Writers' News

Hi

Today will be a quick post. I'm on chauffeur duty to bring Pat to two appointments with doctors and my son to his volunteer duties with the Atlantic Film Festival. Tonight is Girl's Night and my last one with a friend who is relocating back to Ontario. I will miss her and her husband. I'll try not to be too sad.

So, on to news about and for local writers...

Donna Morrissey has completed her manuscript. Watch for a release as early as Spring '08.

Ami McKay's Birth House is being released in paperback in the U.S. on October 9.

Carol Bruneau is launching her newest book, Glass Visions this Wednesday at Frog Hollow Books in Halifax. The book's official release date is the end of this month. (Carol is the author of Purple for Sky, published in the U.S. as A Purple Thread for Sky -- "In the U.S., Booklist praised it as a 'hilarious, moving and poetic book.' Kirkus called it 'a refreshingly unsentimental debut... deeply original in style.' In Canada, Purple for Sky was included in The Globe and Mail's 'Best Books of 2000' and recommended by Pamela Wallin on the CBC's Canada Reads and as a prime pick on her Chapters website. ")

A reminder that Friday is the deadline for application for the Writer's Federation Mentorship program.

On the international front, watch for the Maya Reynolds' interview this Friday.

Have a great day everyone... I gotta scoot,
Colleen

Bad Girl countdown begins

Seven days till Bad Girl is released.

There's only one thing hotter than doing something you
shouldn't.

Getting caught.

Watch for her, September 4th.

A literary baby shower

Wow, it's been a whole week since I've posted!

I threw my back out last Sunday -- nothing too serious, just couldn't sit long enough to post -- but am back among the vertically-healthy today. This is a good thing as I am hosting a literary baby-shower tomorrow night and walking around like Quasimodo might have put a damper on things.

I love the idea of a literary baby shower because we have to bring -- and get to reminise about -- our favourite child's book. (That and the fact that I refuse to play those insipid games so many shower-goers insist upon. The last thing I need is to have some strange woman lunge at my chest to snatch a clothespin from the front of my shirt. Give me food, wine and good conversation and I'm happy.)

The shower has been a great excuse for a trip down memory lane with my son. Good thing my back was sore and we couldn't wander the aisles at Chapters for too long. As it was, I couldn't settle on a single book, but managed to limit myself to four -- Pat the Bunny, my kids' first book and all about texture; The Paperbag Princess, Where the Wild Things Are; and Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Day. My son is giving My Father's Dragon. This was one of my favourite books in grade two and became his favourite when he was in that grade, so I'm thrilled he chose that one. But what about Treasure Island? I loved that book and wanted to be a pirate. Or Green Eggs and Ham? My kids and I had so much fun with that one.

Aside from the shower I am also looking forward to receiving Ami McKay's answers to our interview questions. Ami had planned to get them to me last week, but put her back out (something in the air?) and is teaching a writing program at Ross Creek this week. Hopefully, she'll have some time in the coming days.

How has your week been?

Colleen

Fifth Business

(Photo: Robertson Davies with Almuth Lutkenhaus-Lackey -- photo: Doug Boult. The sculpture is now in the National Library of Canada.)

I recently joined a book club and participated in my first meeting on Saturday. The book discussed was Fifth Business, the first of the Deptford Trilogy by Robertson Davies.

Let me say that I wasn't overjoyed at the choice. I had read this iconic bit of CanLit waaaaaay back in highschool and hated it. Simply hated it. The only recollection I had of the story was that someone threw a snowball at someone and of the emotional bleakness that filled me as I read it.

My opinion changed very quickly this time round.

Robertson Davies is brilliant.

"My lifelong involvement with Mrs Dempster began at 5:58 o'clock p.m. on 27 December 1908, at which time I was ten years and seven months old."

With those words, Davies' prologue sweeps us into a life lived with the guilt of the outcome of the aforementioned thrown snowball, into smalltown mores, and into the very heart of British Canada. The story begins as Dunstan Ramsay pens his memoir -- an examination and defence of his life written to his Headmaster -- following a silly article published in the College Chronicle upon his retirement from a life spent teaching at a private boy's school.

