Caitlin Hicks's Blog: Book Reviews, page 17

Mother Love, Pender Harbour 2019

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Great expectations

Invisible as Air, a novel by Zoe Fishman

Readers of literature, especially those trained in the classics, come to every book and novel with not-so-deeply-buried expectations that the book they’re about to open, the story they’re about to embark upon, is somehow elevated by universal human struggles with high stakes and essential crises that will be layered and hidden with dramatic magic and transcendent lessons. We expect suffering. We crave hilarious. We want epic; we need poetic language magnifying small, desperate moments into unforgettable conflicts. We yearn for the author to hold a mirror into the Human Condition with a capital “H.” We demand it to be memorable; after all, Literaturereflects us individually and collectively, our historic and indomitable efforts to survive, thrive, and love at all costs.

And yet, this kind of superlative is rare; publishers and agents work diligently in this environment of expect/exploitation, producing a lot of books, packaged with the latest design trends and snappy blurbs to sell readers on a definable product. The promise of a secret answered, a life “changed forever”. Who cares about literature anymore?

Invisible as Air by Zoe Fishman is not an exception. The cover is beautiful and romantic, a yellow beach scene with sand dunes and wild horses in silhouette. It feels like literary candy, a product you just can’t resist. And you can enter that world just by reading the blurb and opening the book. No side effects. Melt in your mouth.

The secret begins almost immediately as Sylvie, the long-suffering wife of Paul and mother of 12-almost-13-year-old Teddy slogs through her miserable interior life, three years after her daughter Delilah is stillborn.

Sylvie happens on a stash of her husband’s refused pain pills—Oxycondon. His ankle has been broken for a while, and she has held up the household with one arm, doing everything with a shallow smile—and now she just wants to scream.

Paul is always saying the wrong, condescending thing and Don’t you dare! bring up their dead-and-gone daughter! It’s the third anniversary of Delilah’s birth/death, but if you utter a syllable about it, we are all going to evaporate! Everyone is walking on eggshells, including Sylvie, who has added despair to her mental state.

And in this weak moment, she’s also desperately curious. Surely one little white pill can’t be all bad, can it? Maybe she’ll be able to endure being Paul’s unwilling nurse for a little longer, perhaps long enough for his ankle to heal; maybe she’ll be able to stay in this relationship, long ago repressed into an endurance; maybe she’ll be able to wipe away the sight of all the sporting goods and gadgets he’s filled the garage with. Maybe she can just take one pill to get her through this horrible day, and she’ll never have another. Easy peasy.

Sylvie takes a pill, and suddenly her mental state soars; she’s light, optimistic, even happy. The reader feels relief as Sylvie becomes perky, hopeful, and above all, generous. Everyone notices the shift, but they’re so happy to get rid of this snarky person who is now charming and thoughtful that they don’t put two and two together. What could be so wrong with this? Sylvie asks, exonerating herself in advance for the guilt she is already feeling.

But the pill also allows her to speak her mind in a truthful way, in a manner she has been unable to muster since her daughter died. And with this voicing of the truth, she releases her son from a dreaded obligation: to attend a party for his Bar Mitzvah. So things are actually getting better because of this dangerous, addictive drug. Her son crafts a more acceptable event out of his Bar Mitzvah, and his new girlfriend, Krystal, isn’t really that bad, after all. Just one more, Sylvie tells herself.  The tension between herself and her husband, Paul, eases.

And so it goes, as Sylvie goes through her secret supply, which she has hidden in a purse on a hook in her closet. Meanwhile, her very comfortable and ordinary modern, upper-middle-class world is filled out from Paul’s point of view. Paul is another addict of sorts, who covers up his existential angst by becoming a shopaholic and lately enjoying texting with a younger colleague who has been flirting him into her orbit.

Teddy, the emerging teen, provides the event around which the entire family will rotate their anxieties, their unspoken grief, their expectations, and even their viability as a family. Teddy was nine when Deliliah died, and he observes his parents keenly, discovering his Mom’s stash of dangerous pills and his Dad’s temptation texts. Now we have competing secrets in a troubled marriage.

