Monday, May 30, 2011
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Out-of-Town Authors: Madeleine Thien
Novelist turns loss inside out in new book about survivors of Khmer Rouge regime
Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION
by: Ariel Gordon
Montreal-based writer Madeleine Thien's work has been translated into more than 16 languages. In 2010, Thien received Romania's Ovid Festival Prize, awarded each year to an international writer of promise.
This year sees the release of her second novel, which focuses on survivors of the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia.
Thien will launch Dogs at the Perimeter Monday at McNally Robinson Booksellers.
* * *
1) As a writer (someone whose artistic practice is predicated on time spent alone), how do you approach performance? What do you get out of it?
I've been sifting through the book, reading things aloud, looking for the parts that will speak. By nature, I'm shy, but I've thought so deeply about this novel that I'm incredibly happy to have the chance to introduce it, to talk about it. At the events themselves, I find I learn a great deal from the many conversations that ensue.
2) What do you want people to know about Dogs at the Perimeter?
The Khmer Rouge told people that they were alone, that they were powerless to protect those they loved, that only the regime could save them. My novel is an attempt to confront this atomization, this breakage, and to defy it. Disappearance permeates the book, but disappearance is also turned inside out.
The narrator, Janie, attempts to make sense of the fractures in her life by telling the story of two lost brothers, Hiroji and James Matsui; she disappears into their stories and, in so doing, hopes to survive.
3) Will this be your first time in Winnipeg? What have you heard?
One of the first readings I ever did was in Winnipeg, back in 2001. I love the city (it's where, in 2006, I met my partner, who is also a novelist). Friends have told me that the theatre scene and theatre community are extraordinary.
4) What are you reading right now? What are you writing right now?
I'm reading a truly great reportage, All That We Say is Ours: Guujaaw and the Reawakening of the Haida Nation.
Right now, I'm finishing a long essay on the American mid-Atlantic and South. It's part of an ongoing conversation between myself and seven international writers who were invited to tour the United States in early April.
As I've been writing, the essays of the American novelist James Baldwin have become my northern light. He is both a brilliant and a brave thinker.
5) You've written about the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia and the Japanese occupation of Malaysia. How do you keep your research material from overwhelming you?
The research overwhelms. I think it's part of the nature of what I write, what challenges me, and what propels me. For this book, in particular, the more I wrote, the more I saw that a single book could never convey the magnitude of what happened. The Cambodian genocide is so complex, so multi-layered, so tied to other histories, that we need many books.
I tried to write a story that would carry Cambodian history a little further into a wider consciousness. I wanted to create characters who took on a life of their own, who would form a bond of friendship with the reader, and this would be my way of adding to the larger story.
Ariel Gordon is a Winnipeg writer.
Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION
by: Ariel Gordon
Montreal-based writer Madeleine Thien's work has been translated into more than 16 languages. In 2010, Thien received Romania's Ovid Festival Prize, awarded each year to an international writer of promise.
This year sees the release of her second novel, which focuses on survivors of the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia.Thien will launch Dogs at the Perimeter Monday at McNally Robinson Booksellers.
* * *
1) As a writer (someone whose artistic practice is predicated on time spent alone), how do you approach performance? What do you get out of it?
I've been sifting through the book, reading things aloud, looking for the parts that will speak. By nature, I'm shy, but I've thought so deeply about this novel that I'm incredibly happy to have the chance to introduce it, to talk about it. At the events themselves, I find I learn a great deal from the many conversations that ensue.
2) What do you want people to know about Dogs at the Perimeter?
The Khmer Rouge told people that they were alone, that they were powerless to protect those they loved, that only the regime could save them. My novel is an attempt to confront this atomization, this breakage, and to defy it. Disappearance permeates the book, but disappearance is also turned inside out.
The narrator, Janie, attempts to make sense of the fractures in her life by telling the story of two lost brothers, Hiroji and James Matsui; she disappears into their stories and, in so doing, hopes to survive.
3) Will this be your first time in Winnipeg? What have you heard?
One of the first readings I ever did was in Winnipeg, back in 2001. I love the city (it's where, in 2006, I met my partner, who is also a novelist). Friends have told me that the theatre scene and theatre community are extraordinary.
4) What are you reading right now? What are you writing right now?
I'm reading a truly great reportage, All That We Say is Ours: Guujaaw and the Reawakening of the Haida Nation.
Right now, I'm finishing a long essay on the American mid-Atlantic and South. It's part of an ongoing conversation between myself and seven international writers who were invited to tour the United States in early April.
As I've been writing, the essays of the American novelist James Baldwin have become my northern light. He is both a brilliant and a brave thinker.
5) You've written about the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia and the Japanese occupation of Malaysia. How do you keep your research material from overwhelming you?
The research overwhelms. I think it's part of the nature of what I write, what challenges me, and what propels me. For this book, in particular, the more I wrote, the more I saw that a single book could never convey the magnitude of what happened. The Cambodian genocide is so complex, so multi-layered, so tied to other histories, that we need many books.
I tried to write a story that would carry Cambodian history a little further into a wider consciousness. I wanted to create characters who took on a life of their own, who would form a bond of friendship with the reader, and this would be my way of adding to the larger story.
Ariel Gordon is a Winnipeg writer.
Friday, May 27, 2011
Poems/Poms
So last night was Jennifer Still's launch of Girlwood (Brick Books, 2011), her second collection of poems.
Given the book's mid-seventies vibe, there were hand-made pom poms to go with the poems. And Jenn's mother's roller skates.
But Jenn chose to trade the swag-lamp potential of an inside event for the masses of tulips at Assiniboine Park's Leo Mol Sculpture Garden, which if you know anything about Leo Mol you know is ALSO full of naked (bronze) girls.
