Ariel Gordon's Blog, page 41
January 25, 2014
Alternate cover
* * *
So a few weeks ago, I asked the girl to draw a cover on my working copy of Stowaways.
I thought I'd share this one, given that last week was all-cover-all-the-time...
It sort of felt like being lit on fire, but as a fellow poet pointed out, that feeling...is sort of the point. If you don't have an opinion about the cover or the changes suggested by your editor or where you'll be launching, if there isn't something at stake for you, then maybe you're not paying attention.
That said, there is always the danger of micromanaging the process and making unreasonable demands. No one wants to be that author.
So here's to pink and purple dolphin-y things. And multi-coloured otters. And, maybe, to caring a bit too much about things.
January 22, 2014
Cover!
* * *
So here's the cover for Stowaways. (Information about the launch is here...)
Though there's already been some confusion about what, precisely, is being stalked by the ants, I would like to thank Dawn Kresan and Aimée Parent Dunn for all their work on this over the past week or so.
(Peony buds are like upthrust fists, like split lips. And they're crawling with avid little ants...)
January 16, 2014
Uppercase Magazine
* * *
My poem "How to Sew a Button" is in the Winter 2014 issue of Calgary art/design mag Uppercase.
From Uppercase publisher/editor/designer Janine Vangool:
"The main theme throughout this issue is “broadcasting.” My broad interpretation of this term includes the sharing of ideas graphically and publicly through posters, social media and public art and also encompasses amateur radio, graphic novels and collecting vintage advertising posters. To round out the issue, haberdashery, hat-making and a love of sewing notions is a pretty and crafty thread of content throughout."
Fun!
January 10, 2014
snowy snowy forest
Assiniboine Forest, Winnipeg, MB. January 9, 2014.* * *This is the only mushroom I could find in Assiniboine Forest yesterday, when I went walking.
This has been a snowy snowy year, so I wasn't expecting to find much. Also, my camera's settings were all out of whack, so I was attempting to shoot snowy galls and red berries and wild licorice with an uncooperative camera.
So this is the only photo I liked from the entire jaunt.
Which is okay. The jaunt is the thing. But, unfortunately, it was also a day where people insisted on having their young and/or aggressive dogs off leash. So I had three episodes where dogs ran at me full tilt, two of which looked like they might attack, owners shouting their names hoarsely from up the path.
"MY DOG IS FRIEEEEEEEENDLY!"
All of which is to say: thank dog the desperately cold weather finally broke, thank god for walking in the winter forest and boo to both technology and off-leash people.
This photo consoles me a little, especially considering that I was thigh-deep in snow when I took it and had just been rushed by a black lab. Something about the light, eh?
January 9, 2014
Apocalyptic reading list
So I've been writing this end-times exquisite corpse with Darryl Joel Berger the last few months.
And then in December, I bought one of the Literary Press Group's All Lit Up Xmas book bundles, which contained nouveau-Manitoban Lauren Carter's Swarm, which I'd been hearing about all fall.
And then a week or so later, I was assigned to review Korean-American writer Chang-Rae Lee's latest, the apocalyptic On Such a Full Sea for the Winnipeg Free Press.
And so I found myself thinking on the pleasures and perils of apocalyptic fictions. My default is Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, but I thought I'd see what other people were reading, so I asked on Facebook.
To be completely precise, I asked while browsing the bookshelves at McNally Robinson Booksellers while waiting for the late showing of second Hobbit movie. (SMOG! SMOG! I insist on pronouncing it SMOG!)
And I got such good suggestions that:
A) I bought Emily Shultz' The Blondes. (Also Mr. Fox by Helen Oyeyemi. But that isn't apocalyptic, opting instead for all kinds of tomfoolery in/around storytelling and myth-making.)
The Blondes reminded me pleasantly of Swarm. Both have young, slightly inept female protagonists who are contemplating maternity. Both books expend a lot of energy on the procurement of clothes and food in the wake of their individual apocalypses, which is how I think things would be. Both books parcel out grief and loss around missing loved ones, the randomness of loss, in a way that I deeply appreciated.
