tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3195899178601329882024-02-02T00:19:52.640-08:0012 or 20 questionsconducted by rob mclennanrob mclennanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07958889643637765864noreply@blogger.comBlogger92125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-319589917860132988.post-1902600347978863552009-06-18T10:02:00.000-07:002009-06-18T10:02:01.397-07:0012 or 20 questions: with J. R. Carpenter<a href="http://en.wordpress.com/tag/jr-carpenter/"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5348380859340507058" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 290px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEl2e59tJZeB_Qv0zeELNNjw9RJSeUKoMdiJ9S8fK6_Sqgwnq90pyv7zWfA5lMG3PwpAoc03elV8H-KfAv2cynsX2I5ACLdsPYnjJGFzZ7Ka0_dEwzVyCscxLR6hasn9OFJtnIKAl1b9g/s320/jrcarpenter.jpg" border="0" />J. R. Carpenter </a>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, <a href="http://www.conundrumpress.com/nt_carpenter.html"><em>Words the Dog Knows</em> (Conundrum, 2008). </a>Her electronic literature has been presented internationally. For more information please visit: <a href="http://luckysoap.com/" target="_blank">http://luckysoap.com/</a><br /><div></div><br /><div><strong>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?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>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, <em><a href="http://writingmjb.blogspot.com/2009/01/words-dog-knows-jr-carpenter.html">Words the Dog Knows</a></em>, 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 <a href="http://www.aelaq.org/mrb/article.php?issue=19&article=547&cat=2">Andy Brown </a>and <a href="http://www.danforthreview.com/features/interviews/maya_merrick.htm">Maya Merrick</a>. 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.</div><br /><div><strong>2 - How did you come to fiction first, as opposed to, say, poetry or non-fiction?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>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 <a href="http://rciviva.ca/">Radio Canada International </a>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.</div><br /><div><strong>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?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>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.</div><br /><div><strong>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?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>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.<br /></div><br /><div><strong>5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>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. </div><br /><div><strong>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?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>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 <em>Words the Dog Knows</em>" 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 <a href="http://luckysoap.com/entreville/">my web-based work <em>Entre Ville</em></a>, in which the form of the essay takes on the form of the piece.<br /></div><br /><div><strong>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?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div><a href="http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/vhavel.htm">Vaclav Havel </a>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 <a href="http://www.reaaward.org/html/grace_paley.html">Grace Paley </a>and others have commanded: Speak truth to power.</div><br /><div><strong>8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>A good editor is a rare and beautiful thing. <a href="http://12or20questions.blogspot.com/2007/09/12-or-20-questions-with-andy-brown.html">Andy Brown </a>is a brilliant editor and I'd work with him again in a heartbeat.</div><br /><div><strong>9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>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 <a href="http://www.vermontstudiocenter.org/">Vermont Studio Center in 2003</a>. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_Hempel">Amy Hempel </a>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.</div><br /><div><strong>10 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>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 <a href="http://cjournal.concordia.ca/journalarchives/2005-06/jun_1/007081.shtml">Montreal-based artist jake moore </a>said to me recently, "The luxury of our labour is that we love it." </div><br /><div><strong>11 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>Online Scrabble.</div><br /><div><strong>12 - If there was a fire, what's the first thing you'd grab?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>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..</div><br /><div><strong>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?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>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. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gertrude_Stein">Gertrude Stein </a>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 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Derrida">Derrida</a> 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 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilles_Deleuze">Deleuze</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F%C3%A9lix_Guattari">Guattari's</a> indispensable writing on the book as rhizome: “there is no difference between what a book talks about and how it is made.” <em>Words the Dog Knows</em> talks about small details and is made from an assemblage of small pieces, fragments; previously discreet stories interlinked to form a whole. </div><br /><div><strong>14 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ovid">Ovid</a>, <a href="http://www.philosophypages.com/ph/spin.htm">Spinoza</a>, <a href="http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/RUSbabel.htm">Isaac Babel</a>, <a href="http://www.italo-calvino.com/">Italo Calvino</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainer_Maria_Rilke">Rilke</a>, <a href="http://www.themodernword.com/borges/">Borges</a>, <a href="http://www.tenderbuttons.com/">Gertrude Stein</a>, <a href="http://www.virginiawoolfsociety.co.uk/">Virginia Woolf</a>, <a href="http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/7">Elizabeth Bishop</a>, <a href="http://www.powells.com/authors/hempel.html">Amy Hempel</a>, <a href="http://www.pages.drexel.edu/~jlc42/davis.html">Lydia Davis</a>.</div><br /><div><strong>15 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>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 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Scala">La Scala</a>, but have yet to see an opera there. I've eaten truffles in <a href="http://www.initaly.com/regions/umbria/umbria.htm">Umbria</a>, 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.</div><br /><div><strong>16 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>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.</div><br /><div><strong>17 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>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. </div><br /><div><strong>18 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>I finally got around to reading <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Quixote"><em>Don Quixote</em> </a>in January. It totally lived up to the hype. Other books that have blown my mind lately include <a href="http://www.houseofleaves.com/">Mark Z. Danielewski, <em>House of Leaves</em></a>; <a href="http://calamaripress.com/3rdBed/Lutz_Stories_Worst_Way.htm">Gary Lutz, <em>Stories in the Worst Way</em></a>. I am addicted to <a href="http://www.nfb.ca/">the new NFB site</a>. Amazing archive. Current favorite short: <a href="http://archive.sensesofcinema.com/contents/directors/04/lipsett.html">Arthur Lipsett</a>, <a href="http://www.nfb.ca/film/Very_Nice_Very_Nice/" target="_blank"><em>Very Nice Very Nice</em></a> (1961).<br /></div><br /><div><strong>19 - What are you currently working on?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>Short Stories.</div><br /><div></div><div><a href="http://robmclennansindex.blogspot.com/2009/06/12-or-20-questions-second-series.html"><em>12 or 20 questions archive (second series);</em></a></div>rob mclennanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07958889643637765864noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-319589917860132988.post-13219664447947428492009-06-17T10:02:00.000-07:002009-06-17T12:55:14.401-07:0012 or 20 questions: with Daniel Allen Cox<a href="http://www.xtra.ca/public/Ottawa/author/Daniel%20Allen%20Cox.aspx"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5348069971896933794" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 230px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4medLRyLIKc2fmtf1Faum4-kUoor7FHAS_3xKyz1z8D5AwqZyDU6To0wOgQdqxv-9DjHX-dWomitBH2D8R8fMQdStojfopXHOwtTV4qFe8OSEG94YZvaW-MyQnyx2iZh5YCwo6-R4ac0/s320/Daniel_Allen_Cox_(credit_Dallas_Curow).jpg" border="0" />Daniel Allen Cox </a>is an ex-Jehovah’s Witness turned pornstar, and <a href="http://www.quillandquire.com/authors/profile.cfm?article_id=10389">author</a> of the hit novel <a href="http://www.arsenalpulp.com/bookinfo.php?index=287"><em>Shuck </em>(Arsenal Pulp Press, 2008), </a>which was shortlisted for the <a href="http://www.lambdaliterary.org/awards/current_finalists.html">2008 Lambda Literary Award </a>for Gay Debut Fiction. His novella <a href="http://www.dustyowl.com/tattoo"><em>Tattoo This Madness In</em> (Dusty Owl Press, 2006) </a>was shortlisted for a 2007 Expozine Alternative Press Award. In the 2009 <em>Montreal Mirror</em> readers poll, Daniel was voted one of the top 10 best local authors.<br /><div></div><br /><div>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 <em>Capital Xtra! </em>Daniel lives in Montreal.</div><div><strong></strong> </div><div><strong>1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?</strong></div><br /><div>My novella <em>Tattoo This Madness In</em> (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 <em>Tattoo</em>, 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. </div><br /><div>I got to explore different terrain with my novel <em><a href="http://www.montrealmirror.com/2008/091108/news1.html">Shuck</a></em> (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. <em><a href="http://www.adrianapalanca.com/2008/09/shuck-by-daniel-allen-cox.html">Shuck</a></em>, unlike <em><a href="http://www.ottawaxpress.ca/books/books.aspx?iIDArticle=10447">Tattoo</a></em>, 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. <em>Tattoo</em>, on the other hand, celebrates loss, the shucking of religion. Est-ce que c’est clair? </div><br /><div></div><div><strong>2 - How did you come to fiction first, as opposed to, say, poetry or non-fiction?</strong></div><br /><div>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. </div><br /><div></div><div><strong>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?</strong></div><br /><div>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. </div><br /><div></div><div><strong>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?</strong></div><br /><div>As they often say in Poland, “It depends.” <em>Shuck </em>was written in snippets, and then assembled using giant poster boards, hundreds of snippets of paper, and Scotch tape. With my novella <em>Tattoo</em>, 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? </div><br /><div></div><div><strong>5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?</strong></div><br /><div>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 <a href="http://www.dustyowl.com/">Steve Zytveld’s </a>brassy baritone, and in <a href="http://www.adrianapalanca.com/">Adriana Palanca’s </a>sauciness. </div><br /><div>I finally decided, though, to try reading in public, after much urging—and encouraging—from friends. I picked one of my favourite passages from <em>Shuck</em>, 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! </div><br /><div></div><div><strong>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?</strong></div><br /><div>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? </div><br /><div></div><div><strong>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?</strong></div><br /><div>To ask questions, and to motivate readers to take personal risks. </div><br /><div></div><div><strong>8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?</strong></div><br /><div>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. </div><br /><div></div><div><strong>9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?</strong></div><br /><div>“Don’t be afraid to read in public. People will love to hear your voice, because it’s you.” <a href="http://www.xtra.ca/public/Ottawa/Vancouver_writer_Francisco_IbezCarrasco_draws_blood-3672.aspx">Francisco Ibañez-Carrasco</a>, on the steps of his East Vancouver home. </div><br /><div></div><div><strong>10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (fiction to more performative works)? What do you see as the appeal?</strong></div><br /><div><strong></strong></div><div><strong>11 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?</strong></div><br /><div>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. </div><br /><div><strong>12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?</strong></div><br /><div>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. </div><br /><div></div><div><strong>13 - If there was a fire, what's the first thing you'd grab?</strong></div><br /><div>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. </div><br /><div>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. </div><br /><div><strong>14 - David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?</strong></div><br /><div>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. </div><br /><div></div><div><strong>15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?</strong></div><br /><div>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. </div><br /><div><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Extravaganza-Joke-Book-Lish-Gordon/dp/1568580975"><em>Extravaganza</em> by Gordon Lish </a>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. </div><br /><div><strong>16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?</strong></div><br /><div>Meet <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/11year-wait-for-flight-is-over-1106134.html">Karim Nasser Miran</a>, the guy who’s been living in Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris for the past nineteen years. </div><br /><div></div><div><strong>17 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?</strong></div><br /><div>I would 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? </div><br /><div></div><div><strong>18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?<br /></strong></div><br /><div>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.<br /></div><div><strong>19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?<br /></strong></div><br /><div><a href="http://www.bostonphoenix.com/alt1/archive/1in10/11-95/SCHULMAN.html"><em>Rat Bohemia</em> by Sarah Schulman </a>is the only book I have ever read in a single sitting. The last great film is <em><a href="http://www.thebluedot.com/tunick/nakedstates/journal.html">Naked States</a></em>, a documentary about the work of <a href="http://www.spencertunick.com/">photographer Spencer Tunick</a>, 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.” </div><br /><div><strong>20 - What are you currently working on? </strong></div><div><strong></div></strong><div>I’m working on a new novel. More details to follow. </div><br /><div></div><div><a href="http://robmclennansindex.blogspot.com/2009/06/12-or-20-questions-second-series.html"><em>12 or 20 questions archive (second series);</em></a></div>rob mclennanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07958889643637765864noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-319589917860132988.post-23085314722647242762008-06-05T09:31:00.000-07:002008-06-05T09:33:39.885-07:0012 or 20 questions: with Pete Smith<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjn7YIUUJ-SVBhWY4SAHIWE48Z4-ZLJsgW7PTZ1eiOaQj_INn9Riz_dDXrHDKgV5s4m7RLECJLTaNBaOKSZs_DPMiDqd5sieJn98v8aSgRC5zaYZnJNJMmYqNKWFTo2Rz7zo06aYXl3GOo/s1600-h/AAAAAAAAAAAIMG_1726.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5208423382699432258" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjn7YIUUJ-SVBhWY4SAHIWE48Z4-ZLJsgW7PTZ1eiOaQj_INn9Riz_dDXrHDKgV5s4m7RLECJLTaNBaOKSZs_DPMiDqd5sieJn98v8aSgRC5zaYZnJNJMmYqNKWFTo2Rz7zo06aYXl3GOo/s320/AAAAAAAAAAAIMG_1726.jpg" border="0" /></a>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: <em>Agenda</em>, <em>Stand</em>, <em>Grosseteste Review</em>. 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 – <a href="http://www.sfu.ca/~pquarter/nomados.htm">Nomados</a> & <a href="http://www.apollinaires.com/miva/merchant.mvc?">Book Thug </a>among current favourites in Canada.<br /><br /><div>Has written reviews &/or essays (from micro to a forthcoming book chapter) on <a href="http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/15">W.D. Snodgrass </a>(<em>Agenda,</em> UK); <a href="http://www.asu.edu/pipercwcenter/how2journal/archive/online_archive/v1_6_2001/current/vancouver/macleod.html">Kathryn MacLeod </a>[<a href="http://12or20questions.blogspot.com/2008/01/12-or-20-questions-with-kathryn-macleod.html">see her 12 or 20 questions here</a>], <a href="http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/notley/">Alice Notley</a>, <a href="http://jacketmagazine.com/03/karlien03a.html">Karlien van den Beukel</a>, <a href="http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/waldropr/">Rosmarie Waldrop </a>[<a href="http://robmclennan.blogspot.com/2008/01/rosmarie-waldrop-was-born-in-kitzingen.html">see her 12 or 20 questions here</a>], <a href="http://www.iniva.org/library/archive/people/l/longmire_tertia">Tertia Longmire </a>& <a href="http://www.aaronwilliamson.co.uk/">Aaron Williamson</a>, <a href="http://www.barquepress.com/neocosis.html">Keston Sutherland</a>, <a href="http://www.asu.edu/pipercwcenter/how2journal/archive/online_archive/v1_6_2001/current/vancouver/wolsak.html">Lissa Wolsak</a>, <a href="http://holloway.english.berkeley.edu/robertson/robertson.html">Lisa Robertson</a>, <a href="http://www.chbooks.com/biographies/index.php?ID=1741">Nancy Shaw </a>& <a href="http://www.chbooks.com/content/?q=folksonomy/catriona_strang">Catriona Strang </a>(all in <em>The Gig</em>, Toronto); <a href="http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/moxley/">Jennifer Moxley </a>(<a href="http://jacketmagazine.com/09/smith-r-mox.html"><em>jacket</em> #9, on-line</a>); <a href="http://www.pores.bbk.ac.uk/1/Nicholas%20Johnson,%20%20">Barry MacSweeney </a>(<em>The Paper</em>, UK); forthcoming - <a href="http://www.soundeye.org/trevorjoyce/">Trevor Joyce </a>(<em>Crayon </em>#5, USA); ****** ****** (<em>TCR</em>, Spring ’08); <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_James_(poet)">John James </a>(<em>The Salt Companion to John James</em>, UK). </div><br /><div>Chapbooks: <a href="http://www.wildhoneypress.com/BOOKS/20.html"><em>20/20 Vision</em> </a>and <em>cross of green hollow</em> (Wild Honey, Eire); <em>John’s Book of Alleged Dances</em> (Kamloops); <em>Harm’s Length</em> (<a href="http://www.aprileye.co.uk/histories.html">Poetical Histories, Cambridge</a>); <a href="http://abovegroundpress.blogspot.com/2008/03/new-from-aboveground-press_09.html"><em>Strum of Unseen</em> (above/ground, Canada). </a><br /></div><br /><div>Did the first interview with <a href="http://www.wildhoneypress.com/BOOKS/a_defence_of_being.htm">Lissa Wolsak </a>in <em>Six Poets: Views & Interviews</em>, <em>The Gig</em> Documents Series, #2. Nate Dorward interviewed me and featured <a href="http://www.ndorward.com/poetry/">a Pete Smith Sampler in <em>The Fly on the Page</em>, <em>Gig</em> Docs #3</a>. And poems in anthologies: <em>100 Days</em>, Barque Press, Cambridge/April Eye: Poems for Peter Riley, <em>infernal methods</em>, <em>Cambridge/<a href="http://intercapillaryspace.blogspot.com/2006/06/douglas-oliver-hyper-link-crystal.html">A Meeting for Douglas Oliver</a></em>, infernal methods, Street Editions & Poetical Histories, Cambridge.</div><br /><div></div><div>Long sequences: CLIV (<em><a href="http://ca.geocities.com/alterra@rogers.com/content.htm">Alterran Poetry Assemblage</a></em>); <a href="http://www.greatworks.org.uk/poems/horace/i.html">Second Horace </a>and Evacuation Procedures (<em>Great Works</em>); Mother Tongue: Father Silence (<em><a href="http://www.tinfishpress.com/Tinfish_13.pdf">Tinfish</a></em>); Out-takes From the Deanna Ferguson Show (<a href="http://www.ndorward.com/poetry/books/antiphonies.htm"><em>Antiphonies</em>, The Gig</a>).<br /></div><br /><div>A ms <em>Bindings With Discords</em> seeks a Canadian home.<br /><br /><strong>1 - How did your first chapbook change your life?</strong><br />It brought me into a community – not just the “being published” but some good feedback (especially publisher <a href="http://intercapillaryspace.blogspot.com/2008/01/anselm-hollo-guests-of-space.html">Randolph Healy’s </a>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 href="http://www.kswnet.org/">a reading at ksw </a>in 1999 (I don’t think they’d read a word of mine, but knew I was to be published by <a href="http://www.wildhoneypress.com/">Wild Honey </a>who’d published <a href="http://www.irishwriters-online.com/mauricescully.html">Maurice Scully </a>who’d just come out with <a href="http://freespace.virgin.net/reality.street/">Reality Street </a>who had published <a href="http://www.griffinpoetryprize.com/judges_2006.php?t=2">Lisa Robertson </a>who they KNEW was damned good).<br /><br /><strong>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?</strong><br />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 <a href="http://www.maltwood.uvic.ca/nwcp/coastsal/intro.html">Salish land</a>. 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.<br /><br /><strong>3 - Where does a poem usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?</strong><br />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).<br /><br /><strong>4 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process?</strong><br />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 <a href="http://www.burntout.com/kurt/biography/">Kurt Cobain </a>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 (<a href="http://www.caferouge.co.uk/">Café Rouge, Cambridge</a>, 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.<br /><strong>5 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?<br /></strong>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 <a href="http://ruccs.rutgers.edu/faculty/Fodor/cv.html">Jerry Fodor </a>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.<br /><br /><strong>6 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?</strong><br />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. <a href="http://jacketmagazine.com/12/fisher-by-dorward.html">Nate Dorward </a>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.<br /><br /><strong>7 - After having published more than a couple of titles over the years, do you find the process of book-making harder or easier?</strong><br />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 <a href="http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/niedecker/">Niedecker </a>problem.<br /><br /><strong>8 - When was the last time you ate a pear?<br /></strong>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.<br /><br /><strong>9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?</strong><br />“… a little more to the left…”<br /><br /><strong>10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to criticism)? What do you see as the appeal?<br /></strong>Apparently quite easy, if you call what I do criticism, I guess I call it “reading”. <a href="http://www.ndorward.com/">Nate Dorward </a>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? </div><br /><div>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.<br /><br /><strong>11 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?<br /></strong>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.<br /><br /><strong>12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?</strong><br />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).<br /><br /><strong>13 - How does your most recent book compare to your previous work? How does it feel different?<br /></strong>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 <a href="http://www.speakeasy.org/~subtext/poetry/fergus/">Deanna Ferguson’s </a>works in <a href="http://www.ndorward.com/poetry/books/antiphonies.htm"><em>Antiphonies</em>, The Gig 2008</a>, 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.<br /><br /><strong>14 - <a href="http://www.library.utoronto.ca/canpoetry/mcfadden/index.htm">David W. McFadden </a>once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?<br /></strong>Responses to live readings, concerts, photography & other visual (generally abstract) art, conversations. Good food. <a href="http://www.patternlanguage.com/">Christopher Alexander’s <em>Pattern Language</em> </a>is a source. Standing beside a tree trunk during a high wind puts wonderful sound-shapes inside a person.<br /><br /><strong>15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?</strong><br />Ahhhhhhhhhh! Books filled the house I was raised in – a row house in <a href="http://www.visitcoventryandwarwickshire.co.uk/">Coventry, England</a>, with 7.000 or more books in it. Still abiding from early years –<a href="http://www.imagi-nation.com/moonstruck/clsc7.htm"> Beckett</a>, <a href="http://www.johnberger.org/">John Berger</a>, <a href="http://members.ozemail.com.au/~xenophon/">Alan Garner</a>, the <a href="http://www.arabiantales.org/"><em>1001 Arabian Nights</em> </a>(2 vols illustrated – it was my adolescent version of<a href="http://www.playboy.com/"> <em>Playboy</em> </a>– “I kept it under my bed for the stories”). <a href="http://www.burningdeck.com/catalog/quignard.html">Pascal Quignard’s </a>& Peter Russell’s re/inventions of classical authors – <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titus_Albucius">Albucius</a> & <a href="http://www.allbiographies.com/biography-PubliusQuintiliusVarus-33257.html">Quinitilius.</a> It’s been such a long apprenticeship, so many phases. Needing alternatives to the personal/social misery of <a href="http://www.philiplarkin.com/">Philip Larkin </a>& the cosmic misery of <a href="http://www.zeta.org.au/~annskea/THHome.htm">Hughes</a>, I went to the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_American_Poetry_1945-1960"><em>New American Poetry</em> anthology </a>(<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Mountain_poets">Black Mountain </a>more than <a href="http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5646">the beats</a>, though <a href="http://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/Wieners.html">Wieners’</a> life-work continues to be compelling), to European poets through a Penguin books series & to the “deep-image” writings (<a href="http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/73">James Wright </a>more than <a href="http://www.robertbly.com/">Bly</a> & <a href="http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/1112">Tomas Transtromer </a>more than any). If I were only to read (Your Alternative School here….) I would simply have my own narrow orthodoxy. Second Isaiah in <a href="http://www.chbooks.com/archives/online_books/necessity_of_poetry/author.html">David Rosenberg’s </a>translation is magnificent. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Poetry_Revival">The British Revival </a>poets: <a href="http://petersirr.blogspot.com/2007/03/john-riley.html">Rileys, John</a>, <a href="http://www.aprileye.co.uk/">Peter</a> & <a href="http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoet.do?poetId=44">Denise</a>, <a href="http://jacketmagazine.com/06/pryn-kins.html">Prynne</a>, James et al. Some quiet outsiders appeal a lot – <a href="http://www.cultureport.com/newhp/catalog/gilfillan_magpie.html">Merrill Gilfillan </a>in the USA, <a href="http://home.freeuk.com/katermurr/birchard-selected-poems.htm">Guy Birchard </a>in Canada. The 2 Canadians who first hit me, continue to do so whenever I return to them, <a href="http://www.uwo.ca/english/canadianpoetry/cpjrn/vol32/potvin.htm">Webb</a> & <a href="http://jacketmagazine.com/34/derkson-newlove.shtml">Newlove</a>. Ahhhh! Too many – the plot is to have too many to form a canon, to keep ‘em alive beyond the canon’s walls. <a href="http://www.ubu.com/ubu/ferguson_bush.html">Deanna Ferguson </a>– some lines of hers wield the sharpest scalpel I know of. The kids have got to know who else has been around.<br /><br /><strong>16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?</strong><br />Build a house. It’s coming soon to a theatre near me. Next year, Lyn says.<br /><br /><strong>17 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?</strong><br />Sailor, coffee shop owner, aesthetician, chef, rock/blues/folk/alt singer, layabout.<br /><br /><strong>18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?</strong><br />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.<br /><br /><strong>19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?</strong><br />Great? <a href="http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=11433">Daniel Heller-Roazen’s <em>Echolalias: On the Forgetting of Language</em> </a>from <a href="http://www.zonebooks.org/">Zone Books </a>keeps me calling back. I like novels that are impossible: <a href="http://esposito.typepad.com/Misc/Arc_Dx.html">Steve Erickson’s <em>Arc d’X</em> </a>is a pretty wild ride, or <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Our-Ecstatic-Days-Steve-Erickson/dp/0743285107"><em>Our Ecstatic Days</em> </a>– 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 <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0758784/"><em>Starting Out in the Evening</em> </a>and it’s almost flawless.<br /><br /><strong>20 - What are you currently working on?</strong><br />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 <a href="http://www.humument.com/">Tom Philips’ <em>Humument</em> </a>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.<br /><br /><a href="http://robmclennansindex.blogspot.com/2007/09/12-or-20-questions-archive.html"><em>12 or 20 questions archive</em></a></div>rob mclennanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07958889643637765864noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-319589917860132988.post-37127722972504701712008-05-29T09:23:00.000-07:002008-05-29T10:41:29.009-07:0012 or 20 questions: with Diane Schoemperlen<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLgE9_Glgvi9NEOithPvi5iSLixMHlW7Z5hwF6gKpMkqcpH2wcyX6t4JX1NYsG7utbcEhkAX2Ao1hSEeG0gPloT5cziILBTDh6mXY9m0sAvttcmdNEBYMgCLKRGF9GgmQ2AL-hH1Z5vnM/s1600-h/diana.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5205841336493455554" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLgE9_Glgvi9NEOithPvi5iSLixMHlW7Z5hwF6gKpMkqcpH2wcyX6t4JX1NYsG7utbcEhkAX2Ao1hSEeG0gPloT5cziILBTDh6mXY9m0sAvttcmdNEBYMgCLKRGF9GgmQ2AL-hH1Z5vnM/s320/diana.jpg" border="0" /></a>Born and raised in Thunder Bay, Ontario, <a href="http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=A1ARTA0009777"><strong>Diane Schoemperlen</strong> </a>graduated from Lakehead University there in 1976. Immediately after graduation she headed to the <a href="http://www.banffcentre.ca/">Banff Centre </a>where she took a six-week writing program with <a href="http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=A1ARTA0005351">W.O. Mitchell</a>, <a href="http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=A1ARTA0005063">Eli Mandel</a>, <a href="http://www.sylviafraser.net/">Sylvia Fraser</a>, and <a href="http://members.aol.com/MunroAlice/">Alice Munro</a>. 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 <a href="http://www.oberonpress.ca/">Oberon Press’s annual anthology, <em>Coming Attractions</em></a>. She published her first book, <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Double-Exposures-Diane-Schoemperlen/dp/0889102805">Double Exposures</a></em>, with Coach House Press in 1984. She gave birth to her son, Alexander, in Canmore in 1985.<br /><br />Her second book, <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Frogs-other-stories-Diane-Schoemperlen/dp/0919627382">Frogs and Other Stories</a></em>, was published by Quarry Press of Kingston, Ontario in 1986. This book received the <a href="http://www.writersguild.ab.ca/">Writers’ Guild of Alberta Award for Excellence in Short Fiction</a>. 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, <em><a href="http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/books/Hockey-Night-Canada-Other-Stories-Diane-Schoemperlen/9781550820034-item.html">Hockey Night in Canada</a></em>, in 1987. She taught Creative Writing at St. Lawrence College for a number of years as well as many workshops throughout Ontario.<br /><br />In 1989, her short story, “Red Plaid Shirt,” which appeared in <em><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturday_Night_(magazine)">Saturday Night</a></em>, received the <a href="http://www.magazine-awards.com/">Silver National Magazine Award for Fiction</a>. It has since been performed as a one-woman play across the western Canadian provinces. In 1990, her collection of stories, <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Man-My-Dreams-Diane-Schoemperlen/dp/0771599730">The Man of My Dreams</a></em>, was published by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macmillan_of_Canada">MacMillan of Canada</a>. It was short-listed for both the <a href="http://www.canadacouncil.ca/prizes/ggla">Governor-General’s Award</a> and the <a href="http://www.omdc.on.ca/Page3217.aspx">Trillium Prize</a>.<br /><br /><a href="http://everydayiwritethebook.typepad.com/books/2008/02/diane-schoemper.html">Diane’s first novel</a>, <em><a href="http://us.penguingroup.com/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9780140252385,00.html">In the Language of Love</a></em>, was published in 1994 by <a href="http://www.harpercollins.ca/global_scripts/product_catalog/author_xml.asp?authorid=CA468">HarperCollins Canada</a>.<br />It was short-listed for the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Books_in_Canada_First_Novel_Award">Books in Canada/W.H. Smith First Novel Award </a>and has since been published in the United States, Germany, Sweden, and France. Adapted as a stage play by <a href="http://www.thresholdtheater.ca/who.html">Mark Cassidy of Threshold Theatre</a>, it was performed in Kingston and Toronto.<br /><br />In 1998, <a href="http://shelf-monkey.blogspot.com/2008/02/at-loss-for-words-by-diane-schoemperlen.html">Diane’s collection of illustrated stories</a>, <em><a href="http://www.harpercollins.ca/global_scripts/product_catalog/book_xml.asp?isbn=0006391834">Forms of Devotion</a></em>, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Forms-Devotion-Pictures-Diane-Schoemperlen/dp/0670876968">won the Governor-General’s Award for English Fiction</a>. It has been published in the United States, Spain, Korea, and the UK. It too has been adapted as a stage play by <a href="http://www.platform9theatre.com/whitewash_artists.html">Mark Cassidy </a>and performed at the <a href="http://www.fringetoronto.com/">Fringe Festival in Toronto</a>.<br /><br />In 2001, <a href="http://www.albany.edu/offcourse/summer02/mblack.html">Diane’s second novel</a>, <em><a href="http://us.penguingroup.com/static/rguides/us/our_lady_of_the_lost.html">Our Lady of the Lost and Found</a></em>, was published in Canada and the United States. It has since also appeared in China. <em><a href="http://www.amazon.ca/Plaid-Shirt-Stories-Diane-Schoemperlen/dp/0142003204">Red Plaid Shirt: Stories New and Selected</a></em>, <a href="http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb3544/is_200406/ai_n8360631">came out in 2002</a>. This was followed in 2004 by Diane’s first book of non-fiction, <em><a href="http://writerscafe.ca/book_blogs/writers/diane-schoemperlen_names-of-the-dead.php">Names of the Dead: An Elegy for the Victims of September 11</a></em>.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.catholicmom.com/schemeperlen.htm">Diane’s most recent book </a>is <em><a href="http://www.foursevens.com/prosecast/2008/02/06/diane-schoemperlen-at-a-loss-for-words/">At A Loss For Words: A Post-Romantic Novel</a></em>, published in Canada by HarperCollins and <a href="http://www.maiapress.com/home.php">in the UK by Maia Press</a>. In April 2008 she received the <a href="http://www.writerstrust.com/programs_apa_marianengel.html">Marian Engel Award from the Writers’ Trust of Canada</a>. She still lives in Kingston, with her son Alex, her three cats, Max, Sammy, and Buster, and her lovely little dog, Nelly.<br /><br /><div><strong>1. How did your first book change your life?</strong><br /><br />My first book, <em>Double Exposures</em>, was published by <a href="http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/2/17/h17-203-e.html">Coach House Press </a>in 1984. At the time I was living in <a href="http://www.canmorealberta.com/">Canmore, Alberta</a>, 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.<br /><br />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.”<br /><br /><strong>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?</strong><br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br /><strong>3. Where does a piece of fiction usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a “book” from the very beginning?</strong><br /><br />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 <a href="http://www.themodernword.com/SCRIPTorium/barthelme.html"><em>Sadness</em> by Donald Barthelme</a>. 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”!<br /><br />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 <em>Forms of Devotion</em> was definitely conceived as a book from the beginning.<br /><br /><strong>4. Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process?</strong><br /><br />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!<br /><br />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!)<br /><br /><strong>5. Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?<br /></strong><br />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!<br /><br />While actually writing, the only question I am trying to answer with my work is: How can I best tell this story?<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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?<br /><br /><strong>6. Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?</strong><br /><br />Since my first novel, <a href="http://www.lailalalami.com/blog/archives/004651.html"><em>In the Language of Love</em> </a>(published in 1994) my editor has been <a href="http://www.harpercollins.ca/imprints.asp?imprint=Phyllis%20Bruce%20Books">Phyllis Bruce at HarperCollins Canada</a>. 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!<br /><br /><strong>7. After having published more than a couple of titles over the years, do you find the process of book-making harder or easier?</strong><br /><br />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!<br /><br /><strong>8. When was the last time you ate a pear?<br /></strong><br />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 <a href="http://www.timhortons.com/">Tim Hortons </a>and have an iced cappuccino when I should be eating, if not a pear, then at least a peach!<br /><br /><strong>9. What is the best piece of advice you’ve heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?<br /></strong><br />The best piece of advice I’ve ever heard was actually the worst piece of advice I’ve ever heard.<br />When I was a student at <a href="http://www.lakeheadu.ca/">Lakehead University </a>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.<br /><br />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…)<br /><br /><strong>10. How easy has it been for you to move between genres (short story to the novel)? What do you see as the appeal?</strong><br /><br />Initially it was difficult and somewhat accidental. My first novel, <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Language-Love-Diane-Schoemperlen/dp/014025238X">In the Language of Love</a></em>, 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.”<br />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.<br /><br />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, <em><a href="http://www.straight.com/article-130221/at-a-loss-for-words">At A Loss For Words</a></em>, 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.<br /><br /><strong>11. What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?<br /></strong><br />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.<br /><br />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!</div><br /><div><strong>13. How does your most recent book compare to your previous work? How does it feel different?</strong><br /><br />My most recent book, <em><a href="http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/story.html?id=91e686e3-4144-48cd-9927-da30d078416c">At A Loss For Words</a></em>, is a return to some of the themes of my first novel, <em><a href="http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE4D71039F936A15751C0A960958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all">In the Language of Love</a></em>. It felt very comfortable and natural to be once again writing about misguided romance after writing weightier books about the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blessed_Virgin_Mary">Virgin Mary </a>and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11,_2001_attacks">September 11</a>. 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 <a href="http://www.mefeedia.com/entry/diane-schoemperlen-at-a-loss-for-words/6261850/"><em>At A Loss For Words</em> </a>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.<br /><br /><strong>14. <a href="http://www.wier.ca/dmcfadden.html">David W. McFadden </a>once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?</strong><br /><br />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 <a href="http://www.lfpress.com/cgi-bin/publish.cgi?p=224275&s=books"><em>Forms of Devotion</em> </a>was an ideal form for me.<br /><br /><strong>15. What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?</strong><br /><br />The essential writers/books I turn to again and again are:<br /><a href="http://www.absolutewrite.com/novels/carole_maso.htm">Carole Maso </a>(<em><a href="http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2278/is_1_26/ai_77049935">Ava</a></em> and <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Break-Every-Rule-Language-Longing/dp/1582430632">Break Every Rule: Essays on Language, Longing, & Moments of Desire</a></em>)<br /><a href="http://www.bookslut.com/features/2005_07_005963.php">David Markson </a>(<a href="http://www.amazon.com/This-Not-Novel-David-Markson/dp/1582431337"><em>This Is Not A Novel</em> </a>and <em><a href="http://www.complete-review.com/reviews/marksond/readersb.htm">Reader’s Block</a></em>)<br /><a href="http://archive.salon.com/books/int/2000/08/21/adler/">Renata Adler </a>(<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Pitch-dark-Renata-Adler/dp/0893407771"><em>Pitch Dark</em> </a>and <em><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renata_Adler">Speedboat</a></em>)<br /><a href="http://susangriffin.com/">Susan Griffin </a>(<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Chorus-Stones-Private-Life-War/dp/038541885X"><em>A Chorus of Stones: The Private Life of War </em></a>and<em> <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Woman-Nature-Roaring-Inside-Her/dp/1578050472">Women and Nature: The Roaring Inside Her</a></em>)<br /><a href="http://www.mit.edu/~humanistic/faculty/lightman.html">Alan Lightman </a>(<em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Einsteins-Dreams-Alan-Lightman/dp/0446670111">Einstein’s Dreams</a></em>)<br /><a href="http://www.alaindebotton.com/">Alain de Botton </a>(<em><a href="http://www.complete-review.com/reviews/debotton/onlove.htm">Essays in Love</a></em>)<br /><a href="http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/galeano.htm">Eduardo Galeano </a>(<em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Embraces-Norton-Paperback-Eduardo-Galeano/dp/0393308553">The Book of Embraces</a></em>)<br /><a href="http://www.themodernword.com/scriptorium/perec.html">Georges Perec </a>(<em><a href="http://www.complete-review.com/reviews/perecg/speciess.htm">Species of Spaces and Other Pieces</a></em>)<br /><a href="http://pintopc.home.cern.ch/pintopc/WWW/FPessoa/FPessoa.html">Fernando Pessoa </a>(<em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Book-Disquiet-Penguin-Classics/dp/0141183047">The Book of Disquiet</a></em>)<br /><a href="http://www.randomhouse.ca/author/results.pperl?authorid=19268">Tomas Eloy Martinez </a>(<em><a href="http://bhupindersingh.blogspot.com/2006/08/santa-evita-by-tomas-eloy-martinez_12.html">Santa Evita</a></em>)<br /><a href="http://www.eskimo.com/~jessamyn/barth/">Donald Barthelme </a><br /><a href="http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=A1ARTA0005522">Alice Munro </a><br /><a href="http://www.anniedillard.com/">Annie Dillard</a>.<br /><br /><strong>16. What would you like to do that you haven’t yet done?</strong><br /><br />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.<br /><br /><strong>17. If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?</strong><br /><br />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.<br /><br /><strong>18. What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?</strong><br /><br />Sheer stubbornness.<br /><br /><strong>19. What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?<br /></strong><br />The last two great books I’ve read are <a href="http://www.quillandquire.com/authors/profile.cfm?article_id=7654"><em>The Book of Negroes</em> </a>by <a href="http://www.lawrencehill.com/the_book_of_negroes.html">Lawrence Hill </a>and <a href="http://www.randomhouse.ca/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780307397034"><em>The Cellist of Sarajevo</em> </a>by <a href="http://www.creativewriting.ubc.ca/faculty/galloway.html">Steven Galloway</a>. The best film I’ve seen recently is <em><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0477348/">No Country for Old Men</a></em>.<br /><br /><strong>20. What are you currently working on?<br /></strong><br />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.<br /></div><div><a href="http://robmclennansindex.blogspot.com/2007/09/12-or-20-questions-archive.html"><em>12 or 20 questions archive</em></a></div>rob mclennanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07958889643637765864noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-319589917860132988.post-321036139280956422008-05-24T12:17:00.000-07:002008-05-24T12:50:52.555-07:0012 or 20 questions: with Joe Blades<a href="http://www.brokenjaw.com/Joe_Blades.htm"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5204027391415728290" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTy_QlL70P-HT8i0mxGFVxr9DfonxMyMO_675eYCCoHipgFpbZ1oR1DYMT7_5rSgsuUf_1XaI92_iczOj-WC4B-TNmspiwsBKL3L2km1T50UoO3KAauXeNc9ENIwn0R9OU38-zBFfxqAs/s320/joeblades.jpg" border="0" /><strong>Joe Blades</strong> </a>has <a href="http://www.danforthreview.com/poetry/09_99/joe_blades.html">been giving readings </a>and publishing his poetry since 1980. <a href="http://www.library.utoronto.ca/canpoetry/blades/index.htm">He is a writer, artist, and publisher</a>-<a href="http://www.danforthreview.com/features/interviews/broken_jaw.htm">president of the independent</a>, literary publishing house <a href="http://www.brokenjaw.com/">Broken Jaw Press Inc</a>. founded by him in 1983, plus he is on the editorial board of <em><a href="http://ellipsemag.tripod.com/id1.html">revue ellipse mag</a></em>.<br /><br /><a href="http://popstart.ca/en/members/joe-blades">Blades</a> was born in Halifax, NS, Canada. A graduate of the <a href="http://www.nscad.ns.ca/">Nova Scotia College of Art and Design </a>(BFA, 1988), he is also an alumni of the <a href="http://www.banffcentre.ca/">Banff Centre</a>, <a href="http://extend.unb.ca/pers_cult/writers/">Maritime Writers Workshop</a>, <a href="http://www.sagehillwriting.ca/">Sage Hill Writing Experience</a>, and the <a href="http://www.ccsp.sfu.ca/pubworks/financial.html">Simon Fraser University Book Publishing Immersion Workshop</a>. He recently completed a Certificate in Film and Television offered by the <a href="http://www.nbfilmcoop.com/">NB Filmmakers’ Cooperative</a>.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.writersunion.ca/ww_profile.asp?mem=120&L=B">Based in Fredericton, New Brunswick since 1990</a>, 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.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.poets.ca/linktext/direct/blades.htm">Blades</a> 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 <em><a href="http://www.brokenjaw.com/ashespaperandbeans.htm">Ashes, Paper & Beans: Fredericton’s Writing & Art Show</a></em>.<br /><br />In June 2007, <a href="http://people.stu.ca/~hunt/artsalliance/an0538.htm">Blades</a> was elected to a second term as the NB & PEI Regional Representative on the National Council of <a href="http://www.poets.ca/">The League of Canadian Poets</a>. He is also an active member of the <a href="http://btmgang.blogspot.com/">BlackTop MotorCycle Gang writers’ group in Fredericton</a>.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.cbbag.ca/Mosaic/Blades.html">Blades</a> was curator of <em>Videopoems: A Screening</em> for the 2003 <a href="http://www.imdb.com/Sections/Awards/Tidal_Wave_Film_Festival/">Tidal Wave Film Festival</a>, 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 <a href="http://www.brokenjaw.com/catalog/pg95.htm"><em>Some Stuff on Canadian Spoken Word & Indie Publishing</em> </a>(NCRA/ANRÉC, 2004) and <em>UGLY: an instant spoken word chapbook anthology</em> (Broken Jaw Press, 2007.