Lorina Stephens's Blog, page 20

And it’s done!

The Rose Guardian is done.

It’s taken me nine years to write this novel. During that time so much has happened, life events which have changed my perspective, given me new insight, which then required another shift in the story because, after all, we bring to our writing our own life experiences. However, The Rose Guardian is not autobiography. It is fiction, fitting into the category of magic realism, and is a story about three females, maiden, mother, crone, and told through those three voices.

First there is Violet Cotter, an artist living in relative hermitage on the outskirts of the village of Meldrum Bay on Manitoulin. Her story is one of regret and an attempt to reconcile her past with her present. In that story there is the conflict between Violet and her mother, Una, one left unresolved after Una’s death.

The second story is Una Cotter’s, told through her journals which she bequeaths to Violet, a tacit attempt to bring reason into a relationship after the fact.

The third story is Lettie’s, a little girl in search of sanctuary in a world very much filled with peril, mythological creatures, quests and seemingly insurmountable odds.

All three stories intersect.

And now? Now the manuscript goes out to an editor. There will be another small revision. Then layout, cover, and release likely in the spring of 2019.

After this I’m not sure where I’ll go with my pen. I might spend the summer working on short stories. I might also take a look at an old drawer novel and see if it’s worth revising. My heart longs to work on my L’Anse aux Meadows novel. So, we’ll see where that journey goes.

For now I am content. I love what I do, this craft of story-telling.

In the meantime, dear reader, please acquire a copy of my latest work, Caliban, and leave a review. It would sure go a long way to bolster a cranky old hermit’s day.

The process of painting

I write a lot here about the process of writing. However, I don’t often address my process in painting, so I thought I’d take a few moments to offer an inside look into my inside thoughts.

I’ve been painting far longer than I’ve been writing. At the age of 14 my art teacher, Roland Model, encouraged my mother to enroll me in extra-curricular art classes. She did that, and for the next three years I studied under Dorothy Milne-Eplett, who then lived in my hometown of Aurora, Ontario. Once a week people gathered in the loft of her historic home and daubed oil on canvas or masonite. It was a plunge into the deep end of art for me. Mostly the people who came to paint did copy work. But I chaffed at the bit and wanted to explore my own compositions. Between Roland Model and Dorothy Milne-Eplette, and later another secondary school art teacher, Arthur Gallagher, I came to understand composition, the importance of light and shadow, how to weigh subject and negative space. It was a new language. And I loved it.

Dorothy Milne-Eplett

Into my second year my mother decided she would like to take up painting, and so she joined me on those weekly outings. What should have been a bonding between mother and daughter ended up a frustration for me, because once again I felt the restraint of Mother’s influence, and so my wings were clipped. And there was some resentment on my part in that suddenly her art was being framed, while my ended up stored in my portfolio.

I did, however, realize a certain amount of income from my art. During the summers I worked as an office clerk in my step-father’s business, G.B. Sales. He manufactured sliding closet doors, and for eight to 12 hours a day I hammered out invoices to some of Toronto’s largest builders. I also brought into the office some of my paintings, which ended up selling mostly to one of the installers, Oscar Labarge. Whether still life or landscape, Oscar seemed to love my work, and we’d haggle over a price. He’d laugh and walk away with yet another painting, and I’d bank my earnings. Most of the paintings I created over the course of those years sold either to Oscar, or my teachers, all of them unframed, most of them originals.

I often wonder where those paintings are now, if they languish in some junk shop, or in landfill, or if they still hang in people’s homes.

When I left home at the age of 18, my portfolio, which had been filled with sketches and prints, ended up in landfill, a purge on the part of my mother.

Over the years I’ve come and gone from the lure of painting. In my dry spells it was often a lack of inspiration brought on by the necessity of allocating funds to raising children rather than the indulgence of pursing art.

Some time during the 1980’s, after yet another reconciliation with my Mother, she urged me to enroll with her in a series of Georgian College art courses. I didn’t have the funds to do so, let alone invest in a whole new medium, this time watercolours. She, however, was feeling magnanimous and funded my enrollment, and so once again she and I attended art classes together. This time, because of learning to find myself without her influence for three years, I was able to express myself more meaningfully, and found in watercolours a new freedom in the play of light.

