Van, 3 in Calgary). Hobbies include breathing, hiking, kayaking. Reads obsessively. Life-long small press fan – Nomados & Book Thug among current favourites in Canada.

Has written reviews &/or essays (from micro to a forthcoming book chapter) on W.D. Snodgrass (Agenda, UK); Kathryn MacLeod [see her 12 or 20 questions here], Alice Notley, Karlien van den Beukel, Rosmarie Waldrop [see her 12 or 20 questions here], Tertia Longmire & Aaron Williamson, Keston Sutherland, Lissa Wolsak, Lisa Robertson, Nancy Shaw & Catriona Strang (all in The Gig, Toronto); Jennifer Moxley (jacket #9, on-line); Barry MacSweeney (The Paper, UK); forthcoming - Trevor Joyce (Crayon #5, USA); ****** ****** (TCR, Spring ’08); John James (The Salt Companion to John James, UK).

Chapbooks: 20/20 Vision and cross of green hollow (Wild Honey, Eire); John’s Book of Alleged Dances (Kamloops); Harm’s Length (Poetical Histories, Cambridge); Strum of Unseen (above/ground, Canada).

Did the first interview with Lissa Wolsak in Six Poets: Views & Interviews, The Gig Documents Series, #2. Nate Dorward interviewed me and featured a Pete Smith Sampler in The Fly on the Page, Gig Docs #3. And poems in anthologies: 100 Days, Barque Press, Cambridge/April Eye: Poems for Peter Riley, infernal methods, Cambridge/A Meeting for Douglas Oliver, infernal methods, Street Editions & Poetical Histories, Cambridge.

Long sequences: CLIV (Alterran Poetry Assemblage); Second Horace and Evacuation Procedures (Great Works); Mother Tongue: Father Silence (Tinfish); Out-takes From the Deanna Ferguson Show (Antiphonies, The Gig).

A ms Bindings With Discords seeks a Canadian home.

1 - How did your first chapbook change your life?
It brought me into a community – not just the “being published” but some good feedback (especially publisher Randolph Healy’s note telling me he had to pry it out of the hands of the girl at the printer’s). It opened the door to a reading at ksw in 1999 (I don’t think they’d read a word of mine, but knew I was to be published by Wild Honey who’d published Maurice Scully who’d just come out with Reality Street who had published Lisa Robertson who they KNEW was damned good).

2 - How long have you lived in Kamloops, and how does geography, if at all, impact on your writing? Does race or gender make any impact on your work?
In K since 1974. I have only now begun to write the place out of somewhere inside me – before that I was a tourist who’d forgotten to go home. I am very conscious of not truly belonging & of being an uninvited guest on Interior Salish land. Nevertheless, there are a few places I go to recharge my spirit & that chime with places I carry from my earliest years – rivershores, small spinneys, fields in one direction, town the other. Race & gender: again very conscious of the presumed dominance within which I was raised – English (the language, the history, the warmongering self-hymnic traditions), male (a few inches of pipe & a bag of seed make you leader of whose gang?). Others must judge that consciousness’s impact on my work.

3 - Where does a poem usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?
There isn’t a usual where; there has been a when for a number of years, though, & that is May. But a trigger can be sound, overheard talk, a rhythm, another work of art, music or visual generally, that somehow announces itself as my next project. Of double necessity – having ADHD & only small chunks of time within which to work – I’ve written sequences or worked out of existing texts. I guess a book has been the general idea, but rarely actually getting round to submit it anywhere, well the next current piece is always more engrossing (Motto at our house: Salience Rules).

4 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process?
Part of. I enjoy popping down to Grinders Coffee House on open mic night & reading at a bunch of punk, goth type folk who are there to hear their friend sing a Kurt Cobain song or whatever & actually registering a silence that indicates listening (testimonial: Hannah , daughter, was at the back of the room one time & heard a kid say “No idea what he’s on about, but I fuckin like it” ). In a more rarified setting (Café Rouge, Cambridge, 1999) I interrupted my reading to say “that poem should have ended 4 lines earlier” because it had suddenly become clear that was the case.
5 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?
I am interested in theories that stretch our understanding of what it means to be/ human; how to live in community out of compassion & respect, justly; how to confront our demons without projecting them onto others; how to behave on this planet, among these diverse fellows & creatures; where the moral impulse comes from & what its dangers & limitations are… In pursuit of which I perform midnight raids on many disciplines: neuroscience, psychology, sociology, physics, theology, literary theory, philosophy, anthropology, botany. Amen. Hanging out with brain-injured & disabled folk keeps me almost-honest. The current Qs still seem to hover around the nature of self, concepts of mind, etc. (The navel has never seemed so fascinating: see Jerry Fodor for some respite.) A task of the poet is surely to question received opinion – all of it. This is, I take it, where theories attract poets.

6 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
For poems: editors haven’t asked for much to be changed – (“the life so short, the craft so long to learn”) but I did for many years insist on many, many drafts. Now, I tend to just get it down or toss it out. Nate Dorward has been a tremendous help in editing book reviews, both grammatically & in challenging the reading if weak or unclear. Lyn, my wife, is a marvellous first reader, very partial to elegance.

7 - After having published more than a couple of titles over the years, do you find the process of book-making harder or easier?
Easier insofar as I used to write stand-alone lyric poems, but now write mostly long pieces, sequences – from songs to concerti. I literally made a book a while back & that was a wonderful process. It’s hard to definitively place some poems/sequences though: sort of Niedecker problem.

8 - When was the last time you ate a pear?
December 07 – that’s how long the ones we stored for winter lasted. Best eaten outdoors with a good cheese (in case the pear’s a bit flat) on a windy day.

9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
“… a little more to the left…”

10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to criticism)? What do you see as the appeal?
Apparently quite easy, if you call what I do criticism, I guess I call it “reading”. Nate Dorward pointed out that much of my poetry was literary criticism in disguise (or some such term). I’ve gone through some of my earlier works & might well collect them under the title (sub-title, more like) “Literary Industry”. Wow, ain’t that exciting?

