In Conversation: Jenna Butler

Winnipeg Free Press—PRINT EDITION
by Ariel Gordon

Jenna Butler teaches English and creative writing at Red Deer College. But most weekends, she makes the three-hour drive to her farm in the boreal forest near Barrhead, Alberta.

The story of that journey, literally and figuratively, was told in her last book, A Profession of Hope: Farming on the Edge of the Grizzly Trail.

Her latest book—which launches Wednesday (November 21) at McNally Robinson Booksellers—takes readers from a farmhouse in the bush to a berth in a ship travelling to Svalbard, off the coast of Norway.

Winnipeg Free Press: What do you want people to know about Magnetic North?

Jenna Butler: Magnetic North looks at lands under threat — the Norwegian Arctic, the northern Canadian boreal. It asks, "What are the stories under the surface", and "Why is it that some voices are privileged in narratives of land, exploration, and connection to place, while others must find subversive outlets from which to speak?" It looks to the resilience, deep strength, and strong bonds of women in the building of community in northern climates.

FP: What are your goals for this book?

JB: I hope it conveys a little of the extraordinary beauty of the Norwegian Arctic, a beauty you have to work hard for as a visitor to that place, and I hope it makes readers consider the ways in which the places they call home are being reconfigured by climate change. There’s no "maybe" about it any longer; it’s happening, and the lands we love and resonantly know are shifting in tremendous ways. I hope readers will also be challenged to think carefully about the importance of women’s narratives to a balanced sense of place. Women are canny observers of power dynamics and of connection between the body and the land.

FP: You’ve done a variety of retreats and residencies over the years, but spending two weeks confined to a tall ship in the Arctic must have been interesting...

JB: Ha, it certainly was. I’m an introvert, and being in company 24/7 for two weeks of 24-hour daylight was intense. Not only is your body undergoing a reprogramming of sorts to deal with this rewiring of your circadian rhythm, but there’s NO privacy whatsoever. Every space is shared, from where you eat and pass the day to where you sleep. I gained a new appreciation for the ways in which humans adapt to living in close company, especially in an environment that can quite easily kill you, should you misstep or go overboard. Living on the ship was like being under a searchlight, in every sense of the term, from the blinding sun on snow all hours of the day and night, to the constant company and the inability to follow your own routines of solitude and seclusion. I did a lot of people-watching and learned to recognize when my colleagues were going through similar cycles of fear, boredom, anger, homesickness, awe, and so on. Living on the ship gave me new insight into the various faces we wear in others’ company, as well as the concept that darkness and its accompanying privacy, wherein we can think and process emotion, are actually great privileges.

FP: You’re written five books of poetry and non-fiction since 2010, when Aphelion came out with NeWest Press. What have you learned about your process?

JB: I’ve become much better at reading my body for cues about the writing process and where I am in it. I don’t worry about where the next book will come from in the same way that I once did—I know it’s there, and I can often see or sense it around the corner of the current project. Then it’s a case of writing toward what’s coming down the line at me, meeting the new work halfway. I’ve learned to pinpoint where I am in the creative process, whether that’s the rather omnivorous gathering of research or listening to music or taking photographs — the pre-writing — versus the insistent, behind-the-sternum push of needing to sit down, clear the decks, and actually write.

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

JB: I’m reading Esi Edugyan’s Washington Black and Tanya Talaga’s Seven Fallen Feathers, and I’ve only just finished Vivek Shraya’s I’m Afraid of Men and Andrew Miller’s Now We Shall Be Entirely Free, so they’re still living in my head. Shraya is incisive, brave, and honest, and Miller writes historical fiction with these beautiful, poetic turns of phrase. They couldn’t be more different as writers, and yet there’s much to love in each one.

I’m writing in and around end-of-term marking at work and winter prep out on our farm, so everything is happening in these curiously curtailed little jerks of productivity. I’m working on another non-fiction book, this one about women, beekeeping, and community-building — what draws them to the work, what they find in it for themselves, and how they create belonging. I’m also researching for a novel set in 19th century London during the rise of early feminism, and making some strange gestures toward a text about women of colour, loss, and land.

Ariel Gordon is a Winnipeg writer.

In Conversation: Lorri Neilsen Glenn

Winnipeg Free Press—PRINT EDITION
by Ariel Gordon

Lorri Neilsen Glenn is the former Halifax poet laureate and professor emerita at Mount Saint Vincent University.

As the author of 13 books, Neilsen Glenn had written about her immediate family, about loss and grieving, but it wasn’t until her Aunt Kay, the family historian, mentioned the tragic death of her great-grandmother that Neilsen Glenn started looking into her family history.