Mostly my work gravitated toward landscapes, often en plein air, places and spaces which moved me deeply. I found the discipline and exacting science of watercolours challenging and exciting, enjoyed the push and patience it required. In oils, if you screwed up, you could paint over it. In watercolours you had one chance, and only one chance only to get it right. In some ways it became a science not only of art, but of life, one discipline translating to the other.

For a time I succumbed to the pressure of juried shows and gallery showings. Of the former I continually missed the mark. Of the latter, had many successful experiences. I also spent a good part of the 1990s hawking my wares in the Orangeville Farmer’s Market, and undertaking both private and public commissions.

Orangeville Town Hall

These days, however, I paint for myself—the hell with what any jury or curator thinks. It has, however, been an interesting experience of late, in that when Mother died I inherited all her supplies. I don’t think I’m going to have to buy paper from now until I push up daisies. But it is strange to open her portfolio, inhale the lingering scent of her perfume, sort through paper and select what I’m going to use for my next work. She’s still there. In a way we’re still painting together. I suppose it’s the one thing we truly had in common. She painted primarily flowers. I paint primarily landscapes.

Why landscapes? There is an almost spiritual connection I feel when I’m in nature, witness weather unfold across the land, the way light plays through leaves, or smacks off water, the way a snowfall cloaks all senses in a grey hush. It is that sense of wonder I try to evoke in what I paint, to catch beauty and emotion, to feel that unfettered sense of a child when everything is new.

The Downer Bridge

Anyway, if you like, you can visit my art page. At the risk of sounding crassly commercial, if there’s something you like, and would like to have as part of the ambiance of your home, email me and we can discuss price and shipping. Otherwise, leave a comment, or just enjoy.

After the ball is over

It’s an old song, written in 1891 by Charles K. Harris, After the Ball. I couldn’t help but think of that deliciously saccharine song a few days after the launch of my speculative fiction novel, Caliban. Why I thought of that, I have no idea. Perhaps it’s the sentimentality of the ballad, perhaps the voices that once trilled through its notes. It’s a sad song, for all of its sentimentality. Perhaps my remembrance of it had more to do with the natural valley that comes after the high of an event. Whatever the reason, it remained an ear-worm for some days. If you can refrain from laughing, or rolling your eyes, I’ve appended a wee clip of it below. I know, I know, but put your cynicism aside for just a few moments.

Lorina Stephens signing Caliban for Lynne Firmani

And so to the launch: it went well, as these things go. There were maybe a dozen or so people. Adam, my son, was a great MC, and gave an excellent presentation about the concepts of beauty and reality in an age of superficiality and questionable veracity. I then spoke a little more about those concepts in the novel, read the opening chapter, addressed a few questions from those gathered, and then signed copies.

The good people at Monigram Coffee Roasters were fabulous, presenting nosh that was not only a pleasure to the palate, but beautifully presented. And the space they made available was comfortable and perfect. Certainly I will be thinking of their venue for possible future events.

So what now? Well, because of my decreased mobility and increased pain, I won’t be doing any other promotional events for Caliban. That one was difficult enough. Having said that, if you have a book club or group, and you’d like me as a guest speaker, depending on your location and the day you’re meeting, I’d be up for that. Otherwise I’ll be working on the revision of The Rose Guardian, and continue to work on a series of watercolours I’ve decided to paint. And of course I’ll be continuing to read submissions not only for Five Rivers Publishing, but for Tesseracts 22: Alchemy and Artifacts. 

 

Preparing for a date with my fans

That’s what it feels like with my upcoming book signing and reading at Monigram in Cambridge: a date with my fans. I have to admit I both love and loathe doing these things. I loathe these events because I’m basically an introvert, a recluse by nature, someone who enjoys solitude and my own company. (Thank goodness I married a man who understands that!) But I also really like being part of a gathering of like-minded people, sharing experience and craft, discussing our mutual passion for the worlds and characters embedded in fiction.