The appeal has been, in some of the longer pieces, to spend a long time with one writer (otherwise I flip through this, read that, return to another poem in the mag that came last week, month…) & learn some of another imagination’s workings, & another person’s way of being in the world. Yes, meeting someone at some depth, I guess.

11 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?
None apparent. I learned how to compose in my head as a much younger man & still do sometimes. Now I grab some books in a bag, head out the door to town, hope there will be lulls in the day when I can read a bit or even write (we’ve embarked on some amazingly time-consuming projects lately & this is a temporary pattern). There was a typical day once but I forget how it went.

12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
Stalled is no worry – there are enough words, poems, chapbooks etc out there already. And isn’t the “rest” in music an integral part of the structure? Stalled is part of life’s rhythm. Stale is a worry: to be midwife & mother, if you will, to this thing & then discover it’s stillborn. Sad. To recharge: go to some old standbys (16th Century English, earlier British, post WW2 alternative scene, or try to abandon books altogether, take a long walk, play some ugly, angular improvised music).

13 - How does your most recent book compare to your previous work? How does it feel different?
My chaos is all-consuming. I have a poor chronological sense of my work, I can be years on a sequence because I lose it, or forget I’m writing it. I think the improvisation on Deanna Ferguson’s works in Antiphonies, The Gig 2008, is the last thing I finished. That’s as far down a stand-up, fast-on-the-pun, wild west road as I would want to go. It’s a continuation of an anti-poetry exploration though & that will no doubt emerge in a new formless form soon. No, I think I’ve finished others since then – they’ll turn up. Around 1996 I started taking meds for ADHD & in my writing began to approach the world more obliquely, letting my life, mostly as memory, come in unbidden: things started hopping about then.

14 - David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?
Responses to live readings, concerts, photography & other visual (generally abstract) art, conversations. Good food. Christopher Alexander’s Pattern Language is a source. Standing beside a tree trunk during a high wind puts wonderful sound-shapes inside a person.

15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
Ahhhhhhhhhh! Books filled the house I was raised in – a row house in Coventry, England, with 7.000 or more books in it. Still abiding from early years – Beckett, John Berger, Alan Garner, the 1001 Arabian Nights (2 vols illustrated – it was my adolescent version of Playboy – “I kept it under my bed for the stories”). Pascal Quignard’s & Peter Russell’s re/inventions of classical authors – Albucius & Quinitilius. It’s been such a long apprenticeship, so many phases. Needing alternatives to the personal/social misery of Philip Larkin & the cosmic misery of Hughes, I went to the New American Poetry anthology (Black Mountain more than the beats, though Wieners’ life-work continues to be compelling), to European poets through a Penguin books series & to the “deep-image” writings (James Wright more than Bly & Tomas Transtromer more than any). If I were only to read (Your Alternative School here….) I would simply have my own narrow orthodoxy. Second Isaiah in David Rosenberg’s translation is magnificent. The British Revival poets: Rileys, John, Peter & Denise, Prynne, James et al. Some quiet outsiders appeal a lot – Merrill Gilfillan in the USA, Guy Birchard in Canada. The 2 Canadians who first hit me, continue to do so whenever I return to them, Webb & Newlove. Ahhhh! Too many – the plot is to have too many to form a canon, to keep ‘em alive beyond the canon’s walls. Deanna Ferguson – some lines of hers wield the sharpest scalpel I know of. The kids have got to know who else has been around.

16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
Build a house. It’s coming soon to a theatre near me. Next year, Lyn says.

17 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?
Sailor, coffee shop owner, aesthetician, chef, rock/blues/folk/alt singer, layabout.

18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
There was too much blank graph paper lying around. There were too many facts to record in a work-day, behaviours to observe, speculations to suppress; in writing my own poetry I was beholden to no-one. I had to reinvent the world, because the one I worked in was too surrealistic.

19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?
Great? Daniel Heller-Roazen’s Echolalias: On the Forgetting of Language from Zone Books keeps me calling back. I like novels that are impossible: Steve Erickson’s Arc d’X is a pretty wild ride, or Our Ecstatic Days – novels that are either brilliant or dreadful, that take the risk. Movies suffer from a “tyranny of the image”. Boycott them I say. That said: I just watched Starting Out in the Evening and it’s almost flawless.

20 - What are you currently working on?
Rediscovering my study. Renovating a house. Looking for several unfinished, but clearly misremembered projects – something involving words that contain SENS with the sens removed & another thing building itself around the word “rogation”. Erasing a Victorian novel with more textual & social layers than Tom Philips’ Humument contained, but without his flash colours – hoping the language flashes. A planned work with a visual artist on a project in Kamloops, involving several pairings of writers & artists for next year. I want to increase my techno skills & use my I-pod & mic to create radio works out of actual sounds & talk, taking polyvocal to the polis.

12 or 20 questions archive

12 or 20 questions: with Diane Schoemperlen

Born and raised in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Diane Schoemperlen graduated from Lakehead University there in 1976. Immediately after graduation she headed to the Banff Centre where she took a six-week writing program with W.O. Mitchell, Eli Mandel, Sylvia Fraser, and Alice Munro. She then moved to Banff and worked as the Staff Writer at the Banff Centre. Soon she moved to Canmore and lived there for the following ten years. She began publishing her stories in literary journals and, in 1983, three of her stories were featured in Oberon Press’s annual anthology, Coming Attractions. She published her first book, Double Exposures, with Coach House Press in 1984. She gave birth to her son, Alexander, in Canmore in 1985.

Her second book, Frogs and Other Stories, was published by Quarry Press of Kingston, Ontario in 1986. This book received the Writers’ Guild of Alberta Award for Excellence in Short Fiction. That summer she came east to teach a weeklong workshop at Queen’s University. She promptly moved to Kingston, new baby, old cat, a hundred boxes of books, and all. Quarry Press published her third book, Hockey Night in Canada, in 1987. She taught Creative Writing at St. Lawrence College for a number of years as well as many workshops throughout Ontario.