B) I thought I'd share the rest of the list, in case you want in...
Nod by Adrian Barnes; Into That Darkness by Steven Price; The Age by Nancy Lee; The Blondes by Emily Shultz; People Park by Pasha Malla; The Paradise Engine by Rebecca Campbell; Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood; Pontypool by Tony Burgess; Not Wanted on the Voyage by Timothy Findley; PostApoc by Liz Worth; Brown Girl in the Ring by Nalo Hopkinson; Boating for Beginners by Jeanette Winterson; The Hollow and Other Fictions by Richard Truhlar; The Last Canadian by William C. Heine.
Some of which I was familiar with, some of which I wasn't.
Finally, as this bookish e-conversation was winding down, another friend shared an image credited to a group called Grandmothers Against Bullshit. (Ahem.) The image consisted of a sunset with the following text overlaid on it:
"Apocaloptimist. def: Someone who knows it's all going to shit, but still thinks it will turn out okay."
Which I think sums up my worldview nicely, as someone who likes to write about in-between natural spaces, who likes to live in in-between natural spaces. And hopes against hope that I/they will somehow persist.
And I thought that was it, until I saw that 49th Shelf just published Lauren Carter's reading list of Survivalist Can-lit. Which contains a completely different and excellent list.
Clearly, there is no end to the books (and book-chatter) about end-times.
And then in December, I bought one of the Literary Press Group's All Lit Up Xmas book bundles, which contained nouveau-Manitoban Lauren Carter's Swarm, which I'd been hearing about all fall.
And then a week or so later, I was assigned to review Korean-American writer Chang-Rae Lee's latest, the apocalyptic On Such a Full Sea for the Winnipeg Free Press.And so I found myself thinking on the pleasures and perils of apocalyptic fictions. My default is Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, but I thought I'd see what other people were reading, so I asked on Facebook.
To be completely precise, I asked while browsing the bookshelves at McNally Robinson Booksellers while waiting for the late showing of second Hobbit movie. (SMOG! SMOG! I insist on pronouncing it SMOG!)
And I got such good suggestions that:
A) I bought Emily Shultz' The Blondes. (Also Mr. Fox by Helen Oyeyemi. But that isn't apocalyptic, opting instead for all kinds of tomfoolery in/around storytelling and myth-making.)
The Blondes reminded me pleasantly of Swarm. Both have young, slightly inept female protagonists who are contemplating maternity. Both books expend a lot of energy on the procurement of clothes and food in the wake of their individual apocalypses, which is how I think things would be. Both books parcel out grief and loss around missing loved ones, the randomness of loss, in a way that I deeply appreciated.
B) I thought I'd share the rest of the list, in case you want in...
Nod by Adrian Barnes; Into That Darkness by Steven Price; The Age by Nancy Lee; The Blondes by Emily Shultz; People Park by Pasha Malla; The Paradise Engine by Rebecca Campbell; Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood; Pontypool by Tony Burgess; Not Wanted on the Voyage by Timothy Findley; PostApoc by Liz Worth; Brown Girl in the Ring by Nalo Hopkinson; Boating for Beginners by Jeanette Winterson; The Hollow and Other Fictions by Richard Truhlar; The Last Canadian by William C. Heine.
Some of which I was familiar with, some of which I wasn't.
Finally, as this bookish e-conversation was winding down, another friend shared an image credited to a group called Grandmothers Against Bullshit. (Ahem.) The image consisted of a sunset with the following text overlaid on it:
"Apocaloptimist. def: Someone who knows it's all going to shit, but still thinks it will turn out okay."
Which I think sums up my worldview nicely, as someone who likes to write about in-between natural spaces, who likes to live in in-between natural spaces. And hopes against hope that I/they will somehow persist.
And I thought that was it, until I saw that 49th Shelf just published Lauren Carter's reading list of Survivalist Can-lit. Which contains a completely different and excellent list.
Clearly, there is no end to the books (and book-chatter) about end-times.