So here I am on the Monday before my launch for Caliban, futzing away at bookkeeping, the usual explosion of first-of-week correspondence, and now turning my energy to communicating with you via this blog.

What do I expect to happen at the launch? Well, for starters, I expect you to show up! (I’m laughing here.) I mean, what good is a launch without people to share it with? It’s like preparing for a date and then being stood-up.

But beyond that, I have no expectations. Having done quite a number of these sorts of things, I’m cognizant of the fact a launch is a bit of a crap-shoot. I remember that first launch I ever had, back in the early ’90s. It was for the travel guide Gary and I had published by Boston Mills Press, The Giant’s Rib: A Guide to the Niagara Escarpment. I was pretty green in those days, had no idea what to do, or not to do, by way of marketing. I naively thought any promotion would be undertaken by our publisher. In fact, I had no idea our book had even been released until I received a call from Ellen Tilson, one of the partners (now sadly deceased) at BookLore in Orangeville. Ellen, for whom I’d always had great respect, asked if Gary and I were undertaking a launch for this wonderful new book now on her store’s shelves. No, says I. Well, says she, we’d love to have your launch here.

Wow! That was exciting! And in a few weeks Ellen had sent out invitations to BookLore’s rather substantial patronage, advertised the event, and come the evening of the launch Gary and I were astonished to find ourselves in a store which was filled to overflowing with people come to celebrate the publication of our book. It was an evening I won’t soon forget, filled with laughter and scintillating conversation. BookLore all but sold out of copies of our book, and those few which were left Ellen asked us to sign. In the subsequent months we were called in to sign several more cases.

The stuff of which dreams are made.

Since then I’ve done readings and signings for Stonehouse Cooks, Shadow Song, And the Angels Sang, and From Mountains of Ice at Chapters, Indigo and Smith books across Ontario, at libraries and museums. I’ve enjoyed every single one.

And this Saturday, March 10, 6:30 p.m., I hope you’ll be able to join me at Monigram in Cambridge. My dear and amazing son, Adam Stephens, will MC the evening. I’ll read from Caliban, open the floor to discussion, and sign the copies you purchase. There will be nibblies, tea and coffee, a great atmosphere. And you never know what remarkable things might happen in the course of the gathering.

Thoughts on Aging

It’s a glorious day here at the Old Stone House: 10°C, mostly sunny, teasing of spring to come. But not yet. Most definitely not yet; the worst storms of winter often scream through April 1. But for today, I work quietly in the shafts of sunlight from the skylights.

While writing blog posts for myself and the publishing house, uploading audiofiles to proof for one of our authors, reading a submission, juggling bookkeeping and the myriad other tasks of the day, in the back of this busy mind are thoughts of time, of aging, of the realization of very finite space left in which to create.

Now, understand, these are not maudlin thoughts. I’m not sure why it is most of Western society regards thoughts of mortality as taboo. Just seems to be wisely pragmatic, a recognition of reality and planning for that reality of an end to our existence.

And so it is, while taking care of business, I’m aware that if I’m lucky I have 15, maybe 20 years left in which to realize all those stories and paintings populating my imagination, to spend time with those few people whom I trust and love. That’s not much time. If a person were wont to give into panic, certainly an awareness of this sort might send one into a tizzy of desperation. But it’s rather strange for me, because although I’m aware of this reality, I’m also aware I will make the most of what I have left, fill each day with as many positive, creative endeavours as possible, and to do so in a calm, even contented manner.

This paradigm came to me, I suppose, when I confronted cancer three years ago. Now, understand, that was a very brief and minor brush with that big scary C-word of which we’re all so terrified. I was lucky. And during my recovery I spent a great deal of time just sunning in the garden, being still, listening to the wind in the willow, goldfinches trilling, sparrows squabbling, holding my breath when a chipmunk, squirrel or rabbit would come as close as my toes. Small things. Small pleasures. And utterly profound. I came to the realization I’d been given a gift, because I now had a new understanding that this day, for good or ill, would never come again. And because of that realization I knew it was important to make each and every day count, whether that day was spent in stillness or activity.