<br /><br />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 <a href="http://www.brokenjaw.com/catalog/pg42.htm"><em>Cover Makes a Set</em> </a>(SpareTime Editions, 1990), <a href="http://www.brokenjaw.com/catalog/pg12.htm"><em>River Suite</em> </a>(<a href="http://www.insomniacpress.com/">Insomniac Press</a>, 1998), <a href="http://www.brokenjaw.com/catalog/pg30.htm"><em>Open Road West</em> </a>(Broken Jaw Press, 2000, 2001), and <a href="http://www.brokenjaw.com/catalog/pg96.htm"><em>Casemate Poems</em> </a>(Widows & Orphans, 2004). Two of theses were translated and published in Serbian editions as <em>Recna svita</em> in the three author–three book anthology <em>Slike iz kanade: Tri kanadska pesnika</em> (SKC Niš) and <a href="http://www.brokenjaw.com/catalog/pg108.htm"><em>Pesme iz kazamata</em> </a>(i.p. Rad) in 2005. His fifth poetry book, <em>Casemate Poems (Collected)</em> (<a href="http://www.chaudierebooks.com/">Chaudiere Books</a>) is in the works for 2008.<br /><div></div><br /><div><strong>1 _ How did your first book change your life?</strong><br /><br />It wasn't earth-shattering, but <em>Cover Makes A Set</em> (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.<br /><br /><strong>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?<br /></strong><br />I moved to Fredericton in 1990, but have been active here since 1988.<br /></div><br /><div>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 <em>TriBeCa</em> (<a href="http://www.abovegroundpress.blogspot.com/">above/ground press</a>, 1997) chapbook came to be written on the spot, in New York City, as well as my considerable output of "<a href="http://www.library.utoronto.ca/canpoetry/blades/poem6.htm">casemate poems</a>" during the several short-term, very public artist residencies that I've been given.<br /></div><br /><div>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 <a href="http://www.beograd.org.yu/cms/view.php?id=220">Belgrade</a> 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.<br /><br /><strong>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?<br /></strong><br />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.<br /><br /><strong>4 _ Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process?</strong><br /><br />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.<br /></div><br /><div>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.<br /><br /><strong>5 _ Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?</strong><br /><br />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.<br /><br /><strong>6 _ Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?</strong><br /><br />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.<br /><br /><strong>7 _ After having published more than a couple of titles over the years, do you find the process of book-making harder or easier?<br /></strong><br />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.<br /><br /><strong>8 _ When was the last time you ate a pear?<br /></strong><br />Christmas 2007 at my parents' new-to-them house in <a href="http://www.destination-ns.com/common/places.asp?PlaceID=1377">West Chezzetcook, NS</a>.<br /><br /><strong>9 _ What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?</strong><br /><br />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 <a href="http://www.fairmont.com/banffsprings/">B.S. Hotel</a>, that my friend and co-worker Andrew Perry and me were talking on the <a href="http://www.virtualtourist.com/travel/North_America/Canada/Province_of_Alberta/Banff-911386/Things_To_Do-Banff-Banff_Avenue-BR-1.html">Banff Ave bridge </a>over the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bow_River">Bow River</a>: 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.<br /><br /><strong>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?</strong><br /><br />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.</div><br /><div>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.<br /><br /><strong>11 _ What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?</strong><br /><br />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.<br /><br /><strong>12 _ When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?</strong><br /><br />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.<br /><br /><strong>13 _ How does your most recent book compare to your previous work? How does it feel different?</strong><br /><br />What is my most recent book: one published or one written? <em>Casemate Poems (Collected) </em>is an expanded collection from my earlier <a href="http://www.brokenjaw.com/catalog/pg96.htm"><em>Casemate Poems</em> </a>(Waterloo: Widows & Orphans, 2004) and its Serbian edition <a href="http://www.brokenjaw.com/catalog/pg108.htm"><em>Pesme iz kazamata</em> </a>(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 "<a href="http://www.brokenjaw.com/catalog/pg116.htm">24 Hour Zine Thing</a>" challenge issue of <a href="http://www.brokenjaw.com/catalog/list-by-title.htm"><em>New Muse of Contempt</em> </a>(2007).<br /><br /><strong>14 _ <a href="http://www.parl.gc.ca/information/about/people/poet/poem-of-the-week/poets-e.htm?param=9">David W. McFadden </a>once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?</strong><br /><br />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.</div><br /><div><strong>15 _ What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?<br /></strong><br /><a href="http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/8">Ginsberg</a>, <a href="http://www.billbissett.com/">bill bissett</a>, <a href="http://www.canadianpoetryassoc.com/jamesdeahl.html">James Deahl</a>, <a href="http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/s_z/snyder/snyder.htm">Snyder</a>, <a href="http://www.library.utoronto.ca/canpoetry/atwood/index.htm">early Atwood</a>, <a href="http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/a_f/cummings/cummings.htm">cummings</a>, <a href="http://www.library.utoronto.ca/canpoetry/lane/index.htm">M. Travis Lane</a>, <a href="http://www.athabascau.ca/writers/nowlan/nowlan.html">Alden Nowlan</a>, <a href="http://www.poets.ca/linktext/direct/gibbs.htm">Robert Gibbs</a>, <a href="http://sdrc.lib.uiowa.edu/dada/dadaists/index.html">the Dadaists</a>, <a href="http://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/4-Horsemen.html">the Four Horsemen</a>, <a href="http://www.library.utoronto.ca/canpoetry/moure/index.htm">Erin Mouré</a>. . . <a href="http://www.gotpoetry.com/News/article/sid=9188.html">even you</a>.<br /><br /><strong>16 _ What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?</strong><br /><br />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, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andora">Andora</a>, Argentina . . .<br /><br /><strong>17 _ If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?</strong><br /><br />Well, I could have retired from the phone company by now, if I had stayed there. Could have been a chef. </div><br /><div>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.<br /><br /><strong>18 _ What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?</strong><br /><br />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.<br /><br /><strong>19 _ What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film [seen]?</strong><br /><br />Book: <a href="http://www.villagevoice.com/books/0434,ng2,56352,10.html"><em>Brazil Red</em> </a>by <a href="http://www.parisvoice.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=106&Itemid=42">Jean-Christophe Rufin</a>, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Brazil-Red-Jean-Christophe-Rufin/dp/0393052079">translated by Willard Wood</a>.<br />Film: <em><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0401383/">The Diving Bell and The Butterfly</a></em>.<br /><strong><br />20 _ What are you currently working on?<br /></strong><br />Proofreading galleys of my next book, <em>Casemate Poems (Collected)</em> (Chaudiere Books) and Broken Jaw's next book, <em><a href="http://www.brokenjaw.com/catalog/pg120.htm">The York County Jail: A Brief Illustrated History</a></em>, by <a href="http://www.amazon.ca/Great-Maritime-Achievers-Science-Technology/dp/0864923805">George MacBeath </a>& 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" . . .<br /></div><div><a href="http://robmclennansindex.blogspot.com/2007/09/12-or-20-questions-archive.html"><em>12 or 20 questions archive</em></a></div>rob mclennanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07958889643637765864noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-319589917860132988.post-3589511870117335162008-05-01T09:57:00.000-07:002008-05-01T11:03:28.776-07:0012 or 20 questions: with Carolyn Marie Souaid<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmipojHksf6km2EiQvBOsfZ3sHJDL1TDXJs83SHialS5c5EYjcEaBnT7QIJhxH_-7SDT4fLzCPGWfzxYlRgFga8dTzsnlec_5l7YlpW0d7rXFcBAfEJJlq8sBPVOZ3LA9gZ5GQBheJV7k/s1600-h/carolynmariesouaid.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5195456640886125730" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmipojHksf6km2EiQvBOsfZ3sHJDL1TDXJs83SHialS5c5EYjcEaBnT7QIJhxH_-7SDT4fLzCPGWfzxYlRgFga8dTzsnlec_5l7YlpW0d7rXFcBAfEJJlq8sBPVOZ3LA9gZ5GQBheJV7k/s320/carolynmariesouaid.jpg" border="0" /></a> <div><a href="http://souaid.com/works/index.shtml"><strong>Carolyn Marie Souaid</strong> </a>(Montreal, 1959- ) is an editor, teacher, <a href="http://www.aelaq.org/mrb/feature.php?issue=18&article=534&cat=1">book reviewer</a>, and <a href="http://www.poets.ca/Linktext/direct/souaid.htm">the author of four collections of poetry</a>, including <em><a href="http://www.danforthreview.com/reviews/poetry/souaid.htm">Satie's Sad Piano</a></em>, which was shortlisted for the <a href="http://www.poets.ca/linktext/awards/lowther.htm">2006 Pat Lowther Memorial Award </a>and the <a href="http://www.mbwriter.mb.ca/mwapa/award_scorer.html">Mary Scorer Award </a>(Manitoba Book of the Year Awards). Her latest work, <em>Flight</em>, was released as a limited edition chapbook by <a href="http://www.rubiconpress.org/">Rubicon Press </a>in 2007. <a href="http://www.learnquebec.ca/fr/content/metropolis_bleu/quebecbouquine/authors/souaid.html">Her work has been produced for CBC-Radio</a>, and has been published nationally and internationally. <a href="http://www.vehiculepress.com/montreal/gallery/souaid.html">She has appeared at many literary festivals across the country</a>, and was recently sent to Paris as part of a Canadian delegation of authors invited to participate in the 4th <a href="http://irsm.org/statements/irsp/current/031228.html">Symposium Against Isolation</a>, 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 <em><a href="http://www.freedom-anthology.com/">Freedom: An Anthology of Canadian Poets for Turkish Resistance</a></em>, 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 <a href="http://www.vehiculepoets.com/endre-farkas.htm">Endre Farkas</a>) of two of Montreal’s major literary events: <em>Poésie en mouvement / Poetry in Motion</em> (the poetry-on-the-buses project, 2004) and the annual <em>Circus of Words / Cirque des mots</em>, a multidisciplinary, multilingual cabaret celebrating the “theatre” of poetry. <a href="http://souaid.com/works/books/october/article_27.shtml"><em>October</em> </a>(Signature Editions, 1999), shortlisted for the <a href="http://www.qwf.org/awards/">A.M. Klein Award </a>and set against the backdrop of the events of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_Crisis">1970 FLQ crisis</a>, represented Montreal in a showcase of the city as “World Book Capital” in 2005-2006. In 2007, she edited <em><a href="http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/books/Quotidian-Fever-New-Selected-Poems-Endre-Farkas/9781897289211-item.html">Quotidian Fever</a></em>, the new and selected poems of<a href="http://www.endrefarkas.com/"> Endre Farkas </a>[<a href="http://12or20questions.blogspot.com/2008/03/12-or-20-questions-with-endre-farkas.html">see his 12 or 20 questions here</a>], published by The Muses’ Company. <a href="http://national-random-acts-of-poetry.blogspot.com/2006/09/souaid-carolyn-marie-montreal-qc.html">Carolyn</a> holds a Masters degree in <a href="http://artsandscience1.concordia.ca/english/PGCreativeWritingIntro.html">Creative Writing from Concordia University in Montreal</a>.<br /><br /><strong>1 - How did your first book change your life?<br /></strong><br />Overnight, I became rich and famous.<br /><br /><strong>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?<br /></strong><br />I moved from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint-Hyacinthe">St-Hyacinthe </a>to <a href="http://www.ville.saint-lambert.qc.ca/asp/siteweb/Accueil_Saint_Lambert.asp">St-Lambert</a>, 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-<a href="http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=A1ARTA0008205">Ungava coast of Northern Québec</a>. Being a stone’s throw from Montreal and, yet, being separated from it by the <a href="http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=A1ARTA0007094">St-Lawrence River </a>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.<br /><br />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 <em><a href="http://ww.aelaq.org/mrb/article.php?issue=15&article=463&cat=3">Satie’s Sad Piano</a></em>, set during the aftermath of <a href="http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=A1ARTA0008141">former Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau’s </a>death. The book features a cast of eclectic characters or “voices” (including one called Mount Royal) who bear witness to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Trudeau">Trudeau</a> and his time. <em><a href="http://www.poets.ca/pshstore/Profile_book.asp?ISBN=0921833679">October</a></em>, an earlier book focusing on the <a href="http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=A1ARTA0005880">October Crisis of 1970</a>, is set primarily in the suburb where I grew up and where Quebec’s Minister of Labour, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Laporte">Pierre Laporte</a>, 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. <em><a href="http://www.aelaq.org/mrb/article.php?issue=11&article=283&cat=3">Snow Formations</a></em>, 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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br /><strong>3 - Where does a poem usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?<br /></strong><br />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.<br /><br />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 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebanon">Lebanon</a>, for instance.<br /><br /><strong>4- Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process?<br /></strong><br />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.<br /><br /><strong>5 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?</strong><br /><br />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 <em><a href="http://souaid.com/works/books/swimming/article_26.shtml">Swimming into the Light</a></em>, for example, I wondered how an adoptive mother could possibly bond with her child the same way a biological mother could. <em><a href="http://www.ryerson.ca/library/events/asian_heritage/souaid.html">October</a></em>, 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). <a href="http://souaid.com/works/books/snow/article_28.shtml"><em>Snow Formations</em> </a>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.<br /><br /><strong>6 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?</strong><br /><br />Sometimes difficult, but always essential. I have had great experiences working with <a href="http://www.poets.ca/Linktext/direct/farkas.htm">Endre Farkas</a>, <a href="http://www.mbwriter.mb.ca/mapindex/a_profiles/amabile_g.html">George Amabile</a>, <a href="http://www.vehiculepress.com/robert_allen.html">Rob Allen</a>, and <a href="http://www.melaniecameron.com/shillingford.htm">Karen Haughian</a>, my publisher. I remember the invaluable education I got going through the editing process on my first book when <a href="http://www.poets.ca/Linktext/direct/harrismi.htm">Michael Harris </a>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.<br /><br /><strong>7 - After having published more than a couple of titles over the years, do you find the process of book-making harder or easier?</strong><br /><br />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.<br /><br /><strong>8 - When was the last time you ate a pear?</strong><br /><br />Pass. That’s too personal a question.<br /><br /><strong>9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?</strong><br /><br />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: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpe_diem">Carpe Diem</a>.<br /><br /><strong>10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to reviews/non-fiction)? What do you see as the appeal?</strong><br /><br />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 <a href="http://www.themercurypress.ca/?q=section/word">the literary hub of Canada</a>. 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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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 <a href="http://www.canadacouncil.ca/prizes/ggla">GG Awards</a>, 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.<br /><br /><strong>11 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?</strong><br /><br />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.<br /><br /><strong>12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?</strong><br /><br />I 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, <em><a href="http://souaid.com/works/books/satie/printer_29.shtml">Satie’s Sad Piano</a></em>, a more conscious attempt to step outside my small personal ghetto and experiment with voice and form. Written in the spirit of <a href="http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/books/Whylah-Falls-10th-Anniversary-Edition-George-Elliott-Clarke/9781896095509-item.html">George Elliott Clarke’s <em>Whylah Falls</em> </a>(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 <a href="http://www.library.utoronto.ca/canpoetry/moure/index.htm">Erin Moure </a>[<a href="http://robmclennan.blogspot.com/2007/09/12-or-20-questions-with-erin-moure-bio.html">see her 12 or 20 questions here</a>] (even though I myself teach similar courses for the <a href="http://www.qwf.org/">Quebec Writers’ Federation</a>) partly to renew my own battery and partly to get a better handle on some of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erin_Mour%C3%A9">Erin’s </a>own creative process. <a href="http://www.anansi.ca/authors.cfm?author_id=83">Erin </a>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.<br /><br /><strong>13 - How does your most recent book compare to your previous work? How does it feel different?<br /></strong><br />My most recent book (<em>Paper Oranges</em>, 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.<br /><br /><strong>14 - <a href="http://www.library.utoronto.ca/canpoetry/mcfadden/index.htm">David W. McFadden </a>once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?<br /></strong><br />I don’t consciously rely on outside influences for writing in the sense that I wouldn’t slide a CD of <a href="http://www.callas.it/">Maria Callas </a>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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />Finally, I am a woman, and I write through that lens. It is not a form, it is my social reality.<br /><br /><strong>15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?</strong><br /><br />It depends on who I’m reading at the time – not only poets, but philosophers, too. Living or dead. Most recently, it has been <a href="http://www.frankohara.org/">Frank O’Hara </a>and <a href="http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/g_l/gluck/gluck.htm">Louise Gluck</a>. And <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_David_Thoreau">Thoreau</a>, for instruction on how to live.<br /><br /><strong>16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?</strong><br /><br />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 <em>Circus of Words</em> (the multidisciplinary multilingual cabaret show that I co-produce with <a href="http://www.endrefarkas.com/">Endre Farkas</a>) when <a href="http://questinggirl.blogspot.com/">Jennifer Boire </a>hired a director and two actors to stage a 15-minute piece focused on the <a href="http://www.hvgb.net/~sedna/story.html">Sedna myth </a>which appears in my book <em><a href="http://www.amazon.ca/Snow-Formations-Carolyn-Marie-Souaid/dp/0921833857">Snow Formations</a></em>. It was awesome.<br /><br /><strong>17 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?<br /></strong><br />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.<br /><br /><strong>18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?<br /></strong><br />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 <a href="http://www.philiplarkin.com/">Philip Larkin </a>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.<br /><br /><strong>19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?</strong><br /><br /><em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Life-Pi-Yann-Martel/dp/0156027321">Life of Pi</a></em>, by <a href="http://www.randomhouse.ca/newface/martel.php">Yann Martel</a>; <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/End-Affair-Twentieth-Century-Classics/dp/0140184953">The End of the Affair</a></em>, by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_Greene">Graham Greene</a>.<br /><br />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 <a href="http://www.woodyallen.com/">Woody Allen </a>fan (<em><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075686/">Annie Hall</a></em>, <em><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091167/">Hannah & Her Sisters</a></em>, <em><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097123/">Crimes & Misdemeanors</a></em>, <em><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079522/">Manhattan</a></em>, <em><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077742/">Interiors</a></em>). Also: <em><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086879/">Amadeus</a></em>, <em><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110877/combined">Il Postino</a></em>, <em><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_Is_Beautiful">Life is Beautiful</a></em>, <em><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071562/">Godfather II</a></em>, <em><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082783/">My Dinner With André</a></em>, <em><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0034583/">Casablanca</a></em>, <em><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104237/">Damage</a></em>, <em><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0032138/">The Wizard of Oz</a></em>, <em><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0033467/">Citizen Kane</a></em>, <em><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112818/">Dead Man Walking</a></em>, <em><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073486/">One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest</a></em>. I’ve surely forgotten some. I think the films coming out of Quebec are among the best in Canada: <em><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0401085/">CRAZY</a></em>, <em><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097635/">Jesus de Montréal</a></em>, <em><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090985/">Le Déclin de l'Empire Américain</a></em>, <em><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103787/">Being at Home with Claude</a></em>, to name a few.<br /><br /><strong>20 - What are you currently working on?<br /></strong><br />Playing. Not taking myself so seriously. A few new poems I’d rather keep under wraps for now. </div><br /><div></div><div><a href="http://robmclennansindex.blogspot.com/2007/09/12-or-20-questions-archive.html"><em>12 or 20 questions archive</em></a></div>rob mclennanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07958889643637765864noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-319589917860132988.post-82848755783204282442008-03-26T12:29:00.000-07:002008-03-26T13:36:35.951-07:0012 or 20 questions: with Stacey May Fowles<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYLF_wKB_oziBBszRzzlaOExaB5t_6z2gxrBID80gD13PVcqOELE3VkTTsT-x1l1xVCk1S_WZY1rsjMXFnVttRAcPNcv1GaTv2xruor7EuZsmvg3OswGxTPvO-jDmmY4cR1jo5zdbpQQE/s1600-h/Stacey+May+Fowles.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5182140830824681794" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYLF_wKB_oziBBszRzzlaOExaB5t_6z2gxrBID80gD13PVcqOELE3VkTTsT-x1l1xVCk1S_WZY1rsjMXFnVttRAcPNcv1GaTv2xruor7EuZsmvg3OswGxTPvO-jDmmY4cR1jo5zdbpQQE/s320/Stacey+May+Fowles.jpg" border="0" /></a>Photo Credit: Kelly Clipperton<br /><div></div><br /><div><a href="http://www.danforthreview.com/features/profiles/stacey_may_fowles.htm"><strong>Stacey May Fowles'</strong> </a>written work <a href="http://absinthe-literary-review.com/stories/fowles.htm">has been published in various online </a>and print magazines, including <em><a href="http://www.kissmachine.org/">Kiss Machine</a></em>, <em><a href="http://absinthe-literary-review.com/">The Absinthe Literary Review</a></em>, and <em><a href="http://www.subterrain.ca/">subTERRAIN</a></em>. Her non-fiction has been anthologized in the widely acclaimed <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Nobody-Passes-Rejecting-Gender-Conformity/dp/1580051847"><em>Nobody Passes: Rejecting the Rules of Gender and Conformity</em> </a>and <em><a href="http://www.arsenalpulp.com/bookinfo.php?index=269">First Person Queer</a></em>. <a href="http://www.openbooktoronto.com/zwhittall/blog/zoe_t_leroy_asks_author_stacey_may_fowles_about_britney_chris_crocker_david_miller_un">Her first novel</a>, <em><a href="http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/books/Be-Good-Stacey-May-Fowles/9780978335106-item.html?sterm=Stacey+May+Fowles+-+Books">Be Good</a></em>, was published with <a href="http://www.tightropebooks.com/">Tightrope Books</a> in November 2007, and <a href="http://www.quillandquire.com/"><em>Quill & Quire</em> </a>called it "a thoughtful examination of sexuality, relationships, and what it means to tell the truth." </div><br /><div></div><div>Her next book, <em>Fear of Fighting</em>, is a graphic novel collaboration with artist Marlena Zuber (<a href="http://www.marlenazuber.com/">http://www.marlenazuber.com/</a>) and will be released with <a href="http://www.invisiblepublishing.com/">Invisible Publishing </a>in fall 2008. <a href="http://www.descant.ca/blog/?cat=15">She has work forthcoming</a> in the anthologies <em>IV Lounge Nights</em> (<a href="http://tightropebooks.blogspot.com/">Tightrope Books</a>) and <em>TOK3</em> (<a href="http://www.diasporadialogues.com/index2.asp">Diaspora Dialogues</a>). <a href="http://www.blogto.com/books_lit/2007/06/stacey_may_fowles_interview/">Fowles</a> currently lives in Toronto where she is the publisher of <em><a href="http://www.shamelessmag.com/">Shameless Magazine</a></em>. </div><br /><div></div><div><strong>1 - How did <a href="http://www.shamelessmag.com/blog/2007/11/be-good-and-come-to-the-book-launch/">your first book </a>change your life?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div>When I was a teenager I genuinely thought publishing a book would change my life, but if I'm honest it hasn't really. Don't get me wrong, I do think it's a fantastic process, but you have these teenage daydreams about glamorous book signings and parties with champagne all around, and it's very rarely like that. Thankfully, it's a job like any other. Having said that, I don't think I was fully prepared for that sudden feeling of being exposed and that has changed me—writing is such a solitary act and then all of a sudden you're sharing it all with grandma, your fifth grade teacher, and many more people you've never met. It's surprising how much anxiety that can create, but after a while life just continues on the same way it did before. You learn not to take it all to seriously. I'm still exactly the same person I always was, only now with a box of books with my name on them in my living room. It's hard not to get caught up in the drama and romance of "the novel" and "published author," so it's really best to step back and enjoy it for what it is. If anything it's just helped me be more confident as a professional writer. </div><br /><div></div><div><strong>2 - How long have you lived in Toronto, and how does geography, if at all, impact on your writing? Does race or gender make any impact on your work? </strong></div><br /><div></div><div>I was born in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scarborough,_Ontario">Scarborough</a> and left for Montreal as soon as I finished high school. After a brief stint in Vancouver I came back to Toronto when I was 25 and have been here ever since. I've always been very interested in the kinds of characters urban environments create. In <a href="http://girlistic.com/blog/blogs/index.php?blog=2&p=1397&more=1&page=1"><em>Be Good</em> </a>I really wanted to focus on place as a character so really investigating geography was imperative to that. After all the lonely city living I've experience I've become mildly obsessed with what the urban landscape can do to a person. I suppose one day when I become a suburban soccer mom in the suburbs I'll write about gated communities, cookie baking and the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parent-Teacher_Association">PTA</a> instead. </div><br /><div></div><div>As for gender, I'm the publisher at <a href="http://www.shamelessmag.com/"><em>Shameless Magazine</em> </a>so it's very hard not to see everything through that particular lens. I also really feel that there are very few books depicting women in their twenties that don't treat them like they're boy-crazy, vapid morons, so in some ways it's important to me to create literature for young women that is genuine and that they can identify with. When <a href="http://www.hbo.com/city/"><em>Sex in the City</em> </a>is the only thing young, urban women can vaguely relate to, there's a real problem. </div><br /><div></div><div><strong>3 - Where does a piece of fiction usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div>I'm a pretty messy writer—a cliched notes on napkins and receipts type. I tend to write whenever and whatever comes and worry about cleaning up and weaving together a narrative later. There's a lot of constant rearranging, editing and piecing together involved, and of course, a lot of cutting. Sometimes short stories decide they want to be novels and vice versa, and sometimes a character from one piece decides she wants to wants to end up in another piece. I have this grey and white tailless cat that repeatedly ends up in my stories. I try not to do much planning or have too many expectations beforehand— I find I'm more productive and much less neurotic that way. If you give yourself permission to write crap you'll get rid of later, you'll likely come out with something good, whereas if you restrict yourself via perfection and a stringent plan you'll likely just get frustrated. </div><br /><div></div><div><strong>4 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div>I used to be terrified of reading in public. It's legendary. I actually chickened out of the first reading I ever signed up to do. Since then I've vomited a couple of times beforehand and armed myself with some <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeopathy">homeopathic remedies </a>in order to get myself on stage. I wouldn't say that readings are part of the creative process for me (I certainly don't write with the intention of reading it to a crowd) but I do think readings are integral part of connecting to readers. Performance is the dynamic and communal part of an often reclusive activity, and after a while readings become exhilarating. The trick is to keep 'em short and swear at least once. The f-word works well. And <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vodka">vodka</a>—vodka helps. </div><br /><div></div><div><strong>5 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div>I'm always trying to write things that readers can identify with, which I think can be easy if you write in an honest way. That's probably why I'll never write about civil war love affairs or alien invasions. I'd rather just write about fucked up girls who like <a href="http://www.ledzeppelin.com/">Led Zeppelin </a>and <a href="http://www.jagermeister.com/welcome/welcome.com.aspx">Jager shots </a>because that's all way more interesting than aliens anyway. For me the most satisfying and elusive comment from a reader is "it's like you were inside my head." </div><br /><div></div><div><strong>6 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div>Absolutely essential. I have the pleasure of working with a <a href="http://www.kissmachine.org/12contribs">fantastic editor</a>, <a href="http://www.publicjournal.ca/">Ari Berger</a>, who refuses to coddle me or placate me, and my writing is so much better for it. If you spend too much time with a piece you tend to become blind to its flaws, whereas a really good editor can weed them out and in some ways reveal to you what you really meant to say. I tend not to be very emotional about the editing process and I think having an editor that I trust is key to that. Someone who writes chapter ideas on placemats at restaurants really needs a good editor and I've been blessed in that regard. </div><br /><div></div><div><strong>7 - When was the last time you ate a pear?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div>Me and my partner received a juicer last Christmas that we're currently obsessed with, so I consume pears regularly. Almost daily. It's my way of tricking my pervasive hypochondria into believing I'm healthy. I often think the juicer is an icon of how boring I have become in my old(er) age, but I try not to dwell on that. </div><br /><div></div><div><strong>8 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div>In the months leading up to the publication of <a href="http://www.shawnsyms.ca/content/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=30">my first book </a>I was desperate for words of wisdom from more seasoned writers. One let me know I should "get a therapist immediately," but the best advice I received overall was as follows: "Float above it all a little and play the game, keep the rest of it for yourself. All will be well." Since then I've been living by "the perfect is the enemy of the good." That one works well for letting go of typo anxiety. </div><br /><div></div><div><strong>9 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (fiction to non-fiction)? What do you see as the appeal?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div>I am so much more relaxed about writing non-fiction. It feels like a safer place for me in some ways, but perhaps that's because I'm not as emotionally tied to the end product. I can write a non-fiction piece, publish it and move on to the next piece quite easily, while I'll lie in bed at night and think of all of the things I could have done differently with a short story. Despite my different feelings on each, one definitely helps to other. I've said before that writing fiction is simply a process of writing, re-writing and reassembling real life. </div><br /><div></div><div><strong>10 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div>When I'm working on a larger manuscript I tend to (or rather try to) be really disciplined about it. I set daily goals and try to keep a realistic schedule. I give myself an "office" (a pro-loitering coffee shop with wifi) and go there in the morning and stay there until six, five days a week. Because I usually have a variety of freelance projects on the go prioritizing is usually a challenge, but I much prefer it to "writing in-between your day job." </div><br /><div></div><div>The hardest part about not going to a job every day is convincing people I'm actually working—because i don't have a "real job" to go to it's hard for people in my life who are not writers to wrap their head around the fact that I'm actually working. That means that when someone has a day off they're always trying to drag me into a shopping trip or martini lunch, which can be unbelievably tempting. </div><br /><div></div><div><strong>11 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div>I always try to be a reader, instead of a writer, for a little while. I enjoy other people's work from the perspective of a person who loves books and not just someone who's trying to make them—although the two don't need to be mutually exclusive. Experiencing those little scenes and lines when a book is truly fantastic can really re- energize your own work. </div><br /><div></div><div><strong>12 - How does your most recent book compare to your previous work? How does it feel different?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div>It feels like it has a greater potential to haunt me. That and it's heavier and taking up much more room in my apartment.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>13 - <a href="http://www.talonbooks.com/index.cfm?event=authorDetails&authorID=131">David W. McFadden </a>once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div>I can't write unless I'm listening to music on my headphones. At first I thought it was a way to block out background noise, but I actually noticed that whatever I was listening to would become an automatic soundtrack. If I want to write a scene in which a couple begins to break up, I need only throw on <a href="http://britmusicscene.com/kate-nash-foundations-single-video-review/">Kate Nash's <em>Foundations</em> </a>and all of a sudden they hate each other. It's a pretty good system. </div><br /><div></div><div><strong>14 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div>My favourites are all over the map. Right now I'm enjoying <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/columnists/tracey-emin/">Tracey Emin</a>, <a href="http://mirandajuly.com/">Miranda July</a>, <a href="http://www.elizabethcrane.com/">Elizabeth Crane</a>, <a href="http://www.arielgore.com/">Ariel Gore</a>, <a href="http://zoewhittall.blogspot.com/">Zoe Whittall </a>[<a href="http://12or20questions.blogspot.com/2008/02/12-or-20-questions-with-zoe-whittall.html">see her 12 or 20 questions here</a>], <a href="http://jaredyoungwrites.blogspot.com/">Jared Young</a>, <a href="http://www.parkerspace.com/">Jeff Parker</a>, <a href="http://www.authorsaloud.com/readings/readings/readings/redhill.html">Michael Redhill</a>, <a href="http://books.guardian.co.uk/reviews/biography/0,,1668939,00.html">Joan Didion</a>, <a href="http://www.tootallblondes.com/KatePages/kate_bornstein.htm">Kate Bornstein</a>, <a href="http://www.randomhouse.com/kvpa/eastonellis/">Brett Easton Ellis</a>, <a href="http://www.harpercollins.ca/global_scripts/product_catalog/author_xml.asp?authorid=CA468">Diane Schoemperlen</a>, <a href="http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/brossard/">Nicole Brossard</a>, <a href="http://www.juliaserano.com/">Julia Serano</a>, <a href="http://www.mattildabernsteinsycamore.com/">Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore</a>, <a href="http://www.ecwpress.com/biographies/jacob_scheier">Jacob Scheier</a>, <a href="http://www.pagankennedy.net/">Pagan Kennedy</a>. </div><br /><div></div><div>This question is so funny because in the book I'm working on right now the main character creates a list of authors pretentious people put on their list of favourites, and right now I'm trying desperately not to include any of those. It's making me want to go back and rewrite the chapter. </div><br /><div></div><div><strong>15 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div>I really want to take boxing lessons but am slightly insecure about my status as a weakling. I'd also like to go to a whisky tasting, take my unruly dog to obedience classes, and finally learn how to knit. It's kind of appalling that I'm the publisher of a feminist teen magazine and I don't know how to knit.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>16 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div>I always wanted to be a hairdresser. The freedom and independence was always really attractive to me, along with days of talking to strangers about their lives while making them happy and attractive. </div><br /><div></div><div>For a brief time in University I actually studied to be a high school teacher, which, if I had not abandoned that idea, would have been a real disaster for everyone involved. </div><br /><div></div><div><strong>17 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div>I never really considered doing anything thing else other than writing, I just assumed I'd always have to do something else in addition in order to eat. I had these brief dreams of having a "career" other than writing but quickly realized that the best job a writer can have is one that doesn't detract from their work. I'd vote for a job I hated over a full fledged time-consuming career. I fell into magazine business development quite by accident and I find that works really well—I get to be involved in the world of publishing, but because circulation enhancement initiatives have so little to do with writing the two never detract from each other. Doing an excel spreadsheet is certainly a good break from a major work-in-proress. </div><br /><div></div><div>Lately I've been able to do more and more writing and that transition has been an interesting one. Sometimes feel kind of guilty that I get to spend my days doing what I love. I forget that I'm not actually goofing off—this is my actual job now. I feel like someone is going to come up to me and say "just kidding" and send me back to some awful desk job and make me do data entry.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>18 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div>I don't have cable so I watch a lot of television on DVD and recently became completely obsessed with <em><a href="http://www.scifi.com/battlestar/index.php">Battlestar Galactica</a></em>. I realize it's not a film, but it certainly has so many filmic (and for that matter, literary) qualities. I never in a million years thought I would become so invested in Sci-Fi, but I am officially addicted and wonder why it didn't happen sooner—I can watch six episodes in a row easily. Love does strange things to you, and my love for a web geek means my general appreciation for sci-fi has certainly increased in the last three years we've been together. </div><br /><div></div><div>As for books, hands down <a href="http://www.theeasywaytostopsmoking.com/">Allan Carr's <em>Easy Way To Quit Smoking</em> </a>because thanks to<a href="http://www.allencarrseasyway.com/"> Mr. Carr </a>(may he rest in peace,) I finally quit smoking. After that I've been reading a lot of non-fiction lately; books on anxiety like <a href="http://www.randomhouse.ca/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780679314981"><em>A Brief History of Anxiety</em> </a>by <a href="http://www.pearsonspost.com/">Patricia Pearson </a>and books on fetish culture like <a href="http://www.amazon.ca/Pleasures-All-Mine-Professional-Submissive/dp/0786716487"><em>The Pleasure's All Mine</em> </a>by <a href="http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=82167887">Joan Kelly</a>. I actually just read a book about pregnancy and childbirth called <a href="http://fromthehips.com/"><em>From the Hips</em> </a>to see if I might be ready to have a baby, and evidently I'm not. </div><br /><div></div><div><strong>19 - What are you currently working on?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div>I'm just finishing up the manuscript for a collaborative book project I'm doing with artist <a href="http://hotshotkensington.com/wb/pages/featured-artists/artist-bios.php">Marlena Zuber </a>called <em>Fear of Fighting</em>. In fact, if all goes well, it should go into editing tomorrow. It's due out with Invisible Publishing in fall 2008 and there are no alien invasions in it. </div><br /><div></div><div><a href="http://robmclennansindex.blogspot.com/2007/09/12-or-20-questions-archive.html"><em>12 or 20 questions archive</em></a></div>rob mclennanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07958889643637765864noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-319589917860132988.post-23975027545192127872008-03-25T11:32:00.000-07:002008-03-25T12:07:55.946-07:0012 or 20 questions: with Beth Follett<a href="http://www.chbooks.com/biographies/index.php?ID=639"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5181751092607340850" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLxlOkae9QEBlRDQwVfTwGApEGa4RpDf0CJxeBdNNjbnxFtHmFJ4BurLLhXMgv2ZuNvpN2UoAdWDEQzzCYnIwJZtRl1y-XSnGKR_g34w260rQCOHnWchjvn_nUw9L-g1Q4wzRgZ4Hbolk/s320/bethfollet.JPG" border="0" /><strong>Beth Follett</strong> </a>is <a href="http://www.thismagazine.ca/issues/2006/05/smallvictories.php">the one-woman show behind the Canadian literary publishing house</a>, <a href="http://pagesbooks.ca/features.php?type=feature&id=149">Pedlar Press</a>. Her first novel, <em><a href="http://www.danforthreview.com/reviews/fiction/follet.htm">Tell It Slant</a></em>, was published by <a href="http://www.chbooks.com/archives/online_books/tell_it_slant/details.html">Coach House Books </a>in 2001. She was born and raised in Toronto, spent her adolescence and young adult life in Winnipeg, and returned to Toronto in 1985.<br /><div></div><br /><div><strong>1 - How did your first book change your life?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>Publishing the novel was wonderful. It deepened my understanding of the cost of writing to a writer's psyche. One doesn't necessarily have to be tough to be a writer, but certainly will do better if brave and realistic.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>2 - How long have you lived in Toronto, and how does geography, if at all, impact on your writing? Does race or gender make any impact on your work?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>I have lived in Toronto off and on for 28 years. I love the big city, crashing energy next to perfect peace. I get up very early, usually, when the city is quiet. Then the buses start up, the traffic, the mechanical noises. The kids' shouts. Birdsong. Dog barks. The city has its rhythms, much like an individual human. Studying Toronto's character has assisted my thinking about character. </div><div> </div><div>I grew up within feminist thought, and I live in the most multicultural city in the world. I am interested in psychology, how gender and place and race and ability and class affect thinking and behaviour and desire. My world view is deeply affected by the 'what' of me, but I know it doesn't end there. Shame is something that interests me. Also gullibility. I think shame limits us more than we know or can with any clarity describe. Shame belongs to all of us, regardless of race or gender.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>3 - Where does a piece of fiction usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>I started <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Tell-Slant-Beth-Follett/dp/1552450813"><em>Tell It Slant</em> </a>in fragments, bits and pieces. It stayed fragmentary. The new novel I'm working on has been a book from the outset, begun at page one.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>4 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>I love to read aloud to others, whether one other or one hundred. Reading other people's work out loud is phenomenal. Reading my own work, no. I think one's own work doesn't allow for much distance, or perspective. I cannot see mine. I'd love to be regularly invited to read from wonderful works by authors I admire.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>5 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>Many theoretical concerns, yes, of course. I am fascinated by questions of identity, questions about mind and how mind attaches to its thoughts, or doesn't. I am also interested in questions of leadership and power. I have had a long-standing interest in the power of group mind.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>6 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>Editors are essential, but one has to stand strong in one's own convictions, even if wrong. How else do we learn? I'm very fond of my old clunkers.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>7 - When was the last time you ate a pear?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>Last August, warm, with soft <a href="http://www.stiltoncheese.com/">Stilton cheese</a>, at a lake.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>8 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>"Sweat the details."</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>9 - How easy has it been for you to move between being editor/publisher of Pedlar Press and working on your own writing? What do you see as the appeal?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>Trickster walks the line between these acts that I perform. Sometimes, working with a <a href="http://www.quillandquire.com/authors/profile.cfm?article_id=6955">Pedlar author </a>is unbelievably holy, and I am ready to give up my own writing in sheer exuberance for the fact of this other writer's existence. At other times, O, the greed, the envy, the wish that I could write full time! <a href="http://www.lpg.ca/?q=publisher/pedlar_press">Pedlar Press </a>activity has its cycles and rhythms, and there are times in a year when I can take three or four or five days in a row to concentrate exclusively on my own work. Maybe four or five times a year. The thing is, <a href="http://www.openbooktoronto.com/pedlar_press_fall_books_launch">Pedlar Press activity </a>demands perpetual thinking about writing and the writing life. Thinking is a pleasure that is also a necessity where the business is concerned; it enriches my writing. Publishing is a pleasure: it's the best way I have found to put beans on the table. I'm pretty realistic about how much time will be afforded to me for writing.