Rob Mclennan's Blog, page 334

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Adrienne Gruber

Adrienne Gruber is the author of two full-length poetry collections, Buoyancy Control (BookThug) and This is the Nightmare (Thistledown Press), and three chapbooks, Mimic (Leaf Press), Everything Water (Cactus Press) and Intertidal Zones (Jack Pine Press). She has been a finalist for the CBC Literary Awards in poetry, Descant’s Winston Collins Best Canadian Poem Contest and twice for ARC’s Poem of the Year Contest. Her poem Gestational Trail was awarded first prize in The Antigonish Review’s Great Blue Heron Poetry Contest in 2015 and she won the bpNichol Chapbook Award for Mimic in 2012. Originally from Saskatoon, Adrienne lives in Vancouver with her partner Dennis and their daughters Quintana and Tamsin.
1 - How did your first book or chapbook change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?My first book, This is the Nightmare (Thistledown Press), was published in 2008. It changed my life mainly because it helped me to get grants and some short-term writing-related work, which helped buy me some time to work on new poetry. This resulted in several chapbooks, one of which won the 2012 bpNichol Chapbook Award, which provided me with some money and recognition, etc. So, essentially my first book got the ball rolling. Having said that, it has always felt like a young first book. Much of the work was written in my early twenties. My most recent collection, Buoyancy Control (BookThug), spans a later and longer period of my life and the length of time I spent writing the book allowed me to mature as a poet. I spent several years revising Buoyancy Control with the help of some stellar poets who provided me with incredible feedback through written comments and conversations. Without those experiences Buoyancy Control would be a very different book.
I like to think my recent work is tighter and has less of a desire to prove itself. My biggest fear has always been that my poetry isn’t ‘smart enough’ and I think I’m finally able to see how that fear has been holding me back.
2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?Let’s be real, I came to poetry because fiction and non-fiction scared the shit out of me and poetry seemed like the easiest and safest way to express myself. I’ve always had issues with intellectual confidence and for some reason I envisioned poetry as this shortcut to expressing myself – short-term pain for long term gain, kind of? Weird, I know. In a way, I’m grateful for the naivety I had in those early years of writing because it shielded me from psyching myself out. I wrote poetry prolifically all through high school and in my early twenties, thinking I was cheating my way into being a writer because I could sit down and whip off two or three poems in an afternoon and call it a day. By the time I fully realized that writing poetry – good poetry, that is – is hard work, excruciating at times, I had been writing for over a decade and had already written my way through a bazillion poems that sucked and managed to rework a small handful of pieces and get them published in literary magazines. So being a little smug about being prolific worked to my advantage in a way. It allowed me to write through about a decades worth of clichéd lines and suffocating imagery and build my revision skills.
At one point I discovered I had no real desire to write fiction (it started out with intimidation of the genre, but then I realized there was just no drive within me to write it) but I was interested in non-fiction. I took a non-fiction course at UBC while doing my MFA and bumbled my way through it but just working in the genre for a bit confirmed my desire to explore it further.
Finishing Buoyancy Control and working on the first draft of my third poetry collection has me completely in love with poetry. There is so much a person can do within the genre; it seems to have no bounds. I love how the language in a poem can be both rich and simple. There are poems I’ve read when I was a teenager that have stayed with me my entire life. Poetry will always be what I return to, but last year I began a project that needed to be written as non-fiction, so that’s another thing I’m working on currently. It’s been an incredible learning experience. Scary to not just be dipping my toes into this genre but actually running full force into the swell. Terrifying, but radically fun and rewarding.
3 - How long does it take to start any particular writing project? Does your writing initially come quickly, or is it a slow process? Do first drafts appear looking close to their final shape, or does your work come out of copious notes?My weakness is that I tend to be a quality over quantity person. My revision process has me trying to move away from that and recognize that how much I produce does not equal writing success. I like to feel like I’m accomplishing something, that I’m being productive, so the number of poems written (or started – sometimes writing the first couple of lines for multiple poems makes me feel productive) or the amount of pages of non-fiction written in one sitting mean something to me. Starting projects is something I’m good at. I love starting a new writing project. It’s after I’ve written a dozen or so poems for the project that I start losing momentum. Then I usually start a different project with the hopes of coming back to the first one.
Though truthfully, my work habits completely changed after I had kids. For the first year after my first daughter was born I didn’t write a thing and I was half-convinced my writing career was over. I tried not to worry or obsess about it but I was panicked at the thought of having so little time and energy to write. When I began to work on poetry again, it turned out that first year of parenting was a much-needed reprieve and I suddenly had loads to say. I wrote the entire first draft of my third manuscript when my daughter was two-years-old, much of it during her (wonderfully predictable) afternoon naptime. I credit her for forcing me into a new phase of discipline, where I no longer mess around on social media or clean the house when I have an hour of time; I get shit done. My youngest is eleven months and I’m back in that anxious phase of feeling like I have little time and energy to work and it’s driving me a bit mad. I keep reminding myself that this is all par for the course when you have a baby under one.
4 - Where does a poem usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?I usually have a vision for a book very early on, but that book’s vision might change dramatically from the early stages to the time it’s published. I always prefer working on a whole book because it helps motivate me. I write for the future love of the book in my hands.