January 7, 2014
Out-of-Town-Authors: Kim McCullough
Kim McCullough will be reading at Winnipeg's McNally Robinson on Thursday with urban fantasy novelist Ashley Maclennan and poet Katherena Vermette.
Most writers who live outside of the major centers dread the label 'regional writer,' but McCullough is the most western Canadian writer I've ever seen: she's lived in Regina, northern BC, northern MB, and Calgary.
Don't think that's remarkable? Well, her first novel, Clearwater, is set in northern MB and was published by Regina's Coteau Books. (See?)
* * *
What do you want people to know about Clearwater?
Clearwater is a book about place, and how some places can both hurt, and heal. Clearwater touches on mental illness, and suicide, but it also shines a light on family and friendship the confluence of those two things.
As a writer (i.e. someone whose artistic practice is predicated on time spent alone) how do you approach readings? What do you get out of them?
I teach junior high, so I spend a good deal of my day in front of what can be a very tough audience. To me, speaking with a room full of students is an opportunity for dialogue, whereas readings are more performance-based. Readings require more preparation in terms of choosing what to read, and how to read it. Jerry Auld, a writer from Canmore, encouraged me to mark up my reading copy as though it’s a script and not be afraid of changing words or adding notes for pauses and dynamics. I’m still learning what works, but I know I’m a lot more comfortable with the Q&A portion of a reading than the reading itself. I prefer interaction, and back-and-forth conversation.
I suppose what I get out of readings is similar to what I get from a class during a lesson– instantaneous feedback – are they listening? Do they care? Are they enjoying it? What do I need to change up to make the reading/lesson more engaging? This allows me to refine what I’ve done in order to do it better the next time.
You’ve lived all over western Canada. Why did you choose to set Clearwater in northern MB?
Each place I’ve lived has left an impression on me – Regina is, and always will be, home; Prince George is where I spent the two best years of my teenaged life; Calgary is where I’m raising my kids. Clearwater Lake in Northern Manitoba is probably the most beautiful place I’ve lived. It’s unforgettable. It’s also where I had the most freedom. My friends and I roamed everywhere up there, and were rarely supervised. To live across a highway from a big lake, at the edge of a runway, near wild animals, and still be able to play and run and rarely have to tell anyone where we were going, was the purest freedom in the world.
To learn, when I was older, that there were so many dark stories associated with the area was a shock: the murder of Helen Betty Osborne, and the fact that there was a residential school within a half-mile of my idyllic home, made me question everything I knew about Clearwater Lake. And it made me think a lot about the idea that a place, like life, like family, can be both stunningly beautiful, and horrific. And both the beauty and horror are amplified by their opposites.
Clearwater is a novel that explores that gray area in between opposites – friends/family, good/evil, love/hate, right/wrong, belonging/being an outsider. Clearwater Lake represents that dichotomy to me, like no other place I’ve lived, or visited.
Clearwater includes domestic violence, teen suicide, and racism. As an educator that works with youth in your other life, did you feel any qualms or pressure to write a certain way about such difficult subjects?
I never planned for a specific audience as I wrote Clearwater. It wasn’t until it was accepted for publication and we started the editing process that the idea of also targeting a young adult audience even came up. There was some concern during the editing phase, but mostly in terms of foul language and sex. In my experience, young adults seek out and embrace difficult subjects and themes.
Many of my students wouldn’t naturally gravitate toward a book like Clearwater; they want to read it just because their teacher wrote it, so I do suggest that they mention to their parents that it’s an adult novel. I personally don’t believe any of these themes should be sugar-coated, or simplified, for young adults. Those who play violent video games and watch 18A movies should, in my opinion, be able to handle racism, suicide and violence. But, at the end of the day, my responsibility as an educator is different than my responsibility as a private citizen, and as a writer. It was hard to put the educator hat away while editing, and I’m grateful it never came out at all while writing.
You’re about to graduate from UBC’s opt-res MFA in Creative Writing. What did the program do for your writing and your writing life?