Sylvie is creative and bold in her journey to procure her magic pills, and as the days tick by, she finds herself in the midst of a nightmare. The author deftly describes her deteriorating emotional state as the pills begin to wear off, and buoys us all up again, once she pops them into her mouth. Thus, the reader stays close to her increasingly frantic journey with an ever-dwindling supply of addictive drugs. Like Scarlet O’Hara in Gone with the Wind, Sylvie promises that she’ll think about it tomorrow; she’ll quit tomorrow, she’ll deal with it tomorrow, the next day, after the Bar Mitzvah.

The easy-to-read and absorb book rolls out like a TV series, a pleasant ticking of the required boxes of modern novels—and told with enough detail and moderate suspense to keep the reader reading this piece of literary candy. The reader, just like Sylvie the addict, promises herself “Tomorrow I’ll read a Booker nominated book . . . tomorrow I’ll check out that Nobel Prize-winning epic. . .” But Invisible as Air is so easy to consume, it’s like a bag of Cheetos—with just the right amount of fat, salt, and cheese to make you keep eating until the bag is empty.

The author admits that she experienced several tragedies while finishing this book; but the tone, the setting and even the conflict does not allow the reader to understand the depth of suffering she must have endured. The ending, although suspended, feels like a happily-ever-after, everything smoothed over, nothing to haunt the reader into thinking about the story or characters afterward. Except for a loathsome gesture to Sylvie’s husband’s best friend, demonstrating the depth of her depravity in her addiction, there is little to elevate this struggle to the level of literature’s great expectations.

-Originally published on New York Journal of Books

Caitlin Hicks is an author, playwright, and actress. Her debut novel is A Theory of Expanded Love, winner of the 2015 Foreword Reviews / Indie Bronze Medal for Literary Fiction and other awards including iBooks Best New Fiction, 2015

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Fishnet, a novel by Kirsten Innes

The opening chapter of Fishnet, the debut novel by Kirsten Innes, is a mystery that takes almost the entire novel to piece together. Who is speaking? What is happening? The style of this novel is told in an uneven line, so the reader has to pay attention in order to unravel the colorful situations, complex characters, and rich descriptions; its opacity is sometimes reminiscent of poetry.

The narrative follows a twenty-something woman, Fiona, living in the shadow of her sister’s disappearance six years earlier. Fiona lives with her parents and her daughter, by day working as an unskilled clerk for a construction company. The gap left in their family by Rona’s disappearance and especially the unknown nature of her absence haunts the family, particularly Fiona, Rona’s older sister.

Working for a real estate development company whose plans are to demolish a building, home to a nonprofit organization for sex workers called Sanctuary, Fiona serves tea to a noisy group of vociferous protesters against the demolition. This act of civil disobedience against her employer opens the door to defying the life she is currently living and to learning more about the lives of sex workers. These “fallen women” have found a safe haven at Sanctuary and with the destruction of the building, stand to lose their only advocates in a world hostile to hookers.

When the reader learns that Fiona’s “daughter” is not only not her daughter, but was deposited in her bed one night by her sister (who then departed without any explanation), it becomes clear that Rona has been living a fast life as a high priced woman of the night and doesn’t want to be found.

Trolling the internet searching for her sister, the reader becomes familiar with the world of these women from their online personas, in their own words, with suggestive images, describing the services they provide via their webpages. The impression is anything but cliché. These prostitutes are strong, smart, and multi-faceted; their online personas defy the victim role that media repeats whenever referring to the world’s oldest profession.

As Fiona meets and interviews sex workers for clues of Rona’s whereabouts, she is seduced by one woman in particular by the beauty and power she exudes. Innes portrays this unrealized infatuation skillfully. As Fiona begins to open up to the world of prostitution, experiencing the surprising attitudes that many women sex workers hold and their reasons for choosing this employment, she begins to see these women as powerful mistresses of their own lives. Her own personality evolves along with her new understanding of choice, of intimacy and power as she pieces her sister’s story together.

“These are exiting, these lives, though,” says Fiona. “They are. That they can list, on a site, the things they will do and that men will pay to do those things with them. I find it exciting in spite of myself.” The reader perhaps feels the same way, “in spite of the bits of me that are repulsed,” and keeps on reading.