In 1989, her short story, “Red Plaid Shirt,” which appeared in Saturday Night, received the Silver National Magazine Award for Fiction. It has since been performed as a one-woman play across the western Canadian provinces. In 1990, her collection of stories, The Man of My Dreams, was published by MacMillan of Canada. It was short-listed for both the Governor-General’s Award and the Trillium Prize.

Diane’s first novel, In the Language of Love, was published in 1994 by HarperCollins Canada.
It was short-listed for the Books in Canada/W.H. Smith First Novel Award and has since been published in the United States, Germany, Sweden, and France. Adapted as a stage play by Mark Cassidy of Threshold Theatre, it was performed in Kingston and Toronto.

In 1998, Diane’s collection of illustrated stories, Forms of Devotion, won the Governor-General’s Award for English Fiction. It has been published in the United States, Spain, Korea, and the UK. It too has been adapted as a stage play by Mark Cassidy and performed at the Fringe Festival in Toronto.

In 2001, Diane’s second novel, Our Lady of the Lost and Found, was published in Canada and the United States. It has since also appeared in China. Red Plaid Shirt: Stories New and Selected, came out in 2002. This was followed in 2004 by Diane’s first book of non-fiction, Names of the Dead: An Elegy for the Victims of September 11.

Diane’s most recent book is At A Loss For Words: A Post-Romantic Novel, published in Canada by HarperCollins and in the UK by Maia Press. In April 2008 she received the Marian Engel Award from the Writers’ Trust of Canada. She still lives in Kingston, with her son Alex, her three cats, Max, Sammy, and Buster, and her lovely little dog, Nelly.

1. How did your first book change your life?

My first book, Double Exposures, was published by Coach House Press in 1984. At the time I was living in Canmore, Alberta, and working in a convenience store. The day the first copies of the book arrived, I decided to go out and celebrate. I was supposed to work that evening so I called in sick and went to a local watering hole with a group of my friends. Later in the evening, after we’d had many pitchers of beer, the husband of the manager of the convenience store showed up at the bar. The next day I was fired.

But besides that, yes, the publication of my first book made me believe in myself as a real writer. Prior to its publication, I had published quite a few stories in literary journals, but if someone asked me what I did, I could only say, usually while shuffling my feet and avoiding eye contact, “I write.” After the book’s publication, I could say, “I’m a writer.”

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

I’ve lived in Kingston since the fall of 1986. I first came here that summer to teach at the Kingston School of Writing held at Queen’s. I was living in Canmore then, my son was a year old, and I was thinking about moving. After a week in Kingston, I went back to Canmore, packed up my books, my baby, and my ten-year-old cat, and moved to Kingston. The impulsiveness of this makes me shudder now, but I’ve never regretted it.

Geography definitely has an impact on my writing. The city of Kingston features largely in my books, unnamed but identifiable to anyone who lives here. I think of these references to the city in my work as secret messages to my Kingston readers. The cities in my stories remain nameless because I intend them to be generic, representative of any small city anywhere.

The possible impacts of race and gender are less conscious on my part, but I believe they necessarily do have an impact because they influence everything about how I see and experience the world, and this, of course, comes out in any writers’ work.

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

Most often, a piece of fiction begins with an idea about form and structure; for instance, the idea of writing a story with pictures, or a story told in e-mails, or a story alternating between fact and fiction, or a story based on the 100 words of the Standard Word Association Test. Sometimes a story begins with a sentence that is stuck in my head. Sometimes this is a sentence of my own (my story “Forms of Devotion” came from the first sentence: “The faithful are everywhere.”) Sometimes the sentence is from something I’ve read. I’ve just finished reading an old book of stories called Sadness by Donald Barthelme. From his story, “The Catechist”, this sentence has lodged in my brain: “There is never a day, never a day, on which we do not have this conversation.” Do not be surprised if someday soon I publish a story called “Never A Day”!

My earlier collections of stories were written one story after another until there were enough to make a book. I had no overall theme or concept in mind as I wrote. But Forms of Devotion was definitely conceived as a book from the beginning.

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

Both. I don’t like travelling and find it very disruptive to my writing. Somehow having to do a twenty-minute reading out of town tends to take up three whole days: one day getting ready and being anxious about having to leave home, one day being there, one day afterwards getting over it and back to my regular routine. Many people have said how lucky I am to be able to go around and do readings all over the place…they say this must be one of the best perks of the writing life. For me, it feels more like my punishment for having written another damn book!

But I love giving the readings themselves. It’s exciting to meet real readers and to hear their responses to my work. I usually choose something rather humorous to read because I love to hear the sound of the audience laughter. I most often come home from a reading feeling encouraged and inspired. (Okay…well, there was that one time at a Chapters store when only four people showed up: two of them worked there, one of them fell asleep, and the other one left in the middle. Okay…so that one wasn’t so great for the ego!)

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

Generally speaking, I think the theoretical concerns are best left to the critics. I don’t think about theory while I’m writing. I think it would interfere with the creative process. Sometimes what the critics have to say after a book comes out can also interfere. One reviewer a long time ago said I was “challenging the short story form.” I don’t want to be thinking that when I sit down at the computer every day!

While actually writing, the only question I am trying to answer with my work is: How can I best tell this story?

Away from my desk, I do think about other questions of a theoretical sort. I have long been intrigued with the idea of fragments, writing in short sections, turning the traditional sequence of beginning, middle, end on its little head. Do I have a theory about all this? Not really. I think this is how my mind works: in little pieces that in the end can be connected to make a whole story.

I love writing, the physical act of writing. Theories are not important to me. All I want to do is write. So for me, the current question is always: Why do I have to do all these other things (shopping, cleaning, eating, mowing the lawn, vacuuming, laundry, etc.) when all I want to do is write?