"... It is not merely its illiteracy of tone that disgusts me (though I think the quarterly publication of a famous Canadian school ought to do better), but its presentation to the public of a portrait of myself as a typical old schoolmaster dodering into retirement with tears in his eyes and a drop hanging from his nose."

The umbrage he takes that there is no mention of his Victoria Cross, his ten books, or his ongoing contributions to Analecta Bollandiana -- the later remarkable in that Ramsay is the only Protestant contributor to a reknown Jesuit publication -- flows from the page.

So, why did I hate this so much in my youth? It's the Fifth Business element. What is Fifth Business exactly? Here's how it is explained in the book by Liesl, a monsterously ugly, yet beguiling woman.

"Who are you? Where do you fit into poetry and myth? Do you know who I think you are, Ramsay? I think you are Fifth Business.

"You don't know what that is? Well, in opera in a permanent company of the kind we keep up in Europe you must have a prima donna -- always a soprano, always the heroine, often a fool; and a tenor who always plays the lover to her; and then you must have a contralto, who is a rival to the soprano, or a sorceress or something; and a basso, who is the villain or the rival or whatever threatens the tenor.

"So far, so good. But you cannot make a plot work without another man, and he is usually a baritone, and he is called in the profession Fifth Business, because he is the odd man out, the person who has no opposite of the other sex. And you must have Fifth Business because he is the one who knows the secret of the hero's birth, or comes to the assistance of the heroine when she thinks all is lost, or keeps the hermitess in her cell, or may even be the cause of somebody's death if that is part of the plot. The prima donna and the tenor, the contralto and the basso, get all the best music and do all the spectacular things, but you cannot manage the plot without Fifth Business! It is not spectacular, but it is a good line of work, I can tell you, and those who play it sometimes have a career that outlasts the golden voices. Are you Fifth Business? You had better find out."

Now that I have infringed on copywrite law, let me say that it is this emotional distance from ones own life that fills me with despair. What a dreadful way to live. And, how very, very British. It is that element deep in the Canadian psyche that in many ways defines us.

I can't wait to tackle the remaining books, The Manticore and World of Wonders. Davies writes in a way that is at once simple and literary.

Can anyone recall if Davies coined the term "Fifth Business?"

Colleen

The View From a Kite

Maureen Hull's The View From a Kite was shortlisted for the Dartmouth Book Award for Fiction. (Congratulations Maureen!) I picked the book up yesterday and couldn't put it down.

The story begins with the brilliant line: "I am a Dangerous Woman in a Dangerous Dress."

Isn't that wonderful?

The novel takes place in Nova Scotia in the 1970s and is written by Gwen, a teenage tubercular patient, who is dealing with a most extraordinary tragedy.

Here's an excerpt.

"I must admit that when I first started losing weight I was pleased. I dropped from a pudgy hundred and twenty-five down to one-eighteen in a month, and kept on going. One hundred and five, and my breasts disappeared. By the time they hauled me off to the Sanatorium, a feverish, weepy, ninety-pound weakling, I was out of love with elegant bones and scared that I was coming out through my skin."

You can get a copy directly from the publisher here.

I hope you enjoy Gwen's voice as much as I did.

Colleen

Chapters and The Atlantic Book Festival

June 10, 2007

Heather Reisman
CEO

Indigo Books & Music Inc.,
468 King Street West, Suite 500
Toronto, ON M5V 1L8

Dear Ms. Reisman:

I confess to being a fiction junkie. I buy novels by the armful. That being the case, I spend a lot of time in your stores. In short, I am the kind of consumer that you should love.

Imagine my dismay upon entering a Chapters book store today, mere weeks after the Atlantic Book Festival, to find that the winners of said Festival all but ignored. Perhaps this would have been merely a sad statement on the book business if I lived in Toronto or Vancouver, but I live in Halifax -- arguably the center of the Atlantic universe.

Was it naive of me to expect more from a company that claims to want to "create a true book lovers' haven -- a place to discover books, music and more that might, in the rush of life, have gone undiscovered. A place that reflects the best of a small proprietor-run shop bundled with the selection of a true emporium?"