5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings? I love readings but still, after twenty years of doing them, I get very nervous. I simultaneously doubt the strength of my work and wonder why I’ve been asked to read alongside other poets who are clearly literary geniuses. I basically feel like a giant poser. After the reading is done I always feel high and excited and anxious to get back to writing and wish I did readings every night. It’s a really uncomfortable dichotomous state and hard on my stomach.
6 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?My current questions are;
Why did birth move into the hospital?What happens when we try to intervene in and control the physiological process of birth?Why are we always trying to control women’s bodies?Who is making dinner tonight?Why does my youngest keep pulling on her ears?Will my house ever stop being sticky?
7 – What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Does s/he even have one? What do you think the role of the writer should be?I think this is a question for Google.
I don’t have a good answer, but I recently read This is Happy by Camilla Gibb and loved this:
We come to know ourselves only through stories. We listen to the stories of others, we inherit the stories of those who came before, and we make sense of our own experiences by constructing a narrative that holds them, and holds us, together. Stories are how we make sense of our lives. I have a job to do as a storyteller: we all do. To tell stories that make us knowable to others, most importantly our children. To give them the tools to help them know themselves. And perhaps we come to know ourselves differently as a consequence.
8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?Essential. I cringe to think of the version of Buoyancy Control that would have been published had I not worked with the editors I had. It wouldn’t have been a bad book, but it certainly wouldn’t have been as tight. I can justify every word choice, line break and stanza, and each form I chose for the poems. I like knowing that every poem is meant to be in the book and needs to be there. There is nothing I would cut from the book. I couldn’t say the same thing about the draft I had a year ago.
9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?You will never be less busy than you are right now. So get it done.
10 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?My writing routine shifts depending on my parenting situation. Before kids I would write in bursts, working five or six hours at a coffee shop. In reality I would spend a lot of time on social media or stupid internet sites and get about an hour or two of actual work done. Lately it’s giving myself permission to not work on writing until my youngest turns one and then re-negotiating this hiatus. I’m trying to have faith in my ability to get back at it once the chaos calms down a bit. Or get back at it in spite of the chaos.
A typical day for me right now is spending 2-3 hours trying to get my kids dressed and out of the house so I can get my coffee.
At this point I pretty much spend every spare second I have that isn’t sleep-deprived revising the work that I wrote last year. I recently started a couple of new pieces but I have no idea where the work is headed.
11 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?These days my writing only gets stalled by my kids. I’m sure if I didn’t have them there would be other things that would stall me, but right now they’re the big obstacle (I say this with fierce love). I’m not lacking inspiration, I’m lacking time, energy and brainpower.
I spend most of my days longing for time to work on writing projects and planning my next two-hour stint at a coffee shop. What I’m currently trying to do is get even twenty minutes of work done in the evenings after my kids are in bed so that I feel like I’m still producing (while also recognizing that I gave myself a full year to get back at it, so anything I produce right now is gravy). Along with that comes my attempt to recognize that this period of raising young children is finite, that there will come a day when I start to get some of my time back.
12 - What fragrance reminds you of home?The smell of a wetsuit.
13 - David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?Science, definitely. Biology in particular. I spent a lot of time researching various sea creatures while writing the poems in Buoyancy Control. It was an exciting time. If I had known I could have that much fun learning about reproduction and mating I would have considering taking some biology courses. My current work focuses on pregnancy and birth, so I’ve spent time reading about and researching these topics – more biology. My mother, who’s a biochemist, always says that biology is akin to art and I get that now. There’s so much beauty and complexity in how our bodies function and how we mate and reproduce.
14 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?The work of my peers has been crucial. I read primarily poetry and creative non-fiction these days and am feeling really awakened by what I’m reading.
15 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?Travel to Italy as an adult. Do a food tour of India. Scuba dive in Thailand. Eat the inside of a loaf of French bread.
16 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?I would be a midwife. I’m strongly considering this right now.
17 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?I can’t not write. The alternative is that I am chronically depressed and feel like I’ve hobbled myself. Of course, I’ve done and will continue to do a myriad of other things to make money/feed myself. But I can’t have a meaningful life without writing.
18 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?So many great books to love. Again, I have kids so every time I finish a book it’s a huge victory. I recently read Soraya Peerbye’s Tell: poems for a girlhood and was completely captivated by it. Although I read it some time ago, Ongoingness: The end of a Diary by Sarah Manguso opened my eyes to what a poetic memoir could look like. It’s a stunning book.
The last great film I saw was Trainwreck with Amy Schumer. In the theatre. With all the popcorn.
19 - What are you currently working on?I’m working on a third collection of poems called Q & A about my first pregnancy and the birth of my third daughter. I’m also working on a book of creative non-fiction about the pregnancy and birth of my second daughter. I’m a little afraid that I’m going to have to have a third child just to have more material for future projects.
12or 20 (second series) questions;

