Ariel Gordon's Blog, page 71

Overheard

Overwintered

Left-over

Melted

All photos December 26, 2011. Assiniboine Forest, Winnipeg, MB.

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We've had very little snow this winter so far. And today, what little snow we'd accumulated started to melt.

After the hoopla of the Xmas season, it was a relief to pull into the parking lot at Assiniboine Forest, except that it was chock full. I suppose it's mean-spirited to resent people for having the same idea you do, but still...

So I cursed but walked anyways, cup of tea in hand.

And even though there were people everywhere, they kept sufficient distance between us to keep me happy. And there were small but distinctly satisfying patches of mushrooms and lichen.

AND I was walking with my friend Ed, an expat Winnipegger who I knew from my student press days. He's now a visual artist living in Montreal.

So, it was warm, we walked and mocked and took pictures. And then it started to hail/rail.

To sum: FOREST+TEA+MUSHROOMS+CHIT-CHAT=FUN!

mailbox mushrooming

So M went to get the paper this morning and came back with a unlabeled box with a bow on it.

Inside, there was a bubble-wrapped lump. But the bubble wrap parted to reveal a metallic mushroom ornament...

It's the most recognizable of mushrooms, the poisonous Amanita muscaria. Which isn't something I've seen in my forest, but it's a mushroom...and mushrooms make me happy.

I still haven't figured out who stuck it in my mailbox, but it almost doesn't matter. The fact that I know someone that would do something like that makes me stupidly happy.

Which reminds me, given the relative lack of snow this winter, I should go check out the forest. Except the dry summer that preceded it meant that that there weren't any mushrooms to begin with...

these days

So these days I've been actually writing. Which is not all that eventful, even if it feels just as exciting to me as traveling around with How to Prepare for Flooding or doing residual readings from Hump.

(Hump is almost two years old. Zowie!)

Though I would never give up touring - and people were SO kind this time out, showering me with frogs' legs and assorted cheeses - I hafta admit that writing is my favourite bit.

The rest of the winter is commitment-free. Strictly speaking, I haven't anything scheduled, but really I know exactly where I'll be, most Wednesdays and Fridays and possibly some evenings. In this goddamn chair, trying to make the Edison ms. speak again.

Or, more appropriately for this ms. in particular, trying to see if I can hear it anymore. (Speak up, you!)

Saskatoon: JackPine launch, pt. 2

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After a left-luggage incident that involved my small foolish top hat and some judicious show-and-tell of How to Prepare for Flooding, the Delta Bessborough in Saskatoon sent THIS up with a note that said: "Have a good launch!"

To my mind, there's nothing much wrong with a person that can't be solved with wedges of buttery cheese and a nice sipping red.

Bessborough staff were also kind enough to give us access to their Signature lounge, which kept us in tea and coffee while we whiled away the hour or so between finishing brunch and leaving for the airport on Sunday.

Saskatoon: JackPine launch Nov. 26

So after a month chock-full of events, I finished up with the 'launch' of How to Prepare for Flooding in Saskatoon, where publisher JackPine Press is based.

Julia and I spent the weekend wandering around Saskatoon's downtown, flying in Friday and leaving Sunday. Besides the launch, we got in a shopping expedition, a movie, a nice long brunch, and a riverwalk.

The launch was lovely. But given JackPine's history, I expected nothing less...

The best part of publishing with JackPine - besides the opportunity to create a gory little book with Julia - was how supported the press is by Saskatoon's writing and publishing community.

The press' reach meant that I didn't have to spend a lot of time inviting the writers I knew in Saskatoon: they already knew about the launch.

And so it was lovely to hang out with people I've met over the past few years via the Sage Hill Writing Experience and SK stops on tours with Kerry Ryan + Tracy Hamon.

It was also nifty to launch alongside Mitch Spray, Fionncara MacEoin, and Nancy Lowry.

JackPine major domo Elise Marcella Godfrey (and the rest of the collective) deserves major thanks for taking such good care of us, both over the course of the weekend and over the longer term, seeing Julia and I from submission to acceptance to publication.

Yay! Fun!

PBN: Diane Buchanan

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From the fall 2011 issue of Prairie books NOW.

The books! The books!

So I did a reading last week at the St. John's College Library, which is quickly becoming my ALL time favourite library.

(That is, after my childhood library, which was small and full of well-thumbed teen romance novels...knowing the Sweet Valley High canon was NOT, unfortunately, any help when it came to St. Vital's social scene in the late eighties.)

I'm enamored of the SJC library because A) it's just down the hall from my University of Manitoba Press office B) it's the Can-lit library on campus C) I can order books from other U of M libraries and they're delivered to SJC AND I can take books out for months and months at a time.

So it was a treat to plan a lunchtime reading at the SJC library with UMP author/librarian Jim Blanchard which included cookies and an urn full of coffee.

I really enjoyed reading against a backdrop of books, of words and sentences and stanzas.

But I REALLY really enjoyed show-and-telling How to Prepare for Flooding (and, as you can see from the photos, other JackPine titles by Jennifer Still and Sharon Caseburg) with new(ish) U of M friends and colleagues.

Yay! Fun!

And thanks to all the SJC library staff for putting on the event, the first of many they'll be having at the library over the months to come.

Thanks too to Polly Washburn, who went from the event to a screening of her feature film Passionflower but still managed to take these pics for me...