I think not.

Let me paint you a picture of the ignoble way your company has treated these wonderful authors.

As I walked in the front doors, I was greeted by King for a Day, a display of books for dad. Well, fair enough. It is almost Father's Day, after all. To the left was a display called Outdoor Living. To the right was Oprah's pick, Middlesex, and Kaled Hosseini's newest release, A Thousand Splendid Suns.

Maybe the display behind that, I thought. But no. That was for New and Hot Fiction, which, apparently, the books that won the Atlantic Awards are not. Next were books on magic in the Waiting for Harry section. Then Heather's Pick's, sadly the winning or shortlisted books weren't there either. Halfway down the centre aisle was a display of Former Best Sellers, then Current Events. Located to the right of these were the Books with Buzz. There, I thought. That's were I'll find them. I was wrong again.

Behind the Books with Buzz was a section named Local Interest. Hmmm, I thought, that's usually local history, geography that sort of thing but I'll look. I scanned the front shelves, walked around to the back, scanning, scanning. And there, on the middle set of shelves at the bottom were 29 adult titles written by Atlantic authors. A few were even from the Festival Short List although one would have to be psychic to have known this as nothing, not a sign, not a sticker indicated which these were.

Still, I grabbed two and as I was on my way to the checkout, I passed a small table sandwiched between the tiny books -- you know the two-by-two-inch books that you might use as a stocking stuffer or in lieu of a card -- and a rack of magazines. The table held 14 titles from the Festival. The brochure from the Festival was in a basket on the floor underneath, such was the amount of space given to our local authors.

This, Ms. Reisman, is unacceptable.

It is a shame that Chapters hasn't done more to promote local writers by creating an eye-catching, and predominant display of all short-listed books.

I hope you will rectify this immediately.

Sincerely,

Colleen

For blog readers... here's a list of the winning books. (I assume Heather already has a list.)

Winners of the 2007 Atlantic Book Awards
Click HERE for details of the Awards Ceremony

Atlantic Poetry Prize - Steve McOrmond, Primer on the Hereafter (Wolsak & Wynn)

Best Atlantic Published Book - Bruno Bobak: The Full Palette, edited by Bernard Riordon, Goose Lane Editions

Booksellers’ Choice Award - Ami McKay, The Birth House (Knopf)

Ann Connor Brimer Children’s Literature Prize - Budge Wilson, Friendships (Penguin)

Dartmouth Book Award - Fiction - Linda Little, Scotch River (Penguin)

Dartmouth Book Award - Non-fiction - Keith McLaren, A Race for Real Sailors (Douglas & McIntyre)

Thomas Head Raddall Atlantic Fiction Prize - Linda Little, Scotch River (Penguin)

Evelyn Richardson Prize for Non-fiction - Linden MacIntyre, Causeway: A Passage from Innocence (HarperCollins)

Margaret and John Savage First Book Award - John G. Langley, Steam Lion: A Biography of Samuel Cunard (Nimbus)

Lillian Shepherd Memorial Award for Illustration - Brenda Jones, Skunks for Breakfast, Nimbus (Lesley Choyce, author)

Mayor's Award for Excellence in Book Illustration* - Jeffrey C. Domm, Formac's Pocketguide to Fossils

Mayor's Award for Cultural Achievement in Literature - Sandra McIntyre, Managing Editor - Nimbus Publishing

Reteach the spirit

It's funny how for a non-religious person I have been so drawn to readings on faith and spirituality of late. Today, I read a book called The Passion of Reverend Nash by Rachel Basch. I enjoyed the oversized Reverend immensely. Her imperfections made her so human.

I wanted to share a short poem from the book, written by Galway Kinnell, St. Francis and the Sow.

The bud
stands for all things,
even for those things that don't flower,
for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing;
though sometimes it is necessary
to reteach a thing its loveliness,
to put a hand on its brow
of the flower
and retell it in words and in touch
it is lovely
until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing;
as Saint Francis put his hand on the creased forehead
of the sow, and told her in words and in touch
blessings of earth on the sow, and the sow
began remembering all down her thick length,
from the earthen snout all the way
through the fodder and slops to the spiritual curl of the tail,
from the hard spininess spiked out fro the spine
down through the great broken heart
to the sheer blue milken dreaminess spurting and shuddering
from the fourteen teats into the fourteen mouths sucking and blowing beneath them:
the long, perfect loveliness of the sow.


Doesn't that strike a chord? To reteach a thing its loveliness?

I think there are times when we need to remember who we are and just how lovely our being is.

That's what I wish for you today, that you remember your inner truth and take delight in your being.

Colleen

Reading not writing

Well, this past week has been an odd one; my recent sensitivity to light has kept me away from the computer screen so, I have focused on reading in dimly-lit rooms. Latent vapirism, perhaps?


Anyway, over the past couple of weeks, I've read Bad Dirt by Annie Proulx, The Birth House by Ami McKay, Lullabies for Little Criminals by Heather O'Neill, Blue Shoe by Anne Lamott, and Kit's Law by Donna Morrisey. Oh, and Coal Run by Tawni O'Dell.

The Birth House, Kit's Law and Bad Dirt topped my list of favourites

I love that Annie Proulx has been able to capture the essence of her two homes, as disparate as they are -- Newfoundland and Wyoming. Bad Dirt is a compilation of short stories about the West that tell of the humour and the trials that occur when past meets present. She's terrific at dialogue and description.

Donna Morrisey is a wonderful story-teller. Although I wasn't keen on the ending, I loved her ability to help me see and feel what a 1950's outport in Newfoundland was like. Here's how the book opens.

"If you were to perch on a treetop and look down on Fox Cove, you would see a gully, about twenty feet across and with a brook gurgling down its spine to the seashore below and flanked on either side by a sea of rippling grass, cresting with Queen Anne's lace, and scented with a brew of burning birch, wet ground and kelp.

To the right of the gully, and about a hundred yards down from a dirt road, is a grey, weather-beaten house, its windows opened to the sea, and its walls slanted back, as if beaten into the hillside by the easterly winds gusting off the Atlantic and whistling up the gully's channel...

Anyone who has experienced the wicked wind of the East Coast will have no trouble envisioning this place or house. Ms. Morrisey gives the three women who live there strong, individual voices, never muddying them or compromising their characters.

In my opinion, Coal Run didn't live up to Ms. O'Dell's Back Roads. The plot and dialogue were forced and somewhat disjointed. The protagonist's every thought, no matter how banal, is detailed and the characters don't stay true to themselves.

Lullabies for Little Criminals is writing in the voice of a young girl raised by her drug-addicted father. The girl's voice is rather detached, a good approach for telling about the horrors of her life. Despite my difficulty with the gritty subject matter -- it makes me feel pretty dreadful -- this is a book worth reading. O'Neill's prose rings true.

I have mixed feelings about Anne Lamott's Blue Shoe. There are inconsistencies to her writing. For example, she states that she likes the longer evenings of fall, then on the next page decries the dark. A reader may be able to relate to the protagonist's inner turmoil (divorce, aging parent, confused kids) but it's hard to jump from her being hyper-critical of her boyfriend to agreeing to marry him, again, within a page of text. However, Lamott certainly covers inner dialogue and conflict well.

Last on the list is Ami McKay's Birth House. This was a hard one to find as it has been flying off the bookshelves and is currently short-listed for an Atlantic Book Award. The protagonist, Dora Rare has a great story to tell about social mores, patriarchy and women's rights. The book is terrific and McKay has grasped local dialect well. I would have been happier had she left out historical events such as the Halifax Explosion or the Spanish Influenza outbreak as I felt these to be intrusions to the storyline. However, the novel is a good read and well worth the time.

And so, what to read next? With the passing of Kurt Vonnegut, it has come to my attention that I've never read one of his books. To remedy this, I have borrowed Slaughterhouse-Five from my son. Rest well, Mr. Vonnegut.

Good writing everyone,
Colleen