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

Since my first novel, In the Language of Love (published in 1994) my editor has been Phyllis Bruce at HarperCollins Canada. I love working with Phyllis. We are a perfect match, if only because we are both nitpickers and want every single word and comma to be exactly right. We also have a very similar sense of humour. Phyllis is better than I am, I think, at seeing the bigger picture of the book and for this, I am always grateful. In the very few cases when we have not agreed on something, she always says that in the end it’s MY book and I must do what I think is right. There are times when I’ve felt dissatisfied with a certain passage but hoped that I could just slip it in and nobody would notice…Phyllis always calls me on these and she is always right!

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

In most ways, I find it harder. Mostly because I am now making my living as a writer. This takes away from the sheer joy of doing it and loving it. There is always the blasted bank account lurking in the background. However, it is easier in one sense. When I’m feeling very stuck and frustrated with what I’m working on, I can look at my shelf of previous books for reassurance. Looking at the past books, I can convince myself that yes, yes, I really can do this!

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

I ate a pear two weeks ago and was definitely the better person for it. I do not eat enough fruit. I am not fond of fruit. I only like seedless green grapes, cherries, and….pears! The rest: I can take it or leave it. Most often I leave it and eat unhealthy things instead. Most often I got to Tim Hortons and have an iced cappuccino when I should be eating, if not a pear, then at least a peach!

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

The best piece of advice I’ve ever heard was actually the worst piece of advice I’ve ever heard.
When I was a student at Lakehead University back in the seventies, my Creative Writing professor said: A short story must never be written in the present tense. For many years I believed him. But eventually I got over it.

This is the best piece of advice I’ve ever heard because it reminds me that there are no hard and fast rules in writing fiction. (My evil twin now takes some pleasure in the fact that I’ve done quite well for myself in the writing world and, although that professor has also published, I am much more famous than he is! So there…)

10. How easy has it been for you to move between genres (short story to the novel)? What do you see as the appeal?

Initially it was difficult and somewhat accidental. My first novel, In the Language of Love, was based on the 100 words of the Standard Word Association Test which I found by accident while at the library looking up something else. Being inordinately fond of lists even then, I filed that list in my folder of story ideas. I thought I’d write a short story from it but I soon had to admit that even if I wrote only one page to go with each of the 100 words, it would be a very long story. I was very intimidated by the thought of writing a novel. I referred to it as “the n-word.”
I think I tricked myself into writing that first novel by writing it in 100 short chapters and then putting them altogether at the end.

Now I don’t find it difficult at all. I love novels and short stories about equally (in both writing and reading them.) I think the story itself decides which it’s going to be. My most recent book, At A Loss For Words, actually began as a short story. But it grew and grew and became a short novel. I’ve always wanted to write a very short novel so I’m pleased with the way this one turned out.

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

My ideal writing routine is to write from early morning until early afternoon. Then after lunch, I like to have a nap, then do all that other stuff that is always demanding to be done (errands, chores, phone calls, etc.) I sometimes also like to work in the evening, particularly if I am doing research or copyediting or some such relatively mechanical task.

The beginning of each day is hugely important to me. I begin every day in the same way. I get up early, have coffee, and read for an hour or so in my special chair (usually accompanied by my dog and one or two of my three cats.) Then I get dressed and get straight to work. If for any reason, I cannot have my morning routine, I am grumpy and unproductive for the rest of the day. If it’s not a writing day (if I’m out of town or otherwise busy) I still do the first part: coffee and reading time. I feel completely disoriented without it. I am old and set in my ways!

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

My most recent book, At A Loss For Words, is a return to some of the themes of my first novel, In the Language of Love. It felt very comfortable and natural to be once again writing about misguided romance after writing weightier books about the Virgin Mary and September 11. This latest book is primarily intended to be humorous, although of course there are some sad passages and also some serious questions of moral ambiguity raised too. One of the things I love most about At A Loss For Words is that it’s only 189 pages. I love reading short novels and I’ve always wanted to write one. This time I’ve actually done it.

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

Visual art is a strong influence on my work. I’ve been told that my writing is very visual and this makes sense to me. I love to describe things. I am something of a frustrated visual artist myself. Combining text and collage art as I did in Forms of Devotion was an ideal form for me.

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

The essential writers/books I turn to again and again are:
Carole Maso (Ava and Break Every Rule: Essays on Language, Longing, & Moments of Desire)
David Markson (This Is Not A Novel and Reader’s Block)
Renata Adler (Pitch Dark and Speedboat)
Susan Griffin (A Chorus of Stones: The Private Life of War and Women and Nature: The Roaring Inside Her)
Alan Lightman (Einstein’s Dreams)
Alain de Botton (Essays in Love)
Eduardo Galeano (The Book of Embraces)
Georges Perec (Species of Spaces and Other Pieces)
Fernando Pessoa (The Book of Disquiet)
Tomas Eloy Martinez (Santa Evita)
Donald Barthelme
Alice Munro
Annie Dillard.

16. What would you like to do that you haven’t yet done?

I would like to visit the Maritimes, own a cabin or a house in the country, go to a writers’ retreat, spend a summer on a houseboat, sleep for a week. I would also like to write a book of poetry and a play.

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

If I could pick any other occupation to try, I would be a visual artist. If I hadn’t become a writer, I think I would have ended up being an accountant or a mathematician.

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

Sheer stubbornness.

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

The last two great books I’ve read are The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill and The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway. The best film I’ve seen recently is No Country for Old Men.

20. What are you currently working on?

I’m working on stories again now: some in the form of lists, some with illustrations, and some based on old texts I’ve unearthed.

12 or 20 questions archive

12 or 20 questions: with Joe Blades

Joe Blades has been giving readings and publishing his poetry since 1980. He is a writer, artist, and publisher-president of the independent, literary publishing house Broken Jaw Press Inc. founded by him in 1983, plus he is on the editorial board of revue ellipse mag.