That work led Neilsen Glenn back to Red River and details of her family’s Cree/Métis background.

Neilsen Glenn will be reading from the resulting book, Following the River: Traces of Red River Women, at McNally Robinson on Thursday November 16 and at Gaynor Family Regional Library in Selkirk on Friday November 17.

Free Press: What do you want people to know about Following the River: Traces of Red River Women?

LNG: Red River women were key to post-contact life — translators, trip guides, workhorses, community builders, indispensable members of nations, and of HBC society.

My grandmothers and their contemporaries were tenacious and resilient, yet they were often dismissed, derided and their contributions ignored. Their stories are disappearing and this book gathers some of them.

FP: Why did you choose a mixed-genre form for the book?

LNG: Following the River includes poetry, prose and pieces dancing the line between, along with newspaper articles and old journal entries from fur traders, the clergy and explorers. The form matched the fragmented nature of what little historical material about Indigenous women is available. Writing between genres seemed to match the threshold lives of "half-breed" women who had to navigate both settler and Indigenous cultures.

FP: You’ve lived in Nova Scotia for many years now. Is this book a coming home of sorts for you?

LNG: I was born in Winnipeg and lived in several Prairie towns before moving to Nova Scotia in my 30s. Both Nova Scotia and the West feel like home.

As I dug into Red River history, though, I was shocked to realize my family had lived near Cree and Métis cousins in several towns and we didn’t know it. The names Erasmus, Budd, Kennedy are scattered across the Prairie provinces.

When I travelled to Norway House to visit the site of my great-grandmother’s death, suddenly my history became real — I met cousins.

FP: This book delves into Rupert’s Land history, tracing five generations of women back to York Factory and Red River. Growing up, did you know that you came from a long line of Métis women?

LNG: Yes and no. Aunt Kay, the 102-year-old keeper of our family stories, had mentioned Métis roots, but we had little information to go on.

I followed the story of Catherine Kennedy Couture’s death, and then worked back several generations.

I’ve known only settler culture and its privileges, and even though our Red River roots go back to the late 1700s — Ininiwak (Swampy Cree) and Métis both, many from Treaty 1 territory — I have not lived as Métis and no community claims me. I’m not alone in having a complicated identity.

My family has French, Scottish, and Irish roots, as well.

I wasn’t happy to discover among them two Indian agents and a mercenary who rode with Wolseley’s men against Riel.

FP: Why this book?

LNG: My writing often focuses on family, past and present. When I realized I knew far more about my settler background than my Cree/Métis background, I went to work.

Years later, I’m still learning what I should have known, and I continue to be in awe of the spirit and strength of these women.

Ariel Gordon is a Winnipeg writer.

In Conversation: Brian McInnes

Winnipeg Free Press—PRINT EDITION
by Ariel Gordon

Brian McInnes is an Ojibwa Anishinaabe education professor at the University of Minnesota Duluth. He is also the great-grandson of Francis Pegahmagabow, Canada’s most-decorated indigenous soldier, chief of his community, and supreme chief of the National Indian Government.

Brian will be launching Sounding Thunder: The Stories of Francis Pegahmagabow on March 7 at McNally’s.

Free Press: What do you want people to know about Sounding Thunder?

Brian McInnes: I would like people to know that Sounding Thunder, while of clear interest for indigenous peoples and communities, is a story for all Canadians. Although the book features several stories of military legend and political hero Francis Pegahmagabow, it is not meant to serve as "his story" in the biographical sense. Sounding Thunder provides us all with a greater understanding of the history of his people, the Ojibwa worldview, and the major life experiences that made Francis the extraordinary individual he was.

FP: In addition to these public roles, Francis Pegahmagabow was also your great-grandfather. Did you feel any extra responsibility when writing this book?

BM: Absolutely! His contributions to Canadian history alone warrant a special degree of care and description. He is a significantly under-recognized Canadian figure, and the timing seemed right to release this book on the eve of Canada’s 150th anniversary. Francis was never recognized as a citizen in his lifetime but his contributions to Canadian society deserve commendation in this time of remembrance and celebration of the efforts of all peoples in making Canada what it is today. The book also provided a much-needed opportunity to gently correct some of the misinterpretations in the written record that marred his legacy.

FP: Why was it important for Francis’ stories to appear in both Ojibwa and English?