I was hosting and so hadn't planned to read, but Jenn phoned a few days before and told me I simply HAD to read my poem, Floodlight, which focuses on the Garden. So I did. I mean, when would I ever again have the chance to read THAT poem THERE without being escorted out by park security?
I thought I'd be the worst offender of the evening, given all the nipples in the poem. But I'm happy to say that I was bested (or is that worsted?) by Barb Schott, who very elegantly uttered the c-word...
It was also lovely to see/hear Ottawa (by way of Saskatchewan) poet Sandra Ridley again, reading from her Fallout (Hagios, 2010).
Thanks to the Assiniboine Park Conservancy for letting Jenn (and Barb and Sandra and I) in to play. Thanks too to Jenn for asking me: it was SUCH an honour.
Extra thanks to Abby, the arbitrator of the poms, for giving me an extra pom for the girl.
Given the book's mid-seventies vibe, there were hand-made pom poms to go with the poems. And Jenn's mother's roller skates.But Jenn chose to trade the swag-lamp potential of an inside event for the masses of tulips at Assiniboine Park's Leo Mol Sculpture Garden, which if you know anything about Leo Mol you know is ALSO full of naked (bronze) girls.
I was hosting and so hadn't planned to read, but Jenn phoned a few days before and told me I simply HAD to read my poem, Floodlight, which focuses on the Garden. So I did. I mean, when would I ever again have the chance to read THAT poem THERE without being escorted out by park security?
I thought I'd be the worst offender of the evening, given all the nipples in the poem. But I'm happy to say that I was bested (or is that worsted?) by Barb Schott, who very elegantly uttered the c-word...
It was also lovely to see/hear Ottawa (by way of Saskatchewan) poet Sandra Ridley again, reading from her Fallout (Hagios, 2010).
Thanks to the Assiniboine Park Conservancy for letting Jenn (and Barb and Sandra and I) in to play. Thanks too to Jenn for asking me: it was SUCH an honour.
Extra thanks to Abby, the arbitrator of the poms, for giving me an extra pom for the girl.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Out-of-Town-Authors: Roy Miki
Mannequin A MANO: Author Roy Miki
Poet reflects on our obsession with consuming commodities
Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION
by: Ariel Gordon
Vancouver-based poet Roy Miki has been called a pioneer of the Japanese-Canadian redress movement.
The Governor General's Award-winning writer will launch his fifth collection of poetry, Mannequin Rising, on Friday at Aqua Books.
His reading is a part of Asian Heritage Month's Asian Canadian Writers Showcase.
* * *
1) As a writer (i.e. someone whose artistic practice is predicated on time spent alone) how do you approach performance? What do you get out of it?
For me, a public reading gives me a more tangible means of experiencing the sound, rhythm, and form of a poem - and getting an immediate response from a reader has always been a revealing moment.
2) What do you want people to know about Mannequin Rising?
My new book comes out of a fairly lengthy period of thinking about the pervasive effects of commodity culture on our daily lives. After the heady days of identity politics, which preoccupied me for many years, I wanted to look more intimately at the implications of our obsession with consuming commodities in all of its forms, even identities.
As I sauntered around my Kitsilano neighbourhood in Vancouver with my digital camera, I found myself attracted to the figures of mannequins in the store windows. I began constructing a series of photocollages that re-situated some mannequins in different landscapes that are part of the neighbourhood, both urban and natural, or the mixing of the two. A series of poems formed in and around the collages, and soon other series, based on Granville Island in Vancouver and Shibuya and Ginza in Tokyo, took shape. These three series formed the basis of the book.
3) Will this be your first time in Winnipeg? What have you heard?
I grew up in Winnipeg. My family was part of the mass uprooting of Japanese Canadians during the 1940s. I've read here on a number of occasions and have had wonderful conversations with writers and readers about current writing.
4) What are you reading right now? What are you writing right now?
I generally read several books at the same time because I have strong interests in both creative and critical thought.
One book I'd like to mention, though, is Rene Rodin's utterly insightful and very beautifully written book Subject to Change, published by Talonbooks. It's a book of stories drawing on luminous personal moments, at the heart of which is a tender and courageous story of her father's passing.
As for my own current writing, I'm working through the final draft of a collection of essays on Asian Canadian writing, called In Flux: Transnational Shifts in Asian Canadian Writing, forthcoming from NeWest Press this fall.
5) Tell me about your work with the Japanese-Canadian redress movement.
As a child of internment I grew up with stories of the mass uprooting, and especially of the injustices suffered by my family because of the racist policies of the federal government. Getting involved in the redress movement was a natural extension of wanting to see the government acknowledge the injustices and negotiate a settlement directly with Japanese Canadians. It was a great honour and privilege to be able to participate in the movement that finally led to an agreement on Sept. 22, 1988.
Ariel Gordon is a Winnipeg writer.
* * *
This article was originally published in the Winnipeg Free Press on Sunday, May 22.
Poet reflects on our obsession with consuming commodities
Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION
by: Ariel Gordon
Vancouver-based poet Roy Miki has been called a pioneer of the Japanese-Canadian redress movement.
The Governor General's Award-winning writer will launch his fifth collection of poetry, Mannequin Rising, on Friday at Aqua Books.His reading is a part of Asian Heritage Month's Asian Canadian Writers Showcase.
* * *
1) As a writer (i.e. someone whose artistic practice is predicated on time spent alone) how do you approach performance? What do you get out of it?
For me, a public reading gives me a more tangible means of experiencing the sound, rhythm, and form of a poem - and getting an immediate response from a reader has always been a revealing moment.
2) What do you want people to know about Mannequin Rising?
My new book comes out of a fairly lengthy period of thinking about the pervasive effects of commodity culture on our daily lives. After the heady days of identity politics, which preoccupied me for many years, I wanted to look more intimately at the implications of our obsession with consuming commodities in all of its forms, even identities.