Although the thread of finding her sister permeates Fiona’s quest throughout the book, the story itself is secondary to the attitudes and beliefs brought to light by the many characters and ultimately, the inner journey of Fiona vis a vis prostitution as a possibility in her own life. There are a few uncomfortable descriptions of intimate engagements with unattractive men that surprise; if anything the hooker comes out looking like a counselor, a volunteer for those aching for connection, a wise woman who deeply respects other human beings one John at a time.

“She wears great shoes. She makes jokes about her great shoes. She makes jokes. Saying, look at me. No, really. Look at me.”

Innes uses a tactic in telling this complex story; she builds up a scene to begin to answer questions she has sowed in earlier chapters, and as clarity merges with curiosity, she changes the scene, adding in layers of the story. A new chapter calls attention to itself, and the reader can only imagine how the last scene concluded. Adding to the denseness of the novel is the author’s ability to recreate the tone of a conversation through local Brit dialect. It’s so spot-on that this technique adds layers of authenticity and vibrancy to the colorful and believable characters.

Fishnet is ambitious: Innes wanted to create a story that evolves alongside the growing understanding and awareness of its protagonist—even as it brings the reader forward, inviting us to consider our own prejudices, deeply held beliefs, women’s vulnerability, power and choice. The sum of its parts, of Innes’ debut effort can be summarized in her chapter Split Personalities.

“Whole, she is. Whole and brainy and likeable and bloody admirable. She wears great shoes. She makes jokes about her great shoes. She makes jokes. Saying, look at me. No, really. Look at me.”

-This review originally published at New York Journal of Books

Caitlin Hicks is an author, playwright, and actress. Her debut novel is A Theory of Expanded Love, winner of the 2015 Foreword Reviews,

Indie Bronze Medal for Literary Fiction and iBooks Best New Fiction, 2015

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Robert Kennedy mystery haunts 50 years later

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7456521/Robert-F-Kennedy-assassinated-Thane-Eugene-Cesar-Sirhan-Sirhan-says-RFK-Jr.html

— The Daily Mail

 

KENNEDY GIRL, a new novel by Caitlin Hicks, seeking literary representation

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Trouble in Paradise

The Community of Roberts Creek is under pressure to be all things to all people

With my earplugs in, I can hear the beating of my heart and the low grind of the earth digger. It’s hot, but I can’t get upwind of the noise – it’s everywhere – so the windows are staying shut.

And today, crispy, dry summery today both neighbors on my unpaved, newly formed cul-de-sac have decided to burn the excess wood left over from the building of their new homes. It’s Sunday. Even if I could stand the noise, the smoke would force me back inside.

This is not at all what I bargained for.

You have to take a ferry to get to where I live. And here, there are still trees. Cedars, mountain hemlock and alders, alders, everywhere. There are ferns, every kind of fern and real sphagnum moss under the trees. And in the spring, foxglove grows wild in the ditches and along the highway. Here, you can still find seashells at the seashore, and for the first time in my life, in one day, I stared down a bald eagle and watched, a real, live woodpecker poking for bugs in a dead tree.

This is The Sunshine Coast. When we moved here a year ago, we were escaping high housing costs, high crime, high anxiety. Today with the noise and the heat and daily evidence of trees being cut down – another parking lot, another burning pile of construction debris – it feels like we were born lemmings and we’re just rounding the corner to take that last leap into the ocean.

The Sunshine Coast is one of the fastest developing areas in B.C. Real estate professionals an condo developers hype the beauty of this gentle, breathtaking country-side, but just off the boat, on ‘the strip’ between Gibsons and Sechelt, there are two malls screaming at the top of their neon lungs over acres of parking lot.

B & K soils cleared and flattened and bulldozed every living thing on, I’d guess, three acres to start up a business of selling fertilizer, gravel, rocks and topsoil. A propane business felled some beautiful trees at the edge of their plot, and now we get to look at the ugly tank and building and signage as we drive by. Business by business, the beauty here is being picked away, chipped at, scraped over.

Greenpeace says that every minute more than 100 acres of irreplaceable rainforest are lost to bulldozers and chainsaws, and at the current rate of destruction, all the world’s tropical rainforests could be gone in 30 years.

But I live in BC, on the Sunshine Coast, home of Canada’s oldest known tree stump:1,700 years of a living being, felled in 1985 by modern “harvesting” methods, and I’m beginning to wonder about the statistics in our better educated, non Third World country.