Queen Mob's Teahouse : Emilie Lafleur interviews Brad Casey

As my tenure as interviews editor at Queen Mob's Teahouse continues, the fourteenth interview is now online: Brad Casey [pictured] interviewed by Emilie Lafleur. Other interviews from my tenure include: an interview with poet, curator and art critic Gil McElroy, conducted by Ottawa poet Roland Prevost, an interview with Toronto poet Jacqueline Valencia, conducted by Lyndsay Kirkham, an interview with Drew Shannon and Nathan Page, also conducted by Lyndsay Kirkham, an interview with Ann Tweedy conducted by Mary Kasimor, an interview with Katherine Osborne, conducted by Niina Pollari, an interview with Catch Business, conducted by Jon-Michael Frank, a conversation between Vanesa Pacheco and T.A. Noonan, "On Translation and Erasure," existing as an extension of Jessica Smith's The Women in Visual Poetry: The Bechdel Test, produced via Essay Press, Five questions for Sara Uribe and John Pluecker about Antígona González by David Buuck (translated by John Pluecker), "overflow: poetry, performance, technology, ancestry": kaie kellough in correspondence with Eric Schmaltz and Mary Kasimor's interview with George Farrah.

Further interviews I've conducted myself over at Queen Mob's Teahouse include: Stephanie Bolster on Three Bloody Words, Claire Farley on Canthius, Dale Smith on Slow Poetry in America, Allison Green, Meredith Quartermain, Andy Weaver, N.W Lea and Rachel Loden.

If you are interested in sending a pitch for an interview my way, check out my "about submissions" write-up at Queen Mob's; you can contact me via rob_mclennan (at) hotmail.com

two poems:

Hemingway floats,

            Now this old man            has ripened sweetly.                        Jane Munro, Blue Sonoma
A sextet tale of cats, domesticated. Sing: poly, poly. The sun sets and it rises, also. Made this day from earth. The body stands, like butter. Pounding, chest. Inside that loft, such Nobel composition. Studio, arranged. Head in hands in hands in hand. Tumbler, this knot of bone. Such contradiction: iron fireplace, this heat. Invention of the fur, the furl, paw telescopes. An extra claw. Sea-faring, doubtful mews. A line of craters, causes. Calm things, fathom. Christened. Pronoun, woman. Wife. A hard-back chair. Administers. What we might know of oracles. Penny function. His last red cent.



Arboretum

Every few days another moth appears. Michael Lithgow, Waking in the Tree House
Meaning carries blood, an impact. Baby laughs. Her fingers lift a leaf, to mouth. Rose and Wren, entangled. Quoting: happenstance. Water, audience. The threat of rain. Angora: tension, pulled. Knelt down, sharpened. Gravity: a zero orbit. Tulips, disassemble. Sweep. Ornamental; tree-lined, narrative. An atmosphere. Sunrise. Flicker, fibre. Trembled. Somewhere, swings. The clouds were mountains. Woolen. My body is a conifer; my heart a sugar maple. As long as there are facts. Dappled, snow-stitched. Cut from whole cloth. Fly wheel, treadle, maidens. A wooden lift. Mother-of-all.

my Patreon patron-only blog : Tales of my father: creative non-fiction and on and on and on,

Since building myself a Patreon author page , I've also been posting to a password-protected patron-only blog. I thought it might be worth reprinting the occasional post here, for the sake of general interest. Perhaps it might be worth tossing a ducat or two towards?

Here's a post from June:

For a variety of reasons, I’ve been thinking, again, about the literary memoir. I’ve been telling myself for months that, once my manuscript of short fiction, “On Beauty,” is completed and out of the house (this year, I keep telling myself; this year), I’m going to re-enter and rework my post-mother creative non-fiction project, “The Last Good Year” [a variety of work-in-progress sections are posted here] (and once that done, of course, returning to spend a year or two completing “Don Quixote,” a project I wrote of in this space a few weeks back). Prompted by my mother’s death in August, 2010, I’d spent the better part of three years attempting on a better understanding of her, her life and our relationship, composing a portrait of my mother, both as I knew her, and prior to me knowing her (when she was quite different, I’d learned). I wanted some clarity. And besides, I was getting too old to still carry certain things around with me.Even as I worked on “The Last Good Year,” I was conscious of the fact that I was focusing on her over my father. Sure, it was the point of the memoir/portrait, but there was still the decision of writing one over the other; might I attempt one around him down the road? I was years away from that (and still am, really). I was already aware of other writers who had worked on creative non-fiction, including those brilliant early titles by Ottawa writer Elizabeth Hay, but it was really the anthology The Heart Does Break: Canadian Writers on Grief and Mourning(Penguin, 2009), edited by Jean Baird and George Bowering, that gave me a particular kind of permission to finally write after my mother had passed. The prose of Susan Howe’s That This (New Directions, 2011) was also an influence, as was, more abstractly, the memory of American poet Charles Olson’s The Post Office: A Memoir of His Father (Grey Fox Press, 1975), a slim volume I must have read some ten years prior. Since those days, of course, there are brilliant mother-memoirs from Jeanette Winterson and Priscila Uppal, both of which I’d highly recommend.I’ve had my eye on creative non-fiction for some time, finally sitting down to focus on the form during my time in Alberta in 2007-8, after filing away numerous examples and considerations for years. I’ve an unpublished non-fiction manuscript from my time in Alberta, and a subsequent one around my time in Toronto (fragments of both appear as columns during those periods for Open Book: Ontario), both completed (or abandoned) before those few, dark days of August, 2010. It wasn’t until I began “The Last Good Year” that it felt as though the form was really starting to “click” with me; far too often I require a failed manuscript or two in any form before I manage to understand the possibilities of utilizing that form in a useful way, and creative non-fiction has been no different.Otherwise, prompted by discovering the identity of my birth mother and opening an email contact (nothing else yet, for a variety of reasons) some two years ago, I’ve sketched out some scattered notes around some of that, but time (ie: babies) hasn’t really allowed me to focus on the project, let alone the knowledge that I might never be able to have the permission to do anything with it. Some of the stories are not mine to tell, and therefore, I must keep such to myself (but that doesn’t prevent me from writing on any of it, for the sake of attempting to wrap my head around what all of it is and means).On the day our wee girl Aoife was born (April 16, 2016), I finished reading (with a couple hours to spare) Jean McKay’s first book, Gone to Grass (Coach House Books, 1983), a compelling and lively prose work composed around memories of her father. Might I ever write on mine? I certainly don’t want to be in a hurry; such projects are often prompted by death, which also reduces the possibility for certain questions. On Sunday, my father turns seventy-five years old (we’re having a surprise birthday party for him, so shush), so I’m sketching out some short notes this week, thinking I should probably say something. As a writer, I wonder if the responsibilities for speaking at such an event become a little bit more. Should I say anything? Or have I already said enough?  