Blades was born in Halifax, NS, Canada. A graduate of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (BFA, 1988), he is also an alumni of the Banff Centre, Maritime Writers Workshop, Sage Hill Writing Experience, and the Simon Fraser University Book Publishing Immersion Workshop. He recently completed a Certificate in Film and Television offered by the NB Filmmakers’ Cooperative.

Based in Fredericton, New Brunswick since 1990, he grew up in Elmsdale, and Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. He has also lived and/or worked in Port Hawksbury and Halifax, NS; Toronto; Montreal; Banff, AB; New York; Senta, Serbia; and Pale, Republika Srpska. Blades has given readings, lectures, and workshops across Canada, in the eastern USA, Scotland and Eastern Europe.

Blades exhibits bookworks, photographs, and objet d’art primarily in Canada and Europe. Since 1995, he has been a community radio producer-host at CHSR 97.9 FM with the four-time Barry Award-winning Ashes, Paper & Beans: Fredericton’s Writing & Art Show.

In June 2007, Blades was elected to a second term as the NB & PEI Regional Representative on the National Council of The League of Canadian Poets. He is also an active member of the BlackTop MotorCycle Gang writers’ group in Fredericton.

Blades was curator of Videopoems: A Screening for the 2003 Tidal Wave Film Festival, and in various capacities and roles he has works on over 15 videos and films. He is the editor of ten books and chapbooks including Some Stuff on Canadian Spoken Word & Indie Publishing (NCRA/ANRÉC, 2004) and UGLY: an instant spoken word chapbook anthology (Broken Jaw Press, 2007.

His poetry and art has appeared in over 55 trade and chapbook anthologies, and in numerous periodicals. Blades has authored 28 poetry chapbooks and limited edition artist books. He has published four full-length poetry books are Cover Makes a Set (SpareTime Editions, 1990), River Suite (Insomniac Press, 1998), Open Road West (Broken Jaw Press, 2000, 2001), and Casemate Poems (Widows & Orphans, 2004). Two of theses were translated and published in Serbian editions as Recna svita in the three author–three book anthology Slike iz kanade: Tri kanadska pesnika (SKC Niš) and Pesme iz kazamata (i.p. Rad) in 2005. His fifth poetry book, Casemate Poems (Collected) (Chaudiere Books) is in the works for 2008.

1 _ How did your first book change your life?

It wasn't earth-shattering, but Cover Makes A Set (London, ON: SpareTime Editions, 1990) gave me a book and enabled me join the League of Canadian Poets as a full member and get funded readings—a big step towards feeling I could be a real writer earning my way.

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

I moved to Fredericton in 1990, but have been active here since 1988.

Geography and location, my location, has a role in my writing. Similar to a reporter, I've repeatedly found myself writing poems in the immediate as their story happens, unfolds around me. For example, that is how the TriBeCa (above/ground press, 1997) chapbook came to be written on the spot, in New York City, as well as my considerable output of "casemate poems" during the several short-term, very public artist residencies that I've been given.

Gender, race, and language do impact my writing though not always consciously. White, English-speaking male is not a unique starting point for a literary career. One has to move beyond that. I was truly amazed to hear a writer in Belgrade positively call my work emancipated and multiculturally inclusive. In my fiction, more so than poems, I have clearly female characters–narrators. One thing that's surprised me has been finding myself writing both poems and prose from the perspective of people in the former Yugoslavia—this after four trips and considerable time and activity there between 2004 and 2006. I don't know where that is going but it's definitely outside of my Canadian "cultural personality" self.

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

Of course, there's no one answer to these questions. Most of my published books and chapbooks have been written in short intense bursts of writing. The focussed time results in poems that link together, forming a series or whole piece but I also write many one-off poems or prose fragments that can drift about seemingly independent of each other for years before coming together.

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

Part of, for sure. Hearing other writers read their work, talk about their work and their concerns, has been active learning for me during the past almost 30 years.

Hearing myself read, and getting feedback, influences how and what I write and rewrite, even though I rarely perform as lively as I sometimes want.

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

Sometimes I really think there are theoretical concerns; other times sure there isn't one driving my poems. I know there's time when my stories, in whatever genre, have been driven by philosophical or psychological concerns.

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

Editors, active or passive, can always provide a challenge towards polishing a manuscript, especially when i don't get the outside input I sometimes want or need. I often feel that I don't have a good perspective on my creations and not sufficient enough a grasp on the work of other contemporary writers and artists. I haven't really had the challenge or opportunity to seriously wrestle my poems in their defence with an editor. Not having gone the academic writer route, I also haven't had that version of a strong exertive influence upon my writings.

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

Harder, because of my experience as a book publisher trying to retail poetry books to "product" buyers, but, as my need to write isn't really controlled by money I keep writing, and as I like making books, they keep trying to happen so I need to keep trying to find them good homes. Having ideas is the easy part. Doing something with them and seeing them realized as a book or other art form is the challenge that can take many years.

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

Christmas 2007 at my parents' new-to-them house in West Chezzetcook, NS.

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

I've too often heard, "write what you know", but I disagree with that advice. I prefer: "Start by writing what you know, even if that seems to be nothing, and let yourself be surprised." the other piece of advice that comes back to me is from one night, while employed at the B.S. Hotel, that my friend and co-worker Andrew Perry and me were talking on the Banff Ave bridge over the Bow River: he said, "Joe, don't ever lose your anger because that's the drive that makes you do things. I lost mine." By anger he meant the desire to create, to do, to change things from the existing, as if it was a charcoal one carries to light the next day's fire, to cook with, to heat and light one's way.

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

Other than photography, I am best set-up to write. The apartment's "livingroom" where I am replying to these questions is my workshop–studio. I have saws, hammers, metal- and leather-working tools and supplies here, my late grandfather Charlie's anvil, clamps, paint, brushes and bookbinding supplies too . . . but it also holds my bicycle and has the apartment's wall-to-wall carpet. Not the best situation for making mixed media work.