The newspapers tell us that the Lower Mainland is going to develop like Los Angeles in the next decade or so. A lot of mouths are watering over the figures. Those Who Would Profit are poised to build the ‘infrastructure’ of roads and sewers and golf courses for the onslaught of rushing escapers just like me.

In my new home, away from the sirens and smog of the city, the sound of a low flying airplane invades my Sunday afternoon, just like the churning of my neighbor’s suburban lawn-mowing machine.

Here, it’s more obvious: it feels like war has broken out. Here, the beauty is so aching, the loss of it, however small, hits you in a flash: there’s nowhere to go where Coca-Cola – and all it represents – has not gone first.

The question presents itself over and over: how can recent urban escapers justify closing the door to other – now that they’ve found their piece of paradise? And yet: how can they retain their piece of paradise when everyone else is looking for it in their own backyard?

In the unincorporated township of Roberts Creek, where I live, the gumboot is the symbol of the fiercely environmental local community who kick and scream when government bureaucracies tell them how to widen their roads or put pesticides on their greenery. Their credo is simple: No. No compromise. No interference. No, we don’t want whatever you’re selling.

Last spring, in response to the pressures of growth and development in the area, local residents gathered to formulate a 20-year plan for the community, to replace the existing – and outdated – “official settlement plan”.

Meetings every other Wednesday discussed how everything, from signs on the highway to restrictions on tree cutting to vinyl siding affects the rural nature of Roberts Creek. There were players on both sides – those who are pushing for maximum commercial development and those who want it to stay the way it was. The latter seem to have their way more often than not.

Not everything is possible, however. The functional bureaucratic reality is that an official community plan is just a guideline for the passage of bylaws, and in the end must be approved by a number of ministries before being adopted.

In fact, “the only thing the OCP really gives us power over is land use,” says Brett McGillivray, director of Roberts Creek for the Sunshine Coast regional district. “And even then, within some well-defined boundaries. But within that, we can be effective: what size lots we want, the types of zoning we have and what’s allowed on those lots, what is commercial and what is not. Land use is everything.

Land use that fits into a cohesive plan, that is.

“People come to the regional board and say, ‘This development is going to be the greatest thing.’ And if there’s no plan to guide their decision, the board can’t justify saying no. Each one of those businesses is individually justified and bit by bit, it’s one long strip.

“Powell River is a great example of virtually no planning,” he says. “The good news in Powell River is that you can do whatever you want on your land. The bad news is, so can your neighbor.”

The good news about Roberts Creek is bad news to some: not everything is possible here.

“Because of our minimum lot size, in 10 years Roberts Creek will be a fully developed ares,” McGillivray says. “As a community we’re saying, ‘There is a limit to growth.’ We’re not pulling up the drawbridge, we’re just saying, we don’t want to become another urban landscape.”

Is suburban inevitable? Some of the people of Roberts Creek want to prove that it’s not. And they’re developing a process that redefines the notion of progress while forming a model for community empowerment. Part of their strategy includes a ‘healthy community” study.

“From one side of the Sunshine Coast to the another, we’ve answered the question: What kind of community do you want in the year 2020? The community of Roberts Creek says we want to have this place as a rural area, that’s what we want. We want a bus system, things for teenagers to do bike paths, a healthy environment. You turn around and say to government, ‘Here are our value systems, respect them.’”

Can a government respect anything but it own modus operandi? That is exactly the challenge from the Creekers to government.

At one OCP meeting, discussion centred on limitations to road access from the highway. Someone asked: “Can we specify the number of lanes on the highway?”

Bob Patrick, a regional district planner, said, “You can’t go around telling the ministry of highways how to do their job.”

“I think we can,” interjected McGillivray. And the room broke into spontaneous applause.

“We’re at a point in history where there is such incredible cynicism and, if anything, disrespect for politicians and senior government, and for very good reasons,” says McGillivray. “They’re not to be trusted. Ultimately, what’s happening is more and more of the decision-making power is coming down to the local level, because it makes sense. If there’s an accountable level of government, it’s there – when the phone rings, someone has to answer it.”

Finally the earth digger grinds to a halt. As I take out my earplugs, I wonder, ultimately, what this community will look like in 10 years. How will the ministries who must approve the OCP respond to it? Will the rest of the community endorse it? Which commercial interests will have their way?