Above all, the program has allowed me to be a part of a community of amazing writers. It was fantastic to work with some of the big CanLit names as my profs – I’m grateful for that, and learned a lot about craft. The connections I’ve made with many of my fellow students, though, are really worth the weight in gold I spent on the degree.
I also really appreciated the chance to work in different genres. If not for UBC, I never would have attempted to write a play, and I never would have realized how much a translation class could improve the lyricism of my writing.
Now, I’m looking forward to finishing up, and being able to write whatever I want, whether it’s a short story, or a blog, or some non-fiction. I’d love to spend more time on poetry, too. Lots of post-MFA plans!
Have you ever been to Winnipeg? What have you heard?
I have been to Winnipeg. In fact, while living in Northern Manitoba, my whole class came down on creaky, jam-packed school buses to visit the important historical sites of the city. I still have a pile of blurry pictures from my old 110 camera – zoo shots, Fort Garry, The Royal Canadian Mint, Saint Boniface Cathedral, the Golden Boy. I remember having breakfast at McDonald’s in Saint Boniface and everyone was freaking out because the menu was in French and English! We’d never seen that before.
I’ve heard all the smart-aleck comments people make about “Winterpeg.” But really, Regina receives the same kind of disdain (yeah, yeah, I can see my dog, three days, blah blah), and it’s a great city, so I take comments about Winnipeg with a grain of salt. I’ve heard over and over that Winnipeg is one of the best cities in Canada when it comes to supporting the arts, and that’s a great reputation to have even if Winnipeg does have the dubious honour of also having the windiest intersection in the country.
Oh, growing up in I Regina, I also heard a lot about your terrible football team. (Go Riders!)
What are you reading right now?
I’m reading as many short story collections I can, as I’m working on a series of interviews for PRISM’s online magazine. Three standout collections I’ve read recently are All We Want is Everything by Andrew F. Sullivan, Oh, My Darling by Shaena Lambert and Just Pretending by Lisa Bird-Wilson. I’m on the editorial board for PRISM’s print magazine, so I’m reading lit mag submissions. The novel I’m currently reading is The Woman Upstairs by Claire Messud.
What are you writing right now?
My thesis. It’s a novel that tells the story of Jake and Rita, two characters in Clearwater. Other than that, I have a few short stories on the go. Waiting in the wings is a YA novel set in Fort Qu’Appelle, Saskatchewan just after World War II.
Most writers who live outside of the major centers dread the label 'regional writer,' but McCullough is the most western Canadian writer I've ever seen: she's lived in Regina, northern BC, northern MB, and Calgary.
Don't think that's remarkable? Well, her first novel, Clearwater, is set in northern MB and was published by Regina's Coteau Books. (See?)* * *
What do you want people to know about Clearwater?
Clearwater is a book about place, and how some places can both hurt, and heal. Clearwater touches on mental illness, and suicide, but it also shines a light on family and friendship the confluence of those two things.
As a writer (i.e. someone whose artistic practice is predicated on time spent alone) how do you approach readings? What do you get out of them?
I teach junior high, so I spend a good deal of my day in front of what can be a very tough audience. To me, speaking with a room full of students is an opportunity for dialogue, whereas readings are more performance-based. Readings require more preparation in terms of choosing what to read, and how to read it. Jerry Auld, a writer from Canmore, encouraged me to mark up my reading copy as though it’s a script and not be afraid of changing words or adding notes for pauses and dynamics. I’m still learning what works, but I know I’m a lot more comfortable with the Q&A portion of a reading than the reading itself. I prefer interaction, and back-and-forth conversation.I suppose what I get out of readings is similar to what I get from a class during a lesson– instantaneous feedback – are they listening? Do they care? Are they enjoying it? What do I need to change up to make the reading/lesson more engaging? This allows me to refine what I’ve done in order to do it better the next time.
You’ve lived all over western Canada. Why did you choose to set Clearwater in northern MB?