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Megan Pugh

Megan Pugh  is the author of  America Dancing: From the Cakewalk to the Moonwalk  (Yale UP, 2015). Her criticism and poetry have appeared in The Believer, Better, Denver Quarterly, La Petite Zine, The New Republic, The Oxford American, The Village Voice, and other magazines. She grew up in Memphis, was educated at Yale and UC Berkeley, and currently lives in Portland, OR, where she teaches at Lewis and Clark College.

1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?

If I hadn't started writing America Dancing during my PhD program, I probably would have dropped out. I fantasized about leaving to get an MFA in poetry, or to head back South, get a job, and write. But I decided that it would be crazy not to stick around to take my oral exams—I'd get paid to read wonderful books for a whole year! While I was at it, I realized I wanted to write a book about dance and race in America, and that I could do it right where I was. It wasn't going to set me up for a tenure-line job teaching American literature, but that was fine with me—I cared more about writing. So, in a way, the book made me stay in California, where I was lucky to work with wonderful mentors and make some very dear friends it's hard to imagine my life without.
The book shaped my first years as a parent, too. I signed a contract with Yale UP after I'd earned my degree and become pregnant with my son; I turned in the final round of edits when he was nearly two. The first year of his life, we were still in San Francisco, and I only ever left his side to write. Taking any other time for myself seemed nuts. Then we moved to Portland so I could work full-time as a visiting assistant professor, high-tailing it to finish the manuscript nights and weekends. I remember thinking that I should have been overwhelmed, but didn't have time: I just needed to take care of my family, do right by my students, and write. And then, of course, the book came out, which felt great.
At first glance, the writing I'm doing now is pretty different. America Dancing was a big cultural history, told through the work of a handful of dancers across the twentieth century. Now I'm back to poetry, working with a lot of parataxis. But no matter what I write, I can't really shake a concern for details, for the past and its hold on us. There's a lot of cultural history in my poems.

2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?

I'm not entirely sure. My mother founded and directs a ballet company, and my father is a psychotherapist, so my sister and I grew up thinking about art and bodies and stories, about what falls into and out of expression. She paints, and I write. She used to proclaim that, when we were kids, our parents told us that while she was "creative," I was "concrete"; good big sister that she is, she knows how to make me squirm! But there may be something to that distinction: she'll make these beautiful paintings, plonking in colors that aren't necessarily "there" with tremendous confidence, while I will obsess over some particular word, trying to get it right. I find it hard to abandon sentences. Or nonfiction, for that matter.

3 - How long does it take to start any particular writing project? Does your writing initially come quickly, or is it a slow process? Do first drafts appear looking close to their final shape, or does your work come out of copious notes?

I almost always move more slowly than I intend to. I take a lot of notes, and make a lot of drafts.

4 - Where does a poem usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?

Poems begin in different ways: sometimes there's a phrase I can't shake, sometimes I have a sense that different images belong together, and that I need to figure out how.
The collection I'm working on now started out as short pieces that I eventually realized belonged together. But I'm also working, with my friend Gillian Osborne, on a collaborative project about baseball. My poems for it begin, in part, when it's my turn.

5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?

I like reading aloud, though I've only done it in public a handful of times. And I like hearing other people read, though I don't do it as much as I'd like: readings are usually at night, and I've been on bedtime duty for the past few years. That's changed just within the last month; lately I've been taking long evening walks while listening to recordings of poets reading, and it's been great. 

6 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?

I tend to work from the detail up, which means that my theoretical concerns often aren't clearto me until I'm well into the actual process of writing. Then I'll realize, "Oh, right, there I go again: place and displacement/race and performance/history and how it hurts/commodification of pasts" or whatever else has shown up again.

7 – What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Does s/he even have one? What do you think the role of the writer should be?

A writer should do good work. I realize this is vague. 

8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?

I like editors. How generous for someone to go to the trouble of thinking with you, and then to help you think better, and write better!

9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?

At my house we've been reading Barbara Cooney's Miss Rumphius a lot lately. The grandfather tells his granddaughter, "You must do something to make the world more beautiful." I love this children's book, but maybe I should temper it with some Yogi Berra: "When you come to a fork in the road, take it."