Like many undeveloped communities across B.C., Roberts Creek is feeling the pressure to be all things to all people. Meeting by meeting, decision by decision, I’ve come to understand that Creekers are not closing the doors to anyone. They’re just trying to keep their community the way it already is – a rural area.

But in the face of conflicting interests and the deeply ingrained notion of progress, how much difference to their own future can these people really make?

The official community plan for Roberts Creek has had two readings and has been referred to a variety of government ministries. Commercial enterprises whose interests are in conflict with the plan have already begun to register their positions.

A vote will probably be taken at the November elections. The decisions made will then affect the tone and reality of the community for years to come.

-Article written by Caitlin Hicks, published in the Vancouver Sun, 1993.

–Photos from 2019, one property in Roberts Creek. This peaceful landscape, habitat of birds, fish, frogs, insects, deer, which has grown and flourished over the past 26 years, is now threatened with suburbia: managers & owner  of the 2 acre property behind this half acre, (Originally a 5 acre forest) are in process to change 2 by-laws so they can subdivide. The subdivision would double the density — with the possibility of 3 additional full-size houses (to a maximum of 32,000 square feet allowed) with the change of by-laws.

 

Photos by Caitlin Hicks and Cole Vedan; a Roberts Creek property developed over the past 26 years.

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MOTHER LOVE, live

Pender Harbour School of Music

and

High Beam Dreams in Gibsons to host

‘Mother Love’

Stories, characters & music celebrating Mothers

with Caitlin Hicks, Anna Lumiere and Gord Halloran

Pender Harbour and Gibsons will each host one production of ‘Mother Love’, a theatrical presentation with Caitlin Hicks, Gordon Halloran and featured guest Anna Lumiere in celebration of Mother’s Day. Hicks will perform the feisty, the funny, the silly and sad characters from a variety of her work as a writer, playwright and international performer. Anna Lumiere will be featured on piano and Gord Halloran will provide vocals and back up vocals in these productions.

Dates are: Friday, May 3rd at The Pender Harbour School of Music @ 7 PM (12952 Madeira Park Road, Madeira Park) and Friday May 10th in Gibsons at High Beam Dreams (350 Glassford Road, Gibsons. Doors open @ 7; show starts @ 7:30).

Featured original comic and dramatic characters: French-Canadian new mother Nicole from Singing the Bones; Annie Shea from Six Palm Trees and ‘Lily’ from Hicks’ novel A Theory of Expanded Love, as well as Gertie from Some Kinda Woman! and Eva, from Stories for a Winter Solstice.

PJ Reece’s humorous essay “Shoot Me” about his aging mother (www.pjreece.ca) will be shared as well as a story by writer Summer Kinard (www.summerkinard.com).

The production in Gibsons will mark the first time that High Beam Dreams has produced and promoted a theatrical presentation in their renovated performance space.

Tickets for the Gibsons show at High Beam Dreams: Online:https:/bit.ly./motherathighbeam

Gibsons: Laedeli; Roberts Creek: MELOmania; Sechelt: Strait Music

Phone: Vineet Miglani @ 604-401-0232

Tickets for the Pender Harbour show: By reservation and at the door

(604) 886-3634

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The Familiars, by Stacey Halls

“A lovely book, a worthy debut novel, a satisfying read.”

Pendle Hill, England. A young woman, Fleetwood Shuttleworth, mistress of Gawthorpe Hall, is expecting again after three failed pregnancies and desperately wants to bring her child to term in health. If she can fulfill this expectation, she will not only please her beloved husband, she can continue to reign as mistress of her family estate. In the 17th century, for the upper classes, providing an heir was a woman’s work, and if she failed, she was practically useless.

Fleetwood loves her husband but begins to doubt him when she finds a note on his desk, written in the doctor’s hand: If your wife conceives again, she will die. This secret infuses Fleetwood’s journey as she approaches the day she will give birth. Did her husband see this note? If so, how long has he held this secret from her? Although Fleetwood is ill with morning sickness that seems to last the entire day, although her skin is yellow with jaundice, Richard is delighted with her pregnancy. And yet, he begins to sleep in another room.