As I sauntered around my Kitsilano neighbourhood in Vancouver with my digital camera, I found myself attracted to the figures of mannequins in the store windows. I began constructing a series of photocollages that re-situated some mannequins in different landscapes that are part of the neighbourhood, both urban and natural, or the mixing of the two. A series of poems formed in and around the collages, and soon other series, based on Granville Island in Vancouver and Shibuya and Ginza in Tokyo, took shape. These three series formed the basis of the book.
3) Will this be your first time in Winnipeg? What have you heard?
I grew up in Winnipeg. My family was part of the mass uprooting of Japanese Canadians during the 1940s. I've read here on a number of occasions and have had wonderful conversations with writers and readers about current writing.
4) What are you reading right now? What are you writing right now?
I generally read several books at the same time because I have strong interests in both creative and critical thought.
One book I'd like to mention, though, is Rene Rodin's utterly insightful and very beautifully written book Subject to Change, published by Talonbooks. It's a book of stories drawing on luminous personal moments, at the heart of which is a tender and courageous story of her father's passing.
As for my own current writing, I'm working through the final draft of a collection of essays on Asian Canadian writing, called In Flux: Transnational Shifts in Asian Canadian Writing, forthcoming from NeWest Press this fall.
5) Tell me about your work with the Japanese-Canadian redress movement.
As a child of internment I grew up with stories of the mass uprooting, and especially of the injustices suffered by my family because of the racist policies of the federal government. Getting involved in the redress movement was a natural extension of wanting to see the government acknowledge the injustices and negotiate a settlement directly with Japanese Canadians. It was a great honour and privilege to be able to participate in the movement that finally led to an agreement on Sept. 22, 1988.
Ariel Gordon is a Winnipeg writer.
* * *
This article was originally published in the Winnipeg Free Press on Sunday, May 22.
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
This THURSDAY
GIRLWOOD IN THE GARDEN
an evening of poems, blossoms and pompoms!
Come wander the figures (and figuratives) of Jennifer Still’s latest collection.
Thursday, May 26, 7pm to dusk.
Leo Mol Sculpture Garden, Assiniboine Park (near the gazing pond, somewhere between
“Torso of Balance” and “Girl with Pigtails”)
FREE ADMISSION
“Crimson and Clover” readings by special guests Sandra Ridley, (Fallout, Hagios Press) and Barbara Schott, (Memoirs of an Almost Expedition, Brick Books).
“Girls Just Want to Have Fun” hosting by award-winning poet Ariel Gordon.
*Launch special: A set of handmade poms with every sale of poems!*
Catering by Terrace Fifty-Five.
In the event of rain, readings will take place in the garden gallery.
an evening of poems, blossoms and pompoms!
Come wander the figures (and figuratives) of Jennifer Still’s latest collection.Thursday, May 26, 7pm to dusk.
Leo Mol Sculpture Garden, Assiniboine Park (near the gazing pond, somewhere between
“Torso of Balance” and “Girl with Pigtails”)
FREE ADMISSION
“Crimson and Clover” readings by special guests Sandra Ridley, (Fallout, Hagios Press) and Barbara Schott, (Memoirs of an Almost Expedition, Brick Books).
“Girls Just Want to Have Fun” hosting by award-winning poet Ariel Gordon.
*Launch special: A set of handmade poms with every sale of poems!*
Catering by Terrace Fifty-Five.
In the event of rain, readings will take place in the garden gallery.
Monday, May 23, 2011
wilderness adventure
All photos Assiniboine Forest, Winnipeg, MB. May 22, 2011.
* * *
So we took the girl for a walk in the forest yesterday, promising her a 'wilderness adventure.' Which theoretically appeals to a nearly five year old more than 'a long walk.'
We had to modify our normal procedure - a hopscotching hike, both of us caught by different clumps of greenery/brownery - but it was So Very Good to have her along.
Because that means that she can come along the next time. And that there might be a next time very soon, instead of when we can somehow broker childcare. Which always takes longer and is more fraught...
Yay!
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Out-of-Town-Authors: Robert J. Sawyer
What a WONDER-ful world
Sci-fi writer posits future where creativity is prized
Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION
by: Ariel Gordon
The best gift for a writer launching his 20th book isn't a china place-setting or platinum cufflinks.
It's attending his reading and paying attention to what he or she is thinking and feeling, 20 books in...
Buying the book doesn't hurt either.
Missisauga-based science-fiction writer Robert J. Sawyer will be reading from Wonder, his 20th novel and the conclusion to the WWW trilogy, May 19 at McNally Robinson.
* * *
1) As a writer (i.e. someone whose artistic practice is predicated on time spent alone) how do you approach performance? What do you get out of it?
I love reading my work in public because the audience reaction is immediate. I wrote the chapter I will be reading at McNally Robinson almost eighteen months ago; to finally hear the audience respond to it, in real time as I present it, is wonderful. I approach public readings as performance; you'll never see me do one sitting down with my head buried in a copy of my book - I act the scene out, doing different voices for each character, and engaging with the audience; it's as much theatre as it is a reading.
2) What do you want people to know about Wonder?
It's the concluding volume of my WWW trilogy about Webmind, a consciousness that spontaneously emerged in the background of the World Wide Web; the three novels (the other two are Wake and Watch) explore whether humans can survive with our essential liberty, dignity, and individuality intact once we cease to be the most intelligent things on the planet.
3) Will this your first time in Winnipeg? What have you heard?
I come to Winnipeg a few times each year; this is my third trip so far in 2011. The first was to speak at TEDxManitoba, and the second was just to hang out with some of the local science-fiction and fantasy writers, including Sherry Peters, Bev Geddes, and Chadwick Ginther. Winnipeg is a wonderful city and I'm always happy to return (and not just because McNally Robinson has a nice big photo of me on the wall).
4) What are you reading right now? What are you writing right now?