10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to critical prose)? What do you see as the appeal?

It's hard for me to work on multiple pieces of writing at the same time-- I work best if I can give myself over wholly to a single project. But I think my brain works similarly whether I'm writing nonfiction or poetry: making associations, figuring out why things feel important, figuring out how to communicate that to a reader.
           11 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?

I usually wake up to my son saying "Huckle!" (He renamed me for the cat in the Richard Scarry book; this morning he asked me where my whiskers were. He calls my husband Lowly, after a very friendly worm.) Once he's out of bed, he wants to read, so we'll sit on the couch with a pile of picture books until he's ready for breakfast. After that, the days vary. I've been trying to write at nights more lately, when everyone else is asleep.

12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
The mere fact that Bernadette Mayer wrote Midwinter Day while caring for her children—let alone that it's a fabulous book—is a perpetual inspiration for me.  So are other parent-writers; I love what Mia You and Chloe Garcia-Roberts are doing over at  a. bradstreet.
At a more pragmatic level, I read and listen. Or I'll turn back to notebooks I've kept about things I've read or heard, which often jogs something.

13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?

Not a smell, but still in the air: humidity.

14 - David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?

Dance and music are both big for me. 
           15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?

Lyn Hejinian, Greil Marcus, Geoffrey G. O'Brien, Andy Horowitz, Gillian Osborne, and Tung-Hui Hu have all been various combinations of important teachers, inspirations, sounding boards, and friends. As for writers I know only through their work—I'll stick to poets in an effort to reign myself in, though this list is still going to be too short—Mayer, C. D. Wright, Susan Howe, Claudia Rankine, Edwin Denby, M. NourbeSe Philip, Frank O'Hara, John Ashbery, Robyn Schiff, Elizabeth Bishop.

16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?

Tend a small orchard.

17 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?

According to the Strong Interest Inventory, I have a lot in common with home economists. For a while, I schemed about opening a meat-and-three. I've also imagined working for a radio show, or a museum, or a historical society, or a library. I like public humanities projects.

18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?

Gut feelings. I like to write. Though I am doing "something else"—I teach.

19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?

I can't remember the order in which I recently read these great books: Virginia Woolf's Between the Acts, Teju Cole's Open City, Anne Boyer's Garments Against Women, and Robin Coste Lewis's Voyage of the Sable Venus. But it was just two weeks ago that I saw a great film: The Fits. 

20 - What are you currently working on?

The collaboration Gillian Osborne and I are working on, "The Perfect Game," follows the structure of a baseball series: she bats first, and then takes the field while I bat. We started the project after watching Matt Cain pitch a perfect game for the San Francisco Giants; in the ensuing years, we've both had babies and moved away from California, where neither of us was from to begin with. So there's a lot in there about place, spectatorship, teams, gender—as well as friendship and fellow feeling.
I'm also working on a collection of poems that explore overlapping regional and personal histories—sometimes I think of this work as a kind of chatty seance—and on a long piece that has to do, at least for now, with Roy Orbison, migraines, and women in the nineteenth century.
12 or 20 (second series) questions;

Announcing the winners of the 2016 Hillary Gravendyk Prize!

I recently judged the National Competition of the 2016 Hillary Gravendyk Prize (named after the late American poet; see my obituary for her here), counterbalancing the judge of the Regional Competition, Megan Gravendyk Estrella. As the Inlandia Institute posted recently on their Facebookpage, the winners have now been announced (I’ve included my selections in bold, although the list of finalists is a combination of lists by both judges). Congratulations to all! The two winning manuscripts (National and Regional) will be published next year. As I wrote of the winning (National) manuscript: “Traces of a Fifth Column,” the National winner of this year’s Hilary Gravendyk Prize, is a manuscript composed as of a series of dense, lively fragments across a wide canvas, each of which are more than capable of carrying the weight of the entire collection. “Traces of a Fifth Column” is a rich, meditative collage of essay-sketches that attempt to comprehend, through exploring meaning, language and being.


Thank you to all who entered. We are grateful for your words.
And thank you to our judges, rob mclennan and Megan Gravendyk Estrella, for choosing this year's books.
••••••••••
National
Winner: Traces of a Fifth Column by Marco Maisto
First Runner Up:Letdown by Sonia Greenfield
Second Runner Up:In This Housing by Mary Wilson
Regional
WinnerGods Will for Monsters by Rachelle Cruz
First Runner Up:Eyelets Under Sun by Lauren Henley
Second Runner Up:Wild Embrace by Tim Hatch
Finalists:Medusa Reads La Negra’s Palm by Elizabeth AcevedoNostalgia for a World Where We Can Live by Monica BerlinMaybe To Region by Monica BerlinFIGHTING EXILE by Terry BrixPalace of Conferences by Andrew CantrellNimrod in Hell by James CapozziPity the Lifeboat Poems by Colleen CariasUs Mouth by Nikia ChaneyA Feeling For Good Water by Elizabeth ChapmanTalking to Yourself Is Fine by Sally DawidoffAn Aperture MC HylandLittle Yellow Father by Kiandra JimenezLight Into Bodies by Nancy Chen Long Brother Bullet by Cassandra LopezReaper’s Milonga by Lucian MattisonOf All Places In This Place Of All Places by Joe Milazzo Working With a First and Second Language by John MillerYesterday It Poured by Tim PerezLostness by Cindy RinneElegy with Trench Art and Asanas and Other Poems by Jane SatterfieldGenerating the Wild by Tyler Stallings[addendum] by B.P. SuttonWhales in the Water Tank by Micah TasakaGhost Limnology by Lisken Van Pelt Dusbrightness this by Franciszca Voeltz