It’s 1612 and from the first page, the novel trembles with the threat of talk against witches, suspicion, and fear. The reader, knowing from history the fate of so many people accused of witchcraft in the hysteria of the time, easily soaks up this fear. For locals of Pendle Hill and the countryside, dogs, foxes and other animals are rumored to be working as agents of the devil. They appear in frightening dreams, and locals invent stories about incidents that happen to them, padding them with their own terror. Fleetwood, who is not exceptionally pretty by her own analysis, finds a young woman named Alice, a local midwife, who is surrounded by mystery, and hires her to help bring her to term safely.

Soon, a family friend, Roger, begins to reveal his ambitions. In order to be in noticed by the king for future career appointments, his stokes the fears of devil worship and spreads gossip about the most vulnerable: the poorer witches and midwives. Meanwhile, the mysterious Alice works with herbs to bring Fleetwood back into health. Little by little, through Fleetwood’s sensitivity and small kindnesses (the disparity between their lives and their “class” is gaping), they begin to have faith in one another.

Alice warns Fleetwood about her husband: He’s not to be trusted. Fleetwood sees in his ledger that he’s spending money to supply Barton, Fleetwood’s empty ancestral home. She travels to the house on horseback and sees her husband around the fire in a cozy family scene with a woman who is also with child: He has a mistress!

Roger continues his campaign to vilify the women he’s already accused of witchcraft. He uses the child of one of the midwives to tell him what he wants to hear and build a case against them. The child comes from such a difficult life of poverty and she is so young, she is willing to say anything to continue being the indulged pet of Roger.

In the wake of her husband’s infidelity, Fleetwood flees her home at Gawthorpe and stays with her mother, refusing to return to Gawthorpe. As her day of delivery approaches, Fleetwood and her midwife fall into a trap laid by Roger; Alice is imprisoned and Fleetwood returned to Gawthorpe.  It’s seems almost impossible that in spite of her privilege, Fleetwood could do anything to save Alice —and herself—as she needs Alice at her birth. That is the stuff of the rest of the novel.

The characters are real from history, their names proof they lived and died, and the story comes from the imagination of the writer. It’s easy to read, and a delight to tumble into. Fleetwood is a strong protagonist, feisty and brave, generous and sensitive, and it’s pleasing to see the world through her eyes. Fleetwood’s observations and her dilemmas expose the patriarchal world that women had to navigate as well as the cruelty of poverty, the male abuse of power and privilege—without so much as a word about it. A lovely book, a worthy debut novel, a satisfying read.

Published in New York Journal of Books: https://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/book...

 

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A woman’s body

Broadcast on CBC Radio

I wrote this essay in 1995, and it was broadcast on CBC regional radio and published in the Coast News, the Sechelt Sun and The Sun of Gibsons. I’m going to read it again on Wednesday evening, March 6th at the Gibsons Public Library in honour of International Women’s Day.

Writers Sheila Cameron, Jennie Tschoban, JoAnne Bennison and Paula Howley will also read original work with the theme of A Woman’s Body.

A Woman’s Body

It was no surprise that A woman’s body was found today. No surprise hearing another news headline summarizing the end of the life of another young woman. Even though this is not an unusual story, I find myself profoundly disturbed that Melanie Carpenter was abducted, that she was missing and that she was found, dead.

Melanie Carpenter. What is so haunting about this news story? Is it the benign nature of the tanning salon, that innocuous, familiar-sounding place we’ve all passed by? The casual event of some man walking in the door? The front desk training, ‘be friendly, smile at the customers’? Is it the closeness of her adbuctor’s face against the cash machine? Is it because we can see ourselves, punching ‘ok’ at the neon instructions of convenience banking? We can just feel her standing there, behind him. His back is turned, why doesn’t she just run? Why doesn’t she call for help? If you’re a woman, you imagine yourself in the situation and you think: what would I have done?

The more things stay the same

A woman’s body. Years of training watching films, television, newspapers and magazines, when I hear ‘a woman’s body’ I expect to hear: ‘was found dead’. Usually it is the naked body of a woman, not a person with a name. On so many levels I know this woman’s body drives the kids to soccer, makes the meals, puts her arms around her crying child, or caresses her lover, this person is so capable of being found cold, naked, dead.