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>10 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>When I am writing, I get to the work immediately on rising. I make a good coffee and begin. I will write for eight hours, sometimes more. I write longhand. I complete at least two edits before transcribing my work onto the laptop. I drink a lot of water in those eight hours.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>11 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>I read when I get stalled. Poetry often, also essays.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>12 - How does your most recent book compare to your previous work? How does it feel different?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>I think I am a very different woman from the one who wrote <em><a href="http://www.quillandquire.com/reviews/review.cfm?review_id=2306">Tell It Slant</a></em>. This new work feels more compassionate. It seems to contain my longing more fully. It's also much much harder to write.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>13 - <a href="http://www.parl.gc.ca/information/about/people/poet/poem-of-the-week/poems-e.htm?param=9">David W. McFadden </a>once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>I would say architecture influences my writing. How one moves in built spaces or in cities. Nature, as well, is an influence. Wind. And photography. The light upon the earth.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>14 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div><a href="http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/7">Elizabeth Bishop </a>is a constant companion. And <a href="http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,6109,216535,00.html">Penelope Fitzgerald</a>. Also <a href="http://marie-louisevonfranz.com/en/">Marie-Louise von Franz</a>. <a href="http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/calvino.htm">Italo Calvino</a>. <a href="http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/931">Linda Gregg</a>, her brilliant work, <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Sacraments-Desire-Poems-Linda-Gregg/dp/1555971733">The Sacraments of Desire</a></em>. Does anyone turn a sentence more perfectly than <a href="http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1998/saramago-autobio.html">Jose Saramago</a>, I wonder?</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>15 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div>Make <a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/240880">Gâteau à l'Orange</a>, a recipe in the cookbook, <em><a href="http://www.randomhouse.ca/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780517574331">Paris Bistro Cooking</a></em>.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>16 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>I wanted to be a modern dancer, but I don't have the body type for it. I was a clinical social worker and therapist for many years. Actually, "full time writer" is the occupation I secretly want to attempt.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>17 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>I had to. Everything to me is story, and this has been true since I was very young. I simply wanted to participate in story, and to be a good story teller. I wanted to overcome my original shyness, my muteness. I have imagined containing in one sentence the world's greatest stories. Now that's telling.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>18 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div><a href="http://www.anansi.ca/titles.cfm?pub_id=1153"><em>The Outlander</em> </a>by <a href="http://www.quillandquire.com/authors/profile.cfm?article_id=7810">Gil Adamson </a>is a marvel of a book. </div><br /><div></div><div>In the same week I saw two movies, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0469494/"><em>There Will Be Blood</em> </a>and <em><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0405094/">The Lives of Others</a></em>. In both cases the idea to sit through the film a second time crossed my mind. This hasn't happened since seeing <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074084/">Bertolucci's <em>1900 </em></a>at a repertory cinema in Winnipeg in 1978.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>19 - What are you currently working on?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div><a href="http://www.theindependent.ca/article.asp?id=1111">The new novel is getting my attention right now</a>. Recently, a poem and a short non-fiction piece got it.</div><br /><div></div><div><a href="http://robmclennansindex.blogspot.com/2007/09/12-or-20-questions-archive.html"><em>12 or 20 questions archive</em></a></div>rob mclennanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07958889643637765864noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-319589917860132988.post-47399178755866709752008-03-24T10:53:00.000-07:002008-03-25T11:27:15.077-07:0012 or 20 questions: with Michael Bryson<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjm2YLt2Jodrw_I3aa8c3mJoIXa40lmYyLTSoeE76srvzqsGx6_bORIxGI1DKDbG2QonI2ZjercRpzRMRmD9Alnb9wi2qhxlG5gqfySLvGiGXPOyL1opQp4r7DjPmFYyKWDUe_-TDXyANM/s1600-h/bryson_michael2008.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5181368827633094930" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjm2YLt2Jodrw_I3aa8c3mJoIXa40lmYyLTSoeE76srvzqsGx6_bORIxGI1DKDbG2QonI2ZjercRpzRMRmD9Alnb9wi2qhxlG5gqfySLvGiGXPOyL1opQp4r7DjPmFYyKWDUe_-TDXyANM/s320/bryson_michael2008.jpg" border="0" /></a>Born in Toronto in 1968, <a href="http://www.track0.com/ogwc/authors/bryson_m.html"><strong>Michael Bryson</strong> </a>turns 40 this year, <a href="http://www.canadiancontent.ca/interviews/080601bryson.html">the age at which life starts over</a>, or so <a href="http://www.bagism.com/lyrics/lennon-collection-lyrics.html">John Lennon sang</a>. Michael attended public school in East York and later earned English degrees from the University of Waterloo and the University of Toronto. He spent two years in Saskatoon in the mid-1990s and has worked for most of the past decade for the Ontario government.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.amazon.ca/s?ie=UTF8&search-type=ss&index=books-ca&field-author=Michael%20Bryson&page=1">Michael’s books </a>are <a href="http://www.quillandquire.com/reviews/review.cfm?review_id=1616"><em>THIRTEEN SHADES OF BLACK AND WHITE</em> </a>(<a href="http://www.turnstonepress.com/">Turnstone Press</a>, 1999) and <a href="http://www.amazon.ca/Only-lower-paradise-other-stories/dp/1894498151"><em>ONLY A LOWER PARADISE AND OTHER STORIES</em> </a>(Boheme Press, 2000). He has a chapbook, <em>FLIGHT</em> (<a href="http://www.mercutiopress.com/main.html">Mercutio Press</a>, 2006) and his story “Six Million Million Miles” was included in <em>05: BEST CANADIAN STORIES</em> (Oberon Press, 2005), selected by <a href="http://www.danforthreview.com/features/essays/glover.htm">Douglas Glover</a>.<br /><br /><a href="http://conversationsinthebooktrade.blogspot.com/2008/02/michael-bryson.html">Michael’s latest short story collection </a>is tentatively titled <em>THE LIZARD AND OTHER STORIES</em>. It is scheduled for publication by <a href="http://www.chaudierebooks.com/">Chaudiere Books </a>in 2009.<br /><br />Michael’s fiction probes hearts in conflict – following <a href="http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1949/faulkner-bio.html">William Faulkner’s </a>advice that literature is about “<a href="http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1949/faulkner-speech.html">the human heart in conflict with itself</a>.” The stories showcase absurdity and humour and trace the connections between tragedy and hope. Love and the frailties of existence are his obsessions.<br /><br />Michael is also the founding editor and publisher of <em>THE DANFORTH REVIEW</em> (<a href="http://www.danforthreview.com/">http://www.danforthreview.com/</a>). Since 1999, the online journal has published 22 issues of short fiction, interviewed over 100 authors and published dozens of book reviews and other features. The primary focus of the magazine is the Canadian small press scene. Work published in the magazine has been included in <a href="http://www.oberonpress.ca/">Oberon’s <em>BEST CANADIAN STORIES</em> series </a>(2006) and a <em>Best of the Web anthology</em> (2008).<br /><br />Michael lives in Toronto with his wife and step-children.<br /><br />His website is <a href="http://www.michaelbryson.com/">http://www.michaelbryson.com/</a><br /><br />*<br /><br /><strong>1 - How did your first book change your life?</strong><br /><br />It made me very happy. It was a tremendous validation. Of course it was also a tremendous disappointment because I hoped more people would read it. At the time (1999), I thought, Oh, well, at least things will get easier from here. I thought I would just keep writing and publishing books. That hasn't happened. I've kept writing, but it's been slow and laborious, and publishers haven't been exactly keen on what I'm doing.<br /><br />At the same time, I have met many people because that first book. A friend who teaches high school English used one of my stories in his class. His students wrote essays on it. I met a number of these students later, and they were probably my most passionate readers.<br /><br />I've always seen <a href="http://www.amazon.ca/Thirteen-shades-black-white-fiction/dp/0888012365"><em>THIRTEEN SHADES OF BLACK AND WHITE</em> </a>as a book "about growing up." My sense is that the book resonates with teenage readers really well. Unfortunately, teenagers aren't the market for literary fiction in this country.<br /><br />(Though, incidentally, I try to keep that eager teenage reader in mind when I post content to <em>www.danforthreview.com</em>. Too often the literary culture just seems to be speaking to itself. I think it should be always inviting others into the tent.)<br /><br /><strong>2 - How long have you lived in Toronto, and how does geography, if at all, impact on your writing? Does race or gender make any impact on your work?<br /></strong><br />I was born in Toronto. I’ve lived here 40 years minus the years I was away at university and two years in mid-1990s when I was in Saskatoon.<br /><br />The urban landscape is the geography of my imagination. However, it’s more of a mental landscape than a physical one. I've always wanted to capture my experience of Toronto in my writing, but I don't think I've managed it yet. The specifics elude me. So - from that point of view - geography has impacted my writing: I have produced many failed attempts at capturing my Toronto.<br /><br />I should probably add that my Toronto is the east-end. Geography in Toronto is neighbourhood by neighbourhood. My public school had dozens of ethnicities in its student population. I'm WASP, but my whole school experience was influenced by multicultural immigration. I haven't written about this. I haven't figured out how.<br /><br />Race and gender? Sure, my writing is influenced by them. By class, too. I'm aware that I haven't addressed race much in my writing. As per above, I haven't figured out how to write about the multiplicity of race that was my experience. Race is often captured as a binary issue: white versus other, or other versus white. My experience is race is a rainbow issue. I had kids in my classes who were refugees from Vietnam and Romania, Lebanon, many working-class Italians, Greeks, blacks, Chinese, Japanese, Koreans. You name it. How do you capture that?<br /><br />My writing tends to illustrate conflicts of emotion or psyche (internal conflicts). I’m interested in conflicts of perception: How each of us filters the world, creates our own worlds, and yet we interact with others and experience their worlds, too. Mental health issues and additions are two themes that recur in my work. Not exactly sure why.<br /><br />I'm not an "identity writer”; I don’t think identity is fixed or fixable; life is too topsy-turvy for that! My stories tend to be about men trying to sort out the chaos of existence. When I read <a href="http://books.guardian.co.uk/authors/author/0,,-230,00.html">Raymond Carver </a>many years ago, I said: A-ha, that's what I'm trying to do. I tended to write stories within which nothing happened. I read <a href="http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/rcarver.htm">Carver</a> and found out that "making something happen" isn't what makes a story interesting.<br /><br /><strong>3 - Where does a piece of fiction usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?</strong><br /><br />Short stories begin with an image or a character or a single line. The first book was just a collection of the different stories I had. Since then, I've tried to imagine the larger whole of the book as I'm in the process of working on individual pieces. But the "book" keeps changing. Currently, I'm working on a novel which is whole unto itself. Though it, too, keeps changing course on me. I don’t know any anyone can plot out in advance. It’s never worked for me. I find writing an intense battle between planning and spontaneity.<br /><br /><strong>4 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process?<br /></strong><br />Not part of. Not counter to. They are a separate solar system.<br /><br /><strong>5 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?</strong><br /><br />I don't have any theoretical concerns, in the sense that I understand "theoretical concerns." I've read some <a href="http://www.hydra.umn.edu/Derrida/">Derrida</a>, et al, but I don't think about any of that when I'm writing. I try to write a good sentence, then a good paragraph. I try to be an honest witness and make it interesting.<br /><br />My work integrates realist and absurdist traditions. The work of <a href="http://books.guardian.co.uk/authors/author/0,,-15,00.html">J.G. Ballard </a>and <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/books/01/06/17/specials/southern.html">Terry Southern</a> were influential in showing me how to integrate two impulses that tend to be characterized as opposites. <a href="http://writersunion.ca/ww_profile.asp?mem=380&L=G">Douglas Glover's </a>work <a href="http://www.danforthreview.com/features/interviews/douglas_glover.htm">was helpful too</a>. "Theory" too often creates camps of writers who view each other with suspicion. I prefer to read everybody and borrow the best that I find, wherever I find it.<br /><br />If my work is trying answer any questions, they're probably existential queries. What are we doing here? I don't think that question ever goes out of style. I may also be a bit old fashioned. I think that rendering experience honestly is a theoretical question. Especially when the theorists are so skeptical about the ability of language to render anything or to refer to anything but itself.<br /><br /><strong>6 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?</strong><br /><br />Both.<br /><br /><strong>7 - After having published more than a couple of titles over the years, do you find the process of book-making harder or easier?</strong><br /><br />Harder.<br /><br /><strong>8 - When was the last time you ate a pear?</strong><br /><br />Dunno.<br /><br /><strong>9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?<br /></strong><br />Buy low, sell high.<br /><br />Don't write what you know; write what you're passionate about. <a href="http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=1824">Barbara Gowdy </a>said that.<br /><br /><strong>10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (fiction to criticism/reviews)? What do you see as the appeal?<br /></strong><br />It's not hard. It's all part of the same swirl of thinking that goes on in my brain.<br /><br />Writing reviews helps me to think about what I like and what I don't. It also forces me to justify myself. I think readers are largely impulsive; they know right away whether they like something or not. A reviewer has to justify this impulse. When I'm writing, I need to decide whether to go in one direction or another. I need to trust my impulse, but also minimize bad decisions. It's a harrowing process.<br /><br /><strong>11 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?<br /></strong><br />I've tended to write when I "feel inspired." I have a day job, and now a family, so writing time is hard to come by. I've never been highly prolific. Even when I had great gobs of time, I only wrote a little a day. I can write a great deal when I'm in an inspired burst. But I also rely on the passage of time to inform my editing process. Reading something a year later has often led me to new discoveries about a piece and enabled me to improve it, or just finish it. (There are no typical days.)<br /><br /><strong>12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?<br /></strong><br />I just wait for the desire to return. It always does. Also, I try to keep life simple. Unsolved problems in life take away time and energy to solve the problems posed by the writing.<br /><br /><strong>13 - How does your most recent book compare to your previous work? How does it feel different?</strong><br /><br />It feels the same, except I'm getting older.<br /><br /><strong>14 - <a href="http://www.library.utoronto.ca/canpoetry/mcfadden/index.htm">David W. McFadden </a>once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?</strong><br /><br />I read <a href="http://www.marshallmcluhan.com/">McLuhan</a> when I was in high school in the 1980s and it's always seemed to me that we're all multi-media. Probably always have been. That said, book culture can be very insular. The literature profs didn't like <a href="http://www.mcluhan.ca/">McLuhan</a>, despite the fact that he was one of their own.<br /><br />What I'm trying to say here is I'm influenced by everything. But also, a book is a book is a book. Form determines meaning, <a href="http://archives.cbc.ca/arts_entertainment/media/topics/342/">McLuhan</a> said: medium is message. I'm interested in understanding the form of the short story, but also writing stories that subvert or challenge that form.<br /><br />For example, a lot of my stories are impressionistic, rather than narrative. Some readers have complained that the stories don’t resolve a central problem of the protagonist. That’s the traditional narrative model and the expectation of many readers. My stories are sometimes like pop songs (this is a stretch, but it will illustrate the point): They present a character and a situation and, hopefully, leave the reader with a powerful image (or hook). I think there are many ways to write a successful short story. I’m trying to investigate as many as I can – and other art forms are helpful to that investigation, yes.<br /><br /><strong>15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?</strong><br /><br />Oh, there are too many to mention. I’m just going to name writers that have been good to me over the years, in no particular order. I’ve already names <a href="http://books.guardian.co.uk/authors/author/0,,-15,00.html">J.G. Ballard</a>, <a href="http://www.terrysouthern.com/">Terry Southern</a>, <a href="http://www.whitman.edu/english/carver/carver.cgi">Raymond Carver </a>and <a href="http://www.douglasglover.net/">Douglas Glover</a>. Here’s more: <a href="http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=A1ARTA0006823">Mordecai Richler</a>, <a href="http://www.salon.com/weekly/interview960708.html">Richard Ford</a>, <a href="http://members.aol.com/MunroAlice/">Alice Munro</a>, <a href="http://www.mts.net/~mlhome/">Margaret Lawrence</a>, <a href="http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/flannery.htm">Flannery O’Connor</a>, <a href="http://www.danforthreview.com/features/interviews/firth_interview.htm">Matthew Firth </a>[<a href="http://robmclennan.blogspot.com/2007/10/12-or-20-questions-with-matthew-firth.html">see his 12 or 20 questions here</a>], <a href="http://www.beatmuseum.org/kerouac/jackkerouac.html">Jack Kerouac</a>, <a href="http://www.timelesshemingway.com/">Ernest Hemingway</a>, <a href="http://www.olemiss.edu/mwp/dir/faulkner_william/">William Faulker</a>, <a href="http://www.online-literature.com/james_joyce/">James Joyce</a>, <a href="http://www.nybooks.com/authors/523">J.M. Coetzee</a>, <a href="http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1993/morrison-bio.html">Toni Morrison</a>, <a href="http://www.web.net/owtoad/toc.html">Margaret Atwood</a>, <a href="http://www.quillandquire.com/authors/profile.cfm?article_id=2564">Barbara Gowdy</a>, <a href="http://www.lynncoady.com/">Lynn Coady </a>[<a href="http://robmclennan.blogspot.com/2008/01/12-or-20-questions-with-lynn-coady-lynn.html">see her 12 or 20 questions here</a>], <a href="http://www.library.utoronto.ca/canpoetry/purdy/index.htm">Al Purdy</a>, <a href="http://www.athabascau.ca/writers/nowlan/nowlan.html">Alden Nowlan</a>, <a href="http://www.quillandquire.com/authors/profile.cfm?article_id=6955">Ken Sparling</a>, <a href="http://www.anansi.ca/authors.cfm?author_id=58">Mark Anthony Jarman</a>, <a href="http://www.arts.ualberta.ca/~gregh/books-roaringgirl.htm">Greg Hollingshead </a>[<a href="http://robmclennan.blogspot.com/2008/01/12-or-20-questions-with-greg.html">see his 12 or 20 question</a>], <a href="http://www.ecwpress.com/biographies/john_lavery">John Lavery </a>[<a href="http://robmclennan.blogspot.com/2007/10/12-or-20-questions-with-john-lavery.html">see his 12 or 20 questions here</a>], <a href="http://www.leonrooke.com/">Leon Rooke</a>, <a href="http://www.athabascau.ca/writers/ondaatje.html">Michael Ondattje</a>, <a href="http://www.randomhouse.com/features/murakami/site.php">Haruki Murakami</a>, <a href="http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1976/bellow-bio.html">Saul Bellow</a>, <a href="http://perival.com/delillo/delillo.html">Don Delillo</a>, <a href="http://www.martinamisweb.com/">Martin Amis</a>, <a href="http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/nabokov.htm">Nabakov</a>, <a href="http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/salinger.htm">Salinger</a>. I’m forgetting others… That’s a taste, anyway.<br /><br /><strong>16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?<br /></strong><br />Watch the <a href="http://mapleleafs.nhl.com/">Maples Leafs </a>win the <a href="http://www.nhl.com/cup/index.html">Stanley Cup</a>.<br /><br /><strong>17 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?</strong><br /><br />Since I have a day job, I guess my true occupation is bureaucrat, though I write a lot there, too. I think I've "ended up" a bureaucrat, while also continuing my inner calling of writing fiction and attempting literature. This inner calling refuses to be denied and I can't imagine life without it.<br /><br /><strong>18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?<br /></strong><br />[See answer to #17 above]<br /><br /><strong>19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?</strong><br /><br />Film: <em><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0469494/">There Will Be Blood</a></em>.<br />Book: <a href="http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/2003/coetzee-bio.html">J.M. Coetzee</a>, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/11/02/home/coetzee-barbarians.html"><em>WAITING FOR BARBARIANS</em> </a><br /><br /><strong>20 - What are you currently working on?<br /></strong><br />A novel. It’s in the early stages. The protagonist is a judge. I’m curious about what he has to do: Make decisions, arbitrate “justice,” provide resolution in situations where no resolution is possible. (He’s working on a murder trial.) Again I find myself working on a story about the human heart in conflict with itself. Wanting the impossible. Settling for the best of what’s left.<br /><br /><em>Michael Bryson – March 24, 2008</em><br /><div></div><br /><div><a href="http://robmclennansindex.blogspot.com/2007/09/12-or-20-questions-archive.html"><em>12 or 20 questions archive</em></a></div>rob mclennanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07958889643637765864noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-319589917860132988.post-66863588026562464382008-03-10T15:51:00.000-07:002008-03-10T16:31:17.728-07:0012 or 20 questions: with Harold Rhenisch<a href="http://www.haroldrhenisch.com/"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5176251441825530962" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVeTcs15qq6bQxQbLpFupj9gJiRQOg4EPCX-lKm4NAE1TG0v8_Ncf5mR6K0q5KqPmhds6iXgm64_Rv98jv1RQ06CCjFqG7zXrTQXqg_aDUNaQv7B6s2s99-tD3IvFHa2zkYSgiU4nWP1g/s320/harold2.jpg" border="0" /><strong>Harold Rhenisch</strong> </a>is <a href="http://www.poets.ca/linktext/direct/rhenisch.htm">the author of twenty-one books</a>, including <a href="http://www.library.utoronto.ca/canpoetry/rhenisch/index.htm">14 collections of poetry</a>, including <em><a href="http://www.haroldrhenisch.com/livingwill.html">Living Will</a></em>, a translation of <a href="http://www.william-shakespeare.info/william-shakespeare-sonnets.htm">Shakespeare’s sonnets </a>into contemporary erotic English. He has <a href="http://www.abcbookworld.com/?state=view_author&author_id=2521">published four volumes of creative-nonfiction</a>, including the <a href="http://www.abcbookworld.com/?state=view_author&author_id=1321">George Ryga Award</a>-winning <em><a href="http://www.brindleandglass.com/books/wolves.htm">The Wolves at Evelyn</a></em>, and <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/checkup/"><em>Cross-Country Checkup</em> </a>Book of the Year, <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Tom-Thomsons-Shack-Harold-Rhenisch/dp/0921586752">Tom Thomson’s Shack</a></em>. In addition, he is the editor of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Skelton">Robin Skelton’s </a>posthumous poems, <em><a href="http://www.ekstasiseditions.com/recenthtml/facingthelight.html">Facing the Light</a></em>, and his new selected poems, <em><a href="http://web.uvic.ca/malahat/at_forty.html">In This Poem I Am</a></em>. He has published one novel, <em><a href="http://www.sentex.net/~pql/carnival.html">Carnival</a></em>, and is <a href="http://www.ronsdalepress.com/catalogue/peyote.html">the English translator of the postmodernist German playwright Stefan Schuetz</a>. He has won the <a href="http://www.arcpoetry.ca/mag/contests/poem_of_the_year_contest.php"><em>ARC </em>Poem of the Year Prize</a>, the <a href="http://www.arcpoetry.ca/mag/contests/critics_desk_award.php"><em>ARC</em> Critic’s Desk Award</a>, <a href="http://web.uvic.ca/malahat/long_poem_prize/info.html"><em>The Malahat Review</em> Long Poem Prize </a>for both 2005 and 2007, and is <a href="http://www.radio-canada.ca/prixlitteraires/english/shortlists2006.shtml">the second prize winner for the CBC Literary Prize in Poetry for 2008</a>. A year’s work as editor and <a href="http://www.chrisharris.com/grasslands-book.html">cowriter on Chris Harris’s photographic book about the earth’s last intact pristine grasslands</a>, <em><a href="http://www.bcgrasslands.org/projects/edoutreach/book.htm">Spirit in the Grass: the Lost Landscape of the Cariboo-Chilcotin</a></em>, has garnered two <a href="http://www.bcbookprizes.ca/">B.C. Book Prize nominations</a>. Rhenisch’s <a href="http://www.ronsdalepress.com/catalogue/returnto_openwater.html"><em>Return to Open Water: Selected and New Poems</em> </a>selects from <a href="http://www.authorsaloud.com/readings/poetry/rhenisch.html">oral pieces spanning the last twenty-nine years</a>, honed during his more than 300 readings during the last decade, across Canada and abroad. An active editor, reviewer, and <a href="http://www.poets.ca/Linktext/links/links3.htm">mentor</a>, he lives in <a href="http://www.vancouverisland.com/regions/towns/?townID=47">Campbell River, British Columbia</a>, after 15 years on the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cariboo">Cariboo Plateau</a>, and a dozen years in the <a href="http://www.worldisround.com/articles/26652/photo2.html">Similkameen Valley</a>.<br /><div></div><br /><div><strong>1 - How did your first book change your life?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>The first book was in an edition of 1, which I made for myself on an old Olympia typewriter. I trimmed the paper with scissors and perfect bound them with some <a href="http://www.lepageproducts.com/questions.asp?answerme=128">White Lepages Glue </a>from the farm workshop. It took a few days to dry. John Howe did the cover. I showed it to my creative writing teacher, and he took it seriously, because of the effort that had gone not it. That validation changed my life. My first trade book, <em>Winter</em>, got me a toe-hold into the publishing game, which, given that I was in Victoria and far, far outside of the canlit horizon, even as it stood then, was a godsend. Still, the validation of that kind of sacred nature writing did change things. I was working on hyper-realist, trickster poems at the same time — something I put aside for a decade. It could all have started quite differently. Editors have an enormous influence.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>2 - How long have you lived in <a href="http://www.campbellriverbc.net/">Campbell River</a>, and how does geography, if at all, impact on your writing? Does race or gender make any impact on your work?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div><a href="http://www.greenboathouse.com/chapbooks/harold_rhenisch.htm">I write out of place</a>. Like the <a href="http://www.firstnations.de/06-3-secwepemc.htm">Secwepemc </a>and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Similkameen">Similkameen people </a>themselves, I really am a child of the grassland. I have 4,000 years of grasslands culture behind me. Now, on <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vancouver_Island">Vancouver Island</a>, I still have that earth under my feet – except that the stories of the dreamtime don’t take place along the rivers here but underwater and in the intertidal zone. Somehow, from deep knowledge of a small space I’ve found myself a citizen of the earth in the largest sense, across space as well as time. It humbles me. At the same time, it is liberating. When I left the <a href="http://www.britishcolumbia.com/regions/towns/?townID=4050">Similkameen Valley </a>in 1992, I was 36 years old. I knew every story for every stone and tree, and was living in a landscape much like the sacred ones of prehistory. When I got to <a href="http://www.britishcolumbia.com/regions/towns/?townID=4089">108 Mile Ranch </a>later in the day, and looked out over the plateau lake in front of my new house, the lake was blue, the trees were brown, and the grass was green, although I knew that this was ridiculous. So I set about teaching myself to see by creating palettes of colour.</div><br /><div></div><div>If race has made an impact on my work, it’s because when I started school, half the kids in class were from the reserve south of town. 1 of them graduated from high school 12 years later. In my late teens, I made the transference from European to Native conceptions of land and space. It was not deliberate. It happened. <a href="http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/books/Bowerings-Swashbuckling-History-George-Bowering/9780670857579-item.html">BC history </a>is the result of a marriage between these two cultures. That we have, collectively, chosen to live within the European side of that equation means that we are stuck. We will move forward when we can speak about them both in the same breath.</div><br /><div></div><div>Gender has had a huge impact on my work. When I graduated from university in 1980, talk was that the only people who’d be hired to teach at universities for the next 15 years would be women, so I decided not to waste $45,000 on grad school, and went farming. So, here I am now, an intellectual writer living in farms and small towns, and knowing the country from the ground up, rather than the top down. What’s more, I gave up that farming, my first passion, and raised my kids, which has been my life for 23 years now. I’ve lived much of my life in the society of women. Back in the 1980s and 1990s, feminism transformed me from a kind of dionysiac metaphysicist into a trickster and a social geographer. The result, most recently, has been my <em>The Wolves at Evelyn</em>, which gets into matriarchy in a big way, and tells the story of women and children, and how they have created this culture I live in in British Columbia. It’s an unusual kind of feminism, sure, but it is one nonetheless.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>3 - Where does a poem or piece of prose usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>It begins with play. Or it begins with a moment of silence. Or both. Time and space are suspended. It’s a fleeting thing. These days I’m writing a lot of poems based upon play, revisions of old stuff, some of it 20 years old or more. From that distance, I can play a lot, because I’m not the same person I was then. My <em><a href="http://www.brindleandglass.com/magazine/rhenisch_winging.htm">Winging Home</a></em>, a bird book, <a href="http://www.straight.com/article/winging-home-harold-rhenisch">is all about play</a>.</div><br /><div></div><div>Poems can sometimes come out whole. Prose pieces, though, are always cobbled together over long stretches of time. To complete one, I need to reinvent myself. Once I started blogging, and goofing around with pictures, the process of cobbling and re-visioning intensified. It’s a pretty wild ride now. Images are often a better doorway for me than textual passages. But then I was interested in painting long before I became interested in language. Something must have sunk in from moving that paint around.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>4 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>No work is done without being publicly performed. I don’t know what a piece is about or what it does until then. I write for the voice now. Performance has become a touchstone. It keeps me honest. Audiences don’t lie. Younger audiences lie even less.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>5 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>The accepted story of literature in the twentieth century needs to be re-envisioned. There is a British Columbia literature which is distinct from Canadian Literature. British Columbia contains numerous unique cultures and histories, without literatures; I have tried to plug a gap. Too much of literature does not integrate non-rational forms of logic; half of what we are as human is at stake. I have inherited certain threads of literature; I wish to pass them on. Poetry has a long nonfiction tradition; I have tried to reintegrate it with prose nonfiction. There are new genres being born in contemporary writing; they are our future. Writing is a vital, contemporary human activity, not an aesthetic diversion. At fifty years of age, I want to support young writers. I want to give them what I can to help them flourish in a post-civilized world. I want to write the successful long poem that <a href="http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/epound.htm">Pound</a> failed to write. I want to create long poems that combine criticism, photography, and prose poetry. I want the tradition to be made real and vital, so it doesn’t die.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>6 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>I have worked with good editors, who have allowed me the freedom to follow my vision, while holding me to task, and bad editors, who have either been unable to see any solution to a manuscript’s problems, or who have otherwise channelled my work into dead ends. It seems to be the difference between responding to the work, as a work, and responding to the work as a commodity, to fit within preconceived conceptions. Editors who abuse commas and truncate arguments wind up butchering things. They’re editing literature, not writing. Most of my editors have been great.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>7 - After having published more than a couple of titles over the years, do you find the process of book-making harder or easier?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>Oh, it’s much easier to put together a manuscript and make it into a book. It is not easier to find a publisher. For some things, of course, reputation helps. For others, though, in markets that have to do with change or publicity, it’s easier to be new or unknown. In addition, there are more writers chasing down fewer publishers. I’m not convinced, however, the answer lies in books, unless our distribution radically changes. At the moment, our books are amazing manufactured commodities. They are industrial products. I don’t think this is going to last. I think we are going to have to re-imagine the book, completely. I think we need to start now.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>8 - When was the last time you ate a pear?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>A couple months ago. Right now they taste like cold storage. What’s more, packing houses are now mixing artificial aromatic esters in with artificial storage atmospheres, to counter blandness. They’re science fiction pears. It’s like eating an asthma puffer or something. It’s better to wait until the pears are in season. I came of age reading <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgil">Virgil</a> underneath a pear tree while a huge bullsnake rustled through the grass just feet away, hunting in the rising starlight as nighthawks hunted overhead. I can wait.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>Always draw a knife towards yourself.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to non-fiction)? What do you see as the appeal?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>It’s not about appeal. Some of the genres we write in have not been defined. Good. This allows them to grow. The day will come when they replace the ones that are breaking at the seams today. Poetry is a non-fiction form. As Pound showed, the long poem is a lyric poem blown wide open. When non-fiction writing evolved out of the enlightenment, all the non-Descartian material of the Renaissance was left for the poets to deal with, and erroneously took on an aura of fancy — or fiction. Poetry, however, is a non-fiction form. By moving into non-fiction, a greater sense of language can be gained, a greater elasticity, and the ability to further escape the lyric mode and write in long forms.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>11 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>It begins with email, with conversations. These continue all day. Papers and books pile up around me. The phone rings. On it goes. Piles of papers and books collapse. I move them onto the printer when I need the scanner, and onto the scanner when I need the printer. I plow into things until my mind gets cloudy. Then I do something physical. Writing used to be physical. Now it’s electronic. It’s not the same thing at all anymore.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>I will sidestep that question, thanks. Writing is a gift. I’m grateful. I keep a sense of play. I talk to people. There’s always something to work on. There’s always something new. I teach workshops. I edit manuscripts for people. I learn from them. I build community. Writing gets stalled when it no longer fits a box. I avoid the damn things. I keep breathing. There’s so much to write about. I find song lines. I wait for them. I work in time. Life is short.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>13 - How does your most recent book compare to your previous work? How does it feel different?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>My most recent book is a manuscript on clowns. It’s a surrealist game that <a href="http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/316">Paul Celan </a>played with his friends in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romania">Romania</a> after WWII, which consists of rapid fire questions and answers. It’s fascinating. I love it because it’s poetry that doesn’t take the form of what is called poetry. It’s funny stuff, a combination of linguistic slapstick and trickster work. It’s different because of the formal departure. It’s the same, because I’ve been working with tricksters and clowns for years.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>14 - <a href="http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=A1ARTA0004895">David W. McFadden </a>once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>Story–telling and visual art are huge influences. Nothing gets into a prose book that hasn’t been told as a story, usually many times. <a href="http://www.library.utoronto.ca/canpoetry/page/index.htm">P.K. Page </a>said that visual art and poetry come from the same place. I agree. Painters are light years ahead of writers. They inspire me continually, daily. When I talk with painters, we’re talking about the same thing. I’d say that as a poet I have as much in common with painters than with most writers. We’re doing the same thing.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2007/jan/25/pressandpublishing.booksobituaries">Ryzsard Kapuscinski</a>, <a href="http://www.svenlindqvist.net/">Sven Lindqvist</a>, <a href="http://books.guardian.co.uk/reviews/biography/0,6121,1668939,00.html">Joan Didion</a>, <a href="http://www.nybooks.com/nyrb/authors/11379">Patrick Leigh Fermor</a>, <a href="http://www.abcbookworld.com/?state=view_author&author_id=1408">Theresa Kishkan </a>and <a href="http://www.athabascau.ca/writers/KristijanaGunnars.html">Kristjana Gunnars </a>[<a href="http://12or20questions.blogspot.com/2007/09/12-or-20-questions-for-kristjana.html">see her 12 or 20 questions here</a>] inspire me for nonfiction. For fiction, I love the postwar short stories of <a href="http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1972/boll-autobio.html">Heinrich Böll </a>and <a href="http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=11697">Siegfried Lenz </a>for their amazing reveals, <a href="http://www.carversite.com/">Raymond Carver </a>for his dialogue, <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/arts/books/story/2008/02/28/storyprize.html?ref=rss">Jim Shepherd </a>for the cinematic tour-de-force of his short story (but not his novel) <em><a href="http://www.williams.edu/Individuals/jshepard/Nosferatu.htm">Nosferatu</a></em>, <a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/writers/writer.asp?cid=1183753">Marianne Wiggins </a>and <a href="http://www.anansi.ca/authors.cfm?author_id=58">Mark Anthony Jarman </a>for their language, and <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/115951.Birgit_Vanderbeke">Birgit Vanderbeke </a>for her absolute mastery of repetitive syntax. For poetry,<a href="http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/161"> Ezra Pound</a>, always, as well as <a href="http://www.ucalgary.ca/UofC/faculties/HUM/ENGL/canada/poet/r_skelton.htm">Robin Skelton</a>, <a href="http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/31">Charles Wright</a>, and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Shattered-Sonnets-Cards-Handed-Importunities/dp/1582343527">Olena Kalytiak Davis’s <em>Shattered Sonnets Love Cards and Other Off and Back Handed Importunites</em></a>.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>I’d love to be a piano player.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>17 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>It would be cool to be a wine maker.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>It was possible, as a single individual, to stand outside of a system of lies and tell the truth. Also: words contain the world and manipulate the stuff of the world. How could I pass up on that?</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>The last great book I read was <a href="http://www.straight.com/article-114308/profile-theresa-kishkan">Theresa Kishkan’s <em>Phantom Limb</em></a>. The last great film I saw was <a href="http://www.channel4.com/film/reviews/film.jsp?id=164294">Cristian Mungiu’s <em>4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days</em></a>.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>20 - What are you currently working on?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>I’m currently seeking a publisher for a book of short stories. I am in love with the form. I am working on a play about the mysterious hanging of six <a href="http://www.secwepemc.org/">Secwepemc </a>girls as British Columbia became a province and restrictive Indian reserves were being established; a second play about the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Goebbels">Goebbels</a> family in Hell; a novel about <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Shakespeare">Shakespeare</a>, living on into the present through possession and repossession; a collection of long poems; two collections of short poems; a series of poems which rejig classical prose texts; my clown book; a book-length elegy for the lost province of British Columbia; a nonfiction book about fruit, and its history, as it has transformed from medicinal plant, to food stuff, to commodity, a nonfiction book about poetry, and another about nonfiction. Well, the last two might must be the same book. Time will tell. Why so many projects? I recently completed an MFA at UBC, online. To do so, I set my other writing aside for two years. The process of catching up is thrilling.</div><br /><div><a href="http://robmclennansindex.blogspot.com/2007/09/12-or-20-questions-archive.html"><em>12 or 20 questions archive</em></a></div>rob mclennanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07958889643637765864noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-319589917860132988.post-43423105340477622432008-03-09T14:09:00.000-07:002008-03-14T11:04:20.183-07:0012 or 20 questions: with Elisabeth Harvor<a href="http://www.library.utoronto.ca/canpoetry/harvor/index.htm"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5176230426550551602" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhg4EHReAgccYs4W5TkhnoteY5yfT2HWBg6mmYtTqWLTvg7sJFdUlSYE2-xZh8CP-ZhGMn2zhW2hnbGIPJdf1h96iYrhyphenhyphen0567te1x0-yvi75DBRzRs7qwaI8THffQri4FARK_xr6Nd9x_A/s320/harvor.gif" border="0" /><strong>Elisabeth Harvor's</strong> </a>work has appeared in <em><a href="http://web.uvic.ca/malahat/">The Malahat Review</a></em>, <em><a href="http://www.snmag.com/">Saturday Night</a></em>, <em><a href="http://www.newyorker.com/">The New Yorker</a></em>, <em><a href="http://prism.arts.ubc.ca/">PRISM International</a></em>, <em>Our Generation Against Nuclear War</em>, <em><a href="http://www.oberonpress.ca/">Best Canadian Stories</a></em>, <a href="http://www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com/features/best_american/"><em>The Best American Short Stories</em> </a>and many other periodicals and anthologies. Her poetry book, <em><a href="http://www.vehiculepress.com/cgi-bin/dbman/db.cgi?db=default&uid=&view_records=1&ID=31&ww=1">Fortress of Chairs</a></em>, won the <a href="http://www.poets.ca/linktext/awards/lampert.htm">Lampert Award for best first book of poetry written by a Canadian writer in 1992</a>, and <em><a href="http://www.mcclelland.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780771039645">Excessive Joy Injures the Heart</a></em>, her first novel, was named one of the ten best books of the year by the <em>Toronto Star</em> in 2000. She won the <a href="http://www.canadianartsnet.com/content/view/406/98/">Alden Nowlan Award for Literary Excellence in 2000</a>, <a href="http://www.writerstrust.com/programs_apa_marianengel.html">the Marian Engel Award for a woman writer in mid-career in 2003</a>, and she is <a href="http://web.uvic.ca/malahat/novella_contest/info.html">the 2004 winner of <em>The Malahat</em> Novella Prize</a>. Her most recent novel, a finalist for the <a href="http://www.ottawa.ca/residents/arts/funding_awards/book_awards/index_en.html">Ottawa Book Award </a>in 2005, is <em><a href="http://www.penguin.ca/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9780670044405,00.html">All Times Have Been Modern</a></em>, and her most recent story collection, <em><a href="http://www.mcclelland.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780771039652">Let Me Be the One</a></em>, was a 1996 finalist for the <a href="http://www.canadacouncil.ca/prizes/ggla/">Governor General's Award</a>.