Then again last year I had another epiphany when my mother died. I realized it is every day, each action, which becomes the legacy we leave, a legacy we will never know, and only embraced by those left behind. And how better it is to leave a legacy of kindness and creativity, than one of bitterness and destruction.

So, instead of looking to the closing decades of my life with fear, I find myself actually smiling contentedly, knowing I have been fortunate indeed not only to have led the life I have, making a garden from difficulty, and a sanctuary from the gifts of love, but to be able to go forward continuing to write, to paint, to leave hidden worlds that maybe someday, someone will unearth and say, “Yes. I understand.” And smile. And thus share across time and distance.

It is a comforting thought.

So come March 1, in this my 63rd year, I’ll share with all of you a weird odyssey in my novel Caliban. And next year I’ll give you the novel of a woman’s self-discovery in The Rose Guardian. 

And isn’t the sun wonderful today?

 

Musing on Family Day

So Family Day, 2018. A relatively new holiday in our Canadian calendar, one likely created to break up the long winters, but one also designed, one would like to think, to bring us closer to the people who matter in our lives.

Here at the Old Stone House we’re pursing various activities. My dearest husband has spent the morning sanding drywall mud in the main bathroom, part of the 17 year (so far) renovation project we took on. He now has a second coat of mud applied, has showered, been lunched and watered, and is now practicing guitar. I’m listening to the stains of Hotel California waft up to the loft where I’m futzing about with my own pursuits.

My morning was spent sketching in the preliminary details of a new watercolour on the glass (I work on a large, tempered glass surface). This one is of Fortress Louisbourg, what’s going to be a soft dawn, a gentle sea, a promise and a hope. The painting is a demanding one in that it’s all perspective, which has always been a challenge for me. I can do it. It’s just not the sort of hellya kind of free-form impressionistic painting.

It’s seems typical, however, that I’d choose to paint at the moment, in light of the fact I’ve just released my newest novel, Caliban. Painting always seems to follow writing. I can track that throughout my adult life, over and over again. One seems to inform the other. It’s a bit weird. But then maybe not, because I’ve begun to understand a number of my colleagues also do this sort of thing: work on their main art, complete it, and then retreat into their secondary art as a way to refresh their well of creativity.

I also treated myself today and purchased online a few more art supplies. I love shopping online! I now have coming my way some resist, two new hake brushes, and a tube of cerulean blue. While I normally paint with mostly all transparent or semi-transparent pigments, I’ve decided to return to cerulean blue for certain effects precisely because of its opacity. Glazed with gum arabic in the final details of a painting representing water can create some very interesting depth, and the illusion of surface. I haven’t done that in a very long time, and thought it was time to return to that technique.

Of course, while doing all that I’m thinking forward to my reading and book signing coming up in just 18 days at Monigram in Cambridge for my new novel, Caliban. Doing that sort of thing is always a bit of a gamble. You never really know until the event just how many people are going to come, and how well the event will go. I haven’t done a reading or signing since I released From Mountains of Ice in 2009. Up until the spring of 2010 I had a signing once a month at some bookstore in southern Ontario. That was quite the grueling schedule.

I won’t be doing that this time. There will be just this one event, and after that if someone would like to host me on their blog, or invite me to their book club or writer’s group, that will be that. To be honest, I’m just getting too old to be traipsing about, especially in light of my increasing disabilities.

That latter, however, is something I’m hoping to have addressed beginning tomorrow. As sometimes occurs in my life, I’ve reached a point where I’ve simply had enough. So, I’m opening the door to discussing the possibility of two knee replacements, and a hip, with my doctor. That’s a huge leap for me to make, because I’m simply scared silly about all that. On the other hand, it would be wonderful to be able to indulge in the simple pleasure of walking into the village again to fetch the mail, to be able to garden, dance under the willow when the moon comes up just cause I’m a dotty old lady and want to swing and sway.

And this, dear readers, is far more personal information than I usually wish to impart. But I thought you might want to know why it is I won’t be undertaking a signing tour for Caliban. Do, however, order it either directly through me, Five Rivers Publishing, or your favourite online bookseller, whether as an ebook or print, or make the trip out to Cambridge on March 10 for my event at Monigram.