It makes me think of the stories about ancient cultures making sacrifices to the gods so their crops would be plentiful. The sacrifice chosen at harvest time was usually a young, beautiful maiden plucked out of the prime of her youth and swept up onto the burning sacrificial pile, full of terror at her impending doom while everyone else stood around watching. If the sacrifice were properly executed, the society would continue to prosper. Isn’t this familiar? The fear, the random selection, the woman’s body sacrificed, the status quo maintained?

And yet. Isn’t this another example of a ‘woman’s issue’? A Woman’s issue: something to be whispered about behind the bathroom door at that time of the month, something unpleasant and special, peculiar to women. An embarrassment, like menstruating, that women have to take care of because it only affects them. As a woman, you understand that it’s your business to keep yourself smelling nice and it’s up to you to get rid of the blood.

Is violence against women a ‘women’s issue’?

Yet, look again. There is a man in this picture. There he is, eyes focused on the blinking screen. Who decided he was ready to be let loose from prison into society? Who wrote up the rule that a prisoner having served two thirds of his sentence must be released, even if he is a ‘high risk to re-offend’? Did anyone provide that this obsessed man get rehabilitation from his own abused past? Who abused him? Wasn’t there a man in that picture, too, making him feel deeply humiliated, hurting him so profoundly as a child he was described by a psychologist as having “a fairly advanced antisocial personality disorder”? Yes, there’s definitely more than a beautiful woman in this picture. There would be no murder, if all of us weren’t there, allowing it to happen.

And what about the focus of this picture? It’s really clear, almost shining around Melanie  Carpenter’s beautiful blonde body, up there on the sacrificial pile. If she weren’t the supple object of Everyman’s desire, wouldn’t the story be tucked onto page six, sandwiched inconspicuously between advertisements of ordinary things, like automobiles and tanning salons? If she were a prostitute, wouldn’t it be her fault? If she were elderly, wouldn’t her age be the emphasized detail? If she were a woman of color – I cannot remember this kind of attention being paid to the disappearance of a woman of color.

Even as police searched for her, a home video of Melanie Carpenter in a bathing suit was broadcast widely, again and again. For whom was that interesting or even relevant? There is a connection between Melanie Carpenter’s murder and the ubiquitous advertisements and yes, news stories which sensationalize us, which hold us up, barely dressed, image by image, advertisement by advertisement, story by story as a sexual object for the pleasure, the humor and fascination of men.

By the same token, isn’t it just a little bit disturbing that most men don’t have to feel anything but perhaps a morbid fascination and a low-grade, second-degree fear that maybe, someday this could happen, not to them directly, but to someone they know and love? Chances are, statistics are, it’s not going to happen to them. No man really has to fear being abducted and raped and murdered and left naked and cold in a ditch.

But as a woman, with a woman’s body, it’s something I am aware of every day of my life. Although it may be my direct problem that men are so capable of killing me, it’s not just my issue because I’m a woman. Melanie Carpenter’s abductor wasn’t an aberration. He’s our next-door neighbor in a community which hasn’t figured out how to handle the overflowing problem of family violence and sexual abuse. He breathes the air we breathe, watches our tv shows and advertisements. He goes to our schools and churches, learns what we learn.

Melanie Carpenter’s murderer is a product of our Canadian community; he was raised in our culture, which doesn’t quite know how to heal itself, or even deter itself effectively with punishment. Melanie’s death is an earmark of the staus quo, which trivializes women. Her death is what we get for our love of violence and humiliation in sports, films and video games; when we treat Violence Against Woman as inevitable in countless stories in every media, stories which wouldn’t get off the proverbial ground without the dead body of a woman discovered in the first five minutes.

Are you tired of hearing this? I’m tired of seeing myself murdered day after day. I’m tired of hearing a woman’s body has been found. I’m tired of  the fear.I ache to be rid of the dark image in my mind’s eye of someone with a body just like mine, her hands tied behind her back, stabbed in the stomach, wrapped in a sleeping bag, discarded on a dirt road. And I want to know: how close does it have to get to you, personally, for you to see that this ‘women’s issue’ is about all of us? Must your wife be murdered? Your daughter raped?

Melanie Carpenter’s death is a much larger picture with all of us in it, smiling for the camera. To prosper, we don’t need another sacrifice to the gods of the status quo. We need to change.

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San Francisco Writer’s Conference, tidbits

Just got back from The San Francisco Writer’s Conference, a 4-day immersion into all things publishing. For me, a first time author with a prize-winning debut novel, the conference was nevertheless a really dense, comprehensive sharing of knowledge and lived experience of publishing and writing today. Workshops and sessions were as much as one person could soak up. There wasn’t one in which I didn’t learn something new. There were also ample opportunities to meet other writers and other professionals related to publishing – editors, marketing gurus, even Mark Coker! Someone took a pic of me n’ Mr. Smashwords, but I don’t know who it was!

The pitch practice sessions were excellent and so needed, and a real service to writers. The exhibit hall allowed us all to meet and greet professionals who have created valuable apps and programs for writers and provided a place to gather and chat. (It was noticeably absent of predatory publishing houses, another relief). When I looked back on each day’s offerings, I was super impressed at the depth of knowledge and experience; the thoughtful and thorough planning to cover almost every aspect of writing and publishing. There was an enormous amount of advice on Self Publishing and a couple of sessions on the changing landscape of publishing in general, but I missed those!

The keynote speakers were inspiring. Here’s Jose Antonio Vargas, who pointed out, in a heartbreaking speech that despite being a star contributing member of society, ‘there is no process’ towards legal citizenship for him and others who came to America as immigrant children, illegally.

Jane Friedman hit it out of the park – using the terrified image of a black cat, with her keynote about ‘Author Anxiety’.

And all the organizers, although harried and pulled in a thousand different directions, were passionate about writing and enthusiastic about their ‘showtime’ at this beloved conference!

Who Said That?

I’ve spent the last few afternoons, post San Francisco Writer’s Conference, on Twitter, quoting the varied presenters who spoke tidbits of meaning to those of us living The Writing Life.  Even out of context, they’re gems. My hashtags were #miningthegold and #writingcommunity. Since I write to share, here are a few:

From @LaurieMcLean conference Organizer, in the workshop ‘Making This Your Best Writer’s Conference Ever’ there was the suggestion that we “create an ACTION list of what to do after each session, put it on a calendar” when we get back, and “every day, do 3 things to achieve your goal”.

Some tidbits felt like ‘aha’s’!

“make small goals/steps that can be measured” and

“play the long game – rejection is temporary and fleeting”.

“Publishing is a business; you’re looking for a business partner to invest in your product.”

Who said that? Was it Kevin Smokler? Nina Amir?

“10 per cent of books that get published are beautifully written. The rest? The idea is good and the writer speaks well.”

I think it was Nina, in a discussion of Author Platform and Know your Audience, who asked: “Who are the first 300 people who will care about your book? In other words, these people are your audience. Who are they?” You are writing for them!

Genre definitions:

High concept = easily explained; plot driven

Up market = Book club favorite, character-driven, plot is in the background, language = more elevated

Womens’ fiction = by women, about women & women’s issues, a quieter plot

Literary Fiction = voice-driven – sometimes tough subject matter

Describing Literary Fiction:
“ugly is illuminated by beautiful language”

On another topic altogether: Here’s Praveena, a volunteer who wanted a copy of my book!

 

During the conference, the weather was on and off horrible; frightening really and at one point a house in Sausalito slid down the embankment where it stood and crossed the street in the mud!

Someone said: ASK YOUR AGENT

“Are you an editorial agent? Or a shark agent?”

Agent Patricia Nelson said, referring the the ‘long game’

“Every agent works differently. I am not an agent who blitzes it and then it’s dead.”

Who said this?

“Publishing is a waiting game. You have to have rhino skin. Don’t let emotions drive the bus.”

Laurie McLean: “Think of us like plumbers, we’re a necessary evil.”

Carla King said:  “A podcast is an amazing way to attract audience.”

Find me and other @SFWC tidbits on Twitter: @CateHicks

 

Next up: weighing in on PITCH SESSIONS.

The Value of Pitch Sessions

 

 

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The Smoking Room

Gibsons Public Art Gallery announces a pop-up exhibit for one evening only, Monday, March 11th from 6:30 – 9:30, called The Smoking Room by artist Gordon Halloran. The interactive temporary, immersive installation can be experienced during a three hour window. For more information, (604) 989-8634. Or contact the artist directly at: gordon (at) paintingsbelowzero (dot) com

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