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Stephen Maher

Stephen Maher is a novelist and journalist based in Ottawa. In 2012, he published his first novel, Deadline , a political thriller. As an investigative journalist, he has received a National Newspaper Award, a Michener Award, a Canadian Hillman prize and two Canadian Association of Journalism awards. He is a 2016 Harvard Nieman fellow. Maher was born in France and raised in Nova Scotia. He has lived in Toronto, Newfoundland, Jamaica, Japan, France and the United States.  He lives in Ottawa with his partner, Camille, and his old sailboat, Free Spirit.

1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?
My first book, Deadline, didn't change my life hugely. It did change the way some people saw me in the world where I spend a lot of time: the political bubble in Ottawa. It's a Canadian political thriller, so that's where it had the most impact.

It was an attempt to do something that is really journalistic, to explain the world of politics, this world that often looks quite dark and cynical, full of power-grasping, ruthless people. I wrote it, in part, because I felt that I couldn't tell the whole truth through journalism.

My second book, Salvage , is more personal. It's set on the South Shore of Nova Scotia, a part of the world that I love. I have more mixed feelings about the political world here in Ottawa.  

2 - How did you come to fiction first, as opposed to, say, poetry or non-fiction?
I had been poking away at fragments of fictional things since I was a child, but never stuck with anything long enough to finish it until I put myself on my old sailboat at anchor and started writing Salvage. I put myself in a situation where I would either write every day or waste my vacation sitting on a boat by myself. I had a gasoline generator, to power my laptop, and two uninterrupted weeks. I spend 14 to 16 hours a day writing by myself. By the end of my vacation, I had finished the first draft of Salvage.

3 - How long does it take to start any particular writing project? Does your writing initially come quickly, or is it a slow process? Do first drafts appear looking close to their final shape, or does your work come out of copious notes?
I start by writing 75 pages or so, trying to feel my way through the material, then stop, set the work aside and think about the story, the characters, the structure. In my next burst, I design the plot, scene by scene, figuring out what should happen, making notes, structuring the story but not writing anything much. That feels odd, strangely unproductive, but I think it is a more productive process for me than trying to feel my way forward. Then, when the story is designed, I set it aside again. When I return to it, I might rewrite the first bit I wrote and then proceed, putting flesh on the skeleton story. Then, when that is done, I put it aside again, and begin the rewriting process, which is the hardest, least fun part.   

4 - Where does a work of fiction usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?
I am usually thinking about the next book while I am writing the current one. I will sometimes have a few ideas that I go back and forth to, trying to decide what would be more interesting. So far, I have finished everything I started. I don't write short stories or poetry or non-fiction, except for journalism. My writing has two modes: daily political journalism and fiction.

5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
I enjoy doing them, but not hugely. It's nice to get the sense of how your words come alive to people, but I think public readings are fairly low on the scale of satisfying public performance. Compared to a play or a concert, they can be kind of flat. I've been to a fair number of readings, including some by great writers, and I find the reading part is often kind of flat. The question-and-answer part is usually better. The best I've attended was with David Sedaris, who just had everybody laughing and feeling good. 

6 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?
I don't have theoretical concerns in my writing, I don't think, but I am working with themes. My first book, Deadline, was about power, its uses and abuses. Salvage is about love, death and community solidarity. My next book is about social media, the changing sense of self and narcissism, more current questions.   

7 – What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Does s/he even have one? What do you think the role of the writer should be?
Writers are story tellers. Humans need stories as much as we need food. Stories allow us to order the chaotic world. The role of the writer is to tell stories that help people come to terms with the world, and themselves, by telling stories that feel right. Any other role is necessarily subordinate to that, and hugely less important. For instance, I enjoy Stephen King's political commentary, which seems to spring from the same passionate sense of decency that we see in his stories, but it not hugely significant. He is a writer. His stories matter. His commentary doesn't matter much. There are occasional figures -- like Andre Malraux -- who play a significant political role, but they are rare.

8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
I don't find it difficult. I welcome it and I have been fortunate to have good editors.

9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
Don't talk about what you're writing, because it will kill the impulse to tell the story and you will end up speaking it instead of writing it.

10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (fiction to journalism)? What do you see as the appeal?
Fiction is harder than journalism, because in journalism you are basically telling people stories you have learned about. If you have information people want, they need to read your stories. With fiction, you must invent stories that touch something in people. I am drawn to it, though, because it is deeper, more meaningful, and because of the creative high when the writing is going well.  

11 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?
I write fiction in spurts, in isolation, on my old sailboat or in a cabin or beach house. When I can set aside time for writing, it is all I want to do. Wake up, write. Go for the odd run. Write more. Eat a sandwich. Write. I like to be alone and I like to do it all day, for days at a time, so that I get into a different place. I can't do the thing that many writers do, where they get up early every day and write for an hour before they do some other job.