For now, however, I’m back to wrestling with two-point perspective and the architecture of Fortress Louisbourg.

Happy Family Day!

Book launch for Caliban

So it would appear I’m having a book launch for my new novel, Caliban. 

The great people at Monigram Coffee Roasters are hosting the reading and signing, and some delicious delectables will be available for guests.

Would love to meet some of my fans, old and new. I’ll be doing a short reading. I’ll also have books for sale which I’m happy to sign for you.

Suppose it might be a good idea to let you know the when and where of it all.

Saturday, March 10, 6:30 to 8:30 PM

Monigram Coffee Roasters

16 Ainslie St. S., Cambridge, ON  N1R 3K1

Shadow Song now an audiobook!

Well colour me happy! Shadow Song, my historical novel, is now available as an audiobook through Amazon, Audible, and iTunes.

It’s been beautifully narrated by Susan J. Iannucci.

All that’s left to do is for you to go out and buy it! Do that. Right now. Go, go, go.

Isle of Skye

While working on the revision of The Rose Guardian, I’ve been mucking around with a new painting. I think I will call this one finished. (One never knows about these things. I’ve looked at paintings years later and thought: Oh, I could have done that differently. But yes, for now it’s done.

The painting is watercolour on an eighth sheet of d’Arches 300lb cold pressed paper, depicting a stormy dawn on the Isle of Skye. I’ve always been drawn to dramatic skies, even in life. They somehow inspire hope, sometimes awe, definitely always opening a broader, grander perspective than looking down at your feet.

Anyway, here it is:

Isle of Skye
watercolour on d’Arches 300lb cold pressed
Copyright 2018 Lorina Stephens

In the meantime I have new novella releasing March 1, Caliban. Hope you’ll buy it, enjoy it, review it. I’m perhaps shooting myself in the foot by writing new concepts in each novel I produce, not building a following through a series in which people can get invested. But I will be honest and say I never took up writing for fame and fortune. I just write about people in situations I find interesting, and hope anyone who reads that story will find a similar interest. Same reason I paint, I suppose.

But again, I digress. Waiting for reviews for Caliban to come up on LibraryThing after an advance giveaway Five Rivers did.

So, back to the painting: I returned to some pigments I hadn’t used in years, particularly ultramarine blue. And now I know why I abandoned it. While I love the colour, it tends to be grainy and not play well with other pigments, thus often separating in solution and rendering a grainy or muddy effect. I really detest that. I’m always striving for luminosity in my paintings, and ultramarine thwarts that every time until I use it straight up, no additions.

I also decided to coat the entire painting with gum arabic, and then work in fine detail onto that transparent surface. What ends up happening on the micro-level is almost like putting a cellophane skin between layers of colour, and that allows light to travel through layers in a different manner. It allows greater luminosity, and sharp detail.

So, there you have it: my latest painting while working on the revision of The Rose Guardian. 

And go preorder a copy of Caliban!

Review: The Longest Year

The Longest Year by Daniel Grenier

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

It is not to be said I give up on a book. Yet there were many times I was sorely tempted to do just that with this finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award for French Fiction, by Daniel Grenier. Perhaps that lack is due to the translation.

The story Grenier tells is a Methuselah tale, and one which doesn’t bring much new to this oft-used literary device, and told from the perspective of an unreliable narrator. That choice brings to the telling a cool, distant tone, and in this reader’s opinion did everything to alienate the reader from both the protagonist and the story. There was little in the way of pathos, of building a lifelike character who might rise from the pages and live in the reader’s subconscious. Instead, we’re subjected to a ponderous, pretentious and plodding story that shambles about between timelines.

I can think of many other such Methuselah stories which created a far more credible, engaging and sympathetic tales, (The Timetraveler’s Wife, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, to name only two) and why The Longest Year was deemed worthy of such literary distinction is, for this reader, a mystery.

But there are many perspectives in the world, and this review is but one.

View all my reviews