<br /><div></div><br /><div><a href="http://www.penguin.ca/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9780143016502,00.html">Harvor</a> also edited <a href="http://www.cumuluspress.com/risingtoatension.html">an anthology of new writing </a>titled <a href="http://www.books.co.uk/elisabeth_harvor/room_at_the_heart_of_things/9781550650945/"><em>A Room at The Heart of Things</em> </a>in 1998. It mainly celebrates the work of students and beginning writers whose poems and stories she collected while teaching in <a href="http://www.arts.yorku.ca/english/crwr/">writing programs at York University</a>, <a href="http://artsandscience1.concordia.ca/english/PGCreativeWritingIntro.html">Concordia University</a>, and the <a href="http://creativeandperformingarts.humber.ca/content/writers.html">Humber School for Writers</a>. <a href="http://writerscafe.ca/book_blogs/writers/elisabeth-harvor_all-times-have-been-modern.php">She has also written essays </a>on the work of <a href="http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/11">Sylvia Plath</a>, <a href="http://www.dorislessing.org/">Doris Lessing </a>and other writers for <em><a href="http://www.jstor.org/view/03186431/ap060039/06a00280/0">Our Generation Against Nuclear War</a></em>, <em><a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/">The Globe and Mail</a></em>, <em><a href="http://www.thestar.com/">The Toronto Star</a></em>, <em><a href="http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/index.html">The Ottawa Citizen</a></em>, and a number of other periodicals. She has two sons and is currently living in Ottawa. </div><br /><div></div><div><a href="http://www.writerscafe.ca/playaudio/elisabeth-harvor_all-times-have-been-modern.php?pauser=on&plugsfound=quicktime&vbr=&bookID=117&counter=0">Elisabeth Harvor </a>has <a href="http://www.canlit.ca/reviews-review.php?id=9900">been praised </a>by <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/pages/books/"><em>The New York Times Book Review</em> </a>for her "brilliantly patterned revelations" while the reviewer for <em>Paragraph</em> wrote of her work, "Startlingly original... Her writing is marked by surprises, a style that's akin to synapses firing in the brain; there are no concrete bridges, just jolts of energy linking cliff to cliff, idea to idea..."</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>1 - How did your first book change your life?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>I felt very exposed after my first book came out. So much so that when I went into a bookstore and there were copies of it set out on book tables, I had to leave the store. Now of course I want to storm out of bookstores if my book isn't there. </div><br /><div><strong>2 - How long have you lived in Ottawa, and how does geography, if at all, impact on your writing? Does race or gender make any impact on your work?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>I've lived in Ottawa off and on for over thirty years, with a number of years away from here spent being a graduate student (in Montreal), a sessional lecturer and course director at universities in Montreal and Toronto, and a writer-in-residence in Saskatoon, Fredericton, Montreal and (twice) in Ottawa....<br /><br />Geography? Ottawa is a topographically more complex and beautiful city than most people think, but I intensely miss the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennebecasis_River">Kennebecasis River Valley </a>where I grew up (above all, I miss the ocean), but when I lived out west in 1998-99, the prairie made a huge impact on me too. My parents both emigrated to the prairies (from <a href="http://www.denmark.dk/en">Denmark</a>) when they were young, then when they married they moved east. There's a moody black and white photo from my east coast childhood on my website at: <a href="http://www.elisabeth-harvor.com/" target="_blank">http://www.elisabeth-harvor.com/</a><br /><br />I have since written a few stories with western locations or connections. Part of my novel-in-progress is also set in Vancouver.<br /><br />As for race and gender being factors in my work, gender certainly has been, but race has been much less of a factor although I come from such a multicultural family that when my mother died 9 months ago she had grandchildren and new grandsons-in-law and granddaughters-in-law in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenya">Kenya</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korea">Korea</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India">India</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norway">Norway</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seychelles">the Seychelles</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigeria">Nigeria</a>, the US, and Canada.<br /><br /><strong>3 .Where does a poem or piece of fiction usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project,or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>I am never working on just one thing unless it's a poem or a very short story, I have a few things on the go, always. And how do things begin? Sometimes with a phrase, sometimes with a whole idea for a story, sometimes with an image. I also have a vast reservoir of work and it's always in flux. Parts of poems have been spliced into stories while parts of stories have occasionally turned into poems. I go wherever my mood or my need takes me.<br /><br />For example, "In The Hospital Garden," a poem I wrote in the 1980s about the birth of a baby who's a radiation mutation, I deal with the same material I dealt with a decade earlier in my first book, in a story called "Monster Baby." </div><br /><div></div><div><strong>4. Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>Not so much either way, although of course it's always great to meet people who feel connected to my work and sometimes an audience will laugh at a line in a poem or a story that I didn't know (until that very moment) was funny, and that is obviously a huge high. I remember reading a scene from a story called "Freakish Vine That I Am" in the <a href="http://www.releases.gov.nl.ca/releases/1998/exec/1102n06.htm">Poet and Peasant<br />Bookstore in St. John's </a>back in the 1990's, a bookstore that no longer exists, I believe, to one of the best audiences I've ever had---they were all drunk, I think---and there was a great spontaneous roar of laughter before I got to what I considered the final perfect line and so I didn't end up reading my perfect final line because their laughter had made it so redundant.... </div><br /><div></div><div><strong>5 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>I'm more interested in eternal questions than in current questions which, in the best of all possible worlds, are also the eternal questions. For me, those questions are fixed on the polar opposites of power and powerlessness, sexuality and sexual shyness, justice and injustice, hypocrisy and a watchful but passionate engagement with the world. Also, up till recently I've always been much more obsessed with style than with plot. Lately, though, both plot and momentum have been of new interest to me. </div><br /><div></div><div><strong>6 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>Both. And sometimes the more difficult the editor the more essential the process. Although I hasten to say this doesn't necessarily follow.</div><br /><div><strong>7 - After having published more than a couple of titles over the years, do you find the process of book-making harder or easier?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>It depends more on the genre than on the passing of time. Poems and stories are easiest for me, writing novels is the killer, writing a novel can really eat up your life. And to stay with the characters for years is like having house guests who've overstayed theirwelcome for so long that all you want them to do is pack up and go.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>8 - When was the last time you ate a pear?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>I can't remember when I last ate a pear. This is some kind of test for poets that I'm failing?</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>Don't lounge around waiting for the Muse to drop by. And revise, revise, revise. Keep a journal, write in it every day. Bring a notebook with you wherever you go. But do I follow my own advice? No, but I always intend to, at least in relation to the notebooks.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to fiction)? What do you see as the appeal?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>Maybe I have Attention Deficit Disorder, but I find it incredibly easy. It comes naturally to me, possibly to a degree that's pathological. And the appeal? It's fun, it feels like a form of play.<br /><br /><strong>11 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you evenhave one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>I have been writing all night every night for the last 11 years. This sounds either totally dedicated or totally mad, but my dedication comes and goes, particularly now that <a href="http://www.youtube.com/">YouTube</a> has come on the scene. I often go there when I am allegedly working...<a href="http://www.myspace.com/thepolice">The Police</a>, when they are doing an early video of <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXU8kCrRHJY">DON'T STAND SO CLOSE TO ME </a>are so great, I could watch them forever, they were so much better and so much more fun in their 1980 video than they are in the later pyrotechnical versions. Other performances I've visited again and again are <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_and_Garfunkel">Simon<br />and Garfunkel</a> singing early versions of <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rr-5zaSjfmA">THE BOXER </a>and <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bE1dz6_u2JI">MRS. ROBINSON</a>, <a href="http://www.jimcuddy.com/">Jim Cuddy </a>of <a href="http://www.bluerodeo.com/">Blue Rodeo </a>singing <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZREyF8vKR7s">TRY</a>, <a href="http://www.sinead-oconnor.com/">Sinead O'Connor </a>singing <a href="http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2cdyy_sinead-oconnor-nothing-compares-2-u_music">NOTHING COMPARES 2 U</a>, the mesmerizing <a href="http://www.leonardcohen.com/">Leonard Cohen </a>singing almost every song he has ever written.... </div><br /><div>And I sleep in the mornings from about seven till noon or early afternoon, then critique the work of my students in the late afternoons and evenings. A typical day begins (as it probably begins for most people in the western world) with checking my emails. Then I have a shower and grab an orange or a coffee and go back to my computer again.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>I turn to <a href="http://www.randomhouse.ca/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780553806502">Woolf</a>, <a href="http://www.sylviaplath.de/">Plath</a>, <a href="http://www.nagasaki-gaigo.ac.jp/ishikawa/amlit/m/malamud21.htm">Bernard Malamud</a>, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/books/01/02/11/specials/salter.html">James Salter</a>, <a href="http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/proth.htm">Philip Roth</a>, and at least twenty others.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>13 - How does your most recent book compare to your previous work? How does it feel different?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>In terms of my novels, I'm going after deeper emotions now and more interlocking plots, or so I like to think. But speaking of poetry and speaking technically, I could say that between my first poetry book, <em><a href="http://www.library.utoronto.ca/canpoetry/harvor/poem5.htm">Fortress of Chairs</a></em>, and my second poetry book, <em><a href="http://www.amazon.ca/Long-Cold-Green-Evenings-Spring/dp/1550650912">The Long Cold Green Evenings of Spring</a></em>, I learned something about line-breaks and quite a lot about white space. I learned that space is as much a mode of communication as words are, even if it is also the background<br />that allows the poem to "feature" particularly odd or idiosyncratic or memorable arrangements of words. Space can make you ache, at least if you have the right words reaching out into it...</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>14 - <a href="http://www.wier.ca/DMcFadden.html">David W. McFadden </a>once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>Yes, other writers are very important to me, above all the four writers I just mentioned. But many others. <a href="http://www.persephonebooks.co.uk/pages/books/journal.htm">Katherine Mansfield's <em>Journals</em></a>, <a href="http://www.randomhouse.com/features/nabokov/speak.html">Nabokov's <em>SPEAK MEMORY</em> </a>and <em><a href="http://www.vestige.org/nabokov/lolita/">LOLITA</a></em>, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Intimacy-Novel-Hanif-Kureishi/dp/0684852756">Hanif Kureishi's <em>INTIMACY</em></a>, <a href="http://www.contemporarywriters.com/authors/?p=auth03D25I553012635618">Nadine Gordimer's <em>THE LATE BOURGEOIS WORLD</em></a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_literature">the great Russian writers</a>. Especially <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Notes-Underground-Fyodor-Dostoevsky/dp/067973452X"><em>NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND</em> </a>and <em><a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/1399">ANNA KARENINA</a></em>. Music and paintings are also strong influences. Nature and weather too.<br /><br />But science? Not so much. Although one of my more recent poems begins with the words "Like all paranoids, I am a scientist..." and another pits an unexpected pregnancy against images that bloom out of references to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA">DNA</a>.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>I admire stories by many North American story writers and poems by many Canadian poets and would rather speak in terms of individual poems than speak of poets... A terrific poem by <a href="http://www.athabascau.ca/writers/nowlan/nowlan.html">Alden Nowlan</a> about being young and in love and thinking about dying, a brilliant poem by <a href="http://www.poets.ca/linktext/direct/mcinnis.htm">Nadine McInnis </a>[<a href="http://ottawapoetry.blogspot.com/2007/09/12-or-20-questions-with-nadine-mcinnis.html">see her 12 or 20 questions here</a>] about a woman poet writing against the moment her little boy will get home from school, <a href="http://www.library.utoronto.ca/canpoetry/tregebov/">Rhea Tregebov's </a>series of breathtaking poems about her son's stay in hospital with extreme asthma...Wonderful fiction by two Ottawa writers: <a href="http://www.elizabethhay.com/">Elizabeth Hay </a>[<a href="http://12or20questions.blogspot.com/2007/09/12-or-20-questions-with-elizabeth-hay.html">see her 12 or 20 questions here</a>] and <a href="http://www.thomas-allen.com/ThomasAllenPublishers/catalogue/0-88762-276-3R.htm">Mary Borsky </a>[<a href="http://12or20questions.blogspot.com/2008/02/12-or-20-questions-with-mary-borsky.html">see her 12 or 20 questions here</a>]. And the list could go on and on...</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>Live in some warmer place and swim every day.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>17 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>I would have liked to be a <a href="http://www.aom.on.ca/About/What_is_a_Midwife.aspx">midwife</a>. I love birth and babies but, unlike <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angelina_Jolie">Angelina Jolie</a>, I doubt I would ever have been a serial adopter.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>I wanted (and apparently needed) to throw my story down before the World Court of Readers.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>19 - What was the last great book you read?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div><em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Seek-My-Face-John-Updike/dp/0375414908">SEEK MY FACE</a></em>, by <a href="http://userpages.prexar.com/joyerkes/">John Updike</a>, a novella about a woman painter that is really extraordinary. I also admire <a href="http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/updike.htm">John Updike's stories </a>(or at least many of them) but I despise <a href="http://www.randomhouse.com/knopf/authors/updike/poem.html">his banal poetry</a>.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>20. What was the last great film?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>I admired many of the actors' performances in <em><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0274558/">THE HOURS</a></em>, although the script for the movie was mostly awful. And the movie I most want to see soon is <em><a href="http://imdb.com/title/tt0405094/">THE LIVES OF OTHERS</a></em>. Movies stretching far back in time that had a big effect onme were, among others, <em><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064276/">EASY RIDER</a></em>, <em><a href="http://imdb.com/title/tt0061722/">THE GRADUATE</a></em>, <em><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061395/">BELLE DE JOUR</a></em>, <em><a href="http://imdb.com/title/tt0104036/">THE CRYING GAME</a></em>, <em><a href="http://imdb.com/title/tt0070644/">SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE</a></em>, <em><a href="http://imdb.com/title/tt0050986/">WILD STRAWBERRIES</a></em>, <em><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Human_Condition_(film_trilogy)">THE HUMAN CONDITION</a></em>, <em><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082783/">MY DINNER WITH ANDRE</a></em>, <em><a href="http://imdb.com/title/tt0060176/">BLOW-UP</a></em>, <em><a href="http://imdb.com/title/tt0070290/">THE LAST DETAIL</a></em>, and <em><a href="http://imdb.com/title/tt0073440/">NASHVILLE</a></em>. I was also fascinated, and am still fascinated, by that whole documentary series that began with <em><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058578/">SEVEN UP</a></em>.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>21. - What are you currently working on?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>I'm working on a book of stories that's to come out this August, but in spite of the fact that this is only six months away from now, it doesn't yet have either a title or a cover image. I'm also working on a novel that I hope will come out in 2009. The launch of the story collection will be at the National Library and Archives on Tuesday, September 9th, so as soon as my publisher<br />gets back from Australia we'll have to come to a few major decisions....</div><br /><div></div><div><a href="http://robmclennansindex.blogspot.com/2007/09/12-or-20-questions-archive.html"><em>12 or 20 questions archive</em></a></div>rob mclennanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07958889643637765864noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-319589917860132988.post-5423331953742381742008-03-06T14:15:00.000-08:002008-03-06T14:52:11.037-08:0012 or 20 questions: with Aaron McCollough<a href="http://www.aaronmccollough.com/blog/"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5174757231365413618" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8k_AUlGmDVN9VxuwTfILiA8RcKCWH_qIL54xnGLMtrKE7EZEeLzaNjRzebbGZx8Q91kuXRYtB5Esf_Tq7sD3ihH9V_7n-r0JlNoCanIpdn2xaVwPb0hFjMviTvo87u_wBVBuW4jpuqpQ/s320/amc(clean).jpg" border="0" /><strong>Aaron McCollough’s</strong> </a>third book of poems, <em><a href="http://galatearesurrection4.blogspot.com/2006/11/little-ease-by-aaron-mccollough.html">Little Ease</a></em>, was <a href="http://ahsahtapress.boisestate.edu/books/mccollough2/mccollough2.htm">published by Ahsahta Press </a>in September of 2006. <a href="http://www.myspace.com/aaronmccollough">His previous books </a>include <a href="http://www.saltpublishing.com/books/smp/1844710033.htm"><em>Double Venus</em> </a>(Salt, 2003) and <em><a href="http://ahsahtapress.boisestate.edu/books/mccollough1.htm">Welkin</a> </em>(Ahsahta, 2002). <a href="http://herecomeseverybody.blogspot.com/2004/07/aaron-mccolloughs-third-book-of-poems.html">McCollough</a> just completed his PhD in English Language and Literature. <a href="http://english.chass.ncsu.edu/freeverse/Archives/Spring_2004/Reviews/A_McCollough.html">His dissertation</a>, <em>Mixed Motions: Protestant Struggles and the Proper Place of Feeling, 1550-1660</em>, focuses on the interplay between indeterminacies in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestant">Protestant</a> religious psychology and the early modern poetics of subjectivity. <a href="http://www.coconutpoetry.org/mccollough1.htm">McCollough</a> is the co-editor of <em>Some of These Days: Gullah Community on South Carolina’s Waccamaw Neck as Collected by <a href="http://www.amazon.ca/s?ie=UTF8&search-type=ss&index=books-ca&field-author=Genevieve%20W.%20Chandler&page=1">Genevieve W. Chandler</a></em>, which will be released by the <a href="http://www.sc.edu/uscpress/">University of South Carolina Press </a>in 2008. His fourth book of poems, <em>No Grave Can Hold My Body Down</em> is forthcoming from Ahsahta Press. <a href="http://oysterboy.com/archived/11/mcgarrell.html">He also edits </a>an online poetry journal called <em>GutCult</em> (<a href="http://www.gutcult.com/">http://www.gutcult.com/</a>).<br /><div></div><br /><div><strong>1 - How did your first book change your life?<br /></strong><br /><a href="http://rhubarbissusan.blogspot.com/2006/05/aaron-mccollough-third-poem-of-jan.html">Ultimately, I’d say it changed my life in subtle ways</a>. At first, I was very excited about the fact that it was happening at all, of course. <a href="http://media.www.michigandaily.com/media/storage/paper851/news/2007/11/21/TheStatement/7.Things.You.Should.Know.About.Being.A.Poet-3113270.shtml">Living with a book </a>being out there over a number of years is different, however, and I’ve come to appreciate that set of pleasures and concerns in a way I wouldn’t have been able to predict. Basically, in the short view, publishing a book helped me continue to establish an already strong sense I had that I really could do work in poetry: that I was what I was trying to be. In the longer view, the first book has continued to be something I’ve had to live with, measure myself against, etc. I imagine it could have been a different book, for example, and I would in turn have evolved as a different writer over the course of the books that followed.<br /><br /><strong>2 - How long have you lived in Michigan, and how does geography, if at all, impact on your writing? Does race or gender make any impact on your work?</strong><br /><br />Every time I think about it I’m surprised that I’ve been in Michigan for almost eight years. There’s every reason to believe I’ll be here for eight more. I find it hard not to be impressed by the geography of any place, and <a href="http://www.michigan.gov/">Michigan</a> is no different. It may be that geography isn’t exactly the word in this case, but something like “landscape” can be overwhelming in this place. Michigan is a place that the last few American economic booms forgot. As such, there is a squalor to the landscape that I identify with. The landscape of my youth was similar. The mountains of Tennessee are beautiful geographically, but in the seventies and eighties, Tennessee was still out of step with the spectacle of prosperousness. Then (as now in Michigan) it looked and felt like it was on the brink of collapse. That feels right to me. That’s where I belong. Race and gender are not foregrounded in my work usually, but they are always on my mind and questions about them do get attention there. When they play a role in the fashioning of soul-as-self and self-as-soul, race and gender become most interesting to me.<br /><br /><strong>3 - Where does a poem usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?</strong><br /><br /><a href="http://www.fascicle.com/issue01/Poets/mccollough1.htm">My process oscillates</a>. I’d say I’ve come to be a person who “<a href="http://jacketmagazine.com/26/mccoll.html">writes books</a>,” but that wasn’t true of my first book, and other projects have started in more-or-less discrete ways. I pretty much do whatever presents itself to be done.<br /><br /><strong>4 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process?</strong><br /><br />I wish readings had a bigger place in my world, but they don’t really play a big role. I believe in giving readings for all kinds of reasons, but I’m also an introvert. So, I wouldn’t say it plays a role in my process one way or another. I think it is important, but it also kind of freaks me out.<br /><br /><strong>5 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?</strong><br /><br />I’ve always been interested in continental philosophy, and in recent years I’ve become increasingly interested in greek philosophy, reformation theology, and radical democratic political theories. The questions I find most engaging concern relations between materialism and metaphysics. Dividing them has never made sense to me, but trying to talk about or even think about how they work together is very hard. Nevertheless, <a href="http://english.chass.ncsu.edu/freeverse/Archives/Spring_2005/poems/A_McCollough.html">the classic lyric questions </a>about self and time are still questions about materialist/metaphysical cruxes. If space and time are continuous aspects of one thing (space-time), then it is worth interrogating other aspects of our engagement with that thing for similar marks of binding. Soul-self, or spirit-flesh, etc. Like me, most poets (I think) come from a position on the left and write to an audience on the left. In essence, the right has found a fit between materialism and metaphysics. We on the left are incessantly being squeezed with political pressure in the guise of Christian morality. I’m interested (as a poet and a person) in finding better responses to that pressure and that style of thought.<br /><br /><strong>6 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?</strong><br /><br />My experience with editors has been very positive. I certainly wouldn’t call it difficult. I don’t know if I’d say it is essential, but then I’m not sure if I understand that part of the question. Essential in regard to what? Does working with an editor enable me creatively? Not really. Does it enable me to get my work into print? Yes. I’ve always had congenial editors, so maybe I’ve just been lucky. I have a powerful aversion to being bullied, so I can certainly imagine circumstances where working with an editor could be uncomfortable for me, but my work with editors has always felt necessary in the way that working together in good faith is always necessary to a good outcome.<br /><br /><strong>7 - After having published more than a couple of titles over the years, do you find the process of book-making harder or easier?</strong><br /><br />I wouldn’t say easier, exactly, but I would say less nerve-wracking. Early on I felt I had a lot to prove to myself. That was motivating, of course, but it also generated lots of anxiety. The challenges have shifted for me a bit in the last couple of years. These days, I’m more concerned with keeping my focus sharp and seeing my way into new projects with enthusiasm that used to appear almost ex nihilo out of fear or ambition. Still, that doesn’t mean the process is harder now. It’s just different. I prefer the set of working problems I’m currently stuck with to those that came before.<br /><br /><strong>8 - When was the last time you ate a pear?</strong><br /><br />Interesting you should ask that. I hate pears intensely. I’m not sure when I last ate one, but it was probably accidental (as part of a fruit cup or something). There is a graininess to the texture of pear meat that I find all wrong in fruit. Also, the skin feels artificial to me. I think pears are a conspiracy.<br /><br /><strong>9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?</strong><br /><br />Don’t shit where you eat. Also, do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Somewhere in between those two lies the only feasible way.<br /><br /><strong>10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to reviews/critical work)? What do you see as the appeal?</strong><br /><br />I recently finished a dissertation in <a href="http://www.tiscali.co.uk/reference/encyclopaedia/hutchinson/m0097743.html">Renaissance literature</a>. Going into that project, I was pretty concerned that the critical work was going to sap my energy and enthusiasm for writing poetry. Lots of people warned me that this would happen, and I can still see how that is possible. For me, however, the two types of work have really fed one another. When they are not talking to each other, each offers a bit of a break from special frustrations of the other.<br /><br /><strong>11 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?<br /></strong><br />I come in and out of writing routines, I guess. I go on obsessive tears where I write every day for weeks, for one thing (which is kind of a sub-routine). Otherwise, I find that specific projects dictate their own writing processes, which I then follow pretty rigorously. A typical day begins with my getting up and going to campus to teach or (on days I don’t teach) getting up, going to the couch, and reading for a couple hours. If I’m in the middle of a project, I tend to go back and forth between reading and writing. The first few hours of consciousness tend to be most productive for me in any case.<br /><br /><strong>12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?</strong><br /><br />I have favorites like <a href="http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/herbert/">George Herbert</a>, <a href="http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/920">George Oppen</a>, <a href="http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/856">Donald Revell</a>, <a href="http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/m_r/pound/pound.htm">Ezra Pound</a>, <a href="http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/m_r/palmer/palmer.htm">Michael Palmer</a>, <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalms">The Psalms</a>, <a href="http://www.charlesolson.ca/files/contents.html">Charles Olson</a>, <a href="http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/g_l/howe/howe.htm">Susan Howe</a>. But more often, when hoping for inspiration, I think I look in places I haven’t been before. Much of the time, I’m trying to avoid pastiching my favorite writers, so I need to cut their influence with something new.<br /><br /><strong>13 - How does your most recent book compare to your previous work? How does it feel different?</strong><br /><br />With <em><a href="http://reviews.coldfrontmag.com/2007/04/little_ease_by_.html">Little Ease</a></em>, I was <a href="http://english.chass.ncsu.edu/freeverse/Archives/Spring_2007/reviews/A_McCollough.html">conscious from a fairly early point </a>that I was writing according to a principle <a href="http://www.stationhill.org/rasula.html">Jed Rasula </a>has called “experiment as the argument of the book.” <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Welkin-Poems-Sawtooth-Poetry-Prize/dp/0916272729">Welkin </a></em>and <em><a href="http://english.chass.ncsu.edu/freeverse/Archives/Winter_2004/reviews/S_Mir_A_McCollough.html">Double Venus</a></em> included extended serial work, but it wasn’t until the third book that I felt able to open the aperture to encompass the whole thing. Lately, I’ve been working on opening that same aperture even further, beyond the binding of one book.<br /><br /><strong>14 - <a href="http://www.uwo.ca/english/canadianpoetry/cpjrn/vol07/bowering.htm">David W. McFadden </a>once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?<br /></strong><br />For a long time I wrote and recorded songs in my basement. I’d like to be doing that now, but doing it has proved a casualty of trying to balance my writing life with my scholarly work. I think that songs and songwriting have had a pretty major influence on the way I think about putting words together. Certainly, sound in and of itself means a lot to me: that is, I trust sound as a signifier, and recorded music (thinking about and feeling how the layers come together and interact) plays a significant role in driving that for me.<br /><br /><strong>15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?</strong><br /><br /><em><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible">The Bible</a></em> (esp. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_the_Apostle">St. Paul </a>and <a href="http://ebible.org/bible/web/Psalms.htm">Psalms</a>), <a href="http://www.ccel.org/a/augustine/">Augustine</a>, <a href="http://www.langlab.wayne.edu/CStivale/D-G/">Deleuze and Guattari</a>, <a href="http://www.des.emory.edu/mfp/james.html">William James</a>, <a href="http://www.synaptic.bc.ca/ejournal/foucault.htm">Foucault</a>, <a href="http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/arendt.html">Arendt</a>, <a href="http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/628">Herbert</a>, <a href="http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/lfceline.htm">Céline</a>, <a href="http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,6109,619971,00.html">Sebald</a>, <a href="http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/milton/">Milton</a>, <a href="http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/olson/">Charles Olson</a>, <a href="http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/hejinian/">Hejinian</a>, <a href="http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/howe/">Susan Howe</a>, <a href="http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/REFORM/CALVIN.HTM">John Calvin</a>, <a href="http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/celan.htm">Celan</a>, <a href="http://www.utppublishing.com/pubstore/merchant.ihtml?pid=6922&lastcatid=97&step=4">Deborah Shuger</a>, <a href="http://www.gwu.edu/~newsctr/newscenter/commencement04/paster_remarks.html">Gail Kern-Paster</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Lacan">Lacan</a>, <a href="http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/marx.html">Marx</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavoj_%C5%BDi%C5%BEek">Zizek</a>, <a href="http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/journal_of_medieval_and_early_modern_studies/v031/31.3schoenfeldt.html">Michael Schoenfeldt</a>, <a href="http://www.john-keats.com/">Keats</a>, <a href="http://shakespeare.mit.edu/">Shakespeare</a>, <a href="http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/philosophers/montaigne.html">Montaigne</a>, <a href="http://thoreau.eserver.org/">Thoreau</a>, <a href="http://www.whitmanarchive.org/">Whitman</a>, <a href="http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/mandelst.htm">Mandelstam</a>, <a href="http://writing.upenn.edu/epc/authors/oppen/">Oppen</a>, <a href="http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/161">Pound</a>, <a href="http://www.harpercollins.com/authors/4950/Denis_Johnson/index.aspx">Denis Johnson</a>, <a href="http://www.lib.byu.edu/dlib/donne/">Donne’s Sermons</a>, <a href="http://www.wholesomewords.org/biography/biorpbunyan.html">John Bunyan</a>.<br /><br /><strong>16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?</strong><br /><br />Become a father.<br /><br /><strong>17 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?</strong><br /><br />I would probably try some sort of counseling. Maybe some form of pastoral counseling. Despite being an introvert, I really like people. My mother runs a mental health clinic in rural Georgia, and I think she does noble work. It is a slow, gradual attempt to improve individual lives, but it is a practical approach. Teaching, of course, has some potential for doing this, also, but the level of need is very different.<br /><br /><strong>18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?</strong><br /><br />I never felt like I was much good at anything else. I could do other things, I’m sure, but without much confidence. I certainly have doubts as a writer, but basically I feel (and have pretty much always felt) called to write in the old vocational sense. It made/makes sense for me in a way that nothing else does. That writing (or at least the kind of writing I do) is not profitable in any way is unfortunate but basically irrelevant to me.<br /><br /><strong>19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?</strong><br /><br />I recently read a book about <a href="http://ablemedia.com/ctcweb/netshots/tragedy.htm">Greek tragedy </a>by <a href="http://www.contemporarywriters.com/authors/?p=auth03d22l333712635597">Ruth Padel </a>called <em><a href="http://www.ruthpadel.com/pages/inanout.htm">In and Out of the Mind</a></em>. I thought that was amazing. Last great movie I saw was<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086541/"> <em>Videodrome</em></a>, which I had never seen before. Another recent one that I loved was <em><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071615/">The Holy Mountain</a></em>.<br /><br /><strong>20 - What are you currently working on?</strong><br /><br />I’ve just finished a manuscript called <em>Rough Soul</em>, which comprises short lyrics, mainly. That book is very <a href="http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/elegiac">elegiac</a>. I’m in the preliminary stages of another project on fury, conscience, pollution, and cleansing that grows out of my interest (as pretty much everything I write does) in the materiality, or objective substance, of emotional, cognitive, and spiritual states. </div><br /><div></div><div><a href="http://robmclennansindex.blogspot.com/2007/09/12-or-20-questions-archive.html"><em>12 or 20 questions archive</em></a></div>rob mclennanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07958889643637765864noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-319589917860132988.post-92181366345841491112008-03-01T11:30:00.001-08:002008-03-14T11:07:07.980-07:0012 or 20 questions: with Endre Farkas<a href="http://endrefarkas.com/"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5172890756163257778" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgS6xIj3R21Ipe066kQ20E2hOfuWgcEOCZech3MpD5lbZj1SIH2DjKEHpyzvO7VHpQlWbBZ9MgVJu6IfPZ1cpMmOQ-1Tjm5H440lyZkN0yqe4efqD1aQT3XhkLGzhHB7qE2qH2qnqsHK6s/s320/Endre+02.jpg" border="0" /><strong>Endre Farkas</strong> </a>was born in 1948 in <a href="http://www.buzznet.com/www/peoplesearch/?country=HU&city=Hajd%C3%BAn%C3%A1n%C3%A1s&s=1">Hajdunanas Hungary</a>. He escaped with his parents during the Hungarian uprising of 1956 and came to Montreal, Canada that year. He received his Masters of Arts degree in 1976 from <a href="http://www.concordia.ca/">Concordia University</a>. He became involved with <a href="http://archives3.concordia.ca/vparchives/findingaid_en/fonds.html">Vehicule Art Gallery </a>in 1974, a parallel gallery begun by visual artists in 1972, and became part of a group of poets which included <a href="http://www.coraclepress.com/chapbooks/morrissey/remembering-artie-gold.html">Artie Gold</a>, <a href="http://www.signature-editions.com/xevd.htm">Ken Norris </a>[<a href="http://12or20questions.blogspot.com/2007/09/12-or-20-questions-with-ken-norris.html">see his 12 0r 20 questions here</a>], <a href="http://www.poetics.ca/poetics07/Camlotland-article2.html">Claudia Lapp</a>, <a href="http://www.amproductions.com/videos/artsandsci/tom_konyves/poetry/interview.html">Tom Konyves </a>[<a href="http://12or20questions.blogspot.com/2007/11/12-or-20-questions-with-tom-konyves.html">see his 12 or 20 questions here</a>], and <a href="http://www.stephenmorrissey.ca/biography/index.html">Stephen Morrissey </a>[<a href="http://12or20questions.blogspot.com/2008/01/12-or-20-questions-with-stephen.html">see his 12 or 20 questions here</a>], and <a href="http://www.vehiculepress.com/montreal/gallery/mcauley.html">John McAuley</a>. They became know as the <a href="http://www.vehiculepoets.com/">Vehicule Poets </a>and a number of them, including <a href="http://www.poets.ca/Linktext/direct/farkas.htm">Farkas</a>, became involved in poetic and interdisciplinary performances and activities. He ran <a href="http://www.vehiculepoets.com/intro_by_george_bowering_04.htm">the Vehicule Poetry Reading Series </a>for 4 years and was, along with <a href="http://toddswift.blogspot.com/2007/02/artie-gold-has-died.html">Gold </a>and <a href="http://www.aelaq.org/mrb/article.php?issue=6&article=86&cat=3">Norris</a>, <a href="http://www.skarwood.com/ArtieGold.htm">one of the founding editors </a>of <a href="http://www.vehiculepress.com/">Vehicule Press</a>.<br /><div><br /><a href="http://www.vehiculepoets.com/photos_page.htm">He has published eleven books of poetry</a>: <em>Szerbusz</em>, 1974; <em>Murders in the Welcome Café</em>, 1977;<br /><em>Romantic at Heart & Other Faults</em>, 1979; <em>Face‑Off</em>, 1980; <em>From Here to Here</em>, 1982; <em>How To</em>, 1988, which was nominated for the <a href="http://www.qwf.org/awards/">QSPELL AM Klein Poetry Prize</a>; <em>Howl Too Eh</em>?? (with Ken Norris), 1992; <em>Surviving Words</em>, 1994; <em><a href="http://www.aelaq.org/mrb/article.php?issue=11&article=284&cat=3">In The Worshipful Company of Skinners</a></em>, 2003; <em>PromeCards from Chile</em>, 2006 & <em><a href="http://www.amazon.ca/Quotidian-Fever-New-Selected-Poems/dp/1897289219">Quotidian Fever: New & Selected 1974-2007</a></em>. He has also published two plays <em>Surviving Wor(l)ds</em>, 1999, Voices 2002. His book <em><a href="http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/books/Surviving-Words-Endre-Farkas/9780919754492-item.html">Surviving Words</a></em>, has been translated into French Les mots Qui Survivent, by Marie Evangeline Arsenault, 1999 and Spanish Palabras Sobrevivientes, translated by <a href="http://souaid.com/works/bio-biblio/article_33.shtml">Elias Letelier </a>2002. A virtual version of it has been published as Hirencia, 2001. </div><div><br /><a href="http://endrefarkas.com/poemscape/bibliography/article_93.shtml">He has edited a number of anthologies</a>: <em>Montreal English Poetry of the Seventies</em>, <em>The Other Language</em>, <em>Quebec Suite</em> and <em>Passport</em>. He co produced an album of spoken work <em>Sounds Like</em> with <a href="http://www.talonbooks.com/index.cfm?event=authorDetails&authorID=148">Ken Norris </a>[<a href="http://12or20questions.blogspot.com/2007/09/12-or-20-questions-with-ken-norris.html">see his 12 or 20 questions here</a>]. He has also been included in numerous anthologies: <em>10 Montreal Poets at the Cegeps</em>, <em>CrossCut</em>, <em>Voix-Off</em>, <em>Canadian Poetry Now</em>, <em>Poetry Australi</em>, <em>Anaconda</em>, and <em>Canto a un Prisionero</em> and magazines in Canada and abroad, in English, French, Spanish and Italian. His work has been translated into Hungarian, Slovenian, French, Spanish Italian and Turkish. He has read/performed in Canada, USA, France, Hungary, Slovenia, Italy, Chile, Belgium, Holland, and Germany. He co-wrote with <a href="http://endrefarkas.com/poemscape/archives/article_78.shtml">Ruth Taylor </a><em>Radio Love</em> as a commissioned radio play. He collaborated with <a href="http://www.asmstudio.net/content/">director Liz Valdez </a>to write “Why is this Night Different?” a play for teens/young adults.</div><br /><div>He has always been interested in multidisciplinary performances and collaborations. In 1976 he began working with artists from other disciplines: dance, music and theatre. Some of the performances include <em>Drummer Boy Raga</em> (A collaborative 7 voice text creation) <em>Close Up</em> (A collaboration with composer Ted Dawson.) Toured Edmonton, Calgary, Vancouver, Victoria. <em>Sound Bodies</em> (Commissioned text and choreography for FULCRUM, a Vancouver based dance group) <em>It Runs in the Family</em> (Comissioned text and choreography for poet and two dancers.) <em>Face‑Off /Mise Au jeu</em> (Commissioned piece for the dance group CATPOTO.) <em>An Evening in the Muses' Company</em> (Text and movement for 3 actors. <em>A Minute to Go</em>, (Text and movement) <em>Murders In The Welcome Café</em> (Dramatization of the book, <em>I Love You/Te t'aime</em> (Text and movement for 3 voices for “Le jour de Poésie” <em>Cabaret Vehicule</em> An evening of performance poetry at Cinquieme Salle de Place des arts sponsored by the Musee d’art contemporaine de Quebec and <em>ProemCards from Chile</em> (solo performance) for <em>Circus of Words/Cirque des mots</em>.<br />In 1980 he started <a href="http://www.melaniecameron.com/shillingford.htm">The Muses Co</a>. originally an “umbrella” under which he produced and toured some of his productions. It evolved to include a publishing house that focused on poetry by new writers outside of the mainstream. He is also <a href="http://quebecbooks.qwf.org/">one of the founders of QSPELL </a>(Quebec Society for the Promotion of English Language Literature) and <a href="http://www.qwf.org/">The Quebec Writers Federation</a>. He was President of Quebec English Language Publishers, editor of <a href="http://www.matrixmagazine.org/"><em>Matrix Magazine</em> </a>(with <a href="http://www.lindaleith.com/">Linda Leith </a>and <a href="http://www.aelaq.org/mrb/article.php?issue=1&article=12&cat=2">Kenneth Radu</a>), producer of <a href="http://www.track0.com/ogwc/archives/000387.html"><em>Cabaret Vehicule</em> </a>at <a href="http://www.macm.org/fr/index.html">Musee D’art contemporain de Montreal </a>and along with <a href="http://quebecbooks.qwf.org/authors/view/381">Carolyn Marie Souaid</a>, coproducer of <em>Poesie en Mouvement/Poetry in Motion</em> (poems on the buses project) and the ongoing <em><a href="http://www.mcgilldaily.com/view.php?aid=5142">Circus of Words/Cirque des mots</a></em>.<br /></div><div><strong>1 - How did your first book change your life?<br /></strong><br />I don’t think it changed my life. I remember working on it as life changing. That actually sounds melodramatic. <em>Szerbusz</em> (Hello/Goodbye in <a href="http://www.freedict.com/onldict/hun.html">Hungarian</a>, from Latin) was a chapbook of poems about going back to Hungary from where my parents & I escaped and dealing with the love/hate I had for the country and its people. Twice my country of birth turned on my parents; first in the 40’s, allowing them to be deported to concentration camps and <a href="http://www.johndclare.net/cold_war14.htm">then again in ’56</a>. In my village, <a href="http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/hungary_1956.htm">the ’56 uprising</a>, the idealism of <a href="http://www.budapestinfo.hu/en/">Budapest</a>, turned anti-Semitic and under the cover of night mobs burned and looted Jewish homes. And in the morning the individuals of that mob behaved as if nothing had happened. So if anything changed my life it was this going back and encountering the past and the present. My first book was not my introduction to my life in poetry but it was what some people took to be my poetic license. </div><br /><div><strong>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?<br /></strong><br />I have lived in Montreal for 52 years with a couple of years in the <a href="http://www.easterntownships-travelguide.com/">Eastern Townships </a>on a commune. I love living in Montreal. I like that it is an island, that there is a limit to its growth. It forces the city to stay human. Then there is the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Royal">Mountain</a>; this teat of Mother Nature with an electric cross as its nipple in the middle of the city. And of course there is the geography of languages, the politics of languages, the history of languages, the poetry of languages. I think my poetry has been influenced by the shape and rhythm of the city. I wander its streets and feel its hearts. The city has many hearts, as many as there are people and more. I know that people in different cities could say some of the same things about their cities. If they can, Great!<br /><br />About Gender I wonder. I’m male. I’m conscious of it and sometimes write about it overtly. Unconsciously, I probably write with it. About race, <a href="http://www.library.utoronto.ca/canpoetry/scott_fr/index.htm">F.R. Scott </a>once wrote a 4-liner called “<a href="http://www.uwo.ca/english/canadianpoetry/cpjrn/vol27/campbell.htm">Creed</a>”. One line goes “<a href="http://www.uwo.ca/english/canadianpoetry/cpjrn/vol04/djwa.htm">the human race is my race</a>”. I know it sounds hippy-dippy but so what. Maybe by saying it often enough, it will catch on. Doesn’t it make more sense than “my god can beat up your god” or “my country is better than yours”?<br /><br /><strong>3 - Where does a poem usually begin for you?</strong><br /><br />3- Often I don’t know until after the poem is finished; from the personal, political, psychological and poetic concerns that are in me at the time.<br /><br /><strong>Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?</strong> </div><br /><div>I’ve done both plus hybrids. My books tend to be poem books but may not necessarily start out that way. I’ve also done poem-books which were clearly book length though not necessarily narrative. And there are those that were. I don’t believe in “one approach” because that is not how I work nor how I live my life. </div><br /><div><strong>4- Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process?<br /></strong><br />I look at readings as performances. I can’t stand readings that are mumbles of the mortician school of poetry. Also many readings are not about the poems but about the poet. This I think is wrong. A reading/performance is about the community experience via the poem. Obviously, when I am working on pieces that are to be performed, performance is part of the engine. Ever since I have been in the poetry business I’ve created pieces that I wanted performed-solo, duo, trio, with dancers, musicians, actors and etc. It’s part of what I believe poetry is all about-oral, theatrical, community oriented. Then there are those poems that are most at home on the page. However, I have been surprised by some of the page poems that have evolved into evocative stage poems. </div><br /><div><strong>5- Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing?</strong><br /><br />No. First the poem and then the theory. Yes. There is good poetry & bad poetry.<br /><br /><strong>What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? </strong></div><br /><div>My work is not about questions and then answering them.