milestones...and millstones

As my thirty-third birthday approaches (I was born 30/03/1973 - how's that for a congruence of threes?), I thought I'd take a moment to mark a few recent milestones:

1) I recently completed my twentieth book review for the Winnipeg Free Press' Books Section.

I wrote my first review in 2002 and have since weighed in on such books as Sandra Birdsell's Children of the Day, Michael Redhill's Martin Sloane, and Barbara Gowdy's The Romantic...as well as Susan Swan's What Casanova Told Me, Emma Richler's Feed My Dear Dogs and David Adams Richards' River of the Brokenhearted.

Along the way, I had cause to go back and read each author's back catalogue, if I hadn't already, looking for patterns in the work, for authorial preoccupations and themes.

Writing reviews was a part of a concious attempt to broaden my knowledge of Canadian and international literature, to teach myself something new with each review, but it was also an exercize in deep reading that often took me as long as a month, that would wake me early on the days when the review was almost-past-due with ideas about how to proceed, to complete the thing and do the books justice.

In the end, I became a code-breaker but also a maker-of-connections, taking all of my impressions and theories about each book and distilling them down into 400-600 word reviews.

And so, I am pleased to note that this weekend's paper may contain two (count 'em, two) reviews of mine, of Anar Ali's Baby Khaki's Wings (short stories) and DBC Pierre's Ludmilla's Broken English (novel).

2) I got the word today that The Writers' Collective will be partnering with me to create a new bi-monthly multi-genre reading series called the Free Your Mind Writing Series.

Hosted by the best little used bookstore in Winnipeg, Aqua Books, each event will feature meaty readings from two established and one emerging writer and will be more about building an audience for Manitoba literature of all stripes than launching books.

The first event will be April 15th and will celebrate National Poetry Month, but I will be working on creating a schedule for the rest of the year over the next month or so.

I'm greatly looking forward to administering the series, as it will present me with a new kind of challenge, as well as to the readings themselves - there are so many good writers of young adult fiction, sci-fi/fantasy, mysteries, thrillers, and biographies in this province that don't get the chance to read as often as they should.

And so, if you live anywhere near here, I'd appreciate your support of the series - and also your forgiveness for the impulse to include myself in the line-up for the April reading.

3) My partner M has been busy, of late, creating multimedia slide shows with audio for The Winnipeg Free Press, where he works as a photographer.

He's created three of these soundslides since the beginning of March, spending hours researching software and hardware, hours shooting and recording audio, and hours cutting together the final projects.

I've enjoyed watching him become fascinated with this new angle on his photography...I've also enjoyed resurrecting my broadcast training, nearly ten years after I acquired it at the University of King's College in Halifax, to help him with the final product.

This past weekend, we got up at 5:00 am to attend the demolition of the old Winnipeg Arena. My contribution to the morning's work involved perched on a curb with a microphone during the blast and recording audio, shivering with early spring cold...M, on the other hand, was hopping. He scouted out my spot on the curb, shot dozens and dozens of pictures, and approached and interviewed people.

We didn't get groceries for the week as we'd planned, but we had the soundslide, 3:36 in length, cut together by 11:00 pm that night.

Tonight he's out shooting a muy-thai boxer in training for an upcoming bout for his most ambitious soundslide to date.

And so, even though I'm bound to be biased - and even though I threaten to go do other things, eyes blazing, at least once per session while we work on the soundslides - I'd just like to note how immensely proud I am of him.

...which is not to say that these projects, taken together, and strapped to my belly along with several pounds of baby, have not been wearing.

But as someone that raged against the fatigue - the IMPERATIVE to sleep - that overcame me for much of the first trimester of this pregnancy, I much prefer to be ground down and always catching up on sleep (and other projects), to struggle against deadlines and timelines, than the alternative.

And so, despite the fact that I was forced to spend the afternoon napping (I only very grudgingly nap), I am feeling extraordinarily cheerful about both the writing life and my own writing.

Fun!