Prose essays are the hardest for me to start writing. Even when I can stand up and address a subject off the top of my head, I churn the material over and over for days–weeks in my head before committing it to paper. For writing fiction I need to start writing before doing anything else, and I really mean "anything"—not even making a cup of coffee, no email, no telephone. Once I’m into the writing I can make a coffee and stay on track and get anywhere from 700 to 1500 words in a sitting. My journal is my constant companion and it catches many of my poem ideas, turns of phrase, travelogue and the objects–artefacts of my days. Hand-binding books and art pieces often need a greater time-space than I feel I have available so my art has languished except for the "applied arts" of object-making and freelance design.

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

When I can, I start writing soon as I wake up in the morning—before coffee or anything. That way there's no distractions or clutter. I have a journal with me all the time. I have an offline laptop in the studio that prefer using (checking my email is the worst way to start a day), have a manual typewriter I don't just use during artist residencies and school visits. If I keep it fed with paper I will write poems with it simply because it's there, waiting.

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

Absurd or chance juxtaposition of words that create something new, is always a good trick as a starting place. When writing a poems sequence or. Of course, a change of scenery or location, travel by its very nature, makes me write to document and record, to observe the peeps around me.

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

What is my most recent book: one published or one written? Casemate Poems (Collected) is an expanded collection from my earlier Casemate Poems (Waterloo: Widows & Orphans, 2004) and its Serbian edition Pesme iz kazamata (Belgrade: i.p. Rad, 2005) which though the wonder of translation led me into writing a "Prison Song" series of poems that's not yet published (except for some first drafts in a "24 Hour Zine Thing" challenge issue of New Muse of Contempt (2007).

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

Film and music definitely influence my work as do location and my environs—whether natural surroundings or a foreign city or bus. Some of my work is informed by philosophy or science, art making practices and the wide world of languages.

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

Ginsberg, bill bissett, James Deahl, Snyder, early Atwood, cummings, M. Travis Lane, Alden Nowlan, Robert Gibbs, the Dadaists, the Four Horsemen, Erin Mouré. . . even you.

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

Complete and publish a novel; to write and produce a feature film; a play; have at least one child; get to Dawson City, Prague, Iceland, Arizona, Andora, Argentina . . .

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

Well, I could have retired from the phone company by now, if I had stayed there. Could have been a chef.

Of late, my spectrum of arts-related volunteer work and paid employment includes considerable film work—much of it in the Art Department, especially set design and props (including the making of . . . "products" such as beer bottles & cans, cigarette packs, labels, documents, doctored photos, newspaper clippings, objects . . .) but also location scouting, publicity, boom operator, extra, etc.—on 12 mostly short film projects since last summer. Feel I will be doing considerably more work in this area.

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

I still do do other things :_) but when the words and images, the poems and stories come, I must write. I was always an avid reader, imaginative, observant . . . and able to write an image, or coin a phrase or pun on a dime and keep going.

19 _ What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film [seen]?

Book: Brazil Red by Jean-Christophe Rufin, translated by Willard Wood.
Film: The Diving Bell and The Butterfly.

20 _ What are you currently working on?

Proofreading galleys of my next book, Casemate Poems (Collected) (Chaudiere Books) and Broken Jaw's next book, The York County Jail: A Brief Illustrated History, by George MacBeath & Emelie Hubert; writing a novel on an artsnb Creation Grant received; making a videopoem of mine called "Poem for Barry Colpitts"; work for several short film projects in preproduction including "White Envelope", "Ask Ug", "Car 108", "Willowy One" and the longer "Dead to The World" mini-series; shopping around several poetry manuscripts; knitting a new poetry ms. titled "I.Q.F. Poems" . . .

12 or 20 questions archive

12 or 20 questions: with Carolyn Marie Souaid

Carolyn Marie Souaid (Montreal, 1959- ) is an editor, teacher, book reviewer, and the author of four collections of poetry, including Satie's Sad Piano, which was shortlisted for the 2006 Pat Lowther Memorial Award and the Mary Scorer Award (Manitoba Book of the Year Awards). Her latest work, Flight, was released as a limited edition chapbook by Rubicon Press in 2007. Her work has been produced for CBC-Radio, and has been published nationally and internationally. She has appeared at many literary festivals across the country, and was recently sent to Paris as part of a Canadian delegation of authors invited to participate in the 4th Symposium Against Isolation, an international forum on the inhumane treatment of prisoners of conscience in Turkey and other prisons worldwide. In response to this event and as an act of solidarity, she co-edited Freedom: An Anthology of Canadian Poets for Turkish Resistance, featuring works by nine prominent Canadian poets uniting in defense of activists serving jail time for the translation and dissemination of information about abuses in Turkish “F” type isolation cells. Recently, she has become involved in projects aimed at moving poetry off the page and into public spaces. She is the co-producer (with Endre Farkas) of two of Montreal’s major literary events: Poésie en mouvement / Poetry in Motion (the poetry-on-the-buses project, 2004) and the annual Circus of Words / Cirque des mots, a multidisciplinary, multilingual cabaret celebrating the “theatre” of poetry. October (Signature Editions, 1999), shortlisted for the A.M. Klein Award and set against the backdrop of the events of the 1970 FLQ crisis, represented Montreal in a showcase of the city as “World Book Capital” in 2005-2006. In 2007, she edited Quotidian Fever, the new and selected poems of Endre Farkas [see his 12 or 20 questions here], published by The Muses’ Company. Carolyn holds a Masters degree in Creative Writing from Concordia University in Montreal.

1 - How did your first book change your life?

Overnight, I became rich and famous.

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

I moved from St-Hyacinthe to St-Lambert, a suburb on the south shore of Montreal when I was six. In fact, I’ve spent most of my life there, except for about three years when I lived and worked in Inuit settlements along the Hudson-Ungava coast of Northern Québec. Being a stone’s throw from Montreal and, yet, being separated from it by the St-Lawrence River makes me, in some ways, an outsider looking in. I’m very conscious of its smells, its colours, its noise as compared to the more middle-class, homogenous, white-bread place I inhabit. I love the diverse dance of cultures and languages, and the volatility of the two solitudes living side by each in the same city. I have tried on numerous occasions to capture that in my writing.