<br /><br />We live in a world that has lots of issues that raise lots of questions about what kind of world we live in. When I ask my students what they think a poem does, one of the most often given answers is “escape”. My response to this is “what kind of world are we living in, in which art is an escape?” “What do we need to escape from?” These are rhetorical questions. Aren’t they? I prefer <a href="http://www.blakearchive.org/blake/">Blake </a>to <a href="http://www.online-literature.com/wordsworth/">Wordsworth</a> because <a href="http://www.english.uga.edu/wblake/home1.html">Blake</a> didn’t try to use his poetry as an escape. He confronted his time. I try to do that in both the personal and public poems. </div><br /><div><strong>6- Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?</strong><br /><br />Depends on the editor. I really appreciated the critical, aesthetic and poet’s eye and ear that <a href="http://souaid.com/works/index.shtml">Carolyn Marie Souaid </a>brought to <em><a href="http://endrefarkas.com/poemscape/news/article_102.shtml">Quotidian Fever: New and Selected, 1974-2007</a></em>. An editor can see your poetic landscape from a different perspective and that helps you to see it freshly. </div><br /><div><strong>7 -After having published more than a couple of titles over the years, do you find the process of book-making harder or easier?</strong><br /><br />So far, I seemed to have gone through the same stages with each book. By the time a book is published, I feel long gone from there but because it is being published, I come back to it to promote it. After the one or two reviews, silence sets in. However, the hunger that seems to drive my writing seems to be satiated for about a year. The guilt of not writing is also assuaged for a period of time. Then an almost inaudible rumbles of hunger, just almost out of earshot but not quite, begins. A feeling of having done nothing emerges and a depression of sorts sets in. By the third year I look at my files to see if I have done any writing convinced that I haven’t, and I am often surprised that I have. Then begins the work of seeking a thread, editing, polishing, cursing and feeling better. </div><br /><div><strong>8- When was the last time you ate a pear?</strong><br /><br />A pear of what?</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?</strong> </div><br /><div>“I’ll burn that bridge when I get to it”, “Why do anything once when you can do it twice”. </div><br /><div></div><div><strong>10- How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to plays)? What do you see as the appeal?<br /></strong><br />It hasn’t felt too difficult though I am not sure if what I write (besides poetry) are plays. The plays started out as a feeling that I needed to/wanted to do more than just “read” poems. This was because I grew up (creatively) among artists from different disciplines. I hung out at Vehicule Art Gallery and met musicians, dancers, visual artists etc. and ended up collaborating with them for “performances”. I created multi-voiced pieces. This road became multi voice and movement, text and “theatre of poetry to finally a couple of plays. These performances/plays run parallel to my writing poems for the page.<br /><br />These interdisciplinary pieces appealed to me because of their collaborative nature which countered the solitary state of writing of poems, the multilayered textuality that was not possible on the page, and a way of presenting poetry to a wider audience.<br /><br /><strong>11- What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?</strong><br /><br />I don’t have a writing routine. My day begins with waking up and going to the bathroom.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>12- When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?</strong> </div><br /><div>I used to write something everyday, now it’s when I feel like it or when it feels like it. </div><br /><div><strong>13- How does your most recent book compare to your previous work? How does it feel different?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>It was a Selected old and new and I haven’t done one of those yet so that was different. Because I don’t really know what I am going to write about from one book to the next, I tend to write books on different topics but certain large themes seem to exist. The Voyage is one. Sometimes, it is literal <em>Szerbusz</em>, <em>From Here to Here</em>, <em>PromeCards from Chile</em>; surreal: <em>Murders in the Welcome Café</em>; relationship-oriented: <em>Romantic at Heart & Other Faults</em>, <em>How To</em>, memory-based <em>Surviving Words</em>, and historical <em><a href="http://www.danforthreview.com/reviews/poetry/farkas.htm">In the Worshipful Company of Skinners</a></em>. Sometimes the difference is in form. </div><br /><div><strong>14- <a href="http://www.themanitoban.com/2002-2003/0108/arts_1.shtml">David W. McFadden </a>once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?</strong><br /><br />The daily life of the world which includes nature, music, science and visual art.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>15- What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?<br /></strong><br />Whatever writer(s) I happen to be reading at the time is the important writer(s) & writing(s). My life outside, like most people’s, is not simple (I’m playing here with your question but it’s serious play), so these are fascinating, troubling, inspiring etc.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>16- What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?</strong><br /><br />I don’t know. I could answer like a Miss Something contestant-“I would like to bring peace to the world”. On good days, everything I do is what I haven’t done yet.<br /><br /><strong>17- If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?</strong><br /><br />I would like to have been a carpenter. There is something fulfilling in shaping wood into something functional; creating harmony between form and content. </div><br /><div></div><div><strong>18- What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?</strong><br /><br />I read. I was captured by what words could make out of what seems thin air and effect self and another being.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>19- What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?</strong><br /><br /><a href="http://www.saulbellow.org/CriticismandReviews/HendersontheRainKing.html"><em>Henderson The Rain King</em> </a>by <a href="http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1976/bellow-bio.html">Saul Bellow</a>. <em><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0419887/">The Kite Runner</a></em>.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>20- What are you currently working on?</strong><br /><br />I’ll tell you when it’s done.</div><br /><div></div><div><a href="http://robmclennansindex.blogspot.com/2007/09/12-or-20-questions-archive.html"><em>12 or 20 questions archive</em></a></div>rob mclennanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07958889643637765864noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-319589917860132988.post-59190021665890682772008-02-27T12:05:00.000-08:002008-03-09T12:13:57.230-07:0012 or 20 questions: with Ray Robertson<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjypTf7HGGyxOvpO4UBsBpRHa2T8m1orMVdiqE4OEtyP8i-oOFzmqxnf7a8TD1aMyjHNc-dycnpe0_hr1JcX9MjPZy2wRi3y14qbG8WVVDxB21AHBnT9sJnOA4eG_SYhiw98jIp9G3php8/s1600-h/ray_robertson.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5171757310853641922" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjypTf7HGGyxOvpO4UBsBpRHa2T8m1orMVdiqE4OEtyP8i-oOFzmqxnf7a8TD1aMyjHNc-dycnpe0_hr1JcX9MjPZy2wRi3y14qbG8WVVDxB21AHBnT9sJnOA4eG_SYhiw98jIp9G3php8/s320/ray_robertson.jpg" border="0" /></a> <div><div><div><a href="http://www.rayrobertson.com/"><strong>Ray Robertson</strong> </a>graduated from the University of Toronto with High Distinction with a B.A. in philosophy and later gained an M.F.A. in creative writing from <a href="http://www.txstate.edu/">Southwest Texas State University</a>.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.cormorantbooks.com/qa05/rayrobertson_QA.htm">He is the author </a>of the novels <em><a href="http://www.amazon.ca/Home-Movies-Robertson-Ray/dp/1896951023">Home Movies</a></em>, <em><a href="http://www.dundurn.com/books/component/page,shop.product_details/flypage,shop.flypage/product_id,216/category_id,108/manufacturer_id,0/option,com_virtuemart/Itemid,28/vmcchk,1/">Heroes</a></em>, <em><a href="http://www.sfwp.com/moody-shop.php">Moody Food</a></em>, <em><a href="http://www.cormorantbooks.com/titles/gentlydownthestream.htm">Gently Down the Stream</a></em>, and <em><a href="http://www.thomas-allen.com/ThomasAllenPublishers/catalogue/978-0-88762-279-3.htm">What Happened Later</a></em>, as well as <a href="http://www.danforthreview.com/reviews/nonfiction/robertson.htm">a collection of non-fiction</a>, <em><a href="http://www.insomniacpress.com/title.php?id=1-894663-43-8">Mental Hygiene: Essays on Writers and Writing</a></em>.<br /><br />He is a contributing book reviewer to the <a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/">Toronto <em>Globe and Mail</em></a>, appears regularly <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/talkingbooks/">CBC’s <em>Talking Books</em></a>, and teaches creative writing at the <a href="http://learn.utoronto.ca/site3.aspx">University of Toronto’s School of Continuing Studies</a>.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>1 - How did your first book change your life?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div>The fame, the money, the women--it was all too much too soon, it almost killed me. But with the help of the Lord and <a href="http://www.drugs.com/zoloft.html">Zoloft</a>, I made it.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>2 - How long have you lived in Toronto, and how does geography, if at all, impact on your writing? Does race or gender make any impact on your work?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div>Except for the four years in the mid-90's I'm not entirely comfortable talking about without a lawyer present, I've made Toronto my home since 1985. I find that being a dead, white male limits my work, but, alas, this is the hand I've been dealt.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>3 - Where does a piece of fiction usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>I wait for God to speak to me directly and then simply take notes. I believe this is called the <a href="http://www.sou.edu/English/Hedges/Sodashop/RCenter/Theory/Explaind/ncritexp.htm">New Criticism </a>or the <a href="http://faculty.smu.edu/nschwart/seminar/Fallacy.htm">Intentional Fallacy </a>orTourette's Syndrone, I forget which.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>4 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>Any chance to appear in public without my "handlers" is a very welcome occasion.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>5 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>I want people to feel more alive when <a href="http://www.greenmanreview.com/book/book_robertson_moodyfood.html">they read my novels</a>. And no refunds, all sales final.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>6 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>Editors are like the police: they're necessary, but you feel better when they're not around.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>7 - After having published more than a couple of titles over the years, do you find the process of book-making harder or easier?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div>Semi-hard, but, then, I've had a few drinks.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>8 - When was the last time you ate a pear?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>A pear of what?</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>Eat a lot, sleep a lot, brush them like crazy. Run a lot, do a lot, never be lazy.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (fiction to reviews)? What do you see as the appeal?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div><a href="http://jsomerville.blogspot.com/2007/09/what-happened-later-by-ray-robertson.html">Novels are why I live</a>; reviews are one of the ways I stay alive. Or maybe it's the other way around.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>11 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div>Hangover, apologies, regret, delusions, lunch, work, alchohol and loud music, repeat.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>Good prose, cheap wine, lasting music.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>13 - How does your most recent book compare to your previous work? How does it feel different?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div>As opposed to <em><a href="http://www.quillandquire.com/reviews/review.cfm?review_id=5702">What Happened Later</a></em>, my latest novel, my previous one was called <em><a href="http://www.straight.com/article/gently-down-the-stream-by-ray-robertson">Gently Down the Stream</a></em>.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>14 - <a href="http://www.cordite.org.au/archives/000684.html">David W. McFadden </a>once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>Sad songs, shouts in the street, non-refundable daydreams.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div>The ones who made me want to be a writer: <a href="http://www.identitytheory.com/people/birnbaum46.html">Thomas McGuane</a>, <a href="http://www.olemiss.edu/depts/english/ms-writers/dir/hannah_barry/">Barry Hannah</a>, <a href="http://www.litkicks.com/JackKerouac">Kerouac</a>, <a href="http://www.utoronto.ca/IVWS/">Virigina Woolf's</a> non-fiction, anyone who can sing and dance and make me want to join in.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>Finish answering these questions.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>17 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>Daycare worker.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>Writing is the ultimate <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_it_yourself">DIY </a>art form--all you need is a pen and some paper.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>There is only one great film, <em><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094336/">Withnail and I</a></em>; as for books, if it exists, I haven't read it yet.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>20 - What are you currently working on?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div><a href="http://www.heineken.com/canada/WOH/SplashPage/SplashPage.aspx?ReturnURL=">Heineken</a> and pain killers.</div><br /><div></div><div><a href="http://robmclennansindex.blogspot.com/2007/09/12-or-20-questions-archive.html"><em>12 or 20 questions archive</em></a></div></div></div>rob mclennanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07958889643637765864noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-319589917860132988.post-73763557492392843812008-02-25T16:23:00.000-08:002008-02-25T15:11:47.392-08:0012 or 20 questions: with Glen Sorestad<a href="http://www.library.utoronto.ca/canpoetry/sorestad/index.htm"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5171051467338282610" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQAhhVgieGtwFZ9XOwBvTpndOUvkDZh2UQSUafPyFQoYdxmsypzwdLmcG7Bn4o_SQ5gWGKz6be2fK1LCrvrOyU_-6CNN_9M21cxE8KbAnN4VWfcNfUUNnN2qHuOAPtbknbkg0n1ONnGxY/s320/glensorestad.jpg" border="0" /><strong>Glen Sorestad</strong> </a>was born in Vancouver in 1937. His parents moved back to Saskatchewan in 1947 and he went to a rural school in east-central Saskatchewan near Buchanan and graduated from Sturgis Composite High School. After a year working in a bank, he spent a year as a study-supervisor in a one-roomed school near the Alberta border and the following year attended Saskatoon Teachers College. He began his teaching career in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yorkton,_Saskatchewan">Yorkton</a> in 1957. In 1960 he married Sonia Talpash and he taught school in Brooks, Alberta for a year. The following year he entered the University of Saskatchewan, graduating with his B.Ed(with honors) in 1963. He taught once again in Yorkton from 1963 until 1967 when he and his family moved to Saskatoon. There he taught at <a href="http://www.spsd.sk.ca/index.aspx?section=schools&page=ABS">Alvin Buckwold School </a>for two years before joining the English Department of <a href="http://www.spsd.sk.ca/index.aspx?section=schools&page=EHCI">Evan Hardy Collegiate </a>in 1969. He served as English Program Co-ordinator for a number of years at Evan Hardy and established the Creative Writing program there. He was a key figure in organizing the ground-breaking Prairie Writers Conference at Evan Hardy Collegiate and during his teaching career was responsible for bringing many notable Canadian writers into Evan Hardy classrooms.<br /><br />In 1981 <a href="http://www.nightwoodeditions.com/title/AirCanadaOwls">Sorestad</a> decided to quit teaching in order to devote more time to his writing career which had, over the years, seen him establish a national reputation as a <a href="http://www.coraclepress.com/chapbooks/sorestad/language-of-horse.html">poet</a>, fiction writer, editor and publisher. He continues to live in Saskatoon and earn his living as a <a href="http://www.poets.ca/pshstore/Profile_book.asp?ISBN=1896860737">writer</a>, editor, anthologist and <a href="http://www.youngpoets.ca/ezine/?q=glen_sorestad">public speaker</a>. His career has taken him all over North America and to various countries of Europe. He is the author of over a dozen books of poetry, many short stories, and he is the co-editor of many well known anthologies. He has given well over three hundred public readings of <a href="http://ekstasiseditions.com/backlisthtml/sorestad.html">his poetry </a>in every province of Canada, in many parts of the United States, and in Europe (including at a reception held in his honour at the residence of the Canadian Ambassador in Oslo and broadcast on Norway’s public radio network). In 2001 he was one of a small number of poets invited to read at an international poetry reading in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lahti">Lahti, Finland</a>. In September of 2002 he was the only Canadian poet invited to the <a href="http://www.vilenica.si/ENG/vilenica_en.html">Vilenica Writers’ festival in Slovenia </a>and read his poetry before the <a href="http://www.up-rs.si/eng/">President of that country </a>in <a href="http://www.ijs.si/slo/ljubljana/castle.html">Ljubljana Castle</a>.<br /><br /><a href="http://blueskiespoetry.ca/category/poems-by/glen-sorestad/">Sorestad</a> has been an active member of the <a href="http://www.skwriter.com/">Saskatchewan Writers Guild </a>since it was formed in 1970 and was given a Founders' Award by the Guild in 1990. He is also an active member of the <a href="http://www.writersunion.ca/ww_profile.asp?mem=744&L=S">Writers Union of Canada </a>and in 1998 was honoured with <a href="http://www.poets.ca/Linktext/direct/sorestad.htm">Life Member status in the League of Canadian Poets</a>. <p>In 1975 <a href="http://www.canlit.ca/reviews-review.php?id=12522">Sorestad</a> and his wife, Sonia, co-founded the literary publishing house, <a href="http://www.thistledownpress.com/">Thistledown Press</a>, in Saskatoon. Over the years Thistledown became known as one of the finest literary publishers in Canada. <a href="http://www.nthposition.com/author.php?authid=580">Sorestad</a> retired as President in January 2000 after 25 years and over 200 literary titles published, many of which were translated and published in different foreign countries.<br /><br />In November of 2000 <a href="http://www.daypoems.net/poems/2271.html">Sorestad</a> was appointed <a href="http://www.bookawards.sk.ca/poetlaureate.htm">the first Poet Laureate of Saskatchewan </a>at the <a href="http://www.bookawards.sk.ca/index.php">Sask. Book Awards gala evening </a>in Regina.<br /><br />In November of 2001 he received the Saskatoon Book Award for his poetry book, <em><a href="http://www.poets.ca/pshstore/Profile_book.asp?ISBN=1894345320">Leaving Holds Me Here</a></em>.<br /><br />In February 2003 Sorestad was awarded the <a href="http://www.gg.ca/honours/medals/hon04-qegj_e.asp">Queen’s Golden Jubilee Commemorative Medal </a>at <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_House_(Saskatchewan)">Government House in Regina</a>.<br /><br /></p><div></div><div><strong>1 - How did your first book change your life?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div>My first book was a chapbook of poems and I think just seeing it with my name on it was enough to convince me that this was what I wanted to do with my life, perhaps what I was intended to do with my life. I knew I was <a href="http://media.www.smsuspur.net/media/storage/paper514/news/2006/09/20/News/Meeting.Canadian.Characters.With.Bill.Holm.And.Glen.Sorestad-2287355.shtml">a poet </a>and there was no escaping. </div><br /><div></div><div><strong>2 - How long have you lived in Saskatoon, and how does geography, if at all, impact on your writing? Does race or gender make any impact on your work?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div>I've lived in<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saskatoon"> Saskatoon </a>over 40 years now, but interestingly, the urban geography does not seem as significant to my writing as the overall rural geography, and more specifically the geography of east-central Saskatchewan which was the geography of childhood for me. The landscape and geography of the Saskatchewan prairies is so much a part of who I am, of what has formed me and my view of things, that my writing must necessarily reflect this in many different ways, no doubt some of which I do not even see. I never think of race or gender in connection with my writing, but since every writer brings to that writing his/her own background and experiences, I should imagine that some of my poems will inevitably reflect aspects of my ethnicity and my gender. How can we escape who we are? And why would we want to? </div><br /><div></div><div><strong>3 - Where does a poem usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div><a href="http://www.shampoopoetry.com/ShampooFourteen/sorestad.html">A poem for me may begin with a single word</a>, <a href="http://www.geraldengland.co.uk/revs/bs167.htm">a sound or combination of sounds</a>, <a href="http://toddswift.blogspot.com/2006/03/poem-by-glen-sorestad.html">an image</a>, <a href="http://www.arts.org.nz/sore.htm">a line that forms in the subconscious</a>, <a href="http://www.writers.net/writers/19189">an overheard fragment of story</a>, a photo, someone else's poem, an e-mail, a memory, a dream. Sometimes I quite frankly have no idea where the poem has come from. It just emerges from somewhere in the inner consciousness and wants out. Mostly I work on individual poems, each poem being its own whole or unit. But sometimes, one poem leads naturally to another and a sequence like the poems of <em>Language of Horse</em>, an online chapbook, or <em>The Grass at Batoche</em>, may emerge over a relatively short period of time during which little else is written. Occasionally, as with <em>Some Things of Your Father</em>, a manuscript I'm still working on, I knew from the outset that it would be a book in and of itself. I began writing with that expectation. Many books of poems of mine are "gatherings". But I have learned that even "gatherings" can take their own shape and become organic wholes. </div><br /><div></div><div><strong>4 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div>Yes, even if I know that reading is a performance act and that it involvesanother part of my creative psyche - being in front of people and trying to communicate with an audience - I still think of the actual reading as an opportunity to test new work on listeners to gauge the poem's impact as much as I can assess it. I often discover, in public reading, revisions that need to be done - unnecessary words, flabby expressions, discordant sound combinations - and in that sense, the resultant rewriting is part of my creative process. However, some poems don't lend themselves at all to being read aloud, so public readings can only be part of my own ongoing creative process for those poems I choose to read in public. </div><br /><div><strong>5 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kindsof questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div>Essentially I leave the theoretical concerns about poetry to the poetry theorists and academics. I try to keep the aforementioned <a href="http://www.contemporarywriters.com/authors/?p=auth519D193A0f10920030wNq1B3A350">Adrian Mitchell's </a>view in mind as I write and rewrite. I would hope that what all of my poetry is concerned with is what it is like to be a Canadian born towards the latter part of the <a href="http://www.canadianeconomy.gc.ca/english/economy/1929_39depression.html">20th century's Great Depression</a>, living through the last half of the century and into the new millennium, responding to his chaotic and teetering world as intelligently as he can. </div><br /><div></div><div><strong>6 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div>I enjoy working with editors - at least so far - and every editor I've had has made positive contributions to my writing. A few very good editors have even provided me with insights into my own work and I've learned by working with every editor. Every book of mine that has had an editor is the better for it.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>7 - After having published more than a couple of titles over the years, doyou find the process of book-making harder or easier?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div>I usually don't think "book" until some point in the writing or the gathering that a book concept begins to form. For me, the hardest part of the process seems to be the switch from writing individual poems to the mode of thinking in terms of book. I love the process of just writing individual poems and for me, that is where my primary satisfaction as a writer comes. I can't really say that book-making has become harder with the accumulation of books published, but I can't say that it has become any easier. I can say that I don't spend much time worrying about it and I don't lose any sleep over it. My natural optimism governs my writing life by assuring me that eventually a book will emerge. </div><br /><div></div><div><strong>8 - When was the last time you ate a pear?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div>Last Thursday I poached several <a href="http://www.usapears.com/pears/varieties_bosc.asp">Bosc pears </a>in a lovely <a href="http://www.owfs.com/">Okanagan white wine </a>and served the poached pear pieces on a banana nut loaf slices, drizzled with a hot chocolate sauce and topped with some whipped cream. It was a sensory cornucopia, decadent and sensuous as all hell. </div><br /><div></div><div><strong>9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div>I don't know where the saying originated, maybe in China, but "Life is a journey, not a destination" has always appealed to me as a life theme worth hanging one's hat on; and <a href="http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoet.do?poetId=40">Adrian Mitchell's </a>words about poetry have always appealed to me: "<a href="http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singleInterview.do?interviewId=1383">Most people ignore poetry because most poetry ignores most people</a>." </div><br /><div></div><div><strong>10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to non-fiction)? What do you see as the appeal?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div>I began writing short fiction and then became attracted to poetry, but over the years I have felt the need at various times to move between poetry and prose forms like fiction, familiar essay and memoir/essay. Some stories, some ideas, need a different shape and voice than poetry can give them. </div><br /><div></div><div><strong>11 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div>I've always been a morning person, so my working day typically begins with coffee, breakfast, a brisk 30 to 40 minute walk, then getting cleaned up and ready for work. I write (poetry, prose, correspondence) from 8:30 or 9:00 until sometime in the early afternoon usually. </div><br /><div></div><div><strong>12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div>I've been fortunate in never having had to endure extended periods of writers' block, so I can only sympathize with those who have to deal with it as a regular affliction. I tend to be a "streak" writer, like a streak hitter in baseball. When I'm "seeing the ball really good", I write a great deal in a relatively short period of time. Then I may go for a period of time when I am not writing much new work at all, but instead am rewriting and reworking my accumulated writing, shaping manuscripts, reading, corresponding, rooting through my journals for ideas and the like. </div><br /><div></div><div><strong>13 - How does your most recent book compare to your previous work? How does it feel different?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div>My last two published works were chapbooks, one traditional print and the other online. <em>Halo of Morning</em> came out of the immediacy of my regular morning walks in the neighbourhood where I live; on the other hand, <em>Language of Horse</em> is more reflective and concerns childhood memories. Both chapbooks feel like extended poem sequences. </div><br /><div></div><div><strong>14 - <a href="http://www.talonbooks.com/index.cfm?event=authorDetails&authorID=131">David W. McFadden </a>once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div>My writing is influenced by whatever form I may be particularly taken with at any period of my life, but music and art have always informed my work, quite regularly and at various stages of my writing life. However, the natural world has been a constant in my writing life from my first book to my most recent. If there is one dominant shaping influence for my life's work, then the natural world would be it. I may have written more bird poems than <a href="http://www.parl.gc.ca/Information/about/people/poet/poem-of-the-week/poems-e.htm?param=21">Don McKay </a>or <a href="http://www.abcbookworld.com/?state=view_author&author_id=4123">Allan Safarik</a>. </div><br /><div></div><div><strong>15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div><a href="http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/192">Frost </a>and <a href="http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/28">Sandburg</a> among early American poets were important at the outset. Then <a href="http://www.library.utoronto.ca/canpoetry/index_poet.htm">Canadian poets </a>like <a href="http://www.athabascau.ca/writers/nowlan/nowlan.html">Nowlan</a> and <a href="http://robmclennan.blogspot.com/2007/09/long-continual-argument-selected-poems.html">Newlove</a> and <a href="http://www.library.utoronto.ca/canpoetry/purdy/index.htm">Purdy</a>, all for different reasons. <a href="http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/s_z/stafford/stafford.htm">William Stafford </a>became a mentor, friend and important influence. <a href="http://www.spl.org.uk/poets_a-z/ruste.html">Contemporary Norwegian poet Arne Ruste </a>has been a friend and mentor. </div><br /><div></div><div><strong>16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div>The whole notion of writing a novel just scares hell out of me; yet that same notion, much as I attempt to stifle it in its infancy, is still there somewhere in the back of my consciousness and unless I find a way to kill it for good, I may be forced to take it on. If it just sweeps me away for the ride, I'll go with the flow and see where it takes me. </div><br /><div></div><div><strong>17 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div>I think I would have liked, at some time earlier in my life, to have studied to become a wine maker. If I had not ended up a writer, I may very well have ended up a "burn-out case" in the high school system. I walked away from teaching before it could do me irreparable harm. </div><br /><div></div><div><strong>18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div>It may have been the desire, or perhaps the need, or both, to tell a story. All I knew is that I had to do it and that I would not be satisfied until I had unburdened myself of the stories. I believe this still drives me. From the time I was in grade twelve in high school and through my university years I had various people tell me I should consider creative writing. It took me quite a long time to accept this counsel. </div><br /><div></div><div><strong>19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film? </strong></div><br /><div></div><div><a href="http://www.ianmcewan.com/bib/books/atonement.html">Ian McEwan's <em>Atonement</em> </a>is a beautifully written and mesmerizing novel and <a href="http://books.guardian.co.uk/reviews/generalfiction/0,,1956973,00.html">Cormac McCarthy's <em>The Road</em> </a>is gruesome and shocking in its apocalyptic vision while at the same time telling a powerful emotional father/son story with such achingly beautiful prose. Both are my most memorable reads in recent years. <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0419294/"><em>The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada</em> </a>surprised hell out of me as a movie because it was so under-rated, yet proved to be a powerful story told with an exquisite film touch. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Lee_Jones">Tommy Lee Jones </a>both directed and starred in <a href="http://members.aol.com/lukoch2/">Jones'</a> directorial debut and somehow the movie was overlooked - I know not why. </div><br /><div></div><div><strong>20 - What are you currently working on?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div>True to my usual practice, I am working on four or five different manuscripts, or potential manuscripts. One is the aforementioned poem/prose <em>Some Things of Your Father</em>; another is a manuscript of essay/memoirs; a third is a collection of narrative poems entitled <em>The Story Never Ends</em>; another is a manuscript called <em>Walleye Meditations</em>, another prose/poetry combination.</div><br /><div></div><div><a href="http://robmclennansindex.blogspot.com/2007/09/12-or-20-questions-archive.html"><em>12 or 20 questions archive</em></a></div>rob mclennanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07958889643637765864noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-319589917860132988.post-32791747434370114932008-02-23T11:25:00.000-08:002008-02-23T12:02:30.788-08:0012 or 20 questions: with Peter Culley<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGMxjwcpYXoSqv6x9sUH78iQH4edThyvdUtZFUfNX6_90ofbkj1C2XTJj8wzu85MAOLm7m_LBA86Pz8FIrk5k4N-bNEaHh9MrXUNuCS6zY4KoMWWgVAwLB4rlupB6bPa33wSoGfLAOjPY/s1600-h/culley.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5170260836873533026" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGMxjwcpYXoSqv6x9sUH78iQH4edThyvdUtZFUfNX6_90ofbkj1C2XTJj8wzu85MAOLm7m_LBA86Pz8FIrk5k4N-bNEaHh9MrXUNuCS6zY4KoMWWgVAwLB4rlupB6bPa33wSoGfLAOjPY/s320/culley.jpg" border="0" /></a>[photo: <a href="http://www.royarden.com/">Roy Arden</a>]<br /><div></div><br /><div><a href="http://mossesfromanoldmanse2.blogspot.com/"><strong>Peter Culley</strong> </a>was born in 1958. <a href="http://www.amazon.ca/s?ie=UTF8&search-type=ss&index=books-ca&field-author=Peter%20Culley&page=1">His books </a>are <em>Twenty-one</em> <a href="http://www.oolichan.com/">Oolichan</a> 198o, <em>Fruit Dots</em> Tsunami 1986, <em>Natural History</em> Cleave Editions 1987, <em>The Climax Forest</em> Leech Books 1995, <a href="http://www.straight.com/article/hammertown-by-peter-culley"><em>Hammertown</em> New Star 2003 </a>& from <a href="http://www.newstarbooks.com/">New Star </a>the forthcoming <em>The Age of Briggs & Stratton: Hammertown Book Two</em>. <a href="http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/books/Roy-Arden-Arden-Culley-Miller-Watson/9780921972181-item.html">His writings on Vancouver art </a>have appeared in <a href="http://www.ccca.ca/writers/author_info.html?languagePref=en&link_id=1963&context=003&author=Peter%20Culley">numerous magazines & catalogues</a>.<br /><br /><strong>1 - How did your first book change your life?<br /></strong><br />I thought the hard part was now over, and that a shelf of books would then pretty much write & publish themselves.<br /><br /><strong>2 - How long have you lived on Vancouver Island, and how does geography, if at all, impact on your writing? Does race or gender make any impact on your work?</strong><br /><br />I've been in <a href="http://www.britishcolumbia.com/regions/towns/?townID=58">Nanaimo</a>--except for some spells in the 8o's--since 1972. Geography--in the broadest possible sense--has always been a central concern of my work. As a teenager I knew about <em><a href="http://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/Williams-WC.html">Paterson</a></em> & <a href="http://charlesolson.uconn.edu/Works_in_the_Collection/Maximus_Poems/index.htm"><em>The Maximus Poems</em> </a>so early on in <a href="http://www.speakeasy.org/~subtext/poetry/culley/poem1.htm">my writing </a>I knew that writing a town was an appropriate activity for a poet. And there were numerous local examples, from <a href="http://www.mcclelland.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780771054587">Daphne Marlatt's</a> [<a href="http://robmclennan.blogspot.com/2008/02/12-or-20-questions-with-daphne-marlatt.html">see her 12 or 20 here</a>] <a href="http://www.brocku.ca/canadianwomenpoets/Marlatt.htm"><em>Steveston</em> </a>to <a href="http://www.ccca.ca/history/ozz/english/timeline/1975.html">Brian Fawcett's <em>Cottonwood Canyon</em></a>, from <a href="http://www.parl.gc.ca/Information/about/people/poet/poem-of-the-week/poets-e.htm?param=54">George Stanley's Terrace </a>to <a href="http://www.chbooks.com/biographies/index.php?ID=706">Gerry Gilbert's Vancouver</a>. <a href="http://www.robertsmithson.com/photoworks/monument-passaic_300.htm">Robert Smithson's <em>Monuments of Passaic New Jersey</em> </a>was also crucial in helping me figure out that attending to the "local" could open a lot of unexpected things up.<br /><br />Perhaps race and gender as aspects of class? I certainly strive to be aware at all times of my privileged position.<br /><br /><strong>3 - Where does a poem usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?</strong><br /><br />For a long time I would try and compose in my head <a href="http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/coolidge/culley.html">not writing anything down </a>until it was almost complete. I probably lost about twenty books that way--somehow I convinced myself that I had a wonderful memory. Since I got a little wiser to myself I proceed "serially" which just means coming to some sort of outside arrangement, like standing at the bus stop waiting for Totoro to show up. You just have to be a little patient.<br /><br /><strong>4 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process?<br /></strong><br />Often a reading is the first place that I can see both what I'm doing over time in real time and how the reader might be brought along--you can learn a lot. The showbiz aspects I love, coming from a long line of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cockney">cockney</a> showboats.<br /><br /><strong>5 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?</strong><br /><br />My relationship with theory is a pretty mercenary one--if it helps me to work or understand things better I'll use it, whether I've fully absorbed it or not. <a href="http://jacketmagazine.com/07/spicer-lect3main.html">Spicer's "radio"</a> makes as much sense as anything else.<br /><br /><strong>6 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?</strong><br /><br /><a href="http://www.kswnet.org/fire/authorresults.cfm?first=Rolf&last=Maurer">Rolf Maurer</a>, my editor at <a href="http://www.newstarbooks.com/">New Star</a>, is remarkably free of publisher/editor vanity, so his very occasional and poetry suggestions carry great weight. In prose a good editor is essential for everyone but very hard to find and an insufficiently honored calling. The world needs patient editors much more than it needs bright new talent.<br /><br /><strong>7 - After having published more than a couple of titles over the years, do you find the process of book-making harder or easier?</strong><br /><br />The past two or three years have been the first of my life where I didn't feel completely blocked all the time. I think I just outlived my own preciousness.<br /><br /><strong>8 - When was the last time you ate a pear?<br /></strong><br />Never touch 'em, but our yard has a decently fruiting if precarious old tree which I have saved from the axe.<br /><br /><strong>9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?</strong><br /><br />"There's no such thing as an old kitten", spoken to me in a dream by <a href="http://www.georgejones.com/home/index.htm">George Jones</a>. <a href="http://www.abcbookworld.com/?state=view_author&author_id=4902">George Stanley </a>once told me that you never make any money as a poet, but can usually count on at least one good dinner a year.<br /><br /><strong>10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to critical work)? What do you see as the appeal?<br /></strong><br />It's easier now that I've let the boundaries slip a bit. And I've always liked the idea of having two mutually exclusive audiences, though that's not as true as it was.<br /><br /><strong>11 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?</strong><br /><br />I'm usually up very early surfing the web, keeping half an eye out for items for my weblog. I'll often start a piece of writing in our little shed in the back yard, away from the computer, stereo & TV. Lately I've taken to using green index cards<br /><br /><strong>12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?</strong><br /><br />No one mentions liquor, coffee or drugs here, so I won't! <a href="http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/Stevens/home.html">Wallace Stevens </a>or <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Sunflower-Splendor-Thousand-Chinese-Midland/dp/0253206073"><em>Sunflower Splendor</em> </a>can sometimes help get me "in the mood." A walk. A dictionary.<br /><br /><strong>13 - How does your most recent book compare to your previous work? How does it feel different?</strong><br /><br />Unlike my other books, which were gathered over very long periods of time, <em>The Age of Briggs & Stratton</em> represents a continuous fairly short period of composition, and all the poems were published to my blog as I wrote them. I've been trying to make my writing simpler & cruder.<br /><br /><strong>14 - <a href="http://paulvermeersch.blogspot.com/2007/08/david-w-mcfadden-round-up.html">David W. McFadden </a>once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?</strong><br /><br />All of those things are certainly as or more important to my work as other writing.<br /><br /><strong>15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?</strong><br /><br /><em><a href="http://www.oed.com/">OED</a></em>, <em><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible">The Bible</a></em>, <a href="http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/brown/">Lee Ann Brown</a>, <a href="http://www.wbenjamin.org/walterbenjamin.html">Walter Benjamin</a>, <a href="http://www.blakearchive.org/blake/">William Blake</a>, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/arts/writingscotland/writers/hugh_macdiarmid/">Hugh MacDiarmid</a>, <a href="http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/95">Mina Loy</a>, <a href="http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/coolidge/">Clark Coolidge</a>, <a href="http://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/Mayer.html">Bernadette Mayer</a>, <a href="http://www.theeastvillage.com/tc/gilbert/a.htm">Gerry Gilbert</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Clare">John Clare</a>, <a href="http://www.tomraworth.com/wieners.html">John Wieners</a>, <a href="http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/howe/">Susan Howe</a>, <a href="http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/berrigan/">Ted Berrigan</a>, <a href="http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poet/329.html">James Thomson</a>, <a href="http://jacketmagazine.com/29/avison.html">Margaret Avison</a>, <a href="http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/schuyler/index.html">James Schuyler</a>, <a href="http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poet/79.html">William Cowper</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Hazlitt">William Hazlitt</a>, <a href="http://www.spondee.net/CharlotteMew/">Charlotte Mew</a>, <a href="http://www.nonsenselit.org/Lear/">Edward Lear</a>, <a href="http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/spicer/">Jack Spicer</a>, <a href="http://www.bewicksociety.org/">Thomas Bewick</a>, <a href="http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/emilydic.htm">Emily Dickinson</a>, <a href="http://jacketmagazine.com/10/cadd-bunt.html">Basil Bunting</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Children">Arthur Mee's <em>Children's Enyclopedia</em></a> &c. My blog "<a href="http://mossesfromanoldmanse2.blogspot.com/">mosses from an old manse</a>" is a pretty good index of my likes.<br /><br /><strong>16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?</strong><br /><br />Spend a winter north of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_Circle">Arctic Circle</a>, travel around the world on freighters & trains.<br /><br /><strong>17 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?</strong><br /><br />The all-night DJ on a 500 watt FM station. I did get to do that at <a href="http://www.citr.ca/first.php">Vancouver's CITR </a>with <a href="http://www.kswnet.org/fire/resources-KSW.cfm">Lary Bremner</a> in the 8o's--one night we played Sandanista! all the way through...Night manager at a slightly rundown but respectable residential hotel.<br /><br /><strong>18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?<br /></strong><br />I don't ever remember seriously entertaining the idea of any other kind of life. I've been very lucky.<br /><br /><strong>19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?<br /></strong><br />Film--<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076263/"><em>Killer of Sheep</em> Charles Burnett </a></div><br /><div>Book--<a href="http://mqup.mcgill.ca/extra.php?id=270"><em>An Irish History of Civilization</em> Donald Akenson </a><br /><br /><strong>20 - What are you currently working on?</strong><br /><br /><em>Parkway</em>, the third book of <em><a href="http://www.amazon.ca/Hammertown-Peter-Culley/dp/1554200008">Hammertown</a></em>. A big picture book on dogs.</div><br /><div></div><div><a href="http://robmclennansindex.blogspot.com/2007/09/12-or-20-questions-archive.html"><em>12 or 20 questions archive</em></a></div>rob mclennanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07958889643637765864noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-319589917860132988.post-3318893001526309662008-02-22T10:39:00.000-08:002008-02-23T11:21:28.474-08:0012 or 20 questions: with Elise Levine<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHhw2bzN3AGfSSGJ4VYNSou4FXG4DC6cijWukcrw2gOoeuQ8N2LfdgkjVT00auu7fRWfkH3h3qXYg2mIIY2lajtuRDZbO2FRqG5ufVdz8r0QDkuVryazNYpmQ4poA86T23mRsZ3NtJLTE/s1600-h/elise.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5170250181059671634" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHhw2bzN3AGfSSGJ4VYNSou4FXG4DC6cijWukcrw2gOoeuQ8N2LfdgkjVT00auu7fRWfkH3h3qXYg2mIIY2lajtuRDZbO2FRqG5ufVdz8r0QDkuVryazNYpmQ4poA86T23mRsZ3NtJLTE/s320/elise.jpg" border="0" /></a><strong>Elise Levine’s</strong> novel <a href="http://www.marciemccauley.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=85&Itemid=113"><em>Requests and Dedications</em> </a>was published in 2003 by McClelland & Stewart (Toronto, ON). Also in 2003, McClelland & Stewart reissued her story collection <em><a href="http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/books/Driving-Men-Mad-Elise-Levine/9780771052798-item.html">Driving Men Mad </a></em>(named one of the “Best Books of the Year, 1995” by <a href="http://www.quillandquire.com/"><em>Quill & Quire</em> magazine</a>). In addition to her books, Levine’s fiction, poems, personal essays, and critical reviews have appeared in numerous publications including <em><a href="http://www.oberonpress.ca/">Best Canadian Stories</a></em>, <em><a href="http://www.mcclelland.com/jps/index.html">The Journey Prize Anthology</a></em>, <em><a href="http://www.nationalpost.com/">The National Post</a></em>, <em><a href="http://www.thestar.com/">the Toronto Star</a></em>, <em><a href="http://www.booksincanada.com/">Books in Canada</a></em>, <em><a href="http://web.uvic.ca/malahat/">Malahat Review</a></em>, <em><a href="http://www.gargoylemagazine.com/">Gargoyle</a></em>, and <em><a href="http://prairieschooner.unl.edu/">Prairie Schooner</a></em>, and have been translated and published in Italy. She has been awarded a <a href="http://www.magazine-awards.com/">Canadian National Magazine Award, Honorable Mention for Fiction</a>; a host of awards from the <a href="http://www.canadacouncil.ca/">Canada Council for the Arts</a>, the <a href="http://www.arts.on.ca/index.aspx">Ontario Arts Council</a>, and the <a href="http://www.torontoartscouncil.org/">Toronto Council for the Arts</a>; and <a href="http://www.yaddo.org/">residency fellowships at Yaddo </a>(where she was an <a href="http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9503E3DF133AF936A35752C1A9609C8B63">Eli Cantor Fellow</a>) and the <a href="http://www.macdowellcolony.org/">MacDowell Colony</a>, to name but two. Her fiction has been aired nationally on the <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/">Canadian Broadcast Corporation </a>(the CBC), and in 2003 she was highlighted by <a href="http://www.owtoad.com/">Margaret Atwood </a>as one of Canada’s most important women writers. Originally from Toronto, Levine currently lives in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltimore,_Maryland">Baltimore, MD</a>, where she teaches at the <a href="http://www.ubalt.edu/index.cfm">University of Baltimore</a>.