Each place I’ve lived has left an impression on me – Regina is, and always will be, home; Prince George is where I spent the two best years of my teenaged life; Calgary is where I’m raising my kids. Clearwater Lake in Northern Manitoba is probably the most beautiful place I’ve lived. It’s unforgettable. It’s also where I had the most freedom. My friends and I roamed everywhere up there, and were rarely supervised. To live across a highway from a big lake, at the edge of a runway, near wild animals, and still be able to play and run and rarely have to tell anyone where we were going, was the purest freedom in the world.
To learn, when I was older, that there were so many dark stories associated with the area was a shock: the murder of Helen Betty Osborne, and the fact that there was a residential school within a half-mile of my idyllic home, made me question everything I knew about Clearwater Lake. And it made me think a lot about the idea that a place, like life, like family, can be both stunningly beautiful, and horrific. And both the beauty and horror are amplified by their opposites.
Clearwater is a novel that explores that gray area in between opposites – friends/family, good/evil, love/hate, right/wrong, belonging/being an outsider. Clearwater Lake represents that dichotomy to me, like no other place I’ve lived, or visited.
Clearwater includes domestic violence, teen suicide, and racism. As an educator that works with youth in your other life, did you feel any qualms or pressure to write a certain way about such difficult subjects?
I never planned for a specific audience as I wrote Clearwater. It wasn’t until it was accepted for publication and we started the editing process that the idea of also targeting a young adult audience even came up. There was some concern during the editing phase, but mostly in terms of foul language and sex. In my experience, young adults seek out and embrace difficult subjects and themes.
Many of my students wouldn’t naturally gravitate toward a book like Clearwater; they want to read it just because their teacher wrote it, so I do suggest that they mention to their parents that it’s an adult novel. I personally don’t believe any of these themes should be sugar-coated, or simplified, for young adults. Those who play violent video games and watch 18A movies should, in my opinion, be able to handle racism, suicide and violence. But, at the end of the day, my responsibility as an educator is different than my responsibility as a private citizen, and as a writer. It was hard to put the educator hat away while editing, and I’m grateful it never came out at all while writing.
You’re about to graduate from UBC’s opt-res MFA in Creative Writing. What did the program do for your writing and your writing life?
Above all, the program has allowed me to be a part of a community of amazing writers. It was fantastic to work with some of the big CanLit names as my profs – I’m grateful for that, and learned a lot about craft. The connections I’ve made with many of my fellow students, though, are really worth the weight in gold I spent on the degree.
I also really appreciated the chance to work in different genres. If not for UBC, I never would have attempted to write a play, and I never would have realized how much a translation class could improve the lyricism of my writing.
Now, I’m looking forward to finishing up, and being able to write whatever I want, whether it’s a short story, or a blog, or some non-fiction. I’d love to spend more time on poetry, too. Lots of post-MFA plans!
Have you ever been to Winnipeg? What have you heard?
I have been to Winnipeg. In fact, while living in Northern Manitoba, my whole class came down on creaky, jam-packed school buses to visit the important historical sites of the city. I still have a pile of blurry pictures from my old 110 camera – zoo shots, Fort Garry, The Royal Canadian Mint, Saint Boniface Cathedral, the Golden Boy. I remember having breakfast at McDonald’s in Saint Boniface and everyone was freaking out because the menu was in French and English! We’d never seen that before.
I’ve heard all the smart-aleck comments people make about “Winterpeg.” But really, Regina receives the same kind of disdain (yeah, yeah, I can see my dog, three days, blah blah), and it’s a great city, so I take comments about Winnipeg with a grain of salt. I’ve heard over and over that Winnipeg is one of the best cities in Canada when it comes to supporting the arts, and that’s a great reputation to have even if Winnipeg does have the dubious honour of also having the windiest intersection in the country.
Oh, growing up in I Regina, I also heard a lot about your terrible football team. (Go Riders!)
What are you reading right now?
I’m reading as many short story collections I can, as I’m working on a series of interviews for PRISM’s online magazine. Three standout collections I’ve read recently are All We Want is Everything by Andrew F. Sullivan, Oh, My Darling by Shaena Lambert and Just Pretending by Lisa Bird-Wilson. I’m on the editorial board for PRISM’s print magazine, so I’m reading lit mag submissions. The novel I’m currently reading is The Woman Upstairs by Claire Messud.