BM: In the contemporary movement to recognize indigenous languages as official languages of Canada, materials that first feature a native language should be of increasing value. I spend a considerable amount of the book explaining how language is central to identity, and how native languages and storytelling traditions have much to offer our collective understanding of the world. The book includes at least two maps that document some of the first place names for one of Canada’s most beautiful regions. The stories in (the book) are based on a number of stories that Francis told his youngest children, and that they encouraged me to share with the world. It was their wish that these stories be told first in the native language and I have honoured that request in this book.

FP: What are your goals for Sounding Thunder?

BM: I wanted Sounding Thunder to be a book that would bring a deeper appreciation for the historic contributions and often unseen struggles of indigenous peoples in Canada. In creating a more common understanding amongst Canadians about the past experience of native peoples, we have a better chance of creating a future that is characterized by reconciliation and positive relationship.

FP: You live in Duluth, teaching at the University of Minnesota. Is it difficult to live and work far away from the land and waters of Georgian Bay and your home community?

BM: I feel very lucky to be where I am but the connection to home is undeniable and ever-present. When I was a young man, my great aunt took me to a special place on Georgian Bay—the Turtle rock—(close to the birthplace of Francis Pegahmagabow) and told me it was a marker that the Ojibwa Nation had used in their migration westward. That moment somewhat directed me to where I presently am, particularly with my interest in traditional Ojibwa ceremonial traditions. Lake Superior is a pretty special place, and its connection to Lake Huron is very real. This end of Ojibwa country, fortunately, has a sense of resonance and familiarity that makes home seem not so far away.

Ariel Gordon is a Winnipeg writer.

In Conversation: Terry O’Reilly

Winnipeg Free Press—PRINT EDITION
by Ariel Gordon

Former adman Terry O’Reilly has spent the last 10 years on CBC Radio, talking about advertising and then the broader world of marketing.

He is launching his second book, This I Know: Marketing Lessons from Under the Influence, on Monday at McNally’s.

Free Press: What do you want people to know about This I Know?

O’Reilly: I wrote this book for one very specific reason. Most of the companies in this country are small to medium-sized businesses. Almost none of them have a big advertising agency on speed dial. This book gives entrepreneurs the kind of high-level marketing thinking they normally wouldn’t have access to. From how to analyze your greatest marketing opportunity, to crafting a killer strategy, to why going the extra inch might be smarter than going the extra mile, then how to take all that thinking and turn it into compelling marketing. I hope this book becomes a very well-thumbed companion.

FP: First, you worked at an ad agency. Then you created Pirate Radio & Television, a company that produced radio and television commercials for ad agencies. Then you started one radio show for CBC, and then another, looking first at advertising and then marketing. 

It looks like a logical progression from the outside. What did it feel like on the inside?

O’Reilly: I just read UFC fighter Georges St. Pierre’s fantastic book The Way of The Fight. He maintains a "white-belt mentality." In other words, he’s always in learning mode. I’ve been in the advertising business for over 35 years, worked on over 10,000 commercials, and I’m still learning. Each career step was a weigh station. The stakes got bigger. The lessons more vivid. The epiphanies more surprising. This book is a collection of that accumulated wisdom — so far.

FP: What was your favourite campaign that you created? What’s your favourite campaign by someone else?

O’Reilly: My favourite campaign was for the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. They desperately needed to attract younger subscribers. With only a tiny budget, I wrote a radio campaign that generated more subscriptions in a few months than they had received in the entire previous year. And did it with a highly unusual campaign. Proving (again) that creativity is a powerful business tool.

My favourite advertising campaign of all time was the Volkswagen advertising of the 1960s. Created by ad agency Doyle Dane Bernbach, they took a small, ugly, underpowered German car in a post World War II world and turned it into the most beloved automobile of its time. They did it with wit and self-deprecating advertising. It had never been done before. Best advertising of all time.

FP: What would be your first tip for small business owners? For young people getting into marketing?

O’Reilly: Decide what business you are really in. Molson isn’t in the beer business, it’s in the party business. Goodyear isn’t in the tire business, it’s in the safety business. Whitewater rafting companies aren’t in the personal transportation business, they’re in the personal transformation business. Until you really know what people are buying, you’re marketing will never be relevant. As someone once said, people don’t buy three-quarter-inch drill bits, they buy three-quarter inch holes.

I would tell any young person getting into the marketing business to read. Read great business books. Read great marketing blogs. Pour over advertising award annuals. Be a thirsty sponge. The lessons are many as long as you have your antennae finely tuned.

FP: How is social media affecting traditional advertising, like print and broadcast media?

O’Reilly: Every year, more and more advertising money is being plowed into social media. It’s a conversation. Most traditional media is a one-way monologue. It has to figure out a way to co-exist with social media. When radio appeared in the 1920s, many said it was the end of newspapers. But papers got smart and started printing the radio program schedules. It learned to co-exist. Traditional media has to redefine itself, too.

