I've been Matilda Magtree-d!

* * *

Carin Makuz, who blogs as Matilda Magtree and also runs the Litter-I-See Project, recently interviewed me about Stowaways.

It was a great, sprawling, summery interview.  (She's also interviewed Brenda Schmidt and Tracy Hamon, among others, whose interviews you can check out here.)

My thanks to Carin for keeping me company while I was on retreat in The Pas!

In Conversation: Carmen Aguirre

By Ariel Gordon
Winnipeg Free Press—PRINT EDITION

Carmen Aguirre is a revolutionary artist.

The Vancouver-based writer is a political exile of the 1973 Pinochet coup d’état in Chile, a survivor of the Paper Bag Rapist, and an actress who was warned early in her career she’d mostly be offered "Mexican hooker and Puerto Rican maid roles."

Aguirre will be launching her second memoir, Mexican Hooker #1: And My Other Roles Since the Revolution at McNally Robinson Monday as part of the Winnipeg International Writers Festival’s spring literary series. The event will also feature Chilean-Canadian journalist Claudia Garcia de la Huerta.

Aguirre conducted this interview with Ariel Gordon via email.

Free Press: Something Fierce, your previous memoir, covered your childhood and early adulthood in Canada, Chile and other South American locales. The Globe and Mail’s Francisca Zentilli called it "an insightful journey into the formation of a revolutionary soul." What made you want to delve into your adult life, as you transitioned from a revolutionary to an artist?

CA: The first memoir was a coming-of-age story set against the backdrop of a political thriller. In it, I explored themes of political commitment clashing with personal desires and living in a state of terror, due to being in the Chilean resistance during the Pinochet dictatorship.

When I toured the first book, the questions that kept coming up from readers were: what happened next, how did you find meaning in your life after living a life so full of meaning as a youth, and how did you heal from the trauma of living in chronic terror due to state terrorism? It was in responding to those questions that I found the material to write the second memoir, which is all about healing and also about finding meaning in an artistic journey.

In choosing the theme of "healing" for my second book, I inevitably felt that I had to include the trauma of being raped as a child and how I healed from that.

That story, the story of the rape, ended up being the through-line, the spine of the book.

It’s the story that we keep going back to, that orbits until it lands in the centre of the narrative and stays there.

FP: Tell me about the hubbub after Something Fierce was nominated for, and then won, CBC Canada Reads in 2012?

CA: To be honest, I had never heard of Canada Reads because I’m not a radio listener. So I didn’t get what a big deal it was until the book made it into the Top 5.

I had also never heard of Shad, because I don’t usually listen to rap.

When I was called a terrorist within the first five minutes of the debate, my whole body froze, and I felt a great deal of fear. I was glad, however, that Shad and I had prepared for that statement and that he was able to handle himself so well when it came up.

I think it brought an important discussion to the forefront, which is: what is a terrorist? Who do we get to call a terrorist? Do we get to call the Jewish resistance during the Warsaw ghetto uprising terrorists?

I was amazed and elated when the book won because it was the dark horse of the five and it tells a story that is not often read by the mainstream.

FP: How is writing memoirs different from writing plays?

CA: Plays are much harder. I think playwriting is the hardest form to write in: it’s very taut, it’s very limiting, and you have to grab the audience immediately and never let them go.

It is through my years of playwriting, at failing miserably at it most of the time and on the odd occasion getting somewhere with it, that I learned to write a book.

I already knew so much about structure, theme, organizing principles, stakes, objectives for the character, conflict. Writing a memoir was easier.

FP: Early in your theatre training at Vancouver’s Studio 58, your instructors told you that you were "entering a racist business where more often than not I would be offered Mexican hooker and Puerto Rican maid roles." Since then, you’ve written or co-written 25 plays and have 80 acting credits, which is a success by any measure. But is the film, television and theatre world any less racist now than when you graduated?

CA: I believe it is less racist, but there are colleagues of mine who believe it’s the same or even worse. I can totally see why they say that. They say that because some people in the theatre, film and TV industries believe that we are now in a post-racial society and that the struggle is therefore over. What this means in practice is that white people are now playing roles of colour because it’s believed that now, "We can all play everything." The problem is that it doesn’t go both ways, so we still have to be vigilant in making sure that actors of colour are actually getting the parts that were not available to us not so long ago. In an ideal world, I do believe anybody can play anything, but we are very far from that. In the current Canadian theatre scene, only 3.7 per cent of women we see on stage are of colour. Of those, almost none are playing lead roles. We clearly have a very long way to go.