<br /><br /><strong>1 - How did your first book change your life?</strong><br /><br />I began to see myself as a real writer. Getting reviewed, seeing the book in bookstores made me feel that I’d been heading in the right direction. I vowed from that point on to do whatever I could to keep on going and not look back.<br /><br /><strong>2 - How long have you lived in Chicago, and how does geography, if at all, impact on your writing? Does race or gender make any impact on your work?<br /></strong><br />I lived in Chicago for eleven years. Last summer I moved to Baltimore. During the time I was in Chicago, most though not all of the fiction I was writing took place in the Toronto area, where I’m originally from. Now I’m starting to set some of my writing in the States – Chicago, parts of Wisconsin, Minnesota, Florida – as well as Toronto. Not that I’m interested in specific locale per se. I think I’ve always written about various characters’ sense of place – especially the sense of mis-placement, exile – as part of my interest in the psychology of those who see themselves as marginalized, estranged, self-estranged.<br /><br />While not often explicit, race and gender (and class) are intrinsic to my writing, which is character-driven, concerned with the mutable ways in which we think of ourselves.<br /><br /><strong>3 - Where does a piece of fiction usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?<br /></strong><br />A piece of fiction usually begins for me with lines, language – sometimes not very much, but loaded, charged with a compressed sense of character and situation, the possibility of what it all might mean. Definitely with a novel I ‘start large’, knowing that that’s what I’m in for. But even with a collection of short fiction, by the time I have maybe three stories I’m thinking ‘book’.<br /><br /><strong>4 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process</strong>?<br /><br />Readings sharpen my writing, especially if the work isn’t yet published as a book. In which case preparing for the reading means revising, revising. If I have to stand up there in front of people, the last thing I want to see is that I’m boring them.<br /><br /><strong>5 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?<br /></strong><br />I view identity as a construct, so I’m probably more poststructuralist than anything else, cautiously attracted to the meta side of fiction. Because I’m instinctively a character-driven writer, I tend to find identity theory of interest. But mostly I spend my writing time trying to pretty much figure out the nuts and bolts of things like pacing, structure, nailing the nature of the characters’ relationships.<br /><br /><strong>6 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?</strong><br /><br />Writing is difficult -- solitary, crazy-making, painstaking. A good editor gets right inside there with you, and enlarges that imaginative space.<br /><br /><strong>7 - After having published more than a couple of titles over the years, do you find the process of book-making harder or easier?<br /></strong><br />Two books only so far (alas). I write at a snail’s pace, which is why getting both out felt so hard. Currently I’m close to finishing what I hope will be a third, a new novel. Also I’m four stories into what could be a new story collection, and I’ve begun collecting lines and ideas for yet another novel. Overall, that’s a fat-load of ideas. Problem is, takes me forever to really get at them, develop and shape them. I guess certain aspects of fiction writing seem easier, the elements of craft and technique. But each piece – a story, a novel -- feels so different, and uncovering what each is truly about and how best to express that truth seems to take forever. I’m not naturally a patient person so I tend to chafe under the yoke.<br /><br /><strong>8 - When was the last time you ate a pear?<br /></strong><br />Please don’t remind me, I’m trying to forget. I’m pear-averse. The flesh is gritty. Bumpy. Like tiny teeth in the throat.<br /><br /><strong>9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?</strong><br /><br />“<a href="http://www.sentex.net/~pql/talking.html">Be sure to strut your stuff</a>.” Editor-Provocateur <a href="http://www.sentex.net/~pql/metcalf.html">John Metcalf </a>said this to me once. <a href="http://www.antigonishreview.com/bi-139/139-review-dale-estey.html">And I was like, Thank you</a>!<br /><br /><strong>10 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?</strong><br /><br />First thing in the morning -- the earlier the better – double espresso then write. Sometimes I can go all day, with breaks, if I’m revising and am pretty far along with the novel.<br /><br /><strong>11 - Where is your favourite place to write?</strong><br /><br />I have a home office. Bliss.<br /><br /><strong>12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?</strong><br /><br />Other fiction writers’ work, or poetry.<br /><br /><strong>13 - How does your most recent book compare to your previous work? How does it feel different?</strong><br /><br />This new novel is in third-person-close point of view, which I’ve never sustained for so long in previous work. It also makes a number of leaps in time and place, which I want to come across as pieces of a puzzle, or cogs in a neatly ticking wheel. I’ve always paid a lot of attention to structure, but this feels like a further step, handling a significantly greater number of parts than I have before. As well, this novel necessarily has to convey a fair amount of technical information to explain the world of the characters to the reader – a huge challenge to not let the exposition burden the narrative.<br /><br /><strong>14 - <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_McFadden">David W. McFadden </a>once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?</strong><br /><br />Music, certainly. Opera, especially <a href="http://www.baroqueopera.com/">Baroque opera</a>, which can seem so postmodern these days. Something about the self-consciously performative, the focus on voice, staging, display. I listen to a lot of what’s called ‘new music’ – contemporary/experimental art music, for example <a href="http://www.sonyclassical.com/artists/ligeti_top.htm">Gyorgy Ligeti</a>, <a href="http://www.soundintermedia.co.uk/treeline-online/biog.html">Toru Takemitsu</a>, <a href="http://www.desingel.be/en/PersonDetailView.orb?prs_id=2851">Kaija Sariaaho </a>– fascinated by the combination of rigor, discipline, innovation, expressive capacity. Also I like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trip_hop">Trip Hop</a>, <a href="http://www.massiveattack.co.uk/">Massive Attack </a>in particular. And Alt country -- <a href="http://www.lucindawilliams.com/">Lucinda Williams</a>, <a href="http://www.gillianwelch.com/">Gillian Welch</a>. <a href="http://www.pjharvey.net/">PJ Harvey </a>I simply place in the Genius category.<br /><br />Visual art really excites me too, as a corollary to the written. <a href="http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/louisebourgeois/default.shtm">Louise Bourgeois</a>, <a href="http://www.whitecube.com/artists/kiefer/">Anselm Kiefer </a>(<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anselm_Kiefer">his dresses</a>! his lead books! not to mention all his other gorgeous works), <a href="http://www.billviola.com/biograph.htm">Bill Viola </a>are some faves. When I see something that really strikes me, I try to think, what would be the equivalent of this in fiction? A work by <a href="http://www.lac-bac.gc.ca/women/002026-523-e.html">Joyce Wieland </a>– <a href="http://cybermuse.gallery.ca/cybermuse/showcases/redshow/at_play_e.jsp"><em>Cooling Room II</em>, in the permanent collection of the National Gallery in Ottawa </a>– kind of got me going on my new novel.<br /><br />The strongest influence on my writing – what goes most directly into the fiction as material – is the experience of being in various environments. Their textures, all the sensory stuff but also the ideas or ideals, the thought-contexts, that inform our thinking about such environments. What people say, how they present themselves, what they reveal and seem to want to conceal. I love driving, walking, flying (I used to spend a lot of time underwater, scuba diving, so swimming would count as well) – I love the sense of transport, movement. Probably because I spend so much time alone, in my little room, at my desk.<br /><br /><strong>15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?</strong><br /><br /><a href="http://perival.com/delillo/delillo.html">Don DeLillo</a>, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/ref/books/author-coetzee.html">J.M. Coetzee</a>, <a href="http://www.robertfulford.com/2004-04-20-gallant.html">Mavis Gallant</a>, <a href="http://www.anansi.ca/authors.cfm?author_id=80">Lisa Moore</a>. <a href="http://www.josephconradsociety.org/">Conrad</a>, <a href="http://www.virginiawoolfsociety.co.uk/">Woolf</a>. Some specific books: <a href="http://www.randomhouse.com/vintage/read/pastoral/">Philip Roth’s <em>American Pastoral</em></a>, <a href="http://www.randomhouse.com/boldtype/1298/mcewan/">Ian McEwen’s <em>Amsterdam</em> </a>and <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Comfort-Strangers-Ian-Mcewan/dp/0679749845">The Comfort of Strangers</a></em>, <a href="http://www.jenniferegan.com/">Jennifer Egan’s <em>The Keep</em></a>, <a href="http://www.harpercollins.com/books/9780060542221/American_Woman/index.aspx">Susan Choi’s <em>American Woman</em></a>, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Theft-Love-Story-Peter-Carey/dp/0307263711">Peter Carey’s <em>Theft</em></a>.<br /><br /><strong>16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?<br /></strong><br />Travel more. Also I’d like to find the time to do more critical writing.<br /><br /><strong>17 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?</strong><br /><br />I’d be a poet. Or a literary critic. I worked as an editor for several years -- I was miserable doing it, but I could well have gotten stuck there. Otherwise I might have become an alcoholic/drug-addict lawyer.<br /><br /><strong>18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?<br /></strong><br />No idea. I just know that many of my earliest, most acute memories are of being attracted to words, language, of having the desire to describe, to invent. Lots of things fascinate me, for a time, but then I’ll drop them completely. Writing’s the one activity to which I’ve always remained obsessively, passionately attached.<br /><br /><strong>19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?</strong><br /><br /><a href="http://www.randomhouse.com/kvpa/cormacmccarthy/">Cormac McCarthy’s <em>The Road</em> </a>scared the wits out of me. What a combo of stark moral vision and mastery over words and form. I recognize, I think, a similar austerity and artistry in Austrian <a href="http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/directors/03/haneke.html">Michael Haneke’s </a>disturbing film <em><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387898/">Cache</a></em>.<br /><br /><strong>20 - What are you currently working on?</strong><br /><br />Like I said, I’m almost finished a new novel. I have some new stories toward a new story collection. Squirreling away lines and ideas for yet another novel. Plus teaching English lit. at the University of Baltimore. I love the teaching thing. It’s so intense. A pure joy to wave around a dry-erase pen as if it’s a magic wand and say hey, let’s see how this story works.<br /><br /><div><a href="http://robmclennansindex.blogspot.com/2007/09/12-or-20-questions-archive.html"><em>12 or 20 questions archive</em></a></div>rob mclennanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07958889643637765864noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-319589917860132988.post-32497260332756072112008-02-21T15:27:00.000-08:002008-02-21T16:11:59.524-08:0012 or 20 questions: with Jennifer Bartlett<a href="http://saintelizabethstreet.blogspot.com/"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5169580917780772386" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjL21pwE3XD_3Ukrvkgwh581G6fqRk7KLVOfBcWdia1GU5W7XFpqU3XuiDXlt4kniTNxOXKP4yb6GGIrN1MWk5AsTSiXQlONLdAV51BDNP9td_JKVoDfDBlSz_Evg1JKLy55T8Lj03cr5E/s320/bartlett.jpg" border="0" /><strong>Jennifer Bartlett</strong> </a>was born in Northern California and grew up in New Mexico. In 2005, she was a <a href="http://www.nyfa.org/">New York Foundation for the Arts Fellow</a>. She was editor of <a href="http://saintelizabethstreet.blogspot.com/"><em>Saint Elizabeth Street</em> </a>for five years. Her first collection, <em><a href="http://www.unmpress.com/Book.php?id=11519572582983">Derivative of the Moving Image</a></em>, was published in 2007 by <a href="http://bookshop.blackwell.com/jsp/id/Derivative_of_the_Moving_Image/9780826341334">UNM Press</a>. She currently resides in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenpoint,_Brooklyn">Greenpoint, Brooklyn </a>with <a href="http://multifariousarray.blogspot.com/2007/10/jennifer-bartlett-jim-stewart-betsy.html">the writer Jim Stewart </a>and their son, Jeffrey.<br /><br /><strong>1 - How did your first book change your life?</strong><br /><br /><em><a href="http://saintelizabethstreet.blogspot.com/2007/04/derivative-of-moving-image.html">Derivative</a></em> changed my life pretty significantly. I was <a href="http://otherroomspress.blogspot.com/2007/11/jennifer-bartlett.html">writing poetry </a>for 18 years before the book came out. The oldest poem was written when I was twenty; I am now 38. ‘Birthing’ the book was an enormous lesson in patience and persistence. It didn’t go into production until four years after it was accepted by UNM Press, and, as with <a href="http://www.inblogs.net/womenoftheweb/2007/09/jennifer-bartlett.html">any book</a>, the production process was grueling despite the fact that I worked with genius editors and designers.<br /><br />The day I received the book, I thought I would be full of anxiety and unmet expectations. Just the opposite, I felt completely at peace. It was as if my life had been missing something for a long time and it was finally complete. Ideally, shouldn’t work this way, but the book also made me feel like I’d finally gained validity as <a href="http://www.coconutpoetry.org/bartlett1.htm">an artist</a>. People are beginning to take my work seriously.<br /><br /><strong>2 - How long have you lived in New York, and how does geography, if at all, impact on your writing? Does race or gender make any impact on your work?</strong><br /><br />I have lived in New York for eight years. This geography does not have much impact on my work. My work is largely internal. The external environs of my new work have to do with the natural world – specifically ‘other homes,’ Oregon and New Mexico. Even when New York is a backdrop for the work, it’s about what’s under the urban system. I have written poems that reflect <a href="http://www.centralpark.com/">Central Park </a>and the <a href="http://www.amnh.org/">American Museum of Natural History</a>. But, <a href="http://manilabroadsides.blogspot.com/2007/12/from-natural-history-of-california-by.html">my work </a>is largely about humanity and how people do and do not fit together. I guess this does describe my city on some level!<br /><br />I don’t write about race. I’m a boring white girl. Gender has come into my new work as I am writing (in an oblique way) about motherhood and all the difficulties and contradictions that come with that. My new work isn’t about the stereotypical idea of the child as the ‘perfect fulfillment.’ It’s more about the messiness and grotesqueness that comes with motherhood. The splitting of the consciousness that derives from having a child; what <a href="http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/notley/">Alice Notley </a>referred to as a <a href="http://www.mackenziecarignan.com/2005/07/poem-by-alice-notley-and-some-thoughts.html">Doubling</a>.<br /><br />I also am exploring the idea of alternate movement and the body, as I have cerebral palsy. How the world perceives one’s identity -- or body - - versus our true identity.<br /><br /><strong>3 - Where does a poem usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?</strong><br /><br />This has changed. I used to write long poems. <em><a href="http://amyking.org/blog/?p=430">Derivative</a></em> definitely has themes, but it’s pretty much just organization of these separate works. <em>(a) lullaby</em> without any music, for whatever reason, was written as a complete ‘book.’ It just came to me this way. Most of the pieces are very short, and might be awkward standing alone. For the future, who knows? At this point, I just hope I CAN write another poem!<br /><br /><strong>4 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process?</strong><br /><br />Public readings are the first time that I hear my work aloud. That helps me in tweaking it or locating typos. I work for weeks/months on poems and usually do not read ‘fresh’ work at a reading.<br /><br /><strong>5 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?</strong><br /><br />I don’t think of questions as theoretical, but urgent. How do I deal with my different body and people’s ridiculous reactions to it? How do I deal with the constraints of domesticity? How do I keep myself psychologically and spiritually afloat? Also, how do poets deal with the terrible state of the world? These questions are too serious to take in an academic way. That is why I want people outside of academia to read my work – and <a href="http://galatearesurrection.blogspot.com/2006/03/like-wind-loves-window-by-andrea-baker.html">every poet’s work</a>!<br /><br /><strong>6 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?</strong><br /><br />I prefer to have my work ‘done’ before anyone, including my husband, sees it. I went to undergraduate school for poetry. I got an MFA. I spent years bouncing work off my friends and working in groups. I finally feel like I’m in a space where I need to be self-sufficient.<br /><br />As far as magazines, I actually don’t believe in editing poems. I say this as an editor and a poet. I think a poem is a fine-tuned thing, and an editor should be prepared to take a poem ‘as is’ or not at all. The problem with workshops, editing, and all this is that poets, teachers, and students have a hard time seeing the work on its own terms. Ultimately, poet/teacher/editor organically may want to ‘fix’ the poem in the way they would write it. This makes teaching and editing complicated.<br /><br />Books are more complicated. Of course, a good editor can make suggestions of poem order and such. But, I still think person has to be deeply invested and intimate with a poet in order to make good changes to her poems. My best editor is my father. As scary as it sounds, he can get inside my head. He can change a word or a comma, and I think, “Yes! That is what I meant!”<br /><br /><strong>7 - Where is your favourite place to write?</strong><br /><br />The same as my favorite places in life: bed and museums.<br /><div><br /><strong>8 - When was the last time you ate a pear?<br /></strong><br />I don’t like pears.<br /><br /><strong>9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?</strong><br /><br />Don’t try to fit in, wait for the crowd to come to you.<br /><br /><strong>10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to reviews/critical work)? What do you see as the appeal?</strong><br /><br />I can’t write fiction to save my life, but I do write prose pretty cohesively. I love writing essays, and I worked for a while a writer. This confidence has made it comfortable and enjoyable for me to teach my composition classes.<br /><br /><a href="http://saintelizabethstreet.blogspot.com/">I keep a pretty comprehensive blog</a>. In the tradition of <a href="http://www.amyking.org/">Amy King </a>[<a href="http://12or20questions.blogspot.com/2008/02/12-or-20-questions-with-amy-king.html">see her 12 or 20 questions here</a>], <a href="http://ronsilliman.blogspot.com/">Ron Silliman</a>, and the <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/">Poetry Foundation blogs</a>, I try to stick to <a href="http://galatearesurrection7.blogspot.com/2007/08/second-child-by-deborah-garrison.html">short essays</a>. I find prose writing a way to release thoughts – about disability, teaching, and the world – that I can’t quite make concrete in my poetry. In poetry, language, image, music, and sound have to be primary. This limits me. The excess flows into the prose. I have more room to bitch and moan about perceived -- or real – injustices. I can’t bring myself to say something like 75% of people with disabilities are unfairly unemployed or I want to kill myself because none of my college students know who <a href="http://www.beatmuseum.org/kerouac/jackkerouac.html">Jack Keroauc </a>is in a poem. It needs to be said, but poetry is not the place. Thank God for ‘the blog.’<br /><br /><strong>11 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?</strong><br /><br />I do not have a writing routine. I struggled with this when I was young. I believed that one should write for x number of hours at x time. One should ‘go to work’ as if going to the factory. I still idealize this method and envy people who can do it. I can’t. I just soak the world in and wait and wait. When it comes, I have no choice but to write it. It becomes urgent.<br /><br />To tell a secret, I am flooded with anxiety when I wake up. I’m not a ‘morning person.’ My husband leaves very early, and getting my kid to school is always a struggle. After that, I fall into my routine. I teach two days a week and work at home the others.<br /><br /><strong>12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?<br /></strong><br />When I am stalled, I write prose or don’t write. I don’t push it.<br /><br /><strong>13 - How does your most recent book compare to your previous work? How does it feel different?</strong><br /><br />The two books are actually very different. <em>Derivative</em> is about coping with not getting what you want. <em>(a) lullaby</em> is about coping with getting what you want. <em>(a) lullaby</em> is a much more mature book. I’ve been told that my lyricism has deepened in a real way. </div><br /><div><em>Derivative</em> was written when I was a baby. Now, I’m an old lady!<br /><br /><strong>14 - <a href="http://www.parl.gc.ca/Information/about/people/poet/poem-of-the-week/poems-e.htm?param=9">David W. McFadden </a>once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?</strong><br /><br />I love this question. I am very interested in film. photography, and painting. All of these played an extensive part in my first book, <em>Derivative of the Moving Image</em>. I worked in the <a href="http://www.mfa.org/">Museum of Fine Arts, Boston </a>and dated a filmmaker during the years when many of the poems were written. Visual art is the framework for most of the poems. Some influences are <a href="http://www.masters-of-fine-art-photography.com/02/artphotogallery/photographers/diane_arbus_01.html">Diane Arbus</a>, <a href="http://www.ndoylefineart.com/cornell.html">Joseph Cornell</a>, <a href="http://www.basquiat.com/">Jean-Michel Basquiat</a>, <a href="http://www.zingmagazine.com/zing3/reviews/043_frank.html">Robert Frank</a>, <a href="http://masters-of-photography.com/L/levitt/levitt.html">Helen Levitt</a>, <a href="http://www.2river.org/2RView/2_2/poems/anamorphosis.html">Francesco Clemente</a>, <a href="http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/freud/">Lucian Freud</a>, and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Warhol">Andy Warhol</a>. In film, I love <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federico_Fellini">Fellini</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olivier_Assayas">Olivier Assayas</a>, and <a href="http://www.woodyallen.com/">Woody Allen</a>, but it’s more of the technical process of a film – of a story told through light – that finds its way into the first book.<br /><br /><strong>15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?</strong><br /><br />This list might be endless, but I would say, mainly poetry: <a href="http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/98">Michael Palmer</a>, <a href="http://www.shearsman.com/pages/books/authors/tarnA.html">Nathaniel Tarn</a>, <a href="http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/1442">Brenda Hillman</a>, <a href="http://www.rachelzucker.net/">Rachel Zucher </a>[<a href="http://robmclennan.blogspot.com/2008/01/1-how-did-your-first-book-change-your.html">see her 12 or 20 questions here</a>], <a href="http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/m_r/rukeyser/rukeyser.htm">Muriel Rukeyser</a>, <a href="http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/g_l/levertov/levertov.htm">Denise Levertov</a>, <a href="http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/58">Jorie Graham</a>, <a href="http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/jarnot/">Lisa Jarnot </a>[<a href="http://12or20questions.blogspot.com/2008/02/12-or-20-questions-with-lisa-jarnot.html">see her 12 or 20 questions here</a>], <a href="http://maryroselarkin.blogspot.com/">Maryrose Larkin</a>, <a href="http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/niedecker/">Lorine Niedecker</a>, <a href="http://jacketmagazine.com/28/dunc-bert-10poems.html">Robert Duncan</a>, <a href="http://www.allenginsberg.org/">Allen Ginsberg</a>, <a href="http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/881">Fanny Howe</a>, <a href="http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/g_l/haas/hass.htm">Robert Hass</a>, <a href="http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/aakhma.htm">Anna Akhmatova</a>, and on and on.<br /><br /><strong>16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?</strong><br /><br />I’m pretty proactive person, so I’ve accomplished most of what I need. Last year was huge because I realized three big goals: my book, learning how to ride a bicycle, and getting an adjunct position. But, a list of undones might include living in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon">Oregon</a>, visiting <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Petersburg">St. Petersburg</a>, donating more money, learning how to swim, and having <a href="http://www.dininginfrance.com/per_se_menu.htm">dinner at Per Se</a>. A large, unreachable goal is to make a film of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Another-Country-James-Baldwin/dp/0679744711"><em>Another Country</em> </a>by <a href="http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/jbaldwin.htm">James Baldwin </a>with a soundtrack by <a href="http://www.rufuswainwright.com/">Rufus Wainwright</a>.<br /><br /><strong>17 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?<br /></strong><br />I never wanted to be anything but a poet and a teacher. One day, I would like to teach poetry, but it’s not a primary goal.<br /><br /><strong>18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?</strong><br /><br />My father, <a href="http://www.amazon.ca/s?ie=UTF8&index=books&field-author=Lee%20Bartlett&page=1">Lee Bartlett</a>, is a well-known writer and critic. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Everson">William Everson </a>was my sister’s godfather. It’s in the blood.<br /><br /><strong>19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?</strong><br /><br />I recently read <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Awakening-Kate-Chopin/dp/0380002450"><em>The Awakening</em> </a>and <em><a href="http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15308">Howl</a></em> because I’m teaching them. I also was reading <em><a href="http://hal.ucr.edu/~cathy/tlh.html">To the Lighthouse</a></em>, but there is a transition in the second part where the book becomes very, very sad, so I put it aside. I think <a href="http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/vwoolf.htm">Woolf</a> is the best prose writer to ever live. I told my husband that she killed herself because she was too talented to live in society.<br /><br />Strangely, the last ‘great film’ I saw was <em><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0367027/">Short Bus</a></em>. I really resisted seeing it, but relented for my husband. I haven’t seen anything in such a long time that exposed and studied the human condition in such a true, poetic way. AND it featured the <a href="http://hungrymarchband.com/hungryhome.php">Hungary Marching Band</a>. What more could you ask for?<br /><br /><strong>20 - What are you currently working on?<br /></strong><br />I have been trying to be a good mother to <em><a href="http://www.santafenewmexican.com/Sunday%20Magazine/Poet_unafraid_to_be_lyric_despite_being_young">Derivative</a></em>, doing readings and such. Meanwhile, I did a guest editorial for <em><a href="http://www.asu.edu/pipercwcenter/how2journal/">How2</a></em> on poetry and mentorship, which should be published in March 2008. My second manuscript, <em>(a) lullaby without any music</em>, is being considered by a significant poetry press.<br /><br />I am working on a collection of essays, <em>I’m with the DJ</em>, about disability, poetics, and teaching. I’m also considering including the interviews I did for <a href="http://saintelizabethstreet.blogspot.com/"><em>Saint Elizabeth Street</em> </a>with <a href="http://andreabaker.blogspot.com/">Andrea Baker</a>, <a href="http://www.kategreenstreet.com/">Kate Greenstreet</a>, <a href="http://www.creativewriting.emory.edu/faculty/covey.html">Bruce Covey</a>, and others. I’m trying also to be a good daughter/friend/citizen/wife/professor/mother/poet and find a house to live in for summer in Oregon and do the family taxes. I’m a busy woman!</div><br /><div></div><div><a href="http://robmclennansindex.blogspot.com/2007/09/12-or-20-questions-archive.html"><em>12 or 20 questions archive</em></a></div>rob mclennanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07958889643637765864noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-319589917860132988.post-66974834652255404982008-02-20T10:42:00.000-08:002008-02-20T11:13:12.063-08:0012 or 20 questions: with Lisa Jarnot<a href="http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/jarnot/"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5169136959896286706" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioeZ1gBPxJgTtltGLSed30Y1H_XWlY_uZC1_HgbFSZKNJhzb3zs9xIJaV1_BY4k05opF0sSVHP26Rr9R7t_qAQVRCEr5xHCv82TuhSiZnOwQzo8tyfTtykBK6Gn0LgNael2UpMSU0orr4/s320/jarnot.bmp" border="0" /><strong>Lisa Jarnot's</strong> </a>fourth collection of poems, <em>Night Scenes</em>, will be available from <a href="http://www.floodeditions.com/upcoming/index.html">Flood Editions </a>this spring. She is the owner and operator of <a href="http://co.lisajarnot.com/">Catskill Organics Farm</a>.<br /><div></div><br /><div><strong>1 - How did your first book change your life?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>I wouldn't say that it changed my life. It more simply entered into the trajectory of the work that I do as a poet. I'm not really fond of the idea of publishing as a gauge of what one does as a writer— when I teach in MFA programs I have a lot of students who come to me with the burning question "Where should I send my manuscript?" I think the real question should be "<a href="http://www.chicagopostmodernpoetry.com/Jarnot.htm">What is my relation to my craft</a>?"</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>2 - How long have you lived in New York, and how does geography, if at all, impact on your writing? Does race or gender make any impact on your work?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>I've lived in New York for 14 years and yes, New York is <a href="http://herecomeseverybody.blogspot.com/2004/10/lisa-jarnot-was-born-in-buffalo-new.html">in the poems</a>, but more importantly the influence of the <a href="http://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=1518">New York School is in my poems</a>. I came to New York to be close to two of my favorite writers, <a href="http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/mayer/">Bernadette Mayer </a>and <a href="http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/8">Allen Ginsberg</a>. There are <a href="http://www.granarybooks.com/books/clay/clay1.html">other writers of the Lower East Side </a>who are masters as well: I think <a href="http://www.poetrybus.com/john-godfrey/">John Godfrey </a>is one of <a href="http://www.cyberpoems.com/aboutjon.html">the great American poets</a>. People maybe don't know his work as much as they should/could. And <a href="http://biography.jrank.org/pages/2805/Henderson-David.html">David Henderson </a>who started out as an editor of <a href="http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2838/is_n4_v27/ai_15342422"><em>Umbra magazine</em> </a>and part of the <a href="http://www.umich.edu/~eng499/">Black Arts Movement</a>. So I do feel very lucky to have spent time with some of these folks. As for race and gender, that feels like a question that needs to be answered by a critic rather than a <a href="http://www.alicebluereview.org/three/prose/lin.html">poet</a>. I think of <a href="http://www.webdelsol.com/Facture/poems/lisajarnot.htm">poetry</a> in <a href="http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/creeley/">Robert Creeley's </a>terms, that it's an expression of the Human Condition plain and simple. When I hear words like race and gender I feel like I'm in a classroom.</div><br /><div><strong>3 - Where does a poem usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div><a href="http://absentmag.org/issue02/html/lisa_jarnot.html">The poem </a>usually begins with a musical phrase. I don't think in terms of books.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>4 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>Part of. The articulation of the language is part of the creative work for me, though I don't think it has to be for everyone. (I think of <a href="http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/155">Emily Dickinson </a>who never gave a poetry reading. She didn't suffer for it.)</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>5 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div><a href="http://www.fascicle.com/issue02/essays/jarnotduncan1.htm.">My writing </a>is simply what it is. The concerns are actual rather than theoretical-- I think of poetry as part of the process of living. Again, I'll leave the theoretical for the critics.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>6 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>I've never worked with an outside editor. </div><br /><div></div><div><strong>7 - After having published more than a couple of titles over the years, do you find the process of book-making harder or easier?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>Each book is different. I've never thought of them in terms of level of difficulty.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to non-fiction)? What do you see as the appeal?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div><a href="http://lemonhound.blogspot.com/2005/05/lisa-jarnot-black-dog-songs.html">I write </a>in <a href="http://marcusslease.blogspot.com/2005/04/lisa-jarnot-got-my-juices.html">whatever form the work takes naturally</a>. Again, I wouldn't say it's a question of level of difficulty. Some things need to be expressed as essay, <a href="http://www.dmqreview.com/May07/FeaturedPoet.htm">others as poems</a>, others as letters to the editor, etc.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>11 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div><a href="http://writing.upenn.edu/~wh/calendar/jarnotintro.html">I don't have a writing routine</a>. Occasionally <a href="http://www.onedit.net/issue3/lisa/lisa.html">an opening line of a poem </a>will come into my head and I'll write it down. If I'm lucky I have ten or twelve <a href="http://www.woodlandpattern.org/poems/lisa_jarnot01.shtml">new poems </a>a year. But most of my time is spent doing other things: reading, running, cooking, knitting, gardening. I start the day with coffee and a jog and I read the <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/">UK <em>Guardian</em> online</a>. I'm always a <a href="http://www.cultureport.com/newhp/lingo/authors/jarnot.html">poet</a>, but I'm not always thinking about <a href="http://thepoetryexperiment.blogspot.com/2005/06/lisa-jarnot-additional-ode.html">writing poems</a>.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>I don't try to force writing, so I don't seek inspiration. I simply <a href="http://www.versedaily.org/2007/sinning.shtml">write poems </a>when they are present to be written. Other times I do other things. Those other things (see above) may create sparks of inspiration, and the breaks/stalls/blocks/gathering periods may be necessary. I think that <a href="http://www.coconutpoetry.org/jarnot1.htm">looking for the poem </a>is a bad way to go about it.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>13 - How does your most recent book compare to your previous work? How does it feel different?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>My work is all really part of a continuum. I think of writing as a process, so each book is part of a bigger constellation of what I do as a writer. Each book feeds off the last. Again, I'd be very happy to let other people hash out comparisons of my books.<br /></div><br /><div><strong>14 - <a href="http://www.ucalgary.ca/UofC/faculties/HUM/ENGL/canada/poet/d_mcfadden.htm">David W. McFadden </a>once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>Everything. I don't think that books necessarily come from books— or rather that seems like a very limiting way to think about book-writing. I think the spoons and forks in the silverware drawer can be just as interesting as <em><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_and_Peace">War and Peace</a></em>.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>Really everything I read is important to my work and to my life. I'm a horticulturalist, so there is a lot of green reading material in my life. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleoanthropology">Paleoanthropology</a>, astronomy, biology, filmmaking, rock and roll, radical politics, liberal politics (<em><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/">the new york times</a></em>), etc. It's all there.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>Everything I haven't done yet. Really.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>17 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>I am now entering into work as a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horticulture">horticulturist</a> and organic farmer. If I have time I'd also like to become a classics scholar, psychoanalyst, karate black belt, architect, doctor, and geologist.<br /></div><br /><div><strong>18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>I was good at it.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>This is pretty impossible to answer. The greatest great book I've read (and re-read) is <em><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnegans_Wake">Finnegans Wake</a></em>, but <em><a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4300">Ulysses</a></em> is up there too.</div><br /><div><strong>20 - What are you currently working on?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div><a href="http://www.atticusfinch.org/jarnot.htm">A translation of the <em>Iliad</em></a>.</div><br /><div></div><div><a href="http://robmclennansindex.blogspot.com/2007/09/12-or-20-questions-archive.html"><em>12 or 20 questions archive</em></a></div>rob mclennanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07958889643637765864noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-319589917860132988.post-83956681640077511512008-02-18T15:52:00.000-08:002008-02-19T10:42:51.266-08:0012 or 20 questions: with Michael Blouin<a href="http://www.treereadingseries.ca/TreeLeaves/blouin.html"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5168475109730940338" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFtw5QT-GxKsTj-QmW_ryW7AUSCzTCNMjZe3nfV3inxHVyebVqp858Ggn2Qm6fQUiqsfp7FapztEvl__JgxtvDpvO1_kOtavllBy930qoL_BNSZ92vXnQe5_MbA4qHw0D6SMhZWa-J_YI/s320/blouin.jpg" border="0" /><strong>Mike Blouin</strong> </a>has published in many Canadian literary magazines including <em><a href="http://www.descant.ca/">Descant</a></em>,<a href="http://www.arcpoetry.ca/"> <em>Arc</em></a>, <em><a href="http://www.lib.unb.ca/Texts/Fiddlehead/">Fiddlehead</a></em>, <em><a href="http://www.antigonishreview.com/">The Antigonish Review</a></em>, <em><a href="http://event.douglas.bc.ca/">Event</a></em>, <em><a href="http://www.tnq.ca/">The New Quarterly</a></em>, <em><a href="http://www.grainmagazine.ca/">Grain</a></em>, <em><a href="http://www.queensu.ca/quarterly/">Queen's Quarterly</a></em>, <em><a href="http://www.carleton.ca/inwords/events.html">In/Words</a></em>, <em><a href="http://www.variationszine.com/">Variations</a></em>, <a href="http://www.ottawater.com/"><em>Ottawater</em> </a>and has a collected poetry <a href="http://www.openbooktoronto.com/books/featured_poetry_im_not_going_lie_you_michael_blouin"><em>I’m not going to lie to you</em> </a>out with <a href="http://www.thismagazine.ca/issues/2006/05/smallvictories.php">Toronto's Pedlar Press </a>as well as a novel <em>Chase and Haven</em> with <a href="http://www.chbooks.com/">Coach House Books </a>in Fall 2008. <a href="http://ottawapoetry.blogspot.com/2008/01/what-are-you-currently-working-on.html">He has been the recipient </a>of <a href="http://www.arcpoetry.ca/logentries/contestsdianabrebnerprize/"><em>Arc Magazine’s</em> Diana Brebner Prize for Poetry </a>as well as the Lillian I. Found prize for Poetry from Carleton University. He can be contacted at <a href="mailto:luckyus@sympatico.ca">luckyus@sympatico.ca</a> as well as on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/">facebook</a> and at <a href="http://minor-poet.blogspot.com/">http://minor-poet.blogspot.com/</a><br /><p><strong>1 - How did your first book change your life?</strong><br /><br />I think that in a very real way it legitimized things for me as a writer. There was always a certain part of the process for me that was about producing books as opposed to shorter pieces in magazines. For me it was twenty seven years between picking up the pencil and the first book launch so that’s a lot of late nights to be spending if you’re not at some point achieving the goal you’ve set for yourself. I wanted to be able to hold something in my hands and have it represent my writing. It was also the point at which people I’d never met started to approach me and acknowledge what I do. That’s a nice pay off for twenty seven years of lost sleep. The time a woman said to me that her uncle thought I was a great writer and I didn’t know either of them personally. Or when people start quoting your work back to you. When people you’ve never met take the money they’ve worked to earn and use it to buy your work. My first book completed a long process and started another.</p><div></div><div><strong>2 - How long have you lived at <a href="http://maps.google.ca/maps?q=Oxford+Mills,+ON,+Canada&sa=X&oi=map&ct=title">Oxford Mills</a>, and how does geography, if at all, impact on your writing? Does race or gender make any impact on your work?</strong><br /><br />There’s the impact of all three to varying degrees. We’ve been at several houses in this area for seven or eight years and both of my novels ( one due with Coach House Books in Fall of 2008 tentatively titled “Haven and Chase” ) take place here in the early 1970’s. I’m not a writer who can research a place they haven’t been and then produce it in fiction. Of course any physical location in fiction is an amalgamation of the actual place, the place in the writer’s mind and the place in the reader’s mind. These three locations join together to make the setting but for me I like to be able to touch the place that this hypothetical location has sprung from. I daily walk and drive the locations in my books which allows me to live in them physically as well as emotionally and intellectually. That’s important to me. Race and gender are inescapable. They are very much a part of my voice as a poet since my voice as a poet is an only slightly modified version of my own. Often not modified at all. As a novelist I write from several character voices at a time. I love the task of assembling a story from a variety of viewpoints and seeing how they come together to produce the narrative arc. Many of these voices of mine are adolescent and fully half of them are female so it is easy for me to move around gender lines and, I think, do it convincingly. I don’t think I would presume to write from the voice of a race other than my own. That would feel presumptuous to me. At least I don’t see how I could assure myself that I was getting it right.</div><br /><div><strong>3 - Where does a poem or piece of fiction usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?</strong><br /><br />Aside from my first poetry collection everything else is part of a book project. Poems start from lines, individual lines which attach themselves usually to real life events and combine with other lines which seem unrelated at the time they arrive but eventually they find their ways together into one piece. It is quite seldom that I see the end of a poem from its beginning. I’ve just completed a poetry manuscript that traces the lives of <a href="http://www.athabascau.ca/writers/nowlan/nowlan.html">Canadian poet Alden Nowlan </a>and <a href="http://www.johnnycash.com/">American singer Johnny Cash</a>. That was a book from the get go. All the poetry is targeted now towards larger projects.<br /><br />My novels all begin with a single image that appears and then has some staying power in my head and manages to stay put and return even though it faces strong competition. For my first novel this image was a young girl standing in a nightdress in the middle of a lawn covered with hundreds of dead and dying frogs. I had no idea at the time who the girl was or what was happening but the image would not go away and eventually it was two hundred pages. The novel I’m finishing now started with two boys carrying a cardboard box across a field. In many ways the writing of that story had to do with figuring out what they had in that box and where they were going with it. I didn’t know the answer to that until fully a third of the way through the book. Turns out it’s pretty interesting what they’ve got in there the buggers.<br /><br /><strong>4 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process?<br /></strong><br />I enjoy them. It’s an alternate way of getting the stuff out to the audience and I have received some very useful feedback from doing readings. Reading to large audiences is tremendous because you can feel the response in the room and it becomes like playing an instrument ( or what I imagine that must be like ) and having the audience respond in a visceral way. Plus it is a huge ego rush of course and there’s not a lot of that when you’re alone with the light of a laptop at two in the morning so it’s a nice change of pace.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>5 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?</strong><br /><br />My current questions are:<br /><br />How do you write so that each word absolutely has to be there – the book would suffer from the loss of just one?<br /><br />How do you write a book that makes the life of the reader in some way more tolerable?<br /><br />How do you write a novel that is post modern, experimental and innovative and still have it rip the emotional heart out of the reader and leave it lying there on the floor?<br /><br />What is the book that is a collaborative process between author and reader and where can I get my hands on that version of my work? That’s what I’d like to read.<br /><br />Just how perverse is the process we call memory?<br /><br />I think a big and ongoing question is the validity of the novel. I think the answer is yes. But I’d like to see more evidence of that on shelves and I don’t usually.<br /><br />( though that thing <em><a href="http://www.themercurypress.ca/?q=books/white">White</a> </em>was pretty good)<br /><br /><strong>6 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?</strong><br /><br />I’ve had the great good fortune of working with extremely fine editors both in magazine work and on my bigger projects ( <a href="http://www.taddlecreekmag.com/amnesia">Alana Wilcox </a>at <a href="http://www.chbooks.com/">Coach House</a>, <a href="http://www.chbooks.com/biographies/index.php?ID=639">Beth Follett </a>and <a href="http://www.danforthreview.com/features/interviews/emily_schultz.htm">Emily Schultz </a>at <a href="http://www.lpg.ca/?q=publisher/pedlar_press">Pedlar Press</a>, <a href="http://www.centennialcollege.ca/thecentre/bookfaculty">Mary Newberry </a>from <em><a href="http://www.descant.ca/">Descant</a></em> with help on everything…). Maybe it stems from my work as a teacher but I’m very excited about collaborating on my work with someone who’s very good at doing that. To work with someone you trust and be able to see this thing you’ve worked for so long through someone else’s eyes and see it get better – that’s just really exciting.