Geograhy—physical, human, political – usually finds its way into my poetry, especially into the collections that aim to be a faithful witness to time and place. Some specifics: Montreal figures prominently in Satie’s Sad Piano, set during the aftermath of former Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau’s death. The book features a cast of eclectic characters or “voices” (including one called Mount Royal) who bear witness to Trudeau and his time. October, an earlier book focusing on the October Crisis of 1970, is set primarily in the suburb where I grew up and where Quebec’s Minister of Labour, Pierre Laporte, was kidnapped. But other geographies, such as the one of Lebanon with its enormous cedars and mountain relief, has also flavoured what and how I write. Snow Formations, an exploration of the intersecting worlds of natives and non-natives, pits the dense, peopled south against the vast, spacious north. Because each of these collections depicts a particular sociocultural moment, place looms so large it almost becomes a character in my poetry.

All that I am – white, middle-class, female, Quebecker, Canadian of Lebanese ancestry, Earthling – impacts my work in ways that I am probably not even aware of.

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

It begins when some idea I have manifests itself as an abstract painting in my mind. Sometimes it comes as a result of reading; sometimes, in response to an ordinary (or extraordinary) life experience. I don’t mean that I literally see colours and swirls. It’s more like a vague feeling that washes over me, a feeling that I’m onto something worthwhile and that if I want the epiphany, I’ll have to roll up my sleeves and find a gateway in. Then comes the hard work of shaping it into something that the public can “see” as well.

These days, I am working on a number of short pieces, none of which seem to be connected thematically. What they share, instead, is a common mood. Earlier books, by contrast, tended to be born out of a desire to re-visit particular events in my life— the adoption of my son from war-torn Lebanon, for instance.

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

Sometimes, I feel it necessary to get audience feedback on poems I’m not certain about. In those cases, I use the reading opportunity as a testing ground. Public reaction (and hearing my own voice read it aloud) is a reliable indicator of whether a piece needs to be tweaked or trashed altogether.

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

I spend more time honing my craft than theorizing, but I do have a theme that keeps cropping up in each of my books. And that theme has to do with the difficulty of truly connecting with an “other” despite the great lengths we go to to avoid being alone on this planet. A “cup half-full” kind of person, I believe that all human relationships are riddled with roadblocks. So many, in fact, that it sometimes feels as though we are ultimately alone on this earth, regardless of our efforts to bridge that chasm with partners, friends, and children. To be honest, I’d rather believe something pretty, something comforting and reassuring. But at times the gap feels huge, frighteningly unbridgeable. And each new book feels like another attempt to address the same issue, only with different players. In Swimming into the Light, for example, I wondered how an adoptive mother could possibly bond with her child the same way a biological mother could. October, an exploration of the physical and emotional distance between an anglophone Québécoise and her francophone partner, was a rather naive attempt at reconciling the two solitudes in Quebec (and Canada). Snow Formations revisited this same theme of “impossible connections” by examining the intersecting (and contradictory) worlds of natives and non-natives in Northern Quebec. In all three cases, I wondered whether it was possible to have true connection, compassion, and understanding for another, even between the closest of people. If so, how? I don’t think those books ever adequately resolved the issue for me. So, I’ll probably keep coming at it in future books, even if obliquely.

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

Sometimes difficult, but always essential. I have had great experiences working with Endre Farkas, George Amabile, Rob Allen, and Karen Haughian, my publisher. I remember the invaluable education I got going through the editing process on my first book when Michael Harris asked me the infamous “If you could save only one page of your manuscript from a blazing fire, which would it be?” I learned a great deal trying to answer that one question.

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

Each time, it’s like starting all over again. Not harder, not easier. Just exciting because of the not-knowing, because of the potential for surprise. I like the idea that I am embarking on an adventure, clueless, in some ways, of where it will take me emotionally, creatively.

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

Pass. That’s too personal a question.

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

B-R-E-A-T-H-E. This advice comes from my best editor who knows exactly when the thing I’m working on has me all tangled up in knots. Also, that necessary cliché: Carpe Diem.

10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to reviews/non-fiction)? What do you see as the appeal?

I write book reviews and other non-fiction pieces not as a counterpoint to my poetry, but primarily to keep me abreast of what’s going on out there in different pockets of the country. It is a constant source of frustration to me that despite efforts to reach out and connect with other poets by attending readings and festivals, we continue to remain isolated from one another, regionalized. (This is possibly the case for fiction writers as well, though I’m not certain of it since poets are still the most marginalized of writers). Bookshops – usually independent ones – make some effort to stock their tried and true locals, but it’s rare to find a west coast work in a maritime store. The exception is Toronto, capital of book galas and glitzy awards ceremonies, which some years ago declared itself the literary hub of Canada. Although it’s gradually changing now that talent is being recognized in other parts of the country, literary Canada still seems to be Toronto-centric, and, as a result, many of its poets get to see the light of day both at home and elsewhere, while others don’t get that same luxury. This, too, has to do with the Chapters/Indigo monstrosity, but that’s another story.

This is a long-winded way of saying I need to know what else is out there in order to feed my own work. It has nothing to do with engaging a different genre to “nourish” my poetic craft.

Twenty years ago, I wrote a few stories that got published, but I always found fiction a little like connecting the dots, something I get bored with very quickly. I once took a fiction writing workshop and the professor told me that my stories were “too poetic.” As though it were a bad thing. Whereas I believe poetry is the highest form of literary Art. It always surprises me that poetry is seen as the “poor cousin” to fiction (witness the buildup to the fiction prize at the GG Awards, with everything else getting lumped together, paling by comparison). In my view, fiction writers, have more of a God complex – which is to say they need to exert more control. I am much more interested in giving a reader the opportunity to engage with the text and make meaning for himself. I honestly can’t see myself returning to fiction any time soon. But I’ll keep at the book reviews and non-fiction, for all the reasons outlined above.