FP: What are you reading right now? What are you writing right now?

CA: I am reading Jhumpa Lahiri’s In Other Words and Marlon James’ A Brief History of Seven Killings. And the tabloids. I always salivate over the tabloids, which are my addiction, along with dark chocolate. Right now, I am writing a new play called Anywhere but Here and a novel entitled Three Virgins. Neither is going well.

Ariel Gordon is a Winnipeg writer.

next big thing-y

What is the working title of your book?
How to Pack Without Overpacking, though that really does feel like a working title. I'm looking forward to elaborating the final title...
 
Where did the idea for the book come from?
This manuscript is more-or-less conceited. More by virtue of being mostly how-to poems, less by not being the manuscript I was supposed to publish next. I wrote these poems as palate cleansers when not working on my 'main' manuscript, which eventually stopped cooperating. Eventually, I realized that I had a manuscript's worth of palate cleansers and that, reading them together, they were all very closely linked, thematically speaking.

I started writing how-to poems - that is, poems that give step by step instructions on how to do something - while I was finishing my debut, Hump. That book was primarily pregnancy and mothering poems and I think the how-to poem appealed because it's incredibly open-ended and yet suggests a particular structure. A beginning-middle-end.

Also, I think I was mocking the "Mommy voice" that I found myself using with my daughter...

As I kept working on the manuscript, of course, I allowed myself to use whatever form the individual poem seemed to require.

Which is to say that sometimes the title is just a hanger for the poem and that sometimes it's the rickety spine...

What genre does your book fall under?
Poetry.

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?
Hugh Jackman and Tilda Swinton. For obvious reasons.

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
 Hmm. I don't have one yet, but I DO have this description of the chapbook of poems I published in 2011 with Saskatoon's JackPine Press:

"How to Prepare for Flooding is a collection of poems modeled on the how-to manuals and survival guides that rattle around your toolbox and clog up your glove compartment. Chock-a-block with illustrations and useful tips, these poems will prepare readers for a raft of natural and personal disasters such as "How to Survive a Plane Crash" and "How to Sew a Button." But more than that, How to Prepare for Flooding asks, over and over, what's the difference between wild and tame? Natural and unnatural? Also, is this REALLY where we find ourselves?"

(The poems from this chapbook will likely find themselves in How to Pack Without Overpacking, as will the poems in my upcoming Kalamalka Press chapbook, How to Make a Collage.)

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
I've just signed a contract to publish How to Pack Without Overpacking with Palimpsest Press in spring 2014. They published my first book, Hump, back in 2010.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
Some of these poems date back to 2007 but the great majority were written over the past year...

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
Poems that work with humour. Poems that incorporate myth and fable in contemporary settings. Poems with faintly apocalyptic inklings: there are poems here about plane crashes, being lost in the woods, and surviving floods as well as how you'd go about ailments like boils and leprosy.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?
The idea of being a working writer. The idea that I'd always be working on a piece of writing, that I'd always be pushing at the edges of what I was capable of.

Beyond that, I was interested in what was a worthy subject for a poem. Can you write a poem about anything? What would that poem look like?

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?
That I'm hoping to convince my publisher to use artworks by Darryl Joel Berger for the cover and maybe also the interiors. Mostly because he's hatefully talented but also because some of the poems came out of an image/text collaboration with him.

* * *

Rules of the Next Big Thing

• Use this format for your post
• Answer the ten questions about your current WIP (work in progress)
• Tag five other writers/bloggers and add their links so we can hop over and meet them. 

Ten Interview Questions for the Next Big Thing:

1. What is the working title of your book?
2. Where did the idea for the book come from?
3. What genre does your book fall under?
4. Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?
5. What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
6. Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
7. How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
8. What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
9. Who or what inspired you to write this book?
10. What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

* * *

I'm not usually super interested in blog memes, which are just tricked-up chain letters, but when I was tagged by Pearl Pirie / pesbo, I decided I'd stop being such a poop.

And use the opportunity to tag in my turn people whose work I was interested in hearing about.

Which is to say, people I don't know exceptionally well but whose work I find interesting...which includes Saleema Nawaz / Metaphysical Conceit, David Jon Fuller / As You Were, Darryl Joel Berger / red-handed.

Yay Melissa!

The Sou'wester
August 26, 2010

New writer-in-residence relishes latest challenge
By: Simon Fuller

Melissa Steele is the Winnipeg Public Library’s new writer-in-residence for the upcoming 2010-11 season.