12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
I sometimes like to float in the water, hanging onto my anchor line, with my ears in the water and my eyes closed, and will the story to reveal itself to me. Running can also be good.

13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?
There's a distinct low-tide mud-flat smell that tells you you're in the Maritimes, and there are mussel beds nearby. 

14 - David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?
Movies. Gore Vidal wrote a piece for New York review of Books in 1973 where he showed how many bestselling novels can be thought of as warmed over movies. Cinema has had a huge influence on our thinking and reading, and it's as true for me as for anyone. These days, TV as well. I've been watching Better Call Saul , The Night Manager and other series that are, arguably, as good as anything you can read. Annie Proulx, in an essay about Brokeback Mountain , wrote that the movie is in a way a better, more complete version of the story than her original story. Film and TV have swallowed fiction. 

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1973/05/17/the-ashes-of-hollywood-i-the-bottom-4-of-the-top-1/

15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
Mordecai Richler. Margaret Atwood. John le Carré. Michel Houellebecq. John D MacDonald. Patricia Highsmith. Elmore Leonard. Gillian Flynn.

16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
Sail my boat to the Caribbean.

17 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?
I sometimes think that I would like to be a private detective. As an investigative journalist, you are always limited by ethical constraints -- the requirement to always be honest and forthcoming -- restraints that don't bind detectives. I imagine it makes it easier and more fun. On the other hand, you are pursuing private interests, and the great thing about journalism is that it's in the public interest.

18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
I have had the urge to write since I was small. It comes from the love of reading, I suppose, and the desire to be useful.

19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?
I don't know if it's great, but this week I reread The Deep Blue Good-by , the first novel in John D MacDonald's Travis McGee series of Florida thrillers. It's certainly really good. I find MacDonald a not-very-guilty pleasure. He writes so well that from time to time you think: this isn't really pulp. It is, I suppose, but it's really good.

20 - What are you currently working on?
I'm about to start rewriting a book with the working title Social, a thriller set in the world of social media marketing in New York City. 

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

Ploughshares : an interview with Diane Schoemperlen

Until the end of 2016, I'm a monthly blogger over at the Ploughshares blog! And my second post is now up: an interview with award-winning Kingston writer Diane Schoemperlen , author of the new memoir This Is Not My Life: A Memoir of Love, Prison, and Other Complications (HarperCollins, 2016). You can see the interview here . My first post, an interview with award-winning Toronto poet Soraya Peerbaye, author of Tell: poems for a girlhood (Pedlar Press, 2015), is still online here .

above/ground press 23rd anniversary parties in Toronto and Ottawa!

above/ground press turned twenty-three years old this summer, which means I'm hosting not one, but two anniversary parties!

Toronto ON: 7:30pm, Thursday, August 25: a series of readings by Braydon Beaulieu (Toronto), Ashley-Elizabeth Best (Kingston), Sean Braune (Toronto), Stephen Brockwell (Ottawa), Sharon Harris (Toronto), Aaron Tucker (Toronto) and Hugh Thomas (Montreal) at The Steady Cafe and Bar. For more information, click here . 

Ottawa ON: 7:30pm, Saturday, September 10: a series of readings by Stephanie Bolster (Montreal), Sean Braune (Toronto), Braydon Beaulieu (Toronto) and Pearl Pirie (Ottawa) at Black Squirrel. For more information, click here .

all lovingly hosted by above/ground press editor/publisher rob mclennan
$5 at the door; includes a copy of a recent above/ground press title

and don't forget the above/ground press summer sale, still going on! or the Touch the Donkey back issue sale! hooray publishing!

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Eléna Rivera

Eléna Rivera was born in Mexico City, and spent her formative years in Paris. She has also lived in the San Francisco Bay Area, Montréal and Providence, Rhode Island. She now resides in New York City.

Her book of poems, Scaffolding , is forthcoming from Princeton University Press. Other books include: Atmosphered (Oystercatcher Press, 2014), Overture (Metambesen, 2014), On the Nature of Position and Tone (Field Press, 2012) and The Perforated Map (Shearsman Books, 2011). She won the 2010 Robert Fagles prize for her translation of Bernard Noël’s The Rest of the Voyage (Graywolf Press, 2011).

How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?
That depends on what you mean by “first book:” The first book I made as a child; my first letterpress book; the first handmade book I made for a friend; my first chapbook, my first perfect-bound book? Each was a first, each marked my development as a writer in its own different way. I loved books—the paper, the look of them, the smell of them, the mystery inside them. Writing for me is the attempt to voice what is present, which I still don't “know;” it’s a way out of erasure, and each book gave me more confidence, which then gave me the courage I needed to go further. I still feel as though I’m just skimming the surface, bumping into things, being sloppy, which is why I find myself having to make order, to find the ways out of entropy and inertia.

How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?
I actually came to fiction, and writing stories, at the same time writing poems. My parents led the bohemian life of expatriates in Paris in the 60s and 70s. My father knew many poets and often played recording of poets reading. I'd paint, write poems, put on plays, write stories. In the French system too children are asked to memorize poems regularly.  I’d memorize long poems like “La Chanson de Roland,” enthralled by the sounds.