What are you writing right now?
My thesis. It’s a novel that tells the story of Jake and Rita, two characters in Clearwater. Other than that, I have a few short stories on the go. Waiting in the wings is a YA novel set in Fort Qu’Appelle, Saskatchewan just after World War II.
December 30, 2013
2013 portraits in 2013
* * *
So M finally finished his year-long project, where he took 2013 portraits in 2013.
My portrait was second-to-last. And was shot in M's parents' bathroom over the Xmas break.
He's taken a pile of pics of me over the course of the year, either because I needed a new FB profile pic or because the light was just right: "Stand right there! There! Stand still! C'mon!"
But it was important to him to take my portrait project pic in sequence. It was important for him to play while taking this particular pic. So I leaned in over the vanity in the bathroom, and waited while he figured out how to take this particular picture.
I think he climbed up on the vanity so he could shoot the pic from above. I think he stopped shooting when his knees started to hurt and my sighs got audible.
I think I cleaned the mirror mid-way through the photo shoot. Which tells you something about me and him, I think.
The WFP will be publishing a two page spread of all the pictures on January 4th, but beyond that, M's not sure what will happen to the pictures in the project. A gallery show? A photo book?
I'm simultaneously proud of him and also glad to not be subject to project-related fretting. ("I have to get at LEAST 60 portraits this weekend! AT LEAST!")
December 27, 2013
Burning tires
You’ve got staying power, I’ll give you that. And you’ve got language. Like a virus.
I just wish I knew why you’re still writing me.
I wish I knew what you were saying. Your letters are like the blasted sky: they persist no matter what I do or say.
What AM I doing, exactly? The one question you keep on asking.
I’m confused by what’s happening and what’s not happening, and so I’m trying to live, to survive somehow, even though there’s no way of knowing what’s coming.
My number one criterion for recommending movies to friends, before, was when the filmmakers kept me from reliably predicting the end.
Your apocalypse is a mix of Charlie Kaufman and Cormac McCarthy: an absurd wretchedness. Mine is more mundane, about eating and cleaning and keeping warm, keening for what’s lost and connection to what’s here now. No ultra-violence. Though the air is scented with it, like someone is burning tires and prostheses in the distance.
My name is Chris. I’m confused but not lonely or hungry, most days.
That’s all. I’m sick of flourishes.
* * *
Exquisite corpse #24. You can listen to the audio too, if you'd like...
Darryl Joel Berger's #23 is here. It's the bee's knees.
I just wish I knew why you’re still writing me.
I wish I knew what you were saying. Your letters are like the blasted sky: they persist no matter what I do or say.
What AM I doing, exactly? The one question you keep on asking.
I’m confused by what’s happening and what’s not happening, and so I’m trying to live, to survive somehow, even though there’s no way of knowing what’s coming.
My number one criterion for recommending movies to friends, before, was when the filmmakers kept me from reliably predicting the end.
Your apocalypse is a mix of Charlie Kaufman and Cormac McCarthy: an absurd wretchedness. Mine is more mundane, about eating and cleaning and keeping warm, keening for what’s lost and connection to what’s here now. No ultra-violence. Though the air is scented with it, like someone is burning tires and prostheses in the distance.
My name is Chris. I’m confused but not lonely or hungry, most days.
That’s all. I’m sick of flourishes.
* * *
Exquisite corpse #24. You can listen to the audio too, if you'd like...
Darryl Joel Berger's #23 is here. It's the bee's knees.
December 22, 2013
Ex Libris
* * *
A Dutch collector just sent me my (Dutch) grandmother's bookplate, apparently created in 1943.
This is why the internet exists, n'est-ce pas?
(I'd seen it in books we'd inherited from my very bookish grandmother, who managed the Lakehead University Bookstore from 1964 to 1987, but it's sort of nifty to see it travel the world a bit...)
December 19, 2013
Writers' Circles
* * *
This is going to be such great fun.
My thanks to the Winnipeg Public Library and the MWG.
Also: Submit! Submit!