The Winnipeg short story writer has a few weeks to sharpen her pencils before her seven-month tenure at the Millennium Library begins Oct 1.

Steele’s mandate will include working with aspiring writers through individual consultations and workshops, as well as allocating time to her own writing projects.

"I’m excited," said Steele, 47, who lives in Fort Rouge. "I have taught creative writing courses at the University of Manitoba, and in some ways, this will be a similar experience. But I’m looking forward to interacting with writers on a one-on-one basis without having the agenda of grading their papers."

Steele, who won the John Hirsch Award for Most Promising Writer at the 1999 Manitoba Book Awards, will also bring a sense of empathy to her new position.

"I know how hard it is to focus on writing and how hard it is to write well. But as a mentor, I won’t have all the answers," said Steele, who hails from California but has collectively spent more than half of her life in Winnipeg and attended Argyle Alternative School.

"And I like to encourage people to read all the time. People often tend to read narrowly in one genre, but there are many different choices."

During her upcoming tenure at the library, Steele — whose husband, film professor George Toles, is known for his script collaborations with Winnipeg filmmaker Guy Maddin — will also spend time focusing on her own writing.

She has already penned two short story collections, Donut Shop Lovers and Beautiful Girl Thumb, which were both published by Turnstone Press.

The latter work is currently shortlisted for the 2010-11 On the Same Page community reading campaign, which is co-sponsored by the Winnipeg Foundation. The other writers in the running are Michael Van Rooy, Catherine Hunter and Jake MacDonald. Readers can vote online at www.onthesamepage.ca.

In the past, Steele has also been involved with the mentorship program at the Manitoba Writers Guild.

"Melissa is a really wonderful mentor and a complete smarty pants," said Winnipeg writer Ariel Gordon, who is also events co-ordinator at Aqua Books in Winnipeg.

"As a mentor you want someone who cares about you and your work. And she was a really good role model for a young female writer," added Gordon, who lives in Wolseley.

"Melissa’s mentoring style is very intense and very careful. And what I particularly like about her is though she primarily writes short fiction, she can ably talk about many genres of writing."

The writer-in-residence program, which is a free service, was established in 1985 and created to give new, emerging and established writers a chance to have their manuscripts read and critiqued.

Copies of manuscripts can be dropped off at any Winnipeg Public Library branch, emailed to wpl.writerinres@gmail.com or sent to the Millennium Library, attention: Writer-In-Residence, Reader Services, 251 Donald St., Winnipeg, MB R3C 3P5.

Manuscripts must be by typed in 12-point font (prose: doubled-spaced, poetry: single-spaced) on one side of the page only. Prose submissions should not exceed 15 pages and poetry submissions should not exceed six poems.

* * *

Melissa mentored me as a part of the MWG's Sheldon Oberman Emerging Writers Mentor Program in 2002 and so I was thrilled to see that she's been selected as this year's Writer in Residence at the Winnipeg Public Library.

It was an honour to talk to a reporter this past week about how very excellent she'll be at the job. Which sounds like typical lit bumf, but she really is very good.

Also: submit! Submit!

"My enthusiasm. Also, my hair."

So novelist Pearl Luke, whose books I have read (fire tower romance! charismatic cultist romance!) and who is married to former mentor-of-mine Robert Hilles, has started a book club website for Canadian writers...

...and they're opening the book club floodgates to poetry!

So I signed myself - and my book - right up.

Here's an excerpt from the interview I did for the site:

Why do you write?

Two things consistently bring me pleasure: hot sweet tea and writing. Which is not to say that either are particularly good for me…I use entirely too much sugar and so far don’t find sucralose to be a good alternative. Also, writing is not a practice that engenders confidence. Quite the opposite. It’s about making yourself deliberately insecure so that you can write the next thing and have it be worth reading.

And that’s not even taking into consideration the business end of things, which can make you bitter if you’re not careful…

But I’ve spent my the bulk of my life to date figuring out the right mix of fat and sugar in my tea and also, how to get incrementally better (I hope…) at the writing, so I’m not giving it/them up!

What is your greatest strength as a writer?

I’m not sure I know yet. Or if that’s a good thing for me to know. So far, my greatest strength as a writer is that I write...

What quality do you most value in yourself?

My enthusiasm. Also, my hair.

Reprint: Prairie BOOKS now

From the Summer 2010, no. 53, issue of Prairie BOOKS now:



I've spent most of my writing life in this city reading the profiles in PBN and so it was an honour to be article-d, especially given how few poetry titles they're able to include.