I'm reading Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - from Domestic Abuse to Political Terror by Judith Herman, as research for the novel I'm currently writing - my 21st - which is called Triggers, and deals with the nature of memory.
5) How long would science-fiction writers survive in a world where Webmind existed?
A very long time. The thing Webmind values the most is creativity: the spontaneous generation of the new and unpredictable; he prizes this because he's incapable of it himself. And so human artists of all types are cherished by him, and those who take the longest imaginative leaps - including science-fiction writers - are valued most of all.
Ariel Gordon is a Winnipeg writer.
* * *
This article was originally published in the Winnipeg Free Press on Sunday, May 1.
Sci-fi writer posits future where creativity is prized
Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION
by: Ariel Gordon
The best gift for a writer launching his 20th book isn't a china place-setting or platinum cufflinks.
It's attending his reading and paying attention to what he or she is thinking and feeling, 20 books in...Buying the book doesn't hurt either.
Missisauga-based science-fiction writer Robert J. Sawyer will be reading from Wonder, his 20th novel and the conclusion to the WWW trilogy, May 19 at McNally Robinson.
* * *
1) As a writer (i.e. someone whose artistic practice is predicated on time spent alone) how do you approach performance? What do you get out of it?
I love reading my work in public because the audience reaction is immediate. I wrote the chapter I will be reading at McNally Robinson almost eighteen months ago; to finally hear the audience respond to it, in real time as I present it, is wonderful. I approach public readings as performance; you'll never see me do one sitting down with my head buried in a copy of my book - I act the scene out, doing different voices for each character, and engaging with the audience; it's as much theatre as it is a reading.
2) What do you want people to know about Wonder?
It's the concluding volume of my WWW trilogy about Webmind, a consciousness that spontaneously emerged in the background of the World Wide Web; the three novels (the other two are Wake and Watch) explore whether humans can survive with our essential liberty, dignity, and individuality intact once we cease to be the most intelligent things on the planet.
3) Will this your first time in Winnipeg? What have you heard?
I come to Winnipeg a few times each year; this is my third trip so far in 2011. The first was to speak at TEDxManitoba, and the second was just to hang out with some of the local science-fiction and fantasy writers, including Sherry Peters, Bev Geddes, and Chadwick Ginther. Winnipeg is a wonderful city and I'm always happy to return (and not just because McNally Robinson has a nice big photo of me on the wall).
4) What are you reading right now? What are you writing right now?
I'm reading Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - from Domestic Abuse to Political Terror by Judith Herman, as research for the novel I'm currently writing - my 21st - which is called Triggers, and deals with the nature of memory.
5) How long would science-fiction writers survive in a world where Webmind existed?
A very long time. The thing Webmind values the most is creativity: the spontaneous generation of the new and unpredictable; he prizes this because he's incapable of it himself. And so human artists of all types are cherished by him, and those who take the longest imaginative leaps - including science-fiction writers - are valued most of all.
Ariel Gordon is a Winnipeg writer.
* * *
This article was originally published in the Winnipeg Free Press on Sunday, May 1.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Alumna
So I read at my high school today, almost exactly 20 years after graduation.
All day, people kept saying how odd it must be for me, to be back...but I'm used to the idea that bricks and mortar lasts longer than people.
I think that's because I went back to the University of Winnipeg two times to take a course or two after I graduated.
But more than that, I even like the idea that a school is more than just the people that inhabited it at one time.
Because those people entrust it, bricks and mortar, to the next generation of students, the next generation of teachers.
And so it was good that I got to be a student at College Jeanne Sauve and it was good that I got to teach there, if only for a few hours, today.
Thanks to Mike McGovern for having me, thanks to the Grade 11 and 12s classes for having me, and thanks too to Diane Plamondon, my Grade 12 English teacher, for coming in to have tea with me.
I especially like that although she struggles with poetry, she's on her third bemused read of Hump.
All day, people kept saying how odd it must be for me, to be back...but I'm used to the idea that bricks and mortar lasts longer than people.
I think that's because I went back to the University of Winnipeg two times to take a course or two after I graduated.But more than that, I even like the idea that a school is more than just the people that inhabited it at one time.
Because those people entrust it, bricks and mortar, to the next generation of students, the next generation of teachers.
And so it was good that I got to be a student at College Jeanne Sauve and it was good that I got to teach there, if only for a few hours, today.
Thanks to Mike McGovern for having me, thanks to the Grade 11 and 12s classes for having me, and thanks too to Diane Plamondon, my Grade 12 English teacher, for coming in to have tea with me.
I especially like that although she struggles with poetry, she's on her third bemused read of Hump.
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Out-of-Town-Authors: Tomson Highway
The true NORTH
Most haven't seen this side of Manitoba
Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION
by: Ariel Gordon
Tomson Highway, a member of Barren Lands First Nation in northern Manitoba, is the beloved author of plays, novels and children's books.
In recent years he's also started writing and performing music, what he dubs "Cree cabaret."
The University of Manitoba's Centre for Creative Writing and Oral Culture is sponsoring a performance by Tomson at Aqua Books on Thursday.
Emma LaRoque, Neal McLeod and Duncan Mercredi will also appear as part of a bill called Cree Stories.
* * *
1) As a writer (i.e. someone whose artistic practice is predicated on time spent alone) how do you approach performance? What do you get out of it?
A writer's life is so solitary - and I love it, the solitude - that he has to break away from that solitude every once in a while and surround himself with people or he'd go crazy. So performing my cabarets does that perfectly.
I generally do a series in October, just before my partner and I leave for our winter home in France - and then in May, just before we come back to our summer home in Canada. It's the perfect balance, i.e. between the solitude that I love (in beautiful surroundings, in both countries) and the people whom I love just as much, i.e. my friends who, in essence, are the people who read my books, and love them.
2) What do you want people to know about your writing?