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

There are no typical days. When I wake up in the morning, I have no idea where the day is headed. If the early morning call to substitute-teach comes (my bread & butter), then my day is essentially mapped out by 7:15 AM. If the call doesn’t come, then I know I am free to write if I want to write. But, there is never any obligation to do so. I might spend an entire (free) day wanting to write, intending to write, but finding a million other things to do, instead. On the other hand, sometimes while I’m “teaching,” I allow myself to drift off into space and sometimes an idea for a poem comes. As long as students are busy with the work assigned to them by their regular teacher, I take advantage of the lull, scribbling a few lines or jotting down an idea for later. On those days, I might hit the computer as soon as I get home, and then write straight through until three o’clock in the morning without even realizing how long I’ve been at it.

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

I tend to return to my very eclectic library of poetry titles and pull out the authors whom I find to be the most daring with language and form – even if I don’t always “understand” what they’re doing. I feel that my writing really got stalled after my third book, when I began to feel I had tapped into just about everything in my own personal life that I could. The well had seemingly run dry. And then, as luck would have it, I got a provincial arts grant, which bought me the time I needed to read and think. The result was my fourth collection, Satie’s Sad Piano, a more conscious attempt to step outside my small personal ghetto and experiment with voice and form. Written in the spirit of George Elliott Clarke’s Whylah Falls (with an entire cast of characters), it was my own version of what the music industry used to call a “concept” album. Then, in the fall of 2007, I decided to sign up for a master poetry class being given by Erin Moure [see her 12 or 20 questions here] (even though I myself teach similar courses for the Quebec Writers’ Federation) partly to renew my own battery and partly to get a better handle on some of Erin’s own creative process. Erin represented for me the more experimental side of poetry, the dinner party I wanted to join, but could never get an invitation to. The course opened me up in ways I hadn’t anticipated: I now feel as though there is an endless reserve of material out there, and the only time my writing gets stalled is when my bank account is low and the rent is due, and I have to spend most of my energy hustling for freelance work either teaching or writing.

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

My most recent book (Paper Oranges, forthcoming in 2009) was written as a mood piece. The poems in it are less accessible, more playful. At the time of writing it, the structures in my personal life were crumbling, and this definitely impacted on my process. Generally, I was more interested in rhythm and the musicality of words, less driven by the need to concoct an underlying narrative arc to sew the poems together.

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

I don’t consciously rely on outside influences for writing in the sense that I wouldn’t slide a CD of Maria Callas into the machine, sharpen my pencil, and wait for inspiration. Nor would I open up an art book and use a painting as a trigger for a poem. That said, I do believe that everything crawling close to the skin and even things peripherally in our lives inform and influence our work – how can they not? The source of my obsessive relationship with imagery is probably my love of concrete sensual detail: the pleasure of good food, the drama of leaves, colour and the visual arts—painting and photography, in particular. Somehow, this all finds its way into my work.

As for structural influences, the novel as a form has influenced much of my past work in the sense that each of my early books has the feel of a novel: if you read those early books in order (even though each poem can stand on its own), there is something of a beginning, a middle, and an end. There are characters. There is setting, conflict, resolution. But my poem-novel comes closer to abstract art than representational art. Poem, poem, poem, poem. One after the other, but not as a connect-the-dots work. The reader’s responsibility is to fill in the gaps himself. I won’t do it.

Finally, I am a woman, and I write through that lens. It is not a form, it is my social reality.

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

It depends on who I’m reading at the time – not only poets, but philosophers, too. Living or dead. Most recently, it has been Frank O’Hara and Louise Gluck. And Thoreau, for instruction on how to live.

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

I’d love to work with members of the theatre community to produce a stage version of one of my poetry books. I had a taste of what such a collaboration could yield at the first annual Circus of Words (the multidisciplinary multilingual cabaret show that I co-produce with Endre Farkas) when Jennifer Boire hired a director and two actors to stage a 15-minute piece focused on the Sedna myth which appears in my book Snow Formations. It was awesome.

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

No question, I would have studied interior design – I love the idea of playing with paint colours and lighting, fabrics, textures and furniture arrangement to create a particular mood and to tell the story of who inhabits that space. I guess in some ways, it’s another way to write.

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

From a very young age, I’d always felt it vital to record my every footprint, as though if I didn’t, the experience would be forever lost. I suppose I could have just as easily painted or photographed the world around me but as it happened, I was given a diary for Christmas when I was six-years-old, a lovely little red book that came with a lock and key, and from that day on, I kind of fell into writing. I wrote in it faithfully every night, even if only to note what TV shows I watched, what friends I played with, what I’d eaten for dinner that night. I’m not sure where this sense of urgency came from, but much later, in my late 30s, I stumbled upon a statement made by Philip Larkin in 1955, which explained why he wrote poetry. What appealed to him, he said, was the idea of rescuing an experience from oblivion. Voilà— there it was in black and white, and far more articulately. This drive to freeze-frame snippets of existence definitely jibed with my own motives for writing.

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

Life of Pi, by Yann Martel; The End of the Affair, by Graham Greene.

I’m a film junkie – it’s hard to pick the last GREAT one. So, I will give you a list of my all-time favourites, oldies, because I watch & re-watch them regularly. I’m a huge Woody Allen fan (Annie Hall, Hannah & Her Sisters, Crimes & Misdemeanors, Manhattan, Interiors). Also: Amadeus, Il Postino, Life is Beautiful, Godfather II, My Dinner With André, Casablanca, Damage, The Wizard of Oz, Citizen Kane, Dead Man Walking, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. I’ve surely forgotten some. I think the films coming out of Quebec are among the best in Canada: CRAZY, Jesus de Montréal, Le Déclin de l'Empire Américain, Being at Home with Claude, to name a few.

20 - What are you currently working on?

Playing. Not taking myself so seriously. A few new poems I’d rather keep under wraps for now.

12 or 20 questions archive