It was a further honour that my profile was assigned to Polly Washburn, former writing group member and producer/PM extraordinaire!

Reprint: Giving birth to babies and books

Local writer Ariel Gordon discusses her new poetry collection, Hump
by Kristy Hoffman (Volunteer)

June 29th 2010 edition of the Uniter

Love, nature, the city and being knocked up are all central themes in the poetry comprising Hump, a collection by Winnipeg writer Ariel Gordon.

Mindfully crafted with language that is simple and engaging, it is the first full book of poetry the 37-year-old has published. It is preceded only by two chapbooks: 2008’s The Navel Gaze and 2009’s Guidelines: Malaysia & Indonesia, 1999.

Observant narrative describes an eclectic assortment of experience occurring before, during and after pregnancy. The book, as a result, displays three parts, each bearing clever peculiarities that make the read memorable.

The works in Part I (some written as early as 2005) often bring into focus recognized Winnipeg scenery, such as the Assiniboine Park Zoo and the Leo Mol Sculpture Garden.

Part II is subdivided by titles that parallel various stages of pregnancy. The poems found here were written “while preggers” and Gordon attributes this to a mind busied by the topic.

The poetry found in Part III is the most recent, as it concerns life with a child. Gordon completed the manuscript in late 2008 and the book was published this past April.

“I firmly believe that books are mostly just containers for human conversation, thoughts and feelings and opinions,” she said by e-mail at the end of June. “And I suppose I hope that my book ‘talks’ to people, that the poems are interesting to them in terms of language but also theme and setting.”

Gordon’s own experiences, even if not always literal, serve as the foundation upon which all of the poetry is based.

“A synopsis (of Hump) would look something like this: Girl meets boy, girl colonizes boy, girl eventually gets knocked up. Baby then colonizes girl and boy (but mostly girl) and also their entire life.”

On the significance of the connection between the book’s title, the poem “Hump” and the collection in its entirety, Gordon notes that she was looking for a title that is a good mouthful.

“(The) word ‘hump,’ with its toothy consonants and that beautiful ‘u,’ seemed to fit the bill.”

There is more to it than that, however, as the title awakens every meaning of the word. According to Gordon, ‘Hump’ simultaneously invoked (and rhymed with) ‘bump’ (as in baby bump), and the word also describes a mound of earth, or slang for sex.

“(And) without sex, there’s no babies, right?”

But ultimately, it’s not just mothers who will enjoy Hump - most Winnipeggers will find some aspect in the poetry to relate to.

“I wanted to see Winnipeg represented in poetry, to have this book be as much a love poem to the city as to my partner and our child,” Gordon said.

Speaking of Speaking of Poets

Fellow Winnipeg poet Lori Cayer and I had a stint on campus/community radio station CKUW yesterday. Or, more properly, we pre-recorded our segment for later broadcast.

Since Lori and I were to share a mic, Lori had to stand on a step-stool, which we sourced from the CKUW offices.

...I didn't tell anyone, but the radio station's offices were once The Uniter's offices, where I spent four or five years while at the U of Wpg....

The format of Speaking of Poets, the show we were guests on, was that we each read one of each other's poems and one of our own.

And it was such a goddamn treat to hear Lori read my poem. I grinned throughout while also, you understand, tried not to move or make any joyous noise. (Those greedy microphones!)

And then I leaned in and read both the poem I'd picked out and the one host John Cunningham requested of me: Chorus and Nine months: swelling & swollen.

It was the first time I'd performed the latter, so reading it with no rehearsal was like running into a fond friend you've been neglecting and promising tea, sometime, somehow.

Reprint: How to Interview a Poet

Katherena Vermette, fellow poet/parent and Writers' Collective board member, interviewed me recently in service of the workshop I'll be teaching for the WC.

I don't know Katherena very well, but after I persisted in mangling her name, both privately and when introducing her at the podium, she kindly let me call her Kate.

Which is probably as it should be. (I knew a Katarina in a former life and now pronounce ANY variant of same KAT-A-RINA...)

It should go without saying that it was pretty spiffy having someone who I haven't personally indoctrinated into the cult of Ariel (i.e hasn't been in a class or a writing group with me) ask me questions about my work.

* * *

The Writers' Collective
May 9th, 2010
by Katherena Vermette

Your ever-inexhaustible interviewer Kate continues to harass authors in and around the internet!