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>7 - After having published more than a couple of titles over the years, do you find the process of book-making harder or easier?</strong><br /><br />Harder.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>8 - When was the last time you ate a pear?</strong><br /><br />I’d prefer to answer as to the last time I didn’t eat a pear. That was just today in fact. In fact I don’t eat pears. Now that I’m with a big time publisher I have the services of an excellent publicist. I’d prefer to refer any further pear questions his way.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?</strong><br /><br />It goes something like: the best ending to a story is a half open door you can only see part way out of<br /><br />That was <a href="http://www.athabascau.ca/writers/ondaatje.html">Michael Ondaatje</a>, not personally to me, but very true.<br /><br />The other ( you asked for two didn’t you? ) was:<br /><br />Keep writing it and mailing it out. That was <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/obit/findley/">Timothy Findley </a>personally to me I’m happy to say and I have it on paper stored away. It was great advice because it kept me writing through ten years of zero publication.<br /><br />Also don’t mix your alcohol and be respectful to your elders. Those are good ones.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to fiction)? What do you see as the appeal?</strong><br /><br />Canvas size. I’ve always written both. My first published piece was a short story about a guy writing a poem. It was the first good fiction I’d written and the poem was the first poem good or otherwise ( it wasn’t very ). It was the first thing I ever mailed out and it got picked up by <em><a href="http://www.queensu.ca/quarterly/">Queen’s Quarterly</a></em>. That wrecked me for a while.<br /><br />The appeal of the poem is you can get it done pretty quickly. The appeal of the novel is you can spend a long time with it. Although I’ve almost died or been killed seven times now so I’m always worried that I won’t get time to finish the novel.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>11 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?</strong><br /><br />A typical day begins at 5:00 a.m. in a house with a wife, three teenaged kids a dog and a cat. So writing happens somewhere down the line. I write where, when and whenever I can. For the last several years I write every time I sit down at the keyboard. I’m really very grateful for that. I like to write to music. Most of the time it’s <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miles_Davis">Miles Davis</a>. Sometimes it’s <a href="http://www.myspace.com/hospitalfacilities">Matt Good</a>. Usually it’s the same song over and over and over. I used to dream of having a place to write. I never have had one though. So I just go ahead where I am. And of course I get a lot done by avoiding writing.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?<br /></strong><br />It doesn’t get stalled. But I don’t talk about that for fear that it will. In fact I’d better just say that it does. I eat a lot of pears.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>13 - How does your most recent book compare to your previous work? How does it feel different?</strong><br /><br />My most recent book is a novel I’m completing which plays with ideas of structuring a narrative but in slightly different ways that my first. Also it’s predominantly in a male voice where the first was predominantly female so in many ways it seems a lot easier. Plus there’s a gunfight and an explosion and a really bad guy so it’s kind of fun to write. And it’s not as dark as my first book. Only half dark.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>14 - <a href="http://www.library.utoronto.ca/canpoetry/mcfadden/index.htm">David W. McFadden </a>once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?</strong><br /><br />I certainly agree that books come from books but certainly jazz influences my work as well. I get tired easily of most music but <a href="http://www.milesdavis.com/">Miles Davis</a>, <a href="http://www.matthewgood.org/">Matthew Good </a>and <a href="http://www.buck65.com/">Buck 65 </a>I could hear over and over from now ‘till I’m a mall walker. <a href="http://www.plosin.com/milesAhead/">Miles</a> more than any one musician in the choices that he makes. He plays the way that I like to think that I write. <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000406/">John Ford westerns</a>. That’s rhythm and pacing. Old war movies where the boys are pinned down and there’s no way out. Most things in <a href="http://www.modernpainters.co.uk/"><em>Modern Painters </em>magazine</a>.<br /><br />People ( the people, not <a href="http://www.people.com/people">the magazine </a>).</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?<br /></strong><br /><a href="http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780679767855&view=rg">Ondaatje’s <em>Coming Through Slaughter</em></a> and <em><a href="http://maclawran.ca/bunny/b01/ess/le-billy.html">Billy The Kid</a></em>. Should be required reading for anyone who wants to write. Or read. Or breathe. <a href="http://www.tintin.com/"><em>Tintin</em> comics</a>. <a href="http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/jjoyce.htm">Joyce</a>. <a href="http://www.threeinvestigatorsbooks.com/KinPlatt.html">Kin Platt</a>. <em><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lolita">Lolita</a></em>. </div><br /><div></div><div><strong>16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?<br /></strong><br />Eat a pear.<br /><br />Live in peace.<br /><br />Right now.<br /><br />Also when I signed a contract with Coach House I realized I had to come up with a new Big Picture game plan. That one went on for 27 years. Haven’t quite formulated the new one yet.<br /><br />I’d like to see my kids become fulfilled adults. That would be very nice.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>17 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?</strong><br /><br />I teach high school. Aside from writing, my marriage and my children it’s the best thing that I do. I teach at a great school with great kids and I get up every morning and look forward to doing it. I’m very lucky that way.<br /><br />I also would have liked to have an office around an area like the <a href="http://www.byward-market.com/">Market </a>say. A modern office in an old building with a nice big window and a really nice desk with just a few things on it. And I’d have a few art objects and maybe some obscure cartoon figurines. But I have no idea what I’d actually do there. Go out for coffee I suppose.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?<br /></strong><br />I was never presented with the option of not writing. I worked in film production for a while and found there was too much of the extraneous about it. I worked in visual arts a bit. But I wasn’t any good at it so there you go. When I’m writing I’m often achieving exactly what I want.<br /></div><br /><div><strong>19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?</strong></div><br /><div>Well this is a well timed question since I happen to be reading <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Ulysses-Penguin-Modern-Classics-James/dp/0141182806">Ulysses</a></em> for the third time and the <em><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible">Bible</a></em> for the fourth. Two books that really stand the test of time for me.<br /><br />I just saw the <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0287914/">French film <em>Angela</em></a>. Very good. And <em><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0467406/">Juno</a></em>. I liked that just like everyone else. And I just saw <em><a href="http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0449467/">Babel</a></em>. Apparently I’m only watching films with one word titles.</div><br /><div><strong>20 - What are you currently working on?</strong><br /><br />I’m almost finished my second novel. I have finished the poetry manuscript about <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Cash">Cash </a>and <a href="http://www.lib.unb.ca/Texts/QWERTY/Qweb/qwerte/nowlan/">Nowlan </a>that I mentioned and I’m quite hopeful that someone might publish it. I’m also working with Coach House on the edits for that novel as well as cover designs etc. I’m really working hard on appreciating my blessings. That’s a good project.</div><br /><div></div><div><a href="http://robmclennansindex.blogspot.com/2007/09/12-or-20-questions-archive.html"><em>12 or 20 questions archive</em></a></div>rob mclennanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07958889643637765864noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-319589917860132988.post-65126073725037805222008-02-15T14:32:00.000-08:002008-02-15T18:51:10.614-08:0012 or 20 questions: with Mary Borsky<a href="http://www.writersunion.ca/ww_profile.asp?mem=1721&L=B&N=Mary%C2%A0Borsky"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5167401114503869810" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicltFB0GJGDRDPf4_HVHObMMqL0LatV8a9C-UfOSHCaCrrvZm-uDuvxXEq0s2t1Nk4W3dnrzEo6V6Ndjp57LsqzjwIAj18EPTHDG_kFZ_PJtFYgaBaUCNTygORxAB7m_B8rnvmhw57oBE/s320/borsky.jpg" border="0" /><strong>Mary Borsky</strong></a>, author of short story collections, <a href="http://www.sentex.net/~pql/influence.html"><em>Influence of the Moon</em> </a>and <em><a href="http://www.thomas-allen.com/ThomasAllenPublishers/catalogue/0-88762-276-3R.htm">Cobalt Blue</a></em>, is equally in love with the Prairies and the Canadian Shield. Borsky is lives in Ottawa where she writes, teaches writing, rides her bike and skates. She is the author of the <a href="http://www.mcclelland.com/author/results.pperl?authorid=2823"><em>Benny Bensky</em> children's books</a>.<br /><br /><strong><em>How did your first book change your life?</em></strong> I don’t think it did, though writing has. I accumulated those stories one by one, never knowing whether I’d be able to pull off another one, but eventually I had enough for a book.<br /><br /><em><strong>How has writing changed my life?</strong></em> Hard to answer. I think writing helps me enter aspects of my experience more deeply, and think about things I might never have thought about otherwise. (<a href="http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/224">William Stafford </a>says that a writer is a person who would not have written what they wrote if they hadn’t started out to write it. I’ve always liked that quotation.)<br /><br /><em><strong>How long have you lived in Ottawa, and how does geography impact on your writing?</strong></em> I’ve been in Ottawa for a long time now, thirty years, I think. It took me a long time to relate emotionally to the eastern landscape. I used to see colour more vividly in the west, for example. But at some point I began to see eastern landscapes in colour too. The colours in the east are more subtle, the lines finer and more small scale. If I were a painter, I would paint eastern landscapes in water colour, western landscapes in oil.<br /><br /><strong><em>Does race or gender make any impact on you?</em></strong> Race strikes me as a red herring. Class, however, is extremely interesting. Saying that, I’m not sure I’ve ever written about social class. I would like to though.<br /><br />Most of my stories are about women, but only because I am used to seeing the world from that angle. I have occasionally written from a male point of view, and some of the books I most admire have male protagonists - <em><a href="http://www.salon.com/books/review/1999/11/05/coetzee/">Disgrace</a> </em>by <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/ref/books/author-coetzee.html">Coetzee</a>, for example, or <a href="http://archive.salon.com/books/review/2000/04/07/prose/"><em>Blue Angel</em> </a>by <a href="http://www.harpercollins.com/author/index.aspx?authorid=14648">Francine Prose</a>.<br /><br /><em><strong>Where does a piece of fiction usually begin for you?</strong></em> <em><strong>Are you a writer of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a “book” from the very beginning?</strong></em> A story can begin almost anywhere for me, from an image, (“Myna” began from my memory of the water dripping from the water wagon), or from the pragmatic desire to write a story (I think “The Ukrainian Shirt” began this way, by me casting my memory back over my life until I snagged on something I thought might be interesting. I remembered the eavestrough project, then tried to write about it. I hadn’t realized at the outset that I would be writing about marriage, etc.)<br /><br />It strikes me now that one other way I might come up with a story is to think of trips or visits. A friend of mine (who was likely quoting someone else) said there are only two stories in the world. A person goes on a trip. Or a stranger comes to the village.<br /><br />I’m always working on a story, not on a book. I was at a writing retreat in Saskatchewan and when there was a falling star, all the writers would call out “book!”, “book!”. I would be calling out, “story! story!” This is not to say, of course, that I don’t care about writing a book, because I do, but for some reason I keep my eye on the story.<br /><br /><em><strong>Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process?</strong></em> To write, I have to enter my own dream world, and public readings don’t intersect a whole lot with that. I do remember, however, looking up in a public reading to see a woman look completely engaged with the story (“Viewfinder”) I was reading. I found that very encouraging. It helped me think of the story as a story worth telling. I had some doubt about that at the time.<br /><br /><em><strong>Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing?</strong></em> What questions are you trying to answer with your work? I don’t have theoretical concerns. My concerns are about how to get a particular experience on the page, or how to stand back and let a particular situation deepen, how to get out of the way and let the characters interact.<br /><br /><em><strong>Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult, essential, or both?</strong></em> <a href="http://www.antigonishreview.com/bi-139/139-review-dale-estey.html">I welcome working with a good editor</a>. I’ve found that a good outside eye can help me a great deal. Often I experience resistance to a suggestion, but I’ve learned to try suggestions, for sometimes what initially sounds like a bad suggestion is really a good suggestion!<br /><br /><em><strong>After having published a couple of titles over the past few years, do you find the process of book-making harder or easier?</strong></em> I wish I could say I found it easier, but I don’t.<br /><br /><em><strong>When was the last time you ate a pear?</strong></em> I haven’t had a pear for months! Maybe tomorrow!<br /><br /><em><strong>What is the best piece of advice you’ve heard?</strong></em> <a href="http://www.reaaward.org/html/mavis_gallant.html">Mavis Gallant </a>once said that the most important thing about a story is whether it is alive or whether it is dead. This has often helped me hang in with a difficult story, for if I feel the life in it, I want to hang in and make it work.<br /><br />Another piece of advice I often return to is from <a href="http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=A1ARTA0005522">Alice Munro</a>. She said she had only two suggestions for stalled stories. One was to start again. The other was to pull yourself closer to the story. I find pulling myself closer can help a lot.<br /><br /><em><strong>How easy has it been for you to move between genres (children’s lit to adult fiction)? What is the appeal?</strong></em> If I’d started writing sooner, I may have written more children’s books, but I didn’t begin until my youngest child was eight. I wrote <a href="http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780887768408"><em>Benny Bensky and the Perogy Palace</em> </a>for her, then have done two others with the same cast of characters.<br /><br />I enjoyed writing for my daughter (who was a perfect audience at the time), but I also had a secret agenda. I thought I might discover <a href="http://www.canada.com/topics/travel/story.html?id=85ed9396-29e8-42d7-b9bd-7705b0c8159b">how a novel worked</a>. I’m not sure it helped me with that!<br /><br /><strong><em>What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep?</em></strong> I work in the mornings, the earlier the better. Which depends, unfortunately, on getting to bed the night before.<br /><br /><em><strong>When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?</strong></em> Reading what I really love is good. Moving even microscopically closer to the story I’m working on is good too.<br /><br /><em><strong>How does your most recent book compare to your previous work. How does it feel different?</strong></em> <a href="http://www.amazon.ca/Influence-Moon-Mary-Borsky/dp/0889841632"><em>Influence of the Moon</em> </a>and <a href="http://www.quillandquire.com/reviews/review.cfm?review_id=5526"><em>Cobalt Blue</em> </a>are both <a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/Page/document/v5/content/subscribe?user_URL=http://www.theglobeandmail.com%2Fservlet%2Fstory%2FLAC.20070519.BKBLUE19%2FTPStory%2FEntertainment%2FBooks&ord=24157011&brand=theglobeandmail&force_login=true">collections of stories</a>, but the stories are set in the 50’s and linked in the first book I was writing from a child’s consciousness in the first book as well. I think I’ve felt freer to write as I like in the second book.<br /><br /><strong><em><a href="http://www.library.utoronto.ca/canpoetry/mcfadden/poem6.htm">David W. McFadden </a>once said that books come from books, but is there any other form that influences your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?</em></strong> I love reading pop-science articles about <a href="http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/science/know_l2/black_holes.html">black holes </a>and <a href="http://www.jracademy.com/~jtucek/science/what.html">quantum physics </a>and that kind of thing, usually newspaper articles. Needless to say, the articles have to be extremely low level to be comprehensible to me! In a subliminal way these likely influence my way of seeing the world.<br /><br /><em><strong>What other writers or writings are important for your work?</strong></em> My list of favourites changes month to month, but some have been on the list for a long time: <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/11/01/specials/munro.html">Alice Munro</a>, <a href="http://www.believermag.com/issues/200510/?read=interview_moore">Lorrie Moore</a>, <a href="http://www.sentex.net/~pql/fromasea.html">Norman Levine</a>, <a href="http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/2003/coetzee-bio.html">J.M. Coetzee</a>. I’m the kind of reader who could, in a pinch, whittle down my collection to 50 books and keep reading the same books over and over for the rest of my life. I’d rather keep an open-ended collection though!<br /><br /><em><strong>What would you like to do that you haven’t yet done?</strong></em> In terms of writing? Another story?<br /><br /><em><strong>If you could pick any other occupation, what would it be? What do you think you would have ended up doing had you not become a writer?</strong></em> I would choose to have an occupation where my thoughts were my own, as they are when you are a writer. Where would that leave me? As a gardener, a farmer, a micro-film filer? I used to think I would make a good bee farmer. I still hope to do that.<br /><br /><em><strong>What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?</strong></em> Reading made me want to write. Reading about some other person’s journey emboldens me to tell my own story.<br /><br /><strong><em>What was the last great book you read?</em></strong> I’m reading <a href="http://books.guardian.co.uk/reviews/generalfiction/0,,2088344,00.html"><em>Falling Man</em> </a>and like it very much.<br /><br /><em><strong>What are you currently working on?</strong></em> A story.<br /><br /><div></div><div><a href="http://robmclennansindex.blogspot.com/2007/09/12-or-20-questions-archive.html"><em>12 or 20 questions archive</em></a></div>rob mclennanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07958889643637765864noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-319589917860132988.post-73676082397189860022008-02-14T12:05:00.000-08:002008-02-14T13:01:07.809-08:0012 or 20 questions: with Zoe Whittall<a href="http://zoewhittall.blogspot.com/"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5166941548708230418" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2Hc8s_7FFofyaPGkxNebmQV4jPrcwGzG1jrVdpM7g3Z6_4sjxTPwSPFHr-fs8ZcaYdoM4zc0qbXd5LtDsOpUc9qciBFs2tDBLHZtFrsDnNM3B2rrkntjlPMA1pF_1zmcMMuoRfBmpqjk/s320/whittall.jpg" border="0" /><strong>Zoe Whittall</strong> </a>is the author of novel called <a href="http://www.eyeweekly.com/arts/books/article/9216"><em>Bottle Rocket Hearts</em> </a>(<a href="http://www.cormorantbooks.com/authors/whittallzoe.htm">Cormorant</a>) named one of the Best Books of 2007 by the <a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/"><em>Globe and Mail</em> </a>and <em><a href="http://www.quillandquire.com/events/?id=41">Quill & Quire magazine</a></em>. <a href="http://www.nowtoronto.com/blog/index.cfm?ft=authors&fv=68"><em>Now Magazine</em> </a>awarded her <a href="http://www.nowtoronto.com/issues/2007-11-01/books_feature.php">the title </a>of <a href="http://www.youngpoets.ca/poetstalk/whittall.php">Best Emerging Author of 2007</a>. <a href="http://www.danforthreview.com/features/interviews/zoe_whittall.htm">She published a book of poems in 2001 </a>called <a href="http://www.mcgilliganbooks.com/books/the_best_10_minutes.htm"><em>The Best Ten Minutes of Your Life</em> </a>(McGilligan Books) and a <a href="http://aelaq.org/mrb/article.php?issue=22&article=652&cat=3">second</a> volume <a href="http://www.descant.ca/blog/?cat=14"><em>The Emily Valentine Poems</em> </a>(<a href="http://snarebooks.wordpress.com/books/">Snare Books</a>) in 2006. <a href="http://scotiabanknuitblanche.com/home.html">Her poetry was recently made into short illustrated films showcased in Toronto Subway stations for <em>Nuit Blanche</em></a>. In 2003, she edited the book <em><a href="http://www.mcgilliganbooks.com/books/geeks_misfits_outlaws.htm">Geeks, Misfits and Outlaws</a></em>. She writes book and music reviews for a variety of Canadian mags, teaches writing workshops, and has worked several small press publishing related day jobs. Recently the <a href="http://zoewhittall.blogspot.com/2007/05/can-you-hear-it-ossington-street-thats.html"><em>Globe and Mail</em> </a>called her " THE COCKIEST, BRASHEST, FUNNIEST, TOUGHEST, MOST LIFE-AFFIRMING, ELEGANT, SCRUFFY, NO-HOLDS-BARRED WRITER TO EMERGE FROM MONTREAL SINCE MORDECAI RICHLER." S he was born in South Durham, Quebec and has lived in Toronto since 1997.<br /><div></div><br /><div><strong>1 - How did your first book change your life?<br /></strong><br />It initially gave me tremendous confidence, though it's not my favourite book to re-read now. I met a lot of interesting people, and learned a lot about what to do differently the next time around in terms of both writing and publishing. At the time I thought I was so old and wordly at twenty-five. Now I look back and think, wow, I was a kid. It's a kid's poetry book. But it provided me with a lot of future opportunities.<br /><br /><strong>2 - How long have you lived in Toronto, and how does geography, if at all, impact on your writing? Does race or gender make any impact on your work?<br /></strong><br /><a href="http://toronto.untilmonday.com/story/toronto_author_zoe_whittall">I've lived here since 1997</a>. Geography does impact my writing, particularly because I'm a home-body and don't tend to travel all that much. I'm interested in neighbourhoods, various forms of community and how we inhabit the spaces within those communities. I lived on a farm as a kid, the suburbs as a teenager and the city for my adulthood, and I'm really interested in rural / urban differences. Race and gender – well, I think it's impossible to not be impacted by race, gender, class, sexual orientation – all those things - unless you live in a treehouse in the middle of nowhere, but it would likely come up whenever you ventured into town for <a href="http://www.cheerios.com/">Cheerios</a>.<br /><br /><strong>3 - Where does a poem or piece of fiction usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?</strong><br /><br /><a href="http://www.danforthreview.com/fiction/09_06/whittall.htm">Poems usually originate from single moments </a>and then I try to group them together when I realize I have enough to create a manuscript. Or, I get hooked on experimenting with a certain kind of style, game or form and write a whole bunch of similar pieces. Right now I'm trying to write <a href="http://www.northernpoetryreview.com/interviews/dani-couture/zoe-whittall.html">long poems on a similar theme</a>, and I'm thinking about a book while I'm writing them, but this is unusual for me. </div><br /><div><a href="http://www.tla1.com/Talent/Zoe_Whittall/ZOE_WHITTALL.htm">The new novel I'm trying to write </a>started from one imagined event, and then I came up with a timeline and characters around that event, and it's pretty much been a book in my head since those initial drafts. The first novel was all about character for years until I finally had to make things happen to these people I'd grown to love.<br /></div><div><strong>4 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process?</strong><br /></div><br /><div><a href="http://www.artmetropole.com/popups/events/events_06/80_getyourlitout/getyourlitout.htm">Both. I love performing</a>. A lot of my poetry comes across much better on stage, or at least, the humour does. It's great to get feedback on works in progress and definitely fun to meet people who respond well. Then there are those moments where you bomb, or the audience really wanted to hear goth poetry or political rants and you left your gothic political rants at home and want to read your nature poems and your friends don't come out to your readings anymore because you read too much and you sit there with a bunch of strangers until you get paid eight bucks. Those readings suck. But generally, I like being on stage and it often rejuvenates the solo writing process.<br /><br /><strong>5 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?</strong><br /><br /><strong>6 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?<br /></strong><br />Both. But mostly, it's essential. There are things I just can't possibly see and understand when I'm so close to the work, and quite honestly, there are things I'm <a href="http://www.metronews.ca/column.aspx?id=84322&searchtype=1&fragment=False">still learning as a writer</a>, and I need a focused and experienced guide to tell me when things are working well and when they aren't. Mostly I leave editorial meetings feeling grateful and enthused.<br /><br /><strong>7 - After having published a couple of titles over the past few years, do you find the process of book-making harder or easier?<br /></strong><br />It's easier because I'm learning what my boundaries are and understanding how to be practical about my expectations, each time around. What makes it difficult is working in publishing. It's so easy to become cynical and burnt out on the business when you are inside it, as opposed to being just an author. I'd love to be blissfully unaware of the shop-talk, gossip, insider crap that can really make book-making seem like a bizarre little network of the overworked and constantly panicked. It's hard to be around an industry where everyone is always yelling The Ship Is Going Down! I blame the boomers for this.<br /><br /><strong>8 - When was the last time you ate a pear?</strong><br /><br />At the <a href="http://www.martiniboys.com/Toronto/Beaver-Cafe-review.html">Beaver Café </a>where I tend to write a lot. They have a great fruit and cheese plate that comes with fig jam. Fig jam!<br /><br /><strong>9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?</strong><br /><br />It's a toss-up between <a href="http://www.asiancanadian.net/waysonchoy_interview.html">Wayson Choy </a>addressing a group of us with "Editors are not your janitors! Learn to use a comma!". This speaks to me because I'm just terrible with the typos. I take on too many things at once and forget the details. I'm trying to remedy this.<br /><br />The other best piece of advice was to remember that grant and awards juries are lotteries and a total crap-shoot. My friend <a href="http://www.nowtoronto.com/issues/2001-01-11/cover.html">Mariko Tamaki </a>told me that after she was on a jury, and I've successfully stopped crying when I receive rejection letters. Now that I've also been on juries, I realize just how much luck is involved in publishing. My first pick could be someone else's last pick. It's like shaking the eight-ball every time and there is no grand arbiter of Perfect Writing, or when you are a kid and you see a teacher at the laundrymat and you realize they are just ordinary shmucks with dirty socks. Those are the people in charge, and some days you get lucky and one of them likes your work.<br /><br /><strong>10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to fiction)? What do you see as the appeal?<br /></strong><br />I think one fuels the other for me. I like to write poetic prose. Too bad only 18 people want to read it, generally.<br /><br /><strong>11 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?<br /></strong><br />It depends on whether I'm working that day. On a non day-job or school day, I like to wake up around 8:30, drink coffee and chat with the cat, go to the gym and then start writing around 10 or 11. I usually write in a café without wifi so I'm not distracted by email, <a href="http://www.facebook.com/">facebook</a>, domestic things or the phone. Unless I'm broke. Then I tend to watch soap operas, surf facebook, write to-do lists, send panicked pitches to people who might pay me to write something and feel bad about myself until it's permissible to go have a beer with another writer in a similar situation.<br /><br /><strong>12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?</strong><br /><br />Mostly when I can't write, I read. There are a few books I re-read that usually do the trick, or I read non-fiction books about science and political or historical non-fiction. For some reason this tends to inspire poetry. I also go to plays when I can, and interview people I find interesting about their lives. I'm currently obsessed with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paramedic">paramedics</a> because I'm dating one, and I'm constantly bugging her and her coworkers for stories. They are just such a fascinating group of weirdos. Like, today I baked muffins and wrote some press releases. Oh yeah? Today I held a severed arm on the side of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway_401_(Ontario)">401</a>. Endlessly interesting to me, what they go through, always faced with the things most people spend their lives trying to avoid.<br /><br /><strong>13 - How does your most recent book compare to your previous work? How does it feel different?</strong><br /><br />It's a novel. I've never written one before. It's about young queer people, and my other poetry books cover some similar thematic terrain, pop culturally speaking. My poetry is more autobio, or fictionalized confessional. <a href="http://matrixmagazine.org/reviews/2007/12/bottle-rocket-hearts-by-zoe-whittall"><em>Bottle Rockets Hearts</em> </a>is completely imagined.<br /><br />People – friends, family, readers, critics, the media - treat you differently when you've written a novel compared to poetry books. It's like instant recognition for being a real writer, like poets are just these strange little hobbyists who write for other poets or for academic audiences. People who don't tend to read poetry often look at you like "Oh, you play <a href="http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/welcome">Dungeons and Dragons</a>?" when you say you write poetry. It seemed to legitimize something for people when I published <em><a href="http://pagesbooks.ca/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=287&Itemid=97">Bottle Rocket Hearts</a></em>.<br /><br /><strong>14 - <a href="http://www.thismagazine.ca/issues/2007/05/3sonnets.php">David W. McFadden </a>once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?<br /></strong><br />I love photography and lay science books. I love <a href="http://seedmagazine.com/">science mags like <em>Seed</em> </a>and illustrated novels.<br /><br /><strong>15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?</strong><br /><br /><a href="http://www.womenspost.ca/Girls_vision_everything.asp">Lisa Foad</a>. <a href="http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/myles/">Eileen Myles</a>. <a href="http://www.themercurypress.ca/?q=authors/gail_scott">Gail Scott</a>. <a href="http://www.library.utoronto.ca/canpoetry/crosbie/">Lynn Crosbie</a>. <a href="http://www.quillandquire.com/authors/profile.cfm?article_id=7521">Heather O'Neill</a>. <a href="http://www.jonathansafranfoer.com/">Jonathan Safran Foer</a>. <a href="http://www.jeanettewinterson.com/">Jeanette Winterson</a>. <a href="http://www.marniewoodrow.com/">Marnie Woodrow</a>. <a href="http://www.centerforbookculture.org/interviews/interview_acker.html">Kathy Acker</a>. <a href="http://www.coupland.com/">Douglas Coupland</a>. <a href="http://www.marikotamaki.com/">Mariko Tamaki</a>. <a href="http://www.glbtq.com/literature/schulman_s.html">Sarah Schulman</a>. <a href="http://www.drunkenboat.com/db8/canadapoetry/salah/">Trish Salah</a>. <a href="http://www.chandramayor.com/">Chandra Mayor</a>.<br /><br /><strong>16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?</strong><br /><br />Have a baby, make a full-time living as a writer, become a stand-up comic, write a play, start an alternative school and have a house in the country and be a housewife/at-home-writer. I'm almost 32. I'm hoping I can cross some of the above off my list soon.<br /><br /><strong>17 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?</strong><br /><br />I would attempt being a stand-up comic. I would probably have ended up being a social worker, you know, just live the stereotype.<br /><br /><strong>18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?</strong><br /><br />It's the only thing I've ever done with any kind of sustained passion or commitment. I've been wonderfully mediocre at everything else, or simply got bored too quickly. I'm an <a href="http://www.astrology-online.com/aquarius.htm">Aquarius</a>, so I tend to have many, many ideas and zero follow-through. Every year I think, well, it's time to learn a trade and get some <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Registered_Retirement_Savings_Plan">RRSPs</a>. I never do it. I'm starting to panic a bit.<br /><br /><strong>19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?<br /></strong><br />Well, like everyone, I saw <em><a href="http://imdb.com/title/tt0467406/">JUNO</a></em> and loved it. Brilliantly funny. I also quite enjoyed <em><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0907657/">Once</a></em> and <em><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0436607/">The Motel</a></em>. I've read a lot of really good books this year – I just finished <a href="http://www.mcclelland.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780771038112"><em>Late Nights on Air</em> </a>[<a href="http://12or20questions.blogspot.com/2007/09/12-or-20-questions-with-elizabeth-hay.html">see Elizabeth Hay's 12 or 20 questions here</a>] and loved it, I enjoyed <a href="http://www.brickbooks.ca/BL-Solie-modern.htm">Karen Solie's <em>Modern and Normal</em></a>, <a href="http://www.brianjosephdavis.com/tania.htm">Brian Joseph Davis' <em>I, Tania</em></a>, <a href="http://www.looseteeth.ca/itstoolate/">Joey Comeau's <em>It's Too Late to Say I'm Sorry</em> </a>and <a href="http://www.popsyndicate.com/site/story/sorry_tree/">Eileen Myles <em>Sorry, Tree</em></a>. I have to say the last book that really blew my mind was <a href="http://www.harpercollins.com/books/9780060875077/Lullabies_for_Little_Criminals/index.aspx">Heather O'Neill's <em>Lullabies for Little Criminals</em></a>. I'm a die-hard fan of anything she writes and am really happy about all the praise it has been getting.<br /><br /><strong>20 - What are you currently working on?<br /></strong><br />A new novel called <em>Doing Nothing For As Long As Possible</em>. It's about three characters in their mid-twenties living in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkdale,_Toronto">Parkdale</a>, dealing with various anxieties around death and purpose. One of them is unconscious for most of the book, one is going crazy and the other works in emergency medicine, see above re: medic fascination. It's basically a book about emergencies verses the sometimes banality of everyday life and these disparate characters' relationships to various monumental near-death experiences and how it impacts their ability to grow up or not grow up. Plus, they are all kids (25) who grew up with cell phones and email address and don't know what it's like to be unreachable. They were 20 on <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11,_2001_attacks">Sept. 11th</a>. I want to explore their relationship to technology, security, emergency and purpose. And there's a storyline about Canadian music and the CBC. <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/">I'm also obsessed with the CBC </a>and minor Canadian celebrities, like <a href="http://imdb.com/name/nm0001528/">Don McKellar </a>and <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/arts/tiff/features/tiffmonkey.html">Tracey Wright</a>. They have a bit part in the book, as does <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/thehour/">George Strombolopoulous </a>and a fictionalized version of <a href="http://www.randybachman.com/">Randy Bachman</a>. </div><br /><div></div><div><a href="http://robmclennansindex.blogspot.com/2007/09/12-or-20-questions-archive.html"><em>12 or 20 questions archive</em></a></div>rob mclennanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07958889643637765864noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-319589917860132988.post-70277092493577711932008-02-11T11:55:00.000-08:002008-02-13T17:22:07.817-08:0012 or 20 questions: with Amy King<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZTFBwR-3rvFk_aNdGPo77VFnhhlFpd2OeGuntNbxqu1rfVmu3i2S7J-twRCNQg0yEUalfxun055VI8jnpZdxekoiJg0susPikA36vDS67Ja56KJvepYx8wTjTn5hajUP7DtwPYa43RtY/s1600-h/amy+king.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5165445633073869986" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZTFBwR-3rvFk_aNdGPo77VFnhhlFpd2OeGuntNbxqu1rfVmu3i2S7J-twRCNQg0yEUalfxun055VI8jnpZdxekoiJg0susPikA36vDS67Ja56KJvepYx8wTjTn5hajUP7DtwPYa43RtY/s320/amy+king.jpg" border="0" /></a><strong>Amy King</strong> is the author of <a href="http://welcometoboogcity.com/boogpdfs/bc43.pdf"><em>I'm the Man Who Loves You</em> </a>and <em><a href="http://adamfieled.blogspot.com/2007/05/book-review-amy-king-antidote-for-alibi.html">Antidotes for an Alibi</a></em>, both from <a href="http://www.blazevox.org/catalog.htm">BlazeVOX Books</a>, and <a href="http://www.pavementsaw.org/chapbook_pages/thepeople.htm"><em>The People Instruments</em> </a>(Pavement Saw Press). She is the editor-in-chief for the literary arts journal, <em><a href="http://www.mipoesias.com/">MiPOesias</a></em>, an interview correspondent for <em><a href="http://www.miporadio.net/">miPOradio</a></em>, and <a href="http://epc.buffalo.edu/poetics/welcome.html">the editor of the Poetics List</a>, sponsored by The Electronic Poetry Center (SUNY-Buffalo/University of Pennsylvania). <a href="http://www.curvemag.com/Detailed/731.html">Amy</a> teaches English and Creative Writing at SUNY Nassau Community College. <a href="http://jacketmagazine.com/34/dickow-king.shtml">Her poems </a>have been nominated for <a href="http://www.pushcartprize.com/">several Pushcart Prizes</a>, and she has been the recipient of a MacArthur Scholarship for Poetry. <a href="http://wearduringorangealert.blogspot.com/2007/07/writers-corner_12.html">She is currently editing an anthology</a>, <em>The Urban Poetic</em>, forthcoming from <a href="http://www.factoryschool.org/home.html">Factory School</a>. Please visit <a href="http://www.amyking.org/" target="_blank">http://www.amyking.org/</a> for more. <div><br /><div></div><div><strong>1 - How did your first book change your life?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div><em><a href="http://www.blazevox.org/bk-ak.htm">Antidotes</a></em> gave me <a href="http://rhubarbissusan.blogspot.com/2006/02/amy-king-truth-be-told.html">a release and space to explode poetry more</a>. I no longer felt compelled to write in a mode or for a specific audience, which can be a bit unnecessarily restrictive. Of course, being young and naïve, I put those restrictions on myself. Self-imposed restrictions need a release; a first book is a good start. </div><br /><div></div><div>I also got invited to do readings, which are usually fun. <a href="http://www.loc.gov/poetry/poetpoem.html">I love the social aspect of readings</a>, so getting those invites was a great boon brought to me by <em><a href="http://www.statssheet.com/articles/article46472.html">Antidotes</a></em>. </div><br /><div></div><div><strong>2 - How long have you lived in New York, and how does geography, if at all, impact on your writing? Does race or gender make any impact on your work?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div>I moved to NYC about eleven years ago and just this month moved to Long Island, which city-dwellers would declare is certainly not NYC, though I take a train down the street and am in Manhattan in about half an hour. </div><br /><div></div><div>Living in a city such as NYC can only impact one’s writing. It’s unavoidable. I suppose all geography factors in, since we are not “we” by body alone; environment is the mother-of-us-all. I’m going to take the lazy route though and just say that <a href="http://www.eng.fju.edu.tw/Literary_Criticism/postmodernism/postmo_urban/flaneur.html">Walter Benjamin’s essays on Charles Baudelaire and the “flâneur”</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Baudelaire">Baudelaire’s </a>writing far better explore how a city affects a writer’s words. I can give you an abbreviated version though, if you press me: the multitudes can be exciting, unknown, stifling, and thrilling. They move and they move you, me, us, we. A city’s architecture can do the same: it changes daily, it confuses and supports, it undoes one’s thinking, breaks the line of vision, unsettles all sorts of notions of safety, and forces one to find strengths, within and elsewhere, one might not have explored before. If you’re lucky, the city collapses “within and elsewhere” and becomes an organic body, pleasured and riddled and full of strangers you inhabit. </div><br /><div></div><div>Coincidentally, I’m in the process of editing an anthology, <em>The Urban Poetic</em>, forthcoming from <a href="http://www.factoryschool.org/home.html">Factory School</a>. It’s an exciting project as I’m reaching out to people in lots of different cities as each city provides its own different invitations and articulations. </div><br /><div></div><div>Gender exploration lines my work. Race also, though not as obviously. Any kind of box sounds a warning gong for me that I revel in handling. I don’t believe a simple anarchistic or destructive tact of those boxes is terribly productive. People subsist on and inside those boxes, and to simply shirk or destroy them alienates. Rather, subversions, of which there are many, go further and range in temperament and styles. I need to broaden my scope in such efforts, for sure. </div><br /><div></div><div><strong>3 - Where does a poem usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div><a href="http://reviews.coldfrontmag.com/2007/06/im_the_man_who_.html">I don’t have a book in mind</a>. It seems many poets do. <a href="http://galatearesurrection4.blogspot.com/2006/11/on-fly-by-amy-king.html">I work backwards</a>, and that mostly makes me feel uncertain as I can’t rattle off a synopsis of a “project” like other writers. Rather, I primarily work through philosophical and societal lenses. I work in uncertainty, and while that makes it difficult for me and others to say what it is I’m doing – and perhaps dismiss <a href="http://alabright.blogspot.com/2004/08/on-amy-kings-poems-and-chapbook-people.html">my work </a>out of hand – I long for this unknown, and my sincere openness to it, hell, even my lust for it, is the best modus operandi for me. Perhaps that’s the difficult part of what I do – I read to locate a place where I am happily confused on familiar footing, and trembling, try to locate the corner or shadow of some unfamiliar view/understanding/idea—and then I name it. </div><br /><div></div><div><strong>4 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div><a href="http://womenoftheweb.blogspot.com/2007/09/amy-king.html">I’ve cut back on readings</a>. They were productive for awhile because you really do stumble and hit in front of an audience when something doesn’t work. I subjected audiences to <a href="http://artrecess.blogspot.com/2005/11/amy-king-usa-two-poems.html">new poems </a>regularly. But now that I’m focused on writing and teaching at the moment, I simply don’t have the time I did, though I really miss, as earlier mentioned, the social aspect of readings. I love seeing people and chatting after the “serious stuff.” </div><br /><div></div><div><strong>5 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div>My theoretical concerns vary, though they generally deal with ontology and culture. I like to see ideology manifest practically. I don’t know the questions, aside what the schools of philosophy and politics continue to proclaim they are. These are tools or pointing fingers that help locate the real questions that enable us to subsist and exist on a moment-by-moment plane. <a href="http://www.philosophypages.com/ph/witt.htm">Wittgenstein </a>wrote, “<a href="http://users.rcn.com/rathbone/lw11-20c.htm">To imagine a language is to imagine a form of life</a>.” That is the question I’m always answering. </div><br /><div></div><div><strong>6 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div>Editors don’t necessarily edit anymore. They mostly reject or accept. My jury is still out on whether that’s a good or annoying thing. I’m an editor. I have asked people to make changes. I have asked people to re-send because I felt their submission was truly close but not quite. But I have cut back on editing as it is a taxing, and sometimes, thankless work. </div><br /><div></div><div>On the flip side, the editor of my books at <a href="http://www.blazevox.org/">Blazevox</a>, <a href="http://www.geoffreygatza.com/">Geoffrey Gatza</a>, has been nothing but encouraging and enthusiastic, a faith which courses through my veins and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lymph_node">lymph nodes </a>and makes me <a href="http://poetryxupdates.blogspot.com/2005/01/poems-by-amy-king.html">confident about publishing</a>. </div><br /><div></div><div><strong>7 - After having published more than a couple of titles over the years, do you find the process of book-making harder or easier?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/570975.Amy_King">I’m only working on my third full-length now</a>, and ever-so-slowly, but I find it an essential process. I don’t see the writing solely in terms of publishing a book because <a href="http://rhubarbissusan.blogspot.com/2005/04/amy-king-say-to-me-that-your-dreams.html">writing really has become a behavior</a>, much the way people ritually return to churches or yoga or their studies to explore questions and answers, to locate some temporary place that is okay with uncertainty and query and naming what delights, corrupts, and makes us feel … closest to feelings. </div><br /><div></div><div><strong>8 - When was the last time you ate a pear?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div>I just drank peach juice today, which far surpasses the vanity of the pear. I am a <a href="http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=georgia+peach">Georgia Peach</a>, having eaten many as a child straight outta my grandmother’s backyard. </div><br /><div></div><div><strong>9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div>Be quick to forgive. </div><br /><div></div><div><strong>10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to non-fiction)? What do you see as the appeal? </strong></div><br /><div></div><div>I don’t easily move between the two. I kick and buck. I’m lazy and don’t like explaining myself. <a href="http://www.miporadio.com/ron_padgett.html">I’m resisting this interview right now</a>. <a href="http://www.diodepoetry.com/v1n1/content/king_a.html">I prefer poetry every minute</a>. I rail and bang against the rules of prose, which I also happen to teach. <a href="http://www.tarpaulinsky.com/Fall03/AKRecordKeeping.htm">I write in prose because we</a>, as a society, agree this is the easiest, most transparent form of communication, but I’m no good at it and I’m no anarchist. <a href="http://www.amyking.org/blog/">That’s why I like my blog </a>– I can fuck up there and tell anyone who corrects me thanks, but I really don’t care by midnight. </div><br /><div></div><div><strong>11 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div><a href="http://www.kickingwind.com/52006.html">I write when I can</a>. <a href="http://luzmag.blogspot.com/2006/01/four-poems-by-amy-king-playground.html">I usually want to write more than I can</a>. Sickness and a busy schedule factor in. <a href="http://inrethinking.blogspot.com/2008/02/you-me-and-everyone-else-notes-on-amy.html">I don’t go for long though without putting pen to paper</a>. I lament the seconds in between tasks that my journal isn’t handy. <a href="http://www.wombpoetry.com/king.html">I often write phrases on my hand</a>. </div><br /><div></div><div>When I do sit down to read, I usually end up setting the book aside after fifteen minutes to scratch words in the sand for another fifteen. I’m good at keeping class schedules, but no good at a rigid writing schedule. I’ve simply turned it into a second nature or habit. Sometimes it’s a life-threatening allergy I can’t ignore. It’s my tic. I love my tic. </div><br /><div></div><div><strong>12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomaž_Å alamun">Tomaz Salamun</a>. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Derrida">Derrida</a>. Contemporary political theory. A range of <a href="http://www.winepros.org/wine101/grape_profiles/pinot.htm">pinot noirs</a>. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_Oldham">Bonnie “Prince” Billy</a>. Various journals – recently, <a href="http://www.hubcapart.com/ink/"><em>Forklift, Ohio</em> </a>and <em><a href="http://www.hotelamerika.net/">Hotel Amerika</a></em>. Old notebooks from grad school. Poetry readings. <a href="http://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/Stein.html">Audio of Gertrude Stein</a>. </div><br /><div></div><div><strong>13 - How does your most recent book compare to your previous work? How does it feel different?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div>Less restricted. More licensed. More sincere. Less concerned with pleasing myself and others. Diaphanous. Leading and misleading. A net. A parachute. Something that is no longer mine. It belongs to the letters “<a href="http://annyballardini.blogspot.com/2007/08/from-amy-king.html">a- m- y k – i – n – g</a>”. </div><br /><div></div><div><strong>14 - <a href="http://www.uwo.ca/english/canadianpoetry/cpjrn/vol07/bowering.htm">David W. McFadden </a>once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div>I’m a film buff: <a href="http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/directors/03/kieslowski.html">Krzysztof Kieslowski </a>and <a href="http://www.davidlynch.com/">David Lynch</a>. Music: <a href="http://www.ironandwine.com/">Iron and Wine</a>. <a href="http://www.cocorosieland.com/">CocoRosie</a>. <a href="http://www.modestmousemusic.com/">Modest Mouse</a>. <a href="http://www.gillianwelch.com/">Gillian Welch</a>. <a href="http://www.pjharvey.net/">P.J. Harvey</a>. <a href="http://www.catpowerthegreatest.com/">Chan Marshall</a>. <a href="http://www.gbv.com/">Guided by Voices</a>. <a href="http://users.bart.nl/~ljmeijer/oldham/">Will Oldham</a>. <a href="http://www.dixiechicks.com/">Dixie Chicks</a>. Photography: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Frank">Robert Frank </a>and <a href="http://www.artphotogallery.org/02/artphotogallery/photographers/diane_arbus_01.html">Diane Arbus</a>. Too many to name. </div><br /><div></div><div><strong>15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div><a href="http://www.antoninartaud.org/home.html">Antonin Artaud</a>, <a href="http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/1126">Bob Hicok</a>, <a href="http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/30">Cesar Vallejo</a>, <a href="http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/baudelai.htm">Charles Baudelaire</a>, <a href="http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/bernstein/">Charles Bernstein</a>, <a href="http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/704">Cole Swensen </a>[<a href="http://12or20questions.blogspot.com/2007/11/12-or-20-questions-with-cole-swensen.html">see her 12 or 20 here</a>], <a href="http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/7">Elizabeth Bishop</a>, <a href="http://www.frankohara.com/">Frank O'Hara</a>, <a href="http://www.tenderbuttons.com/">Gertrude Stein</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Roubaud">Jacques Roubaud</a>, <a href="http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/70">James Tate</a>, <a href="http://www.joebrainard.org/">Joe Brainard</a>, <a href="http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/238">John Ashbery</a>, <a href="http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/75">Kenneth Koch</a>, <a href="http://www.unc.edu/~ottotwo/partner.html">Laura Riding Jackson</a>, <a href="http://jacketmagazine.com/27/schu-linh.html">Linh Dinh</a>, <a href="http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/79">Lucille Clifton</a>, <a href="http://www.milkmag.org/reverdy.htm">Pierre Reverdy</a>, <a href="http://www.ronpadgett.com/">Ron Padgett</a>, <a href="http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/howe/">Susan Howe</a>, <a href="http://slovenia.poetryinternationalweb.org/piw_cms/cms/cms_module/index.php?obj_id=5045">Tomaz Salamun</a>, <a href="http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/124">Wallace Stevens</a>, <a href="http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/126">Walt Whitman </a>– again, far too many to list here. Many, many contemporaries omitted-- Insert your name here ________________________. </div><br /><div></div><div><strong>16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div>Well, I’ve traveled, but I want to travel more. I must explore the streets of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bangkok">Bangkok</a>, <a href="http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2164.html">Tokyo</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zagreb">Zagreb</a>, <a href="http://earth.jsc.nasa.gov/">Planet Earth</a>. I’m headed to <a href="http://www.italiantourism.com/">Italy</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croatia">Croatia</a> this summer, which is why I’m tackling a double workload this semester. </div><br /><div></div><div><strong>17 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div>I like the idea of being a detective, though you mostly hear seedy things about the real ones. For the moment, a detective. </div><br /><div></div><div><strong>18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div>I wanted to be a musician, but I truly lacked the necessary discipline early on. I’m pretty sure I mature at a slower rate than most. Quantifiably, I’m probably about eight to ten years behind most folks. I’m not kidding. </div><br /><div></div><div><strong>19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film? </strong></div><br /><div></div><div>Damn. I don’t read like that. I read lots of books simultaneously. My attention is not short – it’s fragmented. Narrowed down, I’m currently reading <a href="http://www.publicaffairsbooks.com/publicaffairsbooks-cgi-bin/display?book=1586484257"><em>The Political Brain</em> </a>by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drew_Westen">Drew Westen</a>, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/This-Not-Sufficient-Animality-Derrida/dp/0231143125"><em>This is Not Sufficient</em> by Leonard Lawlor</a>, and re-visiting <a href="http://www.oliversacks.com/hat.htm">Oliver Sacks’ <em>The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat</em></a>. </div><br /><div></div><div>I don’t recall the last time I finished a book. Mind you, those listed might be what you’ll see me holding in a café. I also have loads of poetry books that ride with me and get dipped into for even just five minutes at a time. For example, I’ve just been looking at <a href="http://english.chass.ncsu.edu/freeverse/Archives/Winter_2006/poems/S_Browning.html">Sommer Browning’s </a>new chapbook, <em><a href="http://www.horselesspress.com/valetudo.html">Vale Tudo</a></em>, which <a href="http://mthrtongue.livejournal.com/">Jen Tynes </a>generously shipped my way. It’s a timely book for me especially because it “takes place” on <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Island">Long Island</a>, where I have just transplanted myself. I dig it. </div><br /><div></div><div>Oh god, films. Forget it. I’ve got <a href="http://imdb.com/title/tt0040522/"><em>The Bicycle Thief</em> </a>and <a href="http://www.leninimports.com/georg_wilhelm_pabst_pandoras_box.html"><em>Pandora’s Box</em> </a>sitting by the t.v. They’ll be there until spring break, at least. </div><br /><div></div><div><strong>20 - What are you currently working on?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div>A bottle of <a href="http://www.snooth.com/search/benziger+family+winery/4/1/0/125/">Benziger Winemaker’s Claret 2004</a>, Amy’s Vegetable Pot Pie, and <a href="http://www.tabatchnick.com/catalog/products.asp?nCatID=1">Tabatchnick’s Wilderness Wild Rice Soup</a>. </div><br /><div></div><div>I also recently finished an EP for <a href="http://www.h-ngm-n.com/">H_NGM_N</a> called, <em>I Want To Make You Safe</em>, which is forthcoming. Otherwise, titles are tucked away until they feel ready. I’m working at it. That’s all any of us can do. It.<br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5165445465570145426" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2bVLCHrvUwO9KE-Q2QBmA2sxx9hZ2qFjT9Cexn8qBG3cYMKVwqQrR7dODyKa9CjWoSVJc2F6yCbgaT4KI55S_BRANE6WTD7L1C0tePVJYq2BHESnk3psKp0UoKN0ftUSIrgRr-27CeqM/s320/amy+king2.jpg" border="0" /></div><div><a href="http://robmclennansindex.blogspot.com/2007/09/12-or-20-questions-archive.html"><em>12 or 20 questions archive</em></a></div></div>rob mclennanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07958889643637765864noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-319589917860132988.post-46619553443305000702008-02-10T10:02:00.000-08:002008-02-10T12:59:53.476-08:0012 or 20 questions: with Gregory Betts<a href="http://funnomad.blogspot.com/"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5165135450535752802" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmI9dkU6oGe7BxzgZXkA8OJdKU8aT3BreKh1IlDVnOK9JMbfoNVTxdR4vVU7rQyfhizyznZtWdqgg7nZx6i-DN2G7KVpJwXwzC96o5fc_3iopoLxV3EkUk2h1-eyQtd1MKfgBdBDMKQ5M/s320/gregbetts.jpg" border="0" /><strong>Gregory Betts</strong> </a>is the author of <a href="http://www.spinelessbooks.com/award/2004/index.html"><em>If Language</em> </a>and <em><a href="http://bookthug.blogspot.com/2007/03/haikube-launch.html">Haikube</a></em>, and <a href="http://www.exileeditions.com/2003listA.html">has edited books of poetry </a>by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawren_Harris">Lawren Harris</a>, <a href="http://www.uwo.ca/english/canadianpoetry/cpjrn/vol39/compton.htm">W.W.E. Ross</a>, and <a href="http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poet/188.html">Raymond Knister</a>. <a href="http://www.electronicbookreview.com/thread/electropoetics/avant">He has been publishing since '99</a>, when his first poems appeared in a small housepress anthology of translations of translations of <a href="http://www.thing.net/~grist/l&d/bpnichol/lnichol1.htm">bpNichol's translations of Apollinaire's translations</a>. He has published a half-dozen chapbooks, a string of broadsides, and various one-off projects, including sound poetry, visual art, web/digital art, and more. His stories, critical writing, and reviews have appeared in journals across Canada and beyond. Born in Vancouver, he <a href="http://maxmiddle.blogspot.com/2007_07_01_archive.html#6637471094445057996">currently lives in St. Catharines, Ontario</a>, where he teaches <a href="http://www.brocku.ca/english/facstaff.html#GB">Canadian and Avant-Garde literature at Brock University</a>. His work appears in the anthologies <em><a href="http://www.themercurypress.ca/?q=books/shift_switch">Shift & Switch</a></em>, <em>Outside Voices</em>, <em><a href="http://www.anvilpress.com/public_WWW/catalog/nonfict/index.htm">Exact Fare Only</a></em>, <em><a href="http://www.abovegroundpress.blogspot.com/">Read York</a></em>, <em><a href="http://www.chaudierebooks.com/">Collected Sex</a></em>, and <em><a href="http://listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind9904&L=poetics&D=1&P=5666">TTbpN2: a Tribute to bpNichol</a></em>.<br /><div><br /><strong>1 - How did your first book change your life?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div>Like a lot of people, I've been making hand-made books, chapbooks, and 'ephemera' for most of my life, so the question of which book counts as first is somewhat arbitrary. The real first would probably be the staple-bound book of sonnets I wrote to a daisy I was compelled to mow by my family when I was about 9. The book helped me to assuage my guilty, tormented soul. The relief, however, only lasted until my first girlfriend dumped me in grade six. </div><br /><div></div><div>The first book with an ISBN, however, has made it easier to connect with writers and fellow travellers across broader geographical distances. It's not a secret club, but the book becomes a kind of shorthand for a broader aesthetic that people either dig or duck. </div><br /><div><strong>2 - How long have you lived in St. Catharines, and how does geography, if atall, impact on your writing? Does race or gender make any impact on your work?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Catharines,_Ontario">St. Catharines </a>and I have lived together for a year and a half, but we're still coming to terms. It hasn't appeared in my work, but it hasn't interfered all that much either. I call it a truce with a potential for a general eventual thaw. Some things I doubt/hope I will never come to terms with. This is a city that mocks pedestrians, recoils from cyclists, pities those who would try to use the public transit system. The downtown core is perfectly ringed by big box stores that I call the Grey Belt. The belt pulls tighter constantly, popping urban essentials out into the grey zone -- the downtown general hospital, for instance, just relocated to the other side of a Walmart parking lot. St. Cats lost many rounds with the globo-capital machine but there are underground streams and pockets of resistance that I've been enjoying discovering -- still, everything here comes out slightly skewed, and the city gets giddy at the chance for new and bigger roadways. Recently, a band of hipster urban activists argued theatrically for more downtown parking as a way to revitalize the city. They weren't being ironic. As in many places, people seek to tweak what they have rather than rethink from scratch.Here there be drive-thrus. </div><br /><div></div><div>I suppose for me <a href="http://torontoist.com/2007/04/_how_is_nationa.php">geography </a>isn't disconnected from race and gender, politics or economics or technology. Language and writing parenthesize them all, all we know, and there is certainly lots to talk about. As <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Heidegger">Martin Heidegger </a>wrote, <a href="http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/heidegge.htm">language is the house of being, in which all of it resides</a>,-- constantly impacting, impacted, and impactful. </div><br /><div><strong>3 - Where does a poem usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a 'book' from the very beginning?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div>I let each project try and assume its most natural form. Sometimes that means a book-length project, sometimes (and more often) a chapbook sized nugget or smaller. Sometimes writing is best served as ephemera, and I have lots of little one-off projects. Sparklers and fireworks. A lot of what I write isn't meant for publication at all -- just trying to see what would happen if.</div><br /><div><strong>4 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div>For me, the best thing about public readings is the chance to find something new -- in my own work, sure, occasionally, but mostly in what other writers are doing. I go to readings to find new books or to learn new entrance points into books and authors that I've already read. Really eye-bulging moments happen, but they are admittedly rare. There are special disappointments that come from readings, too: more often then not, good performances make for terrible pages, and vice-versa. The economics of Canadian publishing insists that authors deliver and perform their works, even if their writing or aesthetics are ill suited to the task. Recently, <a href="http://www.bobsnider.ca/">Bob Snider </a>read at <a href="http://www.greyborders.blogspot.com/">the reading series I run here in town </a>and, barely a page into <a href="http://www.gaspereau.com/1554470420.shtml">his new book</a>, wasn't happy with how he was connecting with the crowd. He stopped reading and pulled out his guitar and instantly had the audience wrapped around his finger. Most authors can't do that; and indeed, most authors make little to no effort to entertain or connect to their audience -- which is perhaps the reason most literary readings are free or nominal; certainly the reason they are a marginal cultural activity. Consistently, beyond the rare chance of discovery in a performance, the most effective and interesting parts of a reading happen when the PA system is off and the crowd has dwindled to a handful of cultic practitioners; but those moments would happen less frequently between strangers from the tribe without the focalizing event -- let alone the funding to move people between the cities and towns.</div><br /><div></div><div>In a smaller urban centre, though, readings are even more important. It's kind of like the news -- a window into things for those who find themselves a little adjacent to the world.</div><br /><div><strong>5 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kindsof questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div>The word 'theory' comes from 'a view' and 'to see.' I like to look and see. I hope for a nice view.</div><br /><div></div><div>Current questions: I'm constantly looking for new ways not to mean, I mean, to stumble upon, to find through error, to creatively misread; I'm interested especially in the moments when, in reading, walking, or talking, something outre, uncanny pops up; I'm interested in how that, a fleeting, unintended gem can appear without being invited. I suppose this sounds like the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_writing">Automatic writing methods </a>of last century, or even found texts of the mid-century, but I'm more interested in sculpting and staging those moments of creative misreadings than in letting go throughout the production of the art. You have to look hard to see well.</div><br /><div><strong>6 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div>I have very little experience working with editors on my own writing, certainly little enough to comment. <a href="http://www.poets.ca/Linktext/direct/millar.htm">Jay MillAr </a>[<a href="http://12or20questions.blogspot.com/2007/11/12-or-20-questions-with-jay-millar.html">see his 12 or 20 here</a>] made a good call to remove unnecessary visual texts placed between the anagrams of <em><a href="http://www.nypoesi.net/tidsskrift/206/?tekst=16">If Language</a></em>. He was right -- so, thanks <a href="http://poetryreviews.ca/2007/02/02/sporatic-growth-by-jay-millar/">Jay</a>.</div><br /><div><strong>7 - After having published more than a couple of titles over the years, do you find the process of book-making harder or easier? </strong></div><br /><div></div><div>Right now, my biggest problem is book finishing. I have no less than 8 works in progress in every direction I can manage. </div><br /><div><strong>8 - When was the last time you ate a pear? </strong></div><br /><div></div><div>Right before the core. </div><br /><div><strong>9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)? </strong></div><div></div><br /><div>In the words of the poet, <a href="http://www.isabelperez.com/songs/complicated.htm">'Chill out, whatcha yellin for? Lay back it's all been done before</a>.'</div><div></div><br /><div><a href="http://www.athabascau.ca/writers/mcallaghan.html">Morley Callaghan </a>said the writer is one who watches and sees. <a href="http://www.library.utoronto.ca/canpoetry/atwood/">Margaret Atwood </a>said the writer is the one who writes. <a href="http://www.iccs-ciec.ca/pages/6_prizes/govgenaw/2000jlennox.html">John Lennox </a>once told me to write something every day, even -- especially -- if it's not intended to be the final, finished product. </div><br /><div></div><div>As a grandiose motto, slogan, or bumper sticker, I probably aspire to <a href="http://www.online-literature.com/blake/">Blake's</a> axiom more than anything else: 'E<a href="http://www.jstor.org/view/00267937/ap060211/06a00320/0">very word and every letter is studied, and put into its place. All are necessary to each other</a>.'</div><br /><div><strong>10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to critical/editorial work)? What do you see as the appeal?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div>While I like the separation of genres, I view them more as opportunities to push my writing and thoughts in new directions. I've published poems (lyrics, constraint, formal/traditional, visual, shaped, sound, <a href="http://www.textetc.com/modernist/language-poetry.html">LANGUAGE</a>, <a href="http://jacketmagazine.com/29/hoy-flarf.html">flarf</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiku">haiku</a>, occasional, devotional, and so on), stories (fiction and non-fiction), essays, journalism, manifestos, walking tours, letters to the editor, introductions, afterwords, reviews, biography, conscious plagiarisms (<a href="http://www.poetics.ca/poetics05/05betts.html">see <em>plunderverse</em> for details</a>) and much more. My writing attempts to respond to the inner necessity of a particular piece. As I see it, my job is to transport each bauble I discover to somewhere, anywhere else; just far enough that it becomes self-animated. Every project is different, whereas genre looks for samenesses. </div><br /><div><strong>11 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div>I don't have a routine, and I have no evidence that routine is helpful for my writing. I write on napkins just as easily as laptops. I have voice recorders, and I have used a pay phone to call in a poem composed while walking and left it on an answering machine knowing I wouldn't have a chance to write it down before it disappeared. I sometimes wake up in the middle of the night with an idea, and I've even woken up to discover a (disappointing, admittedly,) poem written while asleep. I wrote a short story on the top of a BC mountain, just above the mosquito line. I wrote another story in a vacant squash court below Winnipeg -- just beneath the mosquito line. Perhaps if my schedule were more regular I would solve the problem identified in question 7.</div><br /><div><strong>12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div>Judging by the boxes of works in progress, this has never been a problem that affects me. If I don't feel like writing, I don't write, or just jot down notes, thoughts, random passages. I play guitar, go to the pub whatever, reread <a href="http://individual.utoronto.ca/betts/eng356/JohnBarlow.htm">John Barlow </a>emails. I'm not hung up on production, but I do get swept away by it.</div><br /><div><strong>13 - How does your most recent book compare to your previous work? How does it feel different?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div>My most recent book project on the shelves is an edition of <a href="http://www.exileeditions.com/singleorders07/harris.html">Lawren Harris' urban poetry and prose</a>. It builds from work <a href="http://www.exileeditions.com/2003listA.html">I've done before on Canadian modernists and avant-gardists</a>, and international writing and art at the time. Of the book projects on the go, the one I am closest to finishing builds from my work on plunderverse which was started back in 99. These project both build from long trajectories of ideas that have been brewing and stewing for over a decade. As a point of similarity, though one is critical and the other creative, they both exhibit and explore my relationship as reader to other writers and writings. </div><br /><div><strong>14 - <a href="http://www.wier.ca/DMcFadden.html">David W. McFadden </a>once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art? & 15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>I once went to an energy therapist who located my energy centre about six feet above my body. She told me that I probably wasn't a very good gardener. I'm not. </div><br /><div></div><div>I like to pursue ideas, and revel in the realization of tightly composed, highly original conceptual projects. This happens in all of the worlds of art, though not all of the time. I work in literature, but I find most things that I read boring or indulgent or decadent. I love a good book -- recent highlights include <a href="http://www.religiousworlds.com/fondarosa/freud21.html">Freud's <em>The Future of an Illusion</em></a>, <a href="http://www.antiqbook.com/boox/dee/46988M.shtml">Voaden's <em>Four Plays of Our Time</em></a>, <em>The <a href="http://classics.mit.edu/Khayyam/rubaiyat.html">Rubaiyat of Amar Khavyyam</a></em>, and <a href="http://www.harpers.org/subjects/IsraelZangwill">Israel Zingwall's <em>Italian Fantasies</em> </a>-- but no more or less than a good film, meal, song, canvas, urban design, or pretty much anything that requires creativity and thus invites the possibility of an avant-garde transformation. People say that avant-gardism is a non-concept, a bland synonym for innovation. To me, the term is worth pursuing from its original sense (although I'm no militarist) in that avant-garde art is seeking to transform and change the world in which it is made -- is seeking to bring a general populace into a realigned consciousness or space. I'm always interested in artists whose work attempts (most often to fail) this kind of ambition: from <a href="http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/abreton.htm">Breton</a> to <a href="http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/bok/">Bok</a>, <a href="http://www.mta.ca/faculty/arts/canadian_studies/english/about/study_guide/artists/paul_emile_bourdas.html">Borduas</a> to <a href="http://www.library.utoronto.ca/canpoetry/brand/index.html">Brand</a>.</div><br /><div></div><div>Poets are a poem's way of making other poems. I'm interested in the gap moments, when books, poems, language, letters reveal in flashes a capricious structure and the dim glimmer of where outside might be. If I was more paranoid, and I'm close to it, I'd see poets engaged in a battle with <a href="http://evalu8.org/staticpage?page=review&siteid=2536">Dewdney's language-virus</a>.</div><br /><div><strong>16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div>Spend a year <a href="http://www.goldlyrics.com/song_lyrics/wilco/mermaid_avenue/way_over_yonder_in_the_minor_key/">way over yonder </a>in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yukon">Yukon</a> and learn <a href="http://cnx.org/content/m10856/latest/">the minor key</a>.</div><br /><div><strong>17 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div>If I could no longer make things, I'd be happy running a cafe, a bookstore, a restaurant, a bar. My great-great Grandfather used to operate <a href="http://www.hamiltonpostcards.com/pages/dundaspostcards3.html">the train from Dundas, Ontario to Hamilton, Ontario</a>, loading the bags, selling the tickets, driving the train and refueling all by himself. I could do that.</div><br /><div></div><div>I used to spend days upon days researching various inventions (floating cars, solar-powered tanning beds, magnetic trains) that I would draw up in blue-prints and pass to my father, who was an engineer, so I suppose I have a little bit of inventive-engineering in me. In truth, though, I don't think I could last and be happy in any job with strict hours. Regular even ridiculous hours are fine, but they need to be randomly distributed. But if my cynicism ever reaches the point of no return, I'll probably go into politics. </div><br /><div><strong>18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div>I never realized there was an off switch.</div><br /><div><strong>19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film? </strong></div><br /><div></div><div>The last great book, really great book, I read was <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Decameron">Boccaccio's <em>The Decameron</em></a>. The last great film was <em><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0366996/">The Saddest Music in the World</a></em>.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>20 - What are you currently working on?</strong> </div><br /><div></div><div>Overarching direction: I continue to pursue the possibilities of creative misreading (as potential antidote to uncreative writing). Specific manifestations: as mentioned above, I'm just finishing up <a href="http://www.johnwmacdonald.com/blog/2006/06/plunderverse-plundered.html">a plunderverse project that I've been working on for years</a>; I'm editing an edition of Canada's first avant-gardist, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertram_Brooker">Bertram Brooker's </a>manifestos, stories, and essays; I've got a novel in its fourth rewrite; I'm collaborating with Toronto DJ Kent Foran, doing plunderphonic cut-ups and <a href="http://www.stridemagazine.co.uk/Stride%20mag%202007/June%202007/Dub%20in%20London.htm">mixes of some of my poems</a>; I'm co-editing <em><a href="http://www.brocku.ca/precipice/">PRECIPICe</a></em> with <a href="http://www.brickbooks.ca/BL-Dickinson.htm">Adam Dickinson </a>[<a href="http://12or20questions.blogspot.com/2007/10/12-or-20-questions-with-adam-dickinson.html">see his 12 or 20 questions here</a>]; I've just finished a first draft of <a href="http://www.coconutpoetry.org/barwinbetts1.htm">a collaborative book of poetry </a>with <a href="http://www.themercurypress.ca/?q=authors/gary_barwin">Gary Barwin </a>[<a href="http://robmclennan.blogspot.com/2008/01/12-or-20-questions-with-gary-barwin.html">see his 12 or 20 questions here</a>]; I'm co-organizing with <a href="http://www.ccca.ca/artists/artist_work.html?languagePref=en&link_id=1922">Catherine Heard </a>a night to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the publication of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refus_Global"><em>Refus Global</em> </a>and the ongoing influence of <a href="http://osaka.craigslist.jp/ats/532983511.html">Surrealism in Canada</a>; various essays on the go in various states of array and disarray; and to talk about ongoing lesser projects would require mining the notes and scribbles and messages I've left for myself buried, half-buried, coherent and not. </div><br /><div></div><div><a href="http://robmclennansindex.blogspot.com/2007/09/12-or-20-questions-archive.html"><em>12 or 20 questions archive</em></a></div>rob mclennanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07958889643637765864noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-319589917860132988.post-74198937472222894862008-02-09T12:24:00.000-08:002008-02-09T12:58:02.390-08:0012 or 20 questions: with Rita Donovan<a href="http://writersunion.ca/ww_profile.asp?mem=923&L=D&N=Rita%C2%A0Donovan"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5165080917335995458" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidwPmGO8YeZX7WFvW_G05lLXgIufbwErbQ_wK0ln1d4i44DchNYvMf8A9DeRngFYVZQUfVkveXY1K3GS_-SR4gVbVTJ2QhL1TairSApS3_E6PW9Eto-snII-rTMKcI29WDcf5G4IPAOM8/s320/rita+promo+photo.jpg" border="0" /></a><strong><a href="http://writersunion.ca/ww_profile.asp?mem=923&L=D&N=Rita%C2%A0Donovan">Rita Donovan</a>:</strong> Born in Montreal, lives in Ottawa. Has also lived in Edmonton, Germany and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitchener,_Ontario">Kitchener</a>. Graduate of <a href="http://www.concordia.ca/">Concordia University </a>and the <a href="http://www.ualberta.ca/">University of Alberta</a>. For many years co-editor of<a href="http://www.arcpoetry.ca/"> <em>Arc: Canada’s National Poetry Magazine</em></a>, with <a href="http://www.poets.ca/linktext/direct/barton.htm">John Barton </a>[<a href="http://12or20questions.blogspot.com/2008/02/12-or-20-questions-with-john-barton.html">see his 12 or 20 questions here</a>]. Has taught or given seminars in Edmonton, Yellowknife, <a href="http://maps.google.ca/maps?q=Rankin+Inlet,+NU,+Canada&sa=X&oi=map&ct=title">Rankin Inlet</a>, <a href="http://maps.google.ca/maps?q=Iqaluit,+NU,+Canada&sa=X&oi=map&ct=title">Iqaluit</a>, Montreal and Ottawa. Has taught in literacy projects in shopping malls, in community centers and on the street. <a href="http://www.magma.ca/~rcrowder/ottawa_citizen.htm">Other interests</a> include cooking, hiking and, inevitably, reading.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/story.html?id=98e0fa7d-2574-409b-9f3f-148dee5dcafc">Author of seven books</a>, six of them novels. Novel <a href="http://www.geist.com/books/fall-1990-book-catalogues"><em>Dark Jewels</em> </a>was first-runner up for the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Books_in_Canada_First_Novel_Award">W.S. Smith/<em>Books in Canada</em> First Novel Award</a>, and won the <a href="http://www.ottawa.ca/residents/arts/funding_awards/book_awards/index_en.html">Ottawa-Carleton Book Award</a>. Novel <em>Daisy Circus</em> won the <a href="http://www.ottawa.ca/residents/arts/funding_awards/book_awards/index_en.html">Ottawa-Carleton Book Award</a>. Landed won the <a href="http://www.canauthors.org/awards/fiction.html">CAA/Chapters Award for Fiction</a> and was shortlisted for the Ottawa Book Award. <a href="http://www.amazon.ca/Plague-Saint-Rita-Donovan/dp/189583628X"><em>The Plague Saint</em> </a>was nominated for the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Tiptree,_Jr._Award">James Tiptree Award</a>. <em>River Sky Summer</em> is a young adult novel, and <em>As for the Canadians</em> is a book of historical non-fiction. Latest novel, just published, is <a href="http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/books/Short-Candles-Rita-Donovan/9781894917537-item.html"><em>Short Candles</em> </a>(<a href="http://darkstarfiction.blogspot.com/">Napoleon & Company</a>, 2007.)<br /><div></div><br /><div><strong>1. How much did your first book change your life?</strong><br /><br />I don't think it changed my entire life, but the publication of <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Dark-Jewels-Rita-Donovan/dp/0921556047">Dark Jewels</a></em>, my first novel, was the kind of validating experience that made sense of the choices I'd made, that all writers make. It was also a relief, as it had been slated for publication a few years earlier, by a press that ran into financial difficulties and pulled out, so I was very pleased when <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/story/2000/10/23/pei_ragweeedsold20001024.html">Ragwee</a>d published it. The book was up for a national award and won the city writing award so I hope I justified Ragweed's faith in the book.<br /><br /><strong>2. How long have you lived in Ottawa, and how does geography, if at all, impact on your writing? Do race and gender make any impact on your work?</strong><br /><br />I've lived in Ottawa since about 1985, with one year away in between. I'm from Montreal originally, and I've also lived in Edmonton, in Germany and in Kitchener. Ottawa, though, has been my home for a long time now, and my daughter was born here fifteen years ago. That is what really made a difference. This is her hometown, as Montreal is mine. So we are very attached to the place now. </div><br /><div>Where we come from hugely influences how we see not only our immediate surroundings, but how we view the world. "Place" is a character in several of my books. <a href="http://www.buschekbooks.com/titles.html"><em>Dark Jewels</em> </a>takes place in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Breton_Island">Sydney, Cape Breton</a>, during the miners' and steelworkers' strikes of the 1920s. The place and circumstances are essentials of the story. <em>Daisy Circus</em> takes place in Ottawa and in the Cambridge, Massachusetts of the <a href="http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/156">poet e.e. cummings</a>. Landed takes place in Minnesota and in Ottawa, and the actual boundaries of the countries are crucial to the story. <em><a href="http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/books/The-Plague-Saint-Rita-Donovan/9781895836288-item.html">The Plague Saint</a></em>, a speculative-fiction novel, is set in <a href="http://www.nga.gov/press/2002/exhibitions/florence/index.htm">seventeenth-century Florence</a>, and in later twenty-first-century Canada. My latest novel, <em>Short Candles</em> is set in a nameless city that is probably Ottawa. So "place" is very important to me.<br /></div><div>Gender and race are significant because they are significant to my characters. I always write from character first, so the issues of gender and race play through my characters (and where I put them in time and place) in the same way that these things influence for all of us.<br /><br /><strong>3. Where does a piece of fiction usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?</strong><br /><br />I've written short fiction but my preferred medium is the novel, so I guess there is always the potential of the scope of a novel from the moment a character comes to me. I see and hear the character(s). I probably have an idea of the overriding theme, or of an event that gets the thing going, but it is the character, primarily, that informs me. I often have a couple of clear images or scenes that take place later in the book, but I don't know how I will get to them until I begin writing. I've used the phrases "falling into a book" or "falling into a world" to describe the sensation. It is a big commitment, but surprisingly easily to trip headlong into….<br /><br /><strong>4. Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process?</strong><br /><br />It's different for novelists than for poets or short story writers. Usually one is reading from a recently published novel. Given the length of the project, it is something that was probably written a couple of years before. Not the same as reading something that was written the previous week. </div><br /><div>This also means most novelists are well into a new project (a new world) by the time they are doing readings of the so-called "current" one. All that said, reading along is a great experience. It is nice and less schizophrenic to hear the voices out loud ("oh, you hear that, too?") and it is also a way to connect with the characters away from the page. And, of course, it is a chance to connect with the audience. In this way it does feed the creative atmosphere one needs when writing.<br /><br /><strong>5. Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?</strong><br /><br />I think all writers are dealing with the really big questions. The fact that we write at all means we have concerns, observations, remedies? Well, not remedies, maybe. But I think writers care about the world they live in, and about their spiritual and intellectual place in it. They devote a good deal of energy and years trying to show us how the world "is", and how it could be.<br /></div><div>My latest novel, <em>Short Candles</em>, concerns itself with whether we can offer our true selves to the world, and about the cost of belonging to it. And the new book I'm writing right now is about the chinks in memory, both personal and collective, and the ways in which we will be remembered, if at all.<br /></div><br /><div>Oh, and I told someone once that all of my books are about life, which they are.<br /><br /><strong>6. Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?</strong><br /><br />Both. And it depends on the editor, of course. Their job is often unenviable on a daily basis, but whether I agree or disagree on a certain point, I am aware that we have the same goal, and that helps.<br /><br /><strong>7. After having published more than a couple of titles over the years, do you find the process of book-making harder or easier?</strong><br /><br />Harder or easier? I don't know. Perhaps it is a bit easier in the sense that I know that there will be another book, another story, to come. The first book or two felt so final, as if I'd never write again. Over the years you come to trust that the well will refill.<br /><br /><strong>8. When was the last time you ate a pear?</strong><br /><br />Hah! A couple of days ago, actually. And I walk by this pear tree near my house. It is sleeping beneath a dense snow blanket right now, and it reminds me of the trees in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_Wilde">Oscar Wilde's </a>"<a href="http://www.online-literature.com/wilde/180/">A Selfish Giant</a>." I keep hoping it will burst into bloom.<br /><br /><strong>9. What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly.)</strong><br /><br />My British grandmother used to say, "Pay attention, why don't you? You could burn water."<br /><br /><strong>10. How easy has it been for you to move between genres (fiction to non-fiction)? What do you see as the appeal?</strong><br /><br />I like creative non-fiction and find that an easy shift from fiction. Regular non-fiction is more of a challenge. But any time you move into another area you stretch yourself and learn new things. I'd like to write a play.<br /><br /><strong>11. What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?</strong><br /><br />Ideal day: get up, get people out of the way, drink coffee, write.</div><br /><div>Real day: get up, people won't get out of the way, drink coffee, try to write.</div><br /><div>Before my daughter was born I had a home office and a rented writing studio. Once she came along I had to give up the studio ($$) and my home office was turned into her bedroom. Since then I have begged writing space from friends, I've used study rooms at the <a href="http://www.lac-bac.gc.ca/index-e.html">National Library </a>(a luxury now discontinued by the library) and, currently, I am using the basement office of a nearby church. So. It is:</div><br /><div>Get up, people out, get coffee, walk to church basement and write. (No phone there. No computer either, just me an my writing pad.)<br /><br /><strong>12. When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?<br /></strong><br />I read a lot of poetry. I also suggest to my writing students that they read poetry if they write fiction.<br /><br /><strong>13. How does your most recent book compare to your previous work? How does it feel different?</strong><br /><br />This goes back to the 'questions writers ask.' I am continuing to explore the ideas of family (the definition of which shifts depending on the book), the idea of 'home' (as place and as character.) In this particular book, I am looking at 'memory.' The book is told in two different parallel timelines, one in 19th century Britain and Australia and one in present-day Canada.<br /><br /><strong>14. <a href="http://jacketmagazine.com/28/bow-mcfad.html">David W. McFadden </a>once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?<br /></strong><br />Books do come from books, but hopefully from many other things as well. Art, music and technology inform a lot of what I currently experience. I'm very interested in technology and literature and I am pursuing that study. And I live in a city with wonderful galleries, museums, etc., as well as excellent drama and music series and venues. I make use of these resources and am grateful for them. But I think the question also reminds me of something a French writer noted once (I have tried to remember who it is, with no luck. <a href="http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/mallarme.htm">Mallarmé</a>? Damn.) He maintained that he was a citizen as well as a writer. And there is that comment by the <a href="http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/1112">Swedish poet Tomas Tranströmer</a>, who made his living as a psychologist. When asked how his work as a psychologist informed his poetry, he responded (I'm doing this from memory, here) with the comment that he wondered why no one ever asked him how his poetry informed his work as a psychologist? All by way of saying that, hopefully, we are creatures that embrace and enfold experience and combine it with our own particular gifts to create something irreducible and unique. I like it best when we can't figure out how something came into being. It seems much more wonderful than to say, "Well, I was reading <a href="http://www.lewiscarroll.org/carroll.html">Lewis Carroll</a>, and this idea for <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Rabbit">a book about rabbits </a>just popped into mind." (Hopped?)<br /><br /><strong>15. What other writers or writings are important to your work, or simply your life outside of your work?<br /></strong><br />So many. Too many. My reading is not as disciplined as it once was. That is, the focus is wider, probably a sign of expanding interests as well as the general disjointed quality of my daily life. I try to keep up on the books by friends, and I read from among the new international titles (sadly, not all of them.) I have old favourites like <a href="http://www.mcsr.olemiss.edu/~egjbp/faulkner/faulkner.html">Faulkner</a>, <a href="http://www.cmgww.com/historic/wilde/">Wilde</a>. I am planning on rereading <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathaniel_Hawthorne">Hawthorne</a> and <a href="http://www.helsinki.fi/kasv/nokol/dickens.html">Dickens</a>. And I will read <a href="http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/donne/">Donne</a> and <a href="http://www-scf.usc.edu/~thier/ee/">cummings </a>again. Oh, and since my daughter is studying them, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgil">Virgil</a> and <a href="http://shakespeare.mit.edu/">Shakespeare</a>.<br /><strong><br />16. What would you like to do that you haven't done yet?</strong></div><br /><div>Funny. This could either be an enormous list, or a very short one, as I am a pretty content person. Some of the things I'd like to do I would like to do in a different time. Hike the Rockies again, but back when it was less developed. I'd like to walk through London about a hundred and fifty years ago. I'd like to take one of those commercial flights into outer space, but I'm a bit claustrophobic. I'd like to be on the boat that sailed from Ireland in 1847 with my five-year-old great-grandmother on it. Or the other boat, with my Polish relatives. Or the other one, with my British family. In the here and now? I have a couple of non-profit projects I'd like to work on.<br /><br /><strong>17. If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?</strong><br /><br />Most writers have already done a lot of the "other things" in order to write. I have enjoyed some of those things. Currently I teach, and it can be rewarding. But, as I always knew I would be a writer I didn't really want anything else. I could envision any number of other careers for myself, but after five minutes or so, I'd start daydreaming about what my desk would look like, or my clothes, or what I would say when "she" answered the phone. Before I knew it "I" would be in 3rd person, with another name, a better haircut, and a character in my own story.<br /></div><div>I have a lot of other interests. I was very interested in film and could have pursued that. I also loved languages and Classics and could have seen myself doing something with that (asking people if they want fries with that in Latin.)<br /><br /><strong>18. What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?</strong><br /><br />I always wrote. My dad was a writer. My uncle was a writer. A couple of my aunts wrote as well. My cousin is a writer. We're a dime a dozen.<br /><br /><strong>19. What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?</strong><br /><br />"Great" is always subjective. I have been doing research lately, so the books are mostly texts of various sorts (not that they aren't good!) But for pleasure I recently read <a href="http://www.vehiculepress.com/titles/416.html">Don Coles' <em>A Dropped Glove in Regent Street</em></a>, a lovely collection of autobiography, essays and criticism. Thoroughly enjoyable. Films? I love film. Don't get out as often as I might, but my friend Cheryl just gave me a pass for the <a href="http://www.bytowne.ca/">Bytowne Cinema </a>so I hope that will be the excuse I need to get to more films. I did see the low-budget, big-hearted Irish film, <em><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0907657/">Once</a></em> recently and loved it. I also saw an old favorite, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056194/"><em>The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner</em> </a>(which , for film buffs, is <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Courtenay">Tom Courtenay's </a>film debut.)<br /><br /><strong>20. What are you currently working on?<br /></strong><br />Ah, the aforementioned new novel. It's really in process at the moment so I can't say much about it. I'm still getting used to the fact that <em>Short Candles</em> is out, as well. I guess the key. Here, is that writers are always "working on" something. Far cry from the bon-bon-eating, stuffed-pillow reclining activity I'd been led to believe.<br /><br /><a href="http://robmclennansindex.blogspot.com/2007/09/12-or-20-questions-archive.html"><em>12 or 20 questions archive</em></a></div>rob mclennanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07958889643637765864noreply@blogger.com0