How long does it take to start any particular writing project? Does your writing initially come quickly, or is it a slow process? Do first drafts appear looking close to their final shape, or does your work come out of copious notes?
It really depends on the project, the poem; it’s different for each and every poem; it's always an experiment, a new adventure, a push past the boundaries of the habitual. I want the poem to be alive, so whatever it takes, as long as I have the courage not to give up on it too soon and to let it go when it needs to be free of me. I think of a friend who recounted an Arabic saying: An apple does not fall toward the tree.

Where does a poem usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?
Again it depends on the project. For a while I was very interested in the long poem and the serial poem. When I made letterpress books, I wrote poems to fit the conception I had of book as a whole (the font, typeface, size, paper). Then a number of years ago I started working on discreet poems to see what that kind of practice that would yield, first writing one poem a day for thirty-one days, then a book of sonnets where my plan was to write a sonnet a day for a year. Now I see this wasn't so different from the long poems, just that my intention changed. Lately I've been working with more open forms, beginning with fragments, the length ends up depending on the kind of time I have. My concern really has to do with getting more freedom, whether that's experientially and/or experimentally—each poem traces different considerations.

Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
I like re-entering a poem and hearing its sounds, hearing the unexpected that the oral rendering gives rise to—the poems often surprise me; they are more truthful than I am. I like recordings, another kind of notation. I can't tell you how many times I've listened to Oppen's Of Being Numerous.

Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?
I’m concerned with the question of freedom. How to live free? How can I live life to the fullest (most present)? What do I have to offer? How do I find my place among others? What does it mean to write in this historical moment? What about the question of suffering? What about the gap for me between the French language and the English? What about place, landscape, nature? How can I be more attentive? Do I have the courage to meet the challenges of life? Will I be true to myself? Will I be able to say what really needs to be said? We moved to America when I was thirteen, and that's when I experienced the shock of the violence in this country, the racial hatred that was all around me. I didn't understand it, but it affected me, and it enters my poems.

What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Does s/he even have one? What do you think the role of the writer should be?
That’s a big question. I don’t think I can answer a question like that in this context. I’d have to separate it from the question of what is the role of the citizen (if one can separate it), and writing is what teaches me how to be a citizen. Is it any different from being a decent human being, a person attentive to, and sensitive to the world around them? To other people around them? These are qualities that many people have, regardless of whether they are artists or not. I don’t think there’s a “should be” role for any writer. There’s always room for difference. My “role” if I have any, is to remain sensitive, conscious, and open—not to lie (to myself or someone else)—so that I can be receptive to/in the writing.

Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
I’m very lucky to have a few good friends who are excellent readers. I like some input, it helps me gauge whether what I’ve done comes across to a reader, but only when I feel I’ve gone as far as I can go.

What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
Ruth Rendell, the British author, wrote: "Don't apologize, don't explain." A difficult practice that can render a lot of freedom.

How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to translation)? What do you see as the appeal?
Translation makes sense to me as I grew up speaking French and Spanish, but I don’t consider myself a “translator,” more of an excavator. I try to meet one language with the other through the process of understanding that other text—what the other poet is doing. Translating slows one down, it teaches one to take more time with writing because with translation one has to take a lot of time just to get to that life in the other text. I feel a tremendous sense of responsibility toward the text that I'm working with. I seek in the words of the text a meeting across the divide.

What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?
I find a routine helps tremendously, but then life enters and routines are shifted and changed. As in writing poems, I like the edge between routine, and the complete unknown, the unexpected and unfamiliar.

When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
Edmond Jabès called the time in-between books “The Book of Torment.” I think it’s important to let things work themselves to the surface (even in the “torment”). You never know how or what will be generated by that period. I’m stimulated mostly by my reading or going to art exhibitions, by being attentive to what is going on around me (slowing down), and by figuring out on paper what I think and what my mind’s position is in regards to the world around me.

What fragrance reminds you of home?
The sweet smell of the old yellow Metro tickets strewn in the Paris Metro.

David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?
Everything. Nature, dreams, music, visual art, the noises of the city. I’ve had periods where film was extremely important to me. Jazz, soul, blues and world music. Opera. Flamenco. My grandfather, a botanist, inspired me. My uncle the painter Gil Cuatrecasas inspired me. My parent’s friend in Paris were all artists, musicians, so I was surrounded by music, visual art, literature, theater, since I was an infant. And various religions too, Catholicism, Zen Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhism, those practices, as well as myths and philosophies of various traditions.

What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
George Oppen, Emily Dickinson, Marina Tsvetaeva, Leslie Scalapino, Virginia Woolf, Rilke, Paul Celan, Lorine Niedecker, Marguerite Duras, Wallace Stevens, Sophocles, Alice Oswald, Shakespeare, and many many others; also my friends and mentors, and others too, too numerous to mention.

What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
More collaboration.

If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?
I was always writing or making art (painting, theater), even when I didn’t think of myself as a "writer.” I’ve had so many jobs, but writing helped me to live. Otherwise I’d love to be a visual artist, musician, or a playwright.

What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
I just had to. I never had a choice (or felt as if I has one).

What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?
I quite liked Patti Smith’s Just Kids and The Once and Future King by T.H. White, and recently I saw the films, Carol and 45 Years , both which I really enjoyed and found moving and striking in different ways. Now I'm reading James Baldwin.

What are you currently working on?
A translation of a novella by Bernard Noël.                     
                           
May 18, 2016

12 or 20 (second series) questions;