This month’s victim – 2010 John Hirsch winner for Most Promising Writer, Ariel Gordon, who also just released her first poetry collection, Hump, and will be conducting a very important workshop via the Writers’ Collective – How to Write a Poem on Saturday, May 22, 10 am to 1 pm, at the University of Winnipeg!

(Our Q&A appears after the turn...)

This workshop is very special therefore it’ll cost you - $15 for Writers’ Collective members / $30 for non-members. To register contact the equally, if not more so, inexhaustible Michael Van Rooy, Writers’ Collective Program Coordinator at writerscollective@uwinnipeg.ca or by phone at (204) 786-9468.

Also, you have to check out Ariel’s hilarious blog – the jane day reader!

Onward to the interview!

Kate: Your first collection just came out last week! Such an exciting time for any writer. Tell us about your book, HUMP!

Ariel: Well, it’s mostly pregnancy-and-mothering poems but there’s also what I’m calling urban/nature/love poems. It’s firmly rooted in grumpy/frumpy Winnipeg and is nowhere near perfect but I think it’s the best I’m capable of at this moment in time.

I’m also happy to get these poems off my chest.

Kate: I bet! You also have two chapbooks out, can you tell us about those books and how the process of publishing chapbooks was for you??

Ariel: My first chappie was with Palimpsest – who’re now publishing Hump – in 2008. The second was with Rubicon Press out of Edmonton in 2009. Palimpest does full collections in addition to their hand-made limited-edition chapbooks while Rubicon only does chapbooks. Because the individuals behind them are different, the process was different for each one...

But I did launches for each of them, with cake and a lovely co-reader. And, for the Palimpsest chappie, I did a tour with that co-reader, Kerry Ryan. It was a bit ambitious to do a four-city tour to promote it but I wanted to and so I did. And Kerry and I managed to get some funding from MAC for same, so it wasn’t ruinous.

Both books sold out fairly quickly, which is/was gratifying.

Kate: No kidding, that’s a great accomplishment. Your poetry is so rich and inspired – so it begs the question – what inspires you?

Ariel: I have no idea what inspires me until I’m jerking on the line. And even then the hook can slip.

Kate: You seem to do so much – event coordinating at aqua books, blogging, writing, mothering – what’s a typical day in your life like?

Ariel: I have a lot of flexibility in my life, which means that most every day is different. But predictably so, if that makes any sense. And when the routine is singing and I don’t have too many deadlines to meet, I get heaps of done. Other times I just get by.

Like most poet/parents or even just most parents, I suspect…

Kate: It’s the life I guess. I’m so curious about blogging, I’m so new to this and want to learn everything – how did you get into it? When did you start you blog – janedayreader??

Ariel: I started blogging in January 2005 on a dare. I’m several templates down the road now but it’s always been a place where I’ve shared poems-in-progress and photos and my writerly news.

Though I certainly didn’t need it when I started the blog, I sort of wanted to have a presence online as a writer. Which is why, beyond the odd complaint about how overworked I am (pore me!), I keep it mostly writing and publishing. So, no pictures of my daughter, once she came along. And no soiled laundry aired, ever.

All of that said, I did NOT expect to enjoy doing it so much. But then I said the same thing about Facebook...

Kate: Argh the temptress that is Facebook swallows up many a good working hour! So, many collective members are emerging writers trying to get out there, what would be your advice to these novice poets/prosers/rockstar wannabes??

Ariel: Keep going! There are MUCH worse things you could be doing with your time than writing poetry!

Slightly more seriously: Read and write as much as you can. Allow time to dream. Carry a notebook and write things down as they come to you. You will NOT remember it later. Go to readings. While editing your work, read it aloud so you can find any snags. Submit, but when you get rejections, remember why it is that you write.

Kate: Just one more Ariel, I want to start an ongoing poll where I ask everyone I know one question – I’m new to twitter too you see, so the question is, what’s your favourite book of all time and why??

Ariel: I’m bad at favourites. But I really REALLY like Robert Kroetsch’s The Studhorse Man. Such a dirty wonderful book!

Kate: Haven’t read it yet! But do have great love for the Kroetsch! Will have to check it out!

Thanks so much Ariel! Can’t wait ‘til your workshop!

Reprint: 8-Ball

JB: What is your ambition as a writer—what do you want to accomplish, personally and professionally?

AG: I see books – and individual units of writing such as poems, poem sequences, short stories, and novels – as records of human endeavour. We natter to ourselves, we natter to our readers. Something changes.

As someone whose first book is coming out this year, I’m greatly anticipating being part of the larger conversation…

Beyond that, I mostly want to be able to negotiate a relatively secure insecurity for myself, which translates into time and space in which to write the next thing and the thing after that, always reaching for what I’m not currently capable of.

The rest of it I have very little control over, so I won’t speculate...

* * *

Sometime before Xmas, Winnipeg/Calgary/Winnipeg poet Jonathan Ball asked me if I would agree to an e-interview, to accompany the growing legions of e-interviews of poets on his blog.

(The gimmick being that he asks each poet the same eight questions...)

I wasn't able to get to it until early January and, even so, I had to set up my computer on my dining room table, as I haven't yet unpacked my 3rd floor office.

I'm sort of tickled that it appeared on his blog the same week as the launch of his first book, as it feels sort of apt...

Anyways, for the answers to the other seven questions Jonathan Ball put to me (and every single other poet), click here.

Fun! (And: Congrats, Jonathan!)

In media res

Oddly enough, I've done two TV interviews in two weeks.

The first was in my role as Events Coordinator at Aqua Books when City TV came calling, two days after McNally Robinson booksellers announced they were closing two of four of their stores...and bookstore owner Kelly Hughes was out of town.

Horrors! Kelly is such a dab hand at dealing with the media that I've never had to worry about speaking for the bookstore before.

Problem is, I've only worked at Aqua for two years...and I've been a part of this community for nearly fifteen.

Being part of the community over this span meant being thrilled when I got asked to read at McNally's, meant many hours browsing and buying books in the various stores, meant eating in the restaurant.

(More after the turn...)

My favourite McNally's memory is actually partially a Prairie Fire memory. I got a job as Administrative Assistant at the venerable lit mag one summer when I was still at the U of Wpg, and one of my duties was to help prepare for launch parties.

PF was launching their Carol Shields issue at the Osborne Village McNally's store and, since Shields had graciously agreed to be in attendance, Managing Editor Andris Taskans and the rest of the staff wanted to do something, well, gracious, in return.

No one had a car and so anything elaborate was out of the question, but I was promptly sent out into the day with a wad of cash and told to get flowers.

Which I did, at Safeway, because there wasn't another florist within walking distance. Which somehow didn't feel very gracious, as I marched back to the bookstore, but as soon as the flowers were in a vase, we all felt somehow that we'd marked the occasion.

...which is a long digression when all I was attempting to say was how difficult it was speaking as a representative of the bookstore and not just as a writer, mourning the difficulties McNally's seems to be in. Which is what the news story was about.

Anyways, I seemed to do okay in the interview, even if I didn't admit to great concern over Aqua's prospects based on McNally's difficulties. As the reporter would have obviously preferred, since she asked variants of the same leading question over and over.

The next week, we were asked to participate in another "McNally's Aftershock" story - this one about the growth of e-books with Global TV.

(If you've been following the McNally's story, their financial difficulty has been variously attributed to their expansion into the Toronto market during a recession and and the growth of e-books - i.e. the DEATH of paper-and-glue books.)

Since Kelly had returned from his travels, I thought I was off the hook. Until Kelly appeared and said that the reporter wanted to get the perspective of "a local author."

Which meant me.

I said semi-coherent things about e-books and real books and how we read different kinds of books. How poetry doesn't yet work on e-readers. I even used visual aids, pulling down a romance and also Gillian Wigmore's Soft Geography.

And then, after we were done, I showed them the cover for my book on the computer behind the counter, mostly because I was excited about having a cover to show people.

They got excited about that. And that's what they wound up using.

(Relatively) fun!

Reprint: 12 or 20 Questions

Hey all, I'm featured today on rob mclennan's blog as a part of his 12 or 20 Questions series.

As with all my off-page (i.e. writing life versus writing) endeavors, I'm mostly trying not to embarrass myself...

Here's an excerpt:

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?

Why are such different roles and different expectations assigned to men and women, especially around parenting? Why is being an absent parent so gendered? What does it mean that writing about absent parents means absenting myself, at least to some degree, from my daughter’s life?

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’m going to loosely paraphrase a section from Rutting Season, a recent poetry + conversation anthology from Montreal’s Buffalo Runs Press that I’m in by saying that I believe that poets and other writers present people with ways of being and feeling in the world, with choices, with conversation. And I’m all for conversation, even if it’s a limited and stuttering conversation, with many uncomfortable silences. I also believe that as writers we tell ourselves stories as much as we tell other people stories. That that comfort is there for us as writers, even if the material itself isn't comforting…

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

I’m just about to start editing my first full collection and have to say that working with an editor is the part of the process I’m most looking forward to…

Basically, I see the manuscript as a drum and I’m so looking forward to having someone pick it up and give it a good goddamn bang. I want to see what falls out, but most of all, I want to see how it sounds to someone whose ear I trust.

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

I hate advice, but my favourite northern mining-town gothic poet (i.e. Brenda Schmidt) keeps giving it. The most simple and direct and therefore the most effective so far has been: “Good grief! Get to work!”

Experientially Speaking

Hey all,

I'm sitting here, having freshly showered and changed into my reading frock, having succumbed to the interweb's fiendish lure.

I should be putting the butter tarts Gerry Hill left in the Wallace Stegner freezer in the oven and pulling out the broccoli & grape salad I made earlier and testing the seasoning - all in service of tonight's end-of-term reading - but I wanted to share something first.

One of the pleasures of giving into the interweb's wiles is that sometimes lovely things like the summer issue of the Sage Hill Writing Experience's alumni newsletter Experientially Speaking arrive.

I'm profiled in this latest issue, which is sort of fun, and involved answering a series of questions via email a month or so ago and trying not to sound harried/boastful/stupid.

For those of you not SH alumni, I thought I'd post the text here...


(Also: Yay! Fun!)


* * *


My favourite place to write is:

My dining room table. My upstairs office. The couch. The passenger seat of the
car.

—————————————————————————————

I can’t write without:

Tea, hot and sweet and as black as my heart.

——————————————————————————————-

The writer I admire most is:

Robert Kroetsch. He’s smart and funny and dirty and I like how he strings both
his poetry and his fiction together.

—————————————————————————————

That last book I read was:

Girls Fall Down (Coach House) by Maggie Helwig. I’ve also got a two-
volume 1929 biography of Thomas Edison that I’m referring to con-
stantly these days, but that’s because I’m working on a cycle of poems
about Edison and his eldest daughter Dot.

—————————————————————————————

The last thing I wrote was:

A poem called ‘How to Write a Poem' from an ever-growing series
based on articles sourced from the wikiHow widget.

—————————————————————————————

The thing I remember most about Sage Hill is:

My mentor Daphne Marlatt in the Poetry Colloquium last summer. I’d
probably be remiss if I didn’t thank her, as she gave the two chapbook
manuscripts I wound up publishing this spring a final thorough shake.

And, of course, the galloping deer that almost bowled me over one
morning.

blogging 'blogging and the creative process'

Hey all, here's a thumbnail of the interview Shawna Lemay conducted with me on blogging and the creative process over at her Capacious Hold-All.

(There are also better, more thoughtful interviews with Brenda Schmidt and Marita Dachsel...)

(Maybe I should also create a 'self-deprecating' tag, eh?)



In other news, I've been at the Stegner House nearly twenty-four hours. Enough time for four cups of tea, a bath, a shower, and half of the UK edition of Michael Ondaatje's Billy the Kid. And, this morning, grocery shopping...


I'm scheming to see if I can find someone local with a herb garden as there are no fresh herbs available at the grocery stores in Eastend and my kitchen garden is 954 kms away...

But at least one of my retreat rituals is complete: finding a big mug with a satisfying handle made by a local potter.

Unlike the other small SK town of my acquaintance, Lumsden, there are several potters / galleries in town. But the Whitemud Clay Studio was especially recommended to me by the Cypress Gallery owner, and, better yet, it was half a block away.

My Eastend mug is blue on the outside and blue/brown on the inside. The brown glaze inside is nearly to the level that I'd pour my tea, which is strangely satisfying. Tea or the illusion of tea, it doesn't matter...

While I briefly considered some of the brown mugs produced by Whitemud (according to their literature, they "win" or dig the clay from the surrounding hills), the blue felt best in my hand.

Editing care package!

So I've had a few pieces of good news, and, more importantly, a few kindly gestures in response to my good news.

After a suitably dramatic back-and-forth, which I won't get into here, I heard from
Palimpsest Press last week that they had accepted my manuscript of poetry.

I should have been thrilled. This moment was THE moment I've been waiting for for years.

But although I was glad that Hump (I know, I know...I'm also thinking Belly Up.) had found a home, the moment of acceptance wasn't a jump-up-and-down-thump-whoever's-nearest kind of experience.

It was more of an "Oh! Oh. Okay..." moment. Which is to say that I realized that the acceptance is only the first step in a long process whose ultimate goal is to share the work with people. Now THAT I'm excited about.

Though I have divested myself of most of my book lust (i.e. the idea that a book with MY name on it will solve all my problems) through association with much-published writers, most of whom have a laundry list of problems (heh.), the fact that I will soon have a book in the world means that I can relax a bit.

It also means that I have to work even harder, to earn this writing life.

Oh! I almost forgot the gestures of kindness. Once the news got out, I was congratulated via a variety of software/hardware combinations, I was lifted over someone's head, and several people lunged at me, ostensibly to hug me.

But the most thoughtful gift I got was from Sharon Caseburg, a poet/publisher of my acquaintance. She has a son just a bit older than Aa (i.e. she understands!) and has been very supportive over the last few months.

In any event, when she visited last week, she toted along two very important parcels: one ziploc full of freshly-baked blueberry muffins and a second filled with what I can't help but call 'school supplies.'

"It's an editing care package," she advised, her eyes doing that quiet twinkly thing Sharon's eyes do on occasion.

Of course, our children immediately started rampaging in the background, so I didn't really have the chance to investigate the contents of her package. (Plus, I just knew that if I opened it in front of her, Aa would claim nearly everything...)

But there were wooden pencils (my favourite...death to mechanical pencils!)! And erasers! And both plain paperclips and fancy ones! And smelly highlighters! And little packets of fruit gummies!

If I'd known the universe would rain down wooden pencils on my head once I got a book accepted, I would have done it sooner!

(Which is an elaborate way of saying Yay! and Thanks, Sharon!)

* * *

In other news, I heard a few weeks ago that I've been awarded three weeks at the Wallace Stegner House in Eastend, Saskatchewan.

I've had several writing friends spend chunks of time there over the years and have spent much time contemplating the picture on the Stegner House website that looks out the house's back door to the Cypress Hills and beyond.

So far, the stars have aligned. M has booked holidays for two of the three weeks and so will be coming with, as will Aa. I have it on good authority that there's a good day care in town, so we'll send her there three days a week.

Which will allow M the first uninterrupted stretch he's had since Aa was born. (It should go without saying that I'm looking forward to his photos...)

It should ALSO go without saying that I'm looking forward to framing my own view out that door...

* * *

Finally, there's an interview with me posted on Edmonton-based poet Marita Dachsel's blog today.

Marita, the mother of two boys whose first book was recently shortlisted for the ReLit Award, had been neglecting her blog (poor sad little blog!) until she devised a plan.

The plan was that she would post interviews every two weeks with writer/mothers. But Marita says it better than I can:

I'm craving a dialogue with other writing-mothers, an honest dialogue where I hear how they do it, where they reveal the dark moments as well as the triumphs.

And that, dear readers, is what I hope this project will do. Every second week in 2009 I will post an interview with a writing-mother. She will have a new born. She will have teenagers. She will have kids in middle school. She will have one child. She will have four. She is a poet. A novelist. A screenwriter. A playwright. She writes for children. She writes for magazines. She writes. She has no time to write. She is at the beginning of her career. She is award-winning. She is unknown. She is celebrated. She writes and she mothers and she will tell you how she does it and how rewarding and difficult and frustrating and loving and struggling it is.

I met Marita when Kerry Ryan and I took our Nightowls and Newborns Western Tour through Edmonton this past fall. She's lovely - smart and funny and even friendly - and so I was highly pleased to be asked to participate in her project.

It took me longer than I thought it would to answer Marita's questions and then she wanted clarification on some of my glib responses, but I'm pleased with how it turned out in the end.

Here's an excerpt from our dialogue:

MD: I wanted to do this project because I found so few satisfying examples of the writing-mother. It was either the mythology of Alice Munro writing while her children played at her feet, the writer who resented and neglected her children because she was so consumed with her art, or someone like Sylvia Plath who ended up with her head in the oven. Which writing-mothers do you admire and why?

AG: Until I had a child, it didn’t occur to me to admire writing mothers. I deeply appreciate some of the examples I’ve found in my reading since, like Robyn Sarah’s in Double Lives (MQUP, 2008) but I most admire the writing mothers I know a little bit. Like Gillian Wigmore. And Shawna Lemay. And you.

All of us struggling a bit. All of us writing when we’re able. All of us (again, I flatter myself), succeeding just enough to stay sane. To stay whole.

I tried to be honest and also a little funny. Hopefully the 'funny' doesn't come off as 'just-plain-inappropriate,' but if so, that IS who I am.

Fun!