I want people to know that I write well and that that writing comes from northern Manitoba, and I mean the real north, where I was born and grew up, i.e. the Manitoba-Nunavut border area (near Saskatchewan), a part of the world that nobody - and I mean NOBODY, except for those of us who come from there - has ever seen, a part of the world that is so beautiful and so untouched you would cry if you were ever to see it.
Thousands of lakes, for one thing, lakes from which one can still drink the water. By comparison, Winnipeg, to us, might as well have been Rio de Janeiro or Antarctica, it was that far south of us.
3) Will this your first time in Winnipeg? What have you heard?
Will this be my first time in Winnipeg? Good grief, woman, I went to high school there, as well as my first two years of university. I mean, I may not live there but I AM from Manitoba.
4) What are you reading right now? What are you writing right now?
I am just finishing reading The Magic Mountain by German novelist Thomas Mann, in French translation, a brick of a book with the highest level of French possible, sentences an entire page long, like Proust!
What am I writing? A sort of Survival, except that mine will be the native version, i.e. an assessment of the impact of native literature on Canada since its birth some 30 years ago, in English, in French, AND in a few Native languages such as my native Cree.
Ariel Gordon is a Winnipeg writer.
Most haven't seen this side of Manitoba
Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION
by: Ariel Gordon
Tomson Highway, a member of Barren Lands First Nation in northern Manitoba, is the beloved author of plays, novels and children's books.
In recent years he's also started writing and performing music, what he dubs "Cree cabaret."The University of Manitoba's Centre for Creative Writing and Oral Culture is sponsoring a performance by Tomson at Aqua Books on Thursday.
Emma LaRoque, Neal McLeod and Duncan Mercredi will also appear as part of a bill called Cree Stories.
* * *
1) As a writer (i.e. someone whose artistic practice is predicated on time spent alone) how do you approach performance? What do you get out of it?
A writer's life is so solitary - and I love it, the solitude - that he has to break away from that solitude every once in a while and surround himself with people or he'd go crazy. So performing my cabarets does that perfectly.
I generally do a series in October, just before my partner and I leave for our winter home in France - and then in May, just before we come back to our summer home in Canada. It's the perfect balance, i.e. between the solitude that I love (in beautiful surroundings, in both countries) and the people whom I love just as much, i.e. my friends who, in essence, are the people who read my books, and love them.
2) What do you want people to know about your writing?
I want people to know that I write well and that that writing comes from northern Manitoba, and I mean the real north, where I was born and grew up, i.e. the Manitoba-Nunavut border area (near Saskatchewan), a part of the world that nobody - and I mean NOBODY, except for those of us who come from there - has ever seen, a part of the world that is so beautiful and so untouched you would cry if you were ever to see it.
Thousands of lakes, for one thing, lakes from which one can still drink the water. By comparison, Winnipeg, to us, might as well have been Rio de Janeiro or Antarctica, it was that far south of us.
3) Will this your first time in Winnipeg? What have you heard?
Will this be my first time in Winnipeg? Good grief, woman, I went to high school there, as well as my first two years of university. I mean, I may not live there but I AM from Manitoba.
4) What are you reading right now? What are you writing right now?
I am just finishing reading The Magic Mountain by German novelist Thomas Mann, in French translation, a brick of a book with the highest level of French possible, sentences an entire page long, like Proust!
What am I writing? A sort of Survival, except that mine will be the native version, i.e. an assessment of the impact of native literature on Canada since its birth some 30 years ago, in English, in French, AND in a few Native languages such as my native Cree.
Ariel Gordon is a Winnipeg writer.
Friday, May 13, 2011
Hands on: Barbara Nickel
* * *
Barbara Nickel’s fingertips on ends of pages as she flipped between poems marked by large post-its. As she stuck and unstuck the post-its while she pre-ambled the poems.
Barbara’s fingers as she raced over to Margaret Laurence’s angel* and slipped them into the angel’s papier-mache ones when asked to pose for this portrait.
And, more distantly, the idea of Barbara’s fingers on the bow of a violin, suggested by her "Sestina for a Sweater." Which was the second poem she read last night.
* * *
Barbara Nickel’s second collection of poetry, Domain (House of Anansi), was listed in Quill and Quire’s Best Books of 2007. Her previous collection of poetry, The Gladys Elegies, won the Pat Lowther Memorial Award. Her work has appeared in numerous literary magazines and anthologies, including Notre Dame Review, Prairie Schooner, Poetry Ireland Review, The Malahat Review, The New Canon: An Anthology of Canadian Poetry, and The Walrus, and she is a winner of The Malahat Review Long Poem Prize. Barbara is also an award-winning author of books for children; her novel Hannah Waters and the Daughter of Johann Sebastian Bach was shortlisted for the Governor General’s Award and won the B.C. Book Prize. A new picture book in verse is forthcoming in 2013. She lives and writes in Yarrow, B.C.
*
Aqua Books has a prop from the film version of The Stone Angel, produced by Winnipeg's Buffalo Gal Pictures. Apparently, four angels were produced for the film.
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Two poems
Prairie Fire solicited poems to go with my appearance at their Speaking Volumes gala...that in turn was prompted by my Most Promising win at the 2010 Manitoba Book Awards.
They published How to Connect with Your Father and How to Connect with Your Step-Father.
This is only my second poetry appearance in PF. And the first appearance of the Edison poems anywhere.
Beyond that, I GREATLY enjoyed reading the suite that these two poems came from at Speaking Volumes, even if reading them made me a little verklempt.
* * *
Prairie Fire Magazine
Spring 2011
Vol. 32, No. 1
Table of Contents
Charlene Diehl Michael Van Rooy: 1968–2011
Ariel Gordon Two Poems
Graham Hillard We Will Not All Sleep, But We Will All Be Changed
Dennis Cooley Five Poems
Eliza Robertson Thoughts, Hints and Anecdotes
Concerning Points of Taste and the Act of Making One's Self Agreeable: A Handbook for Ladies
Richard Scarsbrook Two Poems
Rebecca Rosenblum Dream Big
Charmaine Cadeau Twice as likely
Roy Wang Norman and the Swan
Shawn Riopelle Yellow Bird
Gwen Anderson Except That You Bless Me
M. Travis Lane Practical Meditation
Neile Graham Put Out The Light
Josiah Neufeld Father Issa
M.E. Csamer Painting at Versailles
Jim Johnstone Yield your wings to the furies
Jared Harel The Bright Side of Nuclear Winter
Antony Christie grey wolf in the stubblefield
They published How to Connect with Your Father and How to Connect with Your Step-Father.This is only my second poetry appearance in PF. And the first appearance of the Edison poems anywhere.
Beyond that, I GREATLY enjoyed reading the suite that these two poems came from at Speaking Volumes, even if reading them made me a little verklempt.
* * *
Prairie Fire Magazine
Spring 2011
Vol. 32, No. 1
Table of Contents
Charlene Diehl Michael Van Rooy: 1968–2011
Ariel Gordon Two Poems
Graham Hillard We Will Not All Sleep, But We Will All Be Changed
Dennis Cooley Five Poems
Eliza Robertson Thoughts, Hints and Anecdotes
Concerning Points of Taste and the Act of Making One's Self Agreeable: A Handbook for Ladies
Richard Scarsbrook Two Poems
Rebecca Rosenblum Dream Big
Charmaine Cadeau Twice as likely
Roy Wang Norman and the Swan
Shawn Riopelle Yellow Bird
Gwen Anderson Except That You Bless Me
M. Travis Lane Practical Meditation
Neile Graham Put Out The Light
Josiah Neufeld Father Issa
M.E. Csamer Painting at Versailles
Jim Johnstone Yield your wings to the furies
Jared Harel The Bright Side of Nuclear Winter
Antony Christie grey wolf in the stubblefield
Monday, May 09, 2011
Hatchet! Throwing!
* * *
This is M's worst nightmare. Seriously. He doesn't even like it when I get my hands on the cardboard tubes from rolls of wrapping paper.
(The hatchet throwing took place at Prairie Fire's Speaking Volumes event at historic Fort Gibraltar.)
How to Celebrate Mother’s Day
“Warning #2. Don't bring up past issues. She may have been into drugs when you were a kid, and forgot you at school a lot, but don't talk about that today. Try to focus on the better times, when she supported one of your decisions, or when she did something silly and made everyone laugh.” – How to Celebrate Mother’s Day, wikiHow.
1.
Leave the house RIGHT now.
2.
In the name of home economics, efficiency, and Rorschach-like splatter, set off a small bomb in the kitchen at 8 am.
3.
Spray paint a loving tribute on a nearby bridge the night before. Go for a drive after dinner and see that the liquor made you write “I wuv you Momo.”
You’ll find that a brutal you-ee will stifle her contemptuous snorts.
4.
You’ve heard of vodka-infused watermelons? Get out the turkey baster and get…creative.
5.
Seriously. Don’t come home until DARK.
6.
You've been giving your father Seven Eleven-grade plasticized porn and your mother bulk-bin peanut brittle for every major holiday since you were four...why stop now?
7.
Enlist your twitter minions to call your mother every minute the ENTIRE 24 hours of mother’s day.
8.
Black roses.
* * *
After a muggy driving-around kind of day, I composed this poem for the May Day Poetry Project, which is in its seventh incarnation this year. (!)
I (mostly) apologize for the slightly morbid, porn-y aspects of the poem.
Sunday, May 08, 2011
Out-of-Town Authors: Annabel Lyon
GOLDEN opportunity
Fans can ask author their favourite Aristotelian questions
Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION
by: Ariel Gordon
Annabel Lyon is the New Westminster, B.C.-based author of four books.
Her third book, a novel that plumbs the relationship between the philosopher Aristotle and his pupil Alexander the Great, won the 2009 Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize - which is pretty good, but The Golden Mean (Random House) was also nominated for every other award for fiction a Canadian writer can be nominated for: The Giller.
The Governor General's Award for Fiction.
The Commonwealth Writers Prize.
Annabel Lyon will be in Winnipeg on Monday, giving a combination reading/lecture at 7 p.m. in the University of Winnipeg's Eckhardt-Gramatté Hall.
1) As a writer (i.e. someone whose artistic practice is predicated on time spent alone) how do you approach performance? What do you get out of it?
For me, the best part of any reading is afterwards, when I get to meet people who've read my book and want to chat. I love hearing from readers. The best thing I hear from people who've read The Golden Mean is, "Now I want to read some Aristotle; where should I start?"
2) What do you want people to know about The Golden Mean?
I want people to know that even though it's about Aristotle, it's not dry or difficult: The ideas are very approachable (one of the things I love about the ancients) and I tried hard to give Aristotle a body as well as a mind. He eats, has sex, blows his nose, bleeds, laughs and so on. I tried to explore that part of him that's just a regular guy.
3) Will this be your first time in Winnipeg? What have you heard?
This is indeed my first time in Winnipeg. I've heard it has a great arts scene.
4) What are you reading right now? What are you writing right now?
I'm on the Scotiabank Giller Prize jury this year so I'm reading far more than I can possibly list.
I'm working on a sequel to The Golden Mean that will feature Aristotle's 16-year-old daughter, Pythias.
5) What were the biggest struggles for you of writing Aristotle's time and place?
I guess the biggest struggle was the endless research. You want your character to drink a glass of water; but what does that look like in ancient Macedon? Not a glass; is it a wooden cup, or pottery? Does the water come from a well? Would they keep jugs around the house? Would a slave fetch it, or would the character get it himself? It would have been easy to get bogged down in tiny details like that. I spent a lot of time trying to hang onto the bigger picture, to the contemporary resonance and relevance of the characters; what made them like us, rather than what made them different.
Ariel Gordon is a Winnipeg writer.
Fans can ask author their favourite Aristotelian questions
Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION
by: Ariel Gordon
Annabel Lyon is the New Westminster, B.C.-based author of four books.
Her third book, a novel that plumbs the relationship between the philosopher Aristotle and his pupil Alexander the Great, won the 2009 Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize - which is pretty good, but The Golden Mean (Random House) was also nominated for every other award for fiction a Canadian writer can be nominated for: The Giller. The Governor General's Award for Fiction.
The Commonwealth Writers Prize.
Annabel Lyon will be in Winnipeg on Monday, giving a combination reading/lecture at 7 p.m. in the University of Winnipeg's Eckhardt-Gramatté Hall.
1) As a writer (i.e. someone whose artistic practice is predicated on time spent alone) how do you approach performance? What do you get out of it?
For me, the best part of any reading is afterwards, when I get to meet people who've read my book and want to chat. I love hearing from readers. The best thing I hear from people who've read The Golden Mean is, "Now I want to read some Aristotle; where should I start?"
2) What do you want people to know about The Golden Mean?
I want people to know that even though it's about Aristotle, it's not dry or difficult: The ideas are very approachable (one of the things I love about the ancients) and I tried hard to give Aristotle a body as well as a mind. He eats, has sex, blows his nose, bleeds, laughs and so on. I tried to explore that part of him that's just a regular guy.
3) Will this be your first time in Winnipeg? What have you heard?
This is indeed my first time in Winnipeg. I've heard it has a great arts scene.
4) What are you reading right now? What are you writing right now?
I'm on the Scotiabank Giller Prize jury this year so I'm reading far more than I can possibly list.
I'm working on a sequel to The Golden Mean that will feature Aristotle's 16-year-old daughter, Pythias.
5) What were the biggest struggles for you of writing Aristotle's time and place?
I guess the biggest struggle was the endless research. You want your character to drink a glass of water; but what does that look like in ancient Macedon? Not a glass; is it a wooden cup, or pottery? Does the water come from a well? Would they keep jugs around the house? Would a slave fetch it, or would the character get it himself? It would have been easy to get bogged down in tiny details like that. I spent a lot of time trying to hang onto the bigger picture, to the contemporary resonance and relevance of the characters; what made them like us, rather than what made them different.
Ariel Gordon is a Winnipeg writer.
Saturday, May 07, 2011
Thien strong enough to let ambiguity stand
Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION
Reviewed by: Ariel Gordon
Dogs at the Perimeter
By Madeleine Thien
McClelland & Stewart, 256 pages, $30
MONTREAL-BASED Madeleine Thien's second novel is a fractured and fragmented story that inhabits both 1970s Cambodia and modern-day Montreal.
Thien's debut novel, 2006's Certainty, was about integration, her characters dealing with grieving and loss at a safe remove.
In Dogs at the Perimeter, however, Thien locates her main character - and so also her readers - mid-mental breakdown.
Janie is the only member of her family to survive the Khmer Rouge's reign in her native Cambodia. After she escapes to Malaysia, Janie is adopted by a Vancouver scientist and also becomes a scientist.
Eventually making her way to Montreal, Janie works under Japanese-Canadian neurologist Hiroji Matsui.
Matsui's research focuses on how memory and personality are tied to brain function and how those aspects of who we are can change after an injury to or disease of the brain.
But Janie and Hiroji have something besides work in common: Hiroji's brother Junichiro, a Red Cross doctor working in Cambodia, went missing during the Khmer Rouge period.
(Sound convoluted? It wouldn't be a Madeleine Thien novel if it weren't.)
Hiroji functions as a prop for the orphaned and disjointed Janie, has allowed her to find a career and an address, a husband and a child.
Janie has never reconciled all the pieces of her identity, all the times and places she's lived in and lived through.
But Hiroji is just as disjointed, dividing his adult life into two categories: when he is actively looking for his brother and when he is not.
Neither mode is satisfying and so, as the book opens, he abandons his entire North American existence: job, house, pet.
His disappearance triggers Janie's breakdown. As she reels, leaving her husband and child, working long hours on little sleep, we learn that Janie is her third name.
Before that, she was Mei, a name given to her in the Khmer Rouge camps as a part of their attempts at social engineering. Before that? We don't know: either Janie has forgotten or she needs to keep it private.
Janie learns that naming and numbering what happened to her, what happened to Hiroji and Junichiro and her own lost brother Sopham, is enough to keep her sane.
And this is the difference between Thien's novel and such recent Vietnam War-themed novels as Johanna Skibsrud's The Sentimentalists and David Bergen's The Time in Between. Janie is not the child of trauma, guessing at the motivations of a damaged (and somewhat complicit) parent.
The damage here is raw and immediate, even if Janie is revisiting it from a remove of 30 years.
Furthermore, Janie was a child and a non-combatant: she grew up into the trauma, unlike the foreign soldiers of Bergen's and Skibsrud's books.
Which is not to say that Thien, whose parents immigrated to Canada from Malaysia, doesn't allow her characters ambiguity: Janie, for instance, badly scares her young son during her breakdown.
Those stunning scenes, where Janie is only fleetingly sane, recalls the moment in Sandra Birdsell's The Chrome Suite (1992) where the main character realizes that she cannot keep herself from hurting her child.
Here and in Certainty, Thien's broken characters are lucky: they have spouses and extended families that are gently forgiving of the dark behaviours damage can elicit.
Thien conveys the sense that both Janie and Hiroji might be able to cobble together enough of the pieces of themselves to stay sane.
But they might not. And Thien is a brave and strong enough writer to let that final ambiguity stand.
Winnipeg writer Ariel Gordon won this year's Aqua Books Lansdowne Prize for Poetry at the Manitoba Book Awards.
Reviewed by: Ariel Gordon
Dogs at the Perimeter
By Madeleine Thien
McClelland & Stewart, 256 pages, $30
MONTREAL-BASED Madeleine Thien's second novel is a fractured and fragmented story that inhabits both 1970s Cambodia and modern-day Montreal.
Thien's debut novel, 2006's Certainty, was about integration, her characters dealing with grieving and loss at a safe remove.In Dogs at the Perimeter, however, Thien locates her main character - and so also her readers - mid-mental breakdown.
Janie is the only member of her family to survive the Khmer Rouge's reign in her native Cambodia. After she escapes to Malaysia, Janie is adopted by a Vancouver scientist and also becomes a scientist.
Eventually making her way to Montreal, Janie works under Japanese-Canadian neurologist Hiroji Matsui.
Matsui's research focuses on how memory and personality are tied to brain function and how those aspects of who we are can change after an injury to or disease of the brain.
But Janie and Hiroji have something besides work in common: Hiroji's brother Junichiro, a Red Cross doctor working in Cambodia, went missing during the Khmer Rouge period.
(Sound convoluted? It wouldn't be a Madeleine Thien novel if it weren't.)
Hiroji functions as a prop for the orphaned and disjointed Janie, has allowed her to find a career and an address, a husband and a child.
Janie has never reconciled all the pieces of her identity, all the times and places she's lived in and lived through.
But Hiroji is just as disjointed, dividing his adult life into two categories: when he is actively looking for his brother and when he is not.
Neither mode is satisfying and so, as the book opens, he abandons his entire North American existence: job, house, pet.
His disappearance triggers Janie's breakdown. As she reels, leaving her husband and child, working long hours on little sleep, we learn that Janie is her third name.
Before that, she was Mei, a name given to her in the Khmer Rouge camps as a part of their attempts at social engineering. Before that? We don't know: either Janie has forgotten or she needs to keep it private.
Janie learns that naming and numbering what happened to her, what happened to Hiroji and Junichiro and her own lost brother Sopham, is enough to keep her sane.
And this is the difference between Thien's novel and such recent Vietnam War-themed novels as Johanna Skibsrud's The Sentimentalists and David Bergen's The Time in Between. Janie is not the child of trauma, guessing at the motivations of a damaged (and somewhat complicit) parent.
The damage here is raw and immediate, even if Janie is revisiting it from a remove of 30 years.
Furthermore, Janie was a child and a non-combatant: she grew up into the trauma, unlike the foreign soldiers of Bergen's and Skibsrud's books.
Which is not to say that Thien, whose parents immigrated to Canada from Malaysia, doesn't allow her characters ambiguity: Janie, for instance, badly scares her young son during her breakdown.
Those stunning scenes, where Janie is only fleetingly sane, recalls the moment in Sandra Birdsell's The Chrome Suite (1992) where the main character realizes that she cannot keep herself from hurting her child.
Here and in Certainty, Thien's broken characters are lucky: they have spouses and extended families that are gently forgiving of the dark behaviours damage can elicit.
Thien conveys the sense that both Janie and Hiroji might be able to cobble together enough of the pieces of themselves to stay sane.
But they might not. And Thien is a brave and strong enough writer to let that final ambiguity stand.
Winnipeg writer Ariel Gordon won this year's Aqua Books Lansdowne Prize for Poetry at the Manitoba Book Awards.
Wednesday, May 04, 2011
Happy goddamn birthday!
So I launched Hump a year ago today.
And I'm convinced that the reason that THAT reading went well - and that the 18 other readings I did from this book this year mostly went well - was because of my "system."
Which mostly involves a stack of bookmarks for Tracy Hamon's Interruptions in Glass, advertising the tour we went on last spring...and a quiet half-hour before each reading.
I would find somewhere quiet to sit and think about the reading that night: who the audience would be, how long I was slated to read...and which poems I had a hankering to read.
And I would write the names of the poems I wanted to read and their page number and sometimes even how long each poem was on the back of the bookmark. And then I tucked it in the book.
Somehow, knowing that I had Tracy close to me helped. Knowing I had a plan, even if I deviated from the plan during the reading itself, helped.
So it became my little superstition.
I keep all the bookmarks in a drawer of my desk, the blank ones and the used ones. And it has been very satisfying, over the course of this year, to see them accumulate.
(I still have an impressive stack of blank ones, though I imagine that I will be doing fewer readings now that Hump is sort of...long in the tooth.)
Thanks to everyone who supported me this year. And thanks, specifically, to Tracy. And to Coteau, for providing me with the means for my strange little ritual.
And I'm convinced that the reason that THAT reading went well - and that the 18 other readings I did from this book this year mostly went well - was because of my "system."Which mostly involves a stack of bookmarks for Tracy Hamon's Interruptions in Glass, advertising the tour we went on last spring...and a quiet half-hour before each reading.
I would find somewhere quiet to sit and think about the reading that night: who the audience would be, how long I was slated to read...and which poems I had a hankering to read.
And I would write the names of the poems I wanted to read and their page number and sometimes even how long each poem was on the back of the bookmark. And then I tucked it in the book.
Somehow, knowing that I had Tracy close to me helped. Knowing I had a plan, even if I deviated from the plan during the reading itself, helped.
So it became my little superstition.
I keep all the bookmarks in a drawer of my desk, the blank ones and the used ones. And it has been very satisfying, over the course of this year, to see them accumulate.
(I still have an impressive stack of blank ones, though I imagine that I will be doing fewer readings now that Hump is sort of...long in the tooth.)
Thanks to everyone who supported me this year. And thanks, specifically, to Tracy. And to Coteau, for providing me with the means for my strange little ritual.
Tuesday, May 03, 2011
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