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

O’Reilly: I have two books on the go. One is The Case For Creativity by James Hurman. It proves that award-winning advertisements outperform non-award winning work by 300-400 per cent. That’s important, because most clients think award shows are useless. That is an uninformed point-of-view. The other book I’m reading is Five Presidents by Clint Hill. He was the secret service agent who jumped onto the back of the limo the day JFK was assassinated. He worked for five different Presidents. Fascinating to read the differences.

A weekly radio show/podcast is a cruel mistress. During the run of show (January to June), my writing is consumed and confined to the program. It’s a seven-day-a-week proposition during that period. But I love it. It’s "joyful stress."

Ariel Gordon is a Winnipeg writer.

In Conversation: Eden Robinson

Winnipeg Free Press—PRINT EDITION
by Ariel Gordon

Eden Robinson is a Haisla/Heiltsuk writer based in Kitimaat, B.C.

In November, she was given the 2016 Writers’ Trust Engel/Findley Award, which recognizes mid-career writers for a remarkable body of work.

The most recognizable of Robinson’s five books is her Giller-shortlisted first novel, Monkey Beach. The Washington Post called it a "spiritual mystery" for the way it combined the supernatural — based on Haisla culture, of course — with a dark, pop-culture infused murder mystery.

Her latest book, Son of a Trickster, is the first of a projected trilogy. It is the story of Jared, a smart-alecky teenage boy whose emerging supernatural powers are interfering with a home life that includes a single mother with a drug-dealing boyfriend, a flatulent pit bull and a father whose bills he pays.

Robinson will launch Son a Trickster Feb. 12 at McNally Robinson. The event will be hosted by NCI-FM’s David McLeod.

FP: Your books explore addiction and dysfunction; they’re bleak and irreverent while also focusing on indigenous culture and spirituality. They’re also so unexpectedly tender.

Eden Robinson: Our society has such a stigma about people coping with mental trauma. It makes us uncomfortable, so we don’t want to talk about it. We don’t provide affordable, easily accessible services, yet we expect people to stiff upper lip through absolute hell, and then we dump on them when their lives fall apart because the only relief they can find is through drugs or alcohol. You see it with residential school survivors. You see it with soldiers with PTSD. You see it with first responders. The hard work of healing is done by the traumatized and their families, often with no training and no support. Amazing, resilient people rise out of this, but a lot of good people are crushed.

FP: What are your goals, your hopes, when taking on all of these big subjects?

ER: My sympathies are with the people coping with impossible circumstances. But I’m not a big fan of morality tales or telling people what to think. And I miss this TV show called Roseanne. And I love Trickster stories. And I have a random brain. So you mush all that together, and my big hope is that people are entertained by my crazy stories.

FP: What have you learned about your process, four books in?

ER: I pushed myself hard when I was younger and had absolutely no work/life balance. I don’t regret my ambition, but I couldn’t do it again because a) my body would rebel and b) family is too important to put on the back burner. Relaxing about my work habits has led me to enjoy writing again. Darkness still exists in my material because, in my heart of hearts, I’m still a goth girl writing moody poetry in my room. But I hope the sense of joy in creating comes through on the page.

FP: Who are the writers you look to? Who are your influences?

ER: Every book has a different set of challenges, so I look to different writers to use as touch stones and inspiration. For this book: Brown Girl in the Ring, Nalo Hopkinson; When Fox is a Thousand, Larissa Lai; One Good Story That One, Thomas King; Kiss of the Fur Queen, Tomson Highway; Tracks, Louise Erdrich; The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams; Celia’s Story, Lee Maracle; Lyric Philosophy, Jan Zwicky, Indigenous Poetics, Ed. Neil McLeod; Tales of the Kitamaat, Gordon Robinson.

FP: Your novels are published as literary fiction, but they could easily work as fantasy. Have you ever considered throwing over literary festivals for comic cons?

ER: I would love to be invited to comic cons. I’m a huge indiginerd.

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

ER: I just finished an advanced copy of Claire Cameron’s The Last Neanderthal. She can write warm and fuzzy, and then breath-taking violence, and then cutthroat office politics. I really enjoyed it. Both her female narrators were warriors in their own ways. Last week, I read Railroads and Totem Poles by Janet Rogers. She was the poet laureate for Victoria and is a mesmerizing spoken-word poet. Powerful and witty.

