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.

Hands on: George Elliott Clarke, take two

Another shot of the notebook. Because I couldn't help myself. Does that mean I'm pretentious too?

Hands on: George Elliott Clarke

* * *

When I went to pick up GEC for his reading of new works, he had this football of literature under his arm.

"That!" I exclaimed. "That is what I want to photograph for your 'hands on'..."

He then revealed that it contained his hand-written first drafts of poems from his newest manuscript. And that while he composes directly on the computer when he is writing fiction, he almost always hand-writes first drafts of poetry.

Later, when it was splayed out on the table, post-reading, he admitted to some sheepishness about this most unusual notebook.

"I got it at Stratford, of all places...but I'm sort of ashamed because it's sort of pretentious."

The surrounding crowd murmured that they liked it. Colin Smith, poetry scalawag, took one look and said, "No, it's dreadful. You should be fucking ashamed." At which GEC boomed with laughter....

* * *

George Elliott Clarke was born in Windsor, Nova Scotia, a seventh-generation Africadian. He is a poet, playwright, novelist, and critic, with a Governor General’s Award for Poetry and a Martin Luther King Achievement Award among his many honours. His works include several acclaimed collections of poetry, including Whylah Falls and Execution Poems, the libretto for the jazz opera Beatrice Chancy, the novel George and Rue, and several plays. Clarke lives in Toronto where he is the EJ Pratt Professor of Canadian Literature at University of Toronto.

Hands on: Julie Wilson, take two

Flicker-y hands. Pretttttttty.

Hands on: Julie Wilson

* * *

Julie wanted to be "doing something tech-y" for her hands-on portrait. But then SHE DID HER READING FROM HER iPad! I NEVER! (Doesn't she know that paper absorbs nervous-reading-sweat?)

* * *

Julie Wilson is a professional publishing fan, writer and blogger. The literary voyeur behind the SeenReading.com and the editor of BookMadam.com, she thinks reading looks good on you. She's also the author of Truly, Madly, Deadly: The Unofficial True Blood Companion (ECW Press) written as Becca Wilcott. Follow Julie on Twitter: @BookMadam @SeenReading

Hands on: David Jón Fuller, take two

Hands on: David Jón Fuller

* * *

I told David he had to figure out a pose for his hands portrait.

So he took me someplace dark. And raised his hands.

Which is fitting if you know David at all and/or have read or heard him read from his manuscript, Bark at the Moon.

Which is a novel set in Winnipeg in the 1980s...and features preppy vampires and headbanging werewolves who attend Flipside and prom.

* * *

David Jón Fuller, the Aqua Books Emerging Writer-in-Residence for January, was born and raised in Winnipeg, Manitoba. As an actor he has been in multiple held-over plays at the Winnipeg Fringe Festival, and performed with two orchestras, including excerpts from Shakespeare for the world-renowned Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra before an audience of 1,600. In addition to writing hundreds of newspaper articles, he has had fiction published online in The Harrow and in the bestselling chapbook anthology Ten Best Pages. He’s been the editor of North America’s oldest surviving ethnic newspaper, Lögbgerg-Heimskringla, and currently works as a copy editor for the Winnipeg Free Press.

Hands: Anita Daher, take two

* * *

Anita also wanted me/us to know that she's double-jointed.

(I wonder what a double-jointed book would look like?)

Hands on: Anita Daher

* * *
If you know anything about YA writer Anita Daher, you know she has a thing about horses. But she also REALLY likes dim sum, to the extent that her bio used to conclude: "Anita lives in Winnipeg, and will always accept invitations for dim sum." Though not directly related to writing, keeping your hands supple via the regular application of a currying brush or chopsticks probably not a terrible thing, hey?

(Anita's weakness is pork dumplings. Put an order or two on top of your ms. and she'd probably be considerably swayed...)

* * *
Anita Daher has been entrenched in the book publishing industry for more than fifteen years. She feels “place” infuses her writing, and is grateful to have lived in communities like Summerside, PEI, Moose Jaw, SK, Churchill, MB, Baker Lake, NU, and Yellowknife, NT. Her short stories have appeared in Prairie Fire Magazine, and she is author of seven youth novels, including Arthur Ellis and MB Book Award finalist Spider’s Song (2006), and Arthur Ellis, Hackmatack and Diamond Willow finalist Racing for Diamonds (2006). She has led workshops across the country, and has been a popular presenter at conferences and festivals. When not teaching, presenting, or working on her own stories, Anita edits teen novels for Great Plains Publications.

Hands on: Jennifer Still, take two

Nest!

Hands on: Jennifer Still

* * *
So Jennifer Still is a poet who has spent the last several weeks feverishly making books. Which, because this is Jenn, involves sewing, embroidery, felting, and various intricate slicings-and-dicings. Hence the irregular nail on her pointer finger.

She's also someone who doesn't completely like her hands. But she didn't forbid me from using this photo, even though the thumbnail glimpse on the back of my camera hadn't pleased her.

Even though she has since sent me several gorgeous photos of her hands, feathering her own Nest, as it were.

* * *
Jennifer Still’s first book of poetry, Saltations (Thistledown Press, 2005), was nominated for three Saskatchewan Book Awards. NEST, a chapbook published by JackPine Press will also appear in her second collection, Girlwood, forthcoming in Spring 2011 from Brick Books. An earlier version of Girlwood won the 2008 John V. Hicks Manuscript Award, a Saskatchewan Emerging Artist Award and two poem sequences were finalists in the 2008 CBC Literary Awards. After 13 years in Saskatchewan, Jennifer now lives in a tall yellow house in Winnipeg with her husband and two children.

*
"Nestallation", a reading and book presentation by Jennifer Still and Jennifer Beaudry.

Saturday, Dec. 4, 11-5 at Aqua Books' Crafty Minions Handmade and Vintage Craft Sale:

Enter the textures, movements, uncertainties and comforts of a distinctive 1970's domesticity, in which the compulsion to craft (think macrame, needlepoint, decoupage, paper tole), and nest (think wallpaper, shag carpet and mirror tiles), frame, line and reflect the restless interiors of our lives. Guests are invited to join in a sewing-circle style reading and book talk with the opportunity to add their own stitches/layers to the room. The sale runs from 11 am - 5 pm.

Nest(JackPine Press, 2010) is a limited-edition handmade book screen-printed in a laced concertina design and built with salvaged 1970s vintage materials including kitchen wallpaper, couch upholstery, owl needlepoints and baby yarn. Each limited-edition copy is wrapped in a needle-felted slipcover. 50 signed and numbered copies are available for purchase.

Hands on: the butterfly edition

* * *

I swore I wouldn't shoot my own hands for the Hands On Project.

I'm breaking that rule because I wanted to show you the handiwork of the past few weeks: five monarch butterfly chrysalises.

There's a sixth hanging from one of our dining room chairs, from before I wised up and confined them. The seventh and final specimen is a day or two away from its own chrysalis.

Caring for these caterpillars has meant work every day, principally in sourcing milkweed leaves, the only food they'll accept.

I've never taken such pointed walks. The point being: where-is-the-g-d-milkweed?!?

But once I found it, the caterpillars would fall on the leaves - literally - like it were the last food on earth. Hunger manifest.

I've also never taken a pet to the movies before.

(It was a hot Saturday. We'd a whole day of activities planned, including a matinee and a morning run for milkweed. We couldn't leave the hungry buggers at home, weren't planning to return until bedtime, and couldn't leave them in the broiling-hot car whilst we were at the movies. So they spent the movie under my seat...)

Over the past few weeks, I've had to inure myself to the cleaning up the stunning amount of poop the monarch caterpillars produced.

But I'm used to that. I mean, that's what babies are all about: hunger Hunger HUNGER and poop.

So here's to my hand-reared darlings.

I just hope I don't kill them when they emerge from these chrysalises, probably at the rate of one a day for a week. Which is the rate at which they confined themselves.

(Thanks to Mary East, who helped me to find milkweed early in this process. Thanks to Kerry Ryan, who let me pilfer it from her garden late towards the end, and for being mercifully just-down-the-street. Thanks, finally, to the Living Prairie Museum - I think - for infesting me with butterflies.)

Hands on: Patrick Pilarski & Nicole Pakan

* * *

Nicole Pakan and Patrick Pilarski are Edmonton poets who are engaged to be married.

And performance is important to both of them, so part of their process is rehearsing to each other.

It's probably inevitable that when they're reading, they tap out the beats of each other's poems by bobbing their head or drumming fingers on available surfaces.

* * *

Patrick Pilarski is the co-editor of DailyHaiku, an international journal of contemporary English-language haiku, and poetry editor for its new sister publication, DailyHaiga. His first full-length collection, Huge Blue, was released in 2009 by Leaf Press, and he is the author of the chapbook Five Weeks (2007). Patrick's poetry has appeared in journals and anthologies across North America, Europe, Australia, and Japan, recently including The Fiddlehead, The Antigonish Review, CV2, Literary Review of Canada, The New Quarterly, and on CBC Radio One as part of the CBC Poetry Face-off. Patrick is on the organizing committee for the Edmonton Poetry Festival, and is Alberta/NWT representative for the League of Canadian Poets. He holds a Ph.D. in electrical and computer engineering, and is currently a postdoctoral fellow in computing science at the University of Alberta.

Nicole Pakan is an active member of the Edmonton literary community, performing and organizing events around the city. She is the Co-Editor for the international online and print literary journal DailyHaiku, and Art Editor for its sister publication DailyHaiga. Her writing has recently appeared or is forthcoming in: Filling Station, Carousel, CV2, Other Voices, and the Blue Skies Home and Away anthology. Nicole was also the winner of the 2009 Edmonton CBC Poetry Faceoff, placing third in the national competition.

Hands on: Michael Van Rooy

* * *

The timing of this edition of the Hands on Project is very neatly tied to the launch of his third book of crime-fic tonight. Which I intend to be at.

When I corralled Michael, he promptly turned around and grabbed his ass.

And then, re-considering, pulled this knife from his pocket. Which he apparently carries around with him everywhere.

He says he's earned his hands.

* * *

Michael Van Rooy was born in Kamloops, BC. He has worked as a restaurant manager, bartender, fishing guide, card dealer, news editor, freelance researcher, and cheesemaker. He now lives in Winnipeg.

*

This third instalment in the Monty Haaviko series takes a darker tone from the previous two episodes, An Ordinary Decent Criminal and Your Friendly Neighbourhood Criminal. This time, Monty is tangled in political intrigue, blackmail, corruption, and a long-standing feud in which he becomes a pawn. At the same time, a serial killer threatens the love of Monty’s life—his wife Claire, and soon, escape seems impossible.

Hands on: Susan Musgrave

* * *

After her panel on making poetry "more visible" at the League of Canadian Poets conference, Musgrave clasped and reclasped her hands against her belly.

She mentioned that she frequently finds herself rubbing the bony brainpan of her bird ring.

Then she clasped her hands against her belly. And shifted and clasped them again, differently.


* * *

Susan Musgrave's most recent novel was Cargo of Orchids (Knopf, 2000) and latest collection of poetry was Obituary of Light: the Sangan River Meditations (Leaf Press, 2009). She has been nominated, and has received awards, in five different categories of writing: poetry, fiction, non-fiction, personal essay, children's writing and for her work as an editor. She teaches poetry in the University of British Columbia's Optional-Residency MFA in Creative Writing Programme. She lives on Haida Gwaii.

Hands on: Colin Smith

* * *

"You're photographing my left hand, Ariel. I write with my right hand."

"Tell you about my hands?"

"Well, I run warm. And the texture of the skin on my hands is ridiculously soft. But I DON'T spa. And I DON'T put cream on them every night, yada yada."

* * *

Colin Smith is a poetry scalawag. Books = 8X8X7 (Krupskaya, 2008) and Multiple Poses (Tsunami, 1997). More current work pops up in CV2, The Collective Consciousness, and Dandelion. Rarely meets a curse he doesn't like.

Hands on: Bertrand Nayet

* * *

Bertrand Nayet is a Franco-Manitobain poet and organizer. My favourite title of his is "secrétaire perpétuel du Collectif post-néo-rieliste."

Over the last year, Bertrand has organized a variety of French literary events at Aqua. He is polite, even courtly...and generous.

(He not only bought my book but has been one of the lovely people who has quoted my lines back to me. Which is such a shivery treat, if you know what I mean...)

So much so that when I asked tonight if I could do a portrait of his hands he nodded sagely and plunked his long thin hands down on one of Aqua's old typewriters.

So much so that he didn't feel the impulse to explain the origin of his missing thumb.

And so, in addition to taking this picture, I also took the tiniest part of his grace...and didn't ask.

* * *

Né à Auxerre (France) en 1962, Bertrand Nayet réside à St-Norbert au Manitoba. Il a publié nouvelles, récits et poèmes dans diverses revues et recueils. Il a aussi écrit du théâtre, créé des mises en scène et joué plusieurs rôles pour diverses troupes du Manitoba. Il est l’animateur, un des pères fondateurs et secrétaire perpétuel du Collectif post-néo-rieliste, un regroupement de créateurs franco-manitobains. Il collabore à la programmation du Foyer des Écrivains, la partie francophone du Winnipeg International Writers’ Festival.

La lune en mille gouttes (Les Editions David, 2009) est son deuxième recueil de haïkus.

Hands on: Tracy Hamon

* * *

I shot this early in the tour, before our first reading. Tracy had resurrected an old journal and found first drafts of poems that were now in the book at her elbow. While she was leafing through its pages, I noticed that her hands were pink and looked cold. I grabbed her fingers, because that's the kind of relationship we have, and they were cold.

Girl-with-bad-circulation cold. Girly-girl cold.

My favourite hands-on moments of the tour included watching T. sign books. She refused to use anything but hotel pens. And then there was the time Tracy pulled out an emery board and started filing her fingernails during a reading in Edmonton (not mine, thankfully.).

We were sitting in the back row, so I'm pretty sure I was the only one to hear the soft percussion...

* * *

Tracy Hamon is a mother, a university student currently finishing a MA in English with a creative option at the U of R, a part time barber/stylist, and the coordinator for the SWG Writers/Artists Colony. She recently founded the Vertigo Reading Series. Born in Regina, she currently lives there.

Her first poetry collection, This is Not Eden, was published in 2005 and her work has appeared in numerous literary magazines, including Grain, Spring, A Room of One’s Own and Event, as well as numerous anthologies. Her manuscript of poetry on Egon Schiele was short listed for the 2007 CBC Literary Awards.

Her latest book is Interruptions in Glass (Coteau Books, 2010).

Hands on: Lorri Neilsen Glenn, take two

Hands on: Lorri Neilsen Glenn

* * *

I petitioned Lorri for a portrait when she first crossed Aqua's threshold. Her first reaction was: "But I chew my nails!" Her second reaction was something along the lines of "Yes! Fun!" So that was how we wound up on step-stools, after her reading from Lost Gospels (Brick Books, 2011) was complete, Lorri with her hands twined among the crystals of Aqua's massive 70s chandelier and me trying to capture her hands and the glass and all that goddamn light.

* * *

Originally from Western Canada, Lorri Neilsen Glenn now lives in Halifax and spends her summers in Saskatchewan. The author of many academic books and two previous books of poetry (all the perfect disguises, 2003, and Combustion, 2007), she served as Poet Laureate for Halifax from 2005-2009.