I’m working on Trickster Drift, the sequel to Son of a Trickster. Having accepted his heritage as the son of a witch and a Trickster, Jared decides the best way to cope is to become a medical sonographer and argue with his friends about which actor made the best Doctor Who. Since he hasn’t got a lot of savings or funding, he ends up couch surfing in Vancouver with his aunt, Mavis Moody, an eccentric writer and activist. Not based on anyone. Total fiction.

Ariel Gordon is a Winnipeg writer.

In Conversation: Diana Beresford-Kroeger

Winnipeg Free Press—PRINT EDITION
Reviewed by Ariel Gordon

Diana Beresford-Kroeger is an Irish-born and Ontario-based author, scientist and environmentalist.

Her latest project is the feature-length documentary Call of the Forest, which was produced with Winnipeg’s Edgeland Films and Merit Motion Pictures.

Five years in the making, the film investigates humanity’s profound biological and spiritual connection to forests, from Japan to California and Ireland to Germany, from Vancouver Island across to the great Boreal Forest.

Winnipeg Free Press: What was it like going up into Manitoba’s boreal forest near Poplar River First Nation and working with some of the peoples there?

Diana Beresford-Kroeger: What is amazing there is that for the last 5,000 years, the people of Pimachiowan Aki, they have a pristine forest, they have a pristine boreal forest. Now let me tell how important that is: no forests anywhere in the world have been described botanically, from the ancient forests to the modern forests, we have no botanical description of them. Some of the species underground, we still don’t know what they are. In the Bloodvein area, those forests have been standing for 5,000 years and then some. So the pattern of growth within that forest is absolutely unique.

I saw all kinds of unique things in this area; it was like a paradise to me. It is a jewel in the heart of this whole continent and the aboriginal people have sacrificed so much to save that place. They’ve pushed away the gold miners and all kinds of people so as to save it. They have been guardians of this area for 5,000 years. Nobody on the planet has managed to do that.

FP: Manitoba is home to a generous swath of Canada’s boreal forest. Can you tell me more generally why it’s important to preserve the boreal forest?

DBK: The boreal forest is not one forest. It is a forest system all over the crown of the planet, like the tonsure on a monk. The boreal forest sits like a divine monk in meditation of the planet itself, going all across North America, going all across northern Europe into Russia’s taiga, going into northern China and northern Japan, into the Kuril Islands.

It is the last functioning intact forest left on the planet. And just in case you’re not sure of what this forest does, it oxygenates the atmosphere and absorbs carbon dioxide. What the boreal forest also does is produce prostaglandins from some of the trees and it is an activator in the atmosphere. It produces aerosols. It produces forest-bathing chemicals that bathes the whole of the atmosphere in the spring and it benefits people, even down in the south, even the people in Ottawa. So it floods the atmosphere with health-giving beneficial chemicals.

Fifty years ago, 100 years ago, we scientists did not know what a tree does. We didn’t fully understand it. The aboriginal people, hundreds of years ago, thousands of years ago, knew this by way of meditation, they knew it by way of ancient wisdoms. And their teaching was that the trees were sacred. And the trees are sacred, now in science we know the sacredness of the trees. We can’t cut the boreal down: we have to maintain it.

FP: Another aspect of your message is the importance of urban forests.

DBK: Well, first of all, let’s look at the children of the people in urban areas. They live in a concrete castle; everything they see is concrete or stone or asphalt on the road. They don’t see nature. And that becomes the landscape of their minds, of their imaginations. So the urban forest produces, on a very basic level, the landscape of nature for these people. And that instils some little tiny bit of feeling for nature, because we are part of nature, we are part of the tapestry of nature. The people who are walking on the city streets they earned the right to have a little bit of nature in their homes and in their hearts.

Then, on the next level, the particular trees that you have in Winnipeg, the species called Ulmus americanus. Now what they do is something really, really unusual, in that the elms in particular have trichomal hairs on the undersides of the leaves and they act like combs, pulling the particulate pollution out of the air for the human family. And that’s 2.5 micron pollution, which is about a 10th of a pollen grain; it gets into your lungs and causes asthma and other problems. When you have trees there like you have in Manitoba, like you have in Winnipeg — Winnipeg is unique on the face of this planet, believe you me —what happens is that the pollution load is really really low.

FP: Winnipeg has one of the largest collection of mature elms left in North America, but climate change, disease and age are taking its toll on our canopy. Do you have any advice for Winnipeggers, both in terms of how we might preserve what’s left and how we might best go forward?

DBK: My suggestion would that every second tree you plant be a burr oak, a Quercus macrocarpa. They’re super drought-resistent, wind-turbulent resistant, just as the elms are. So if you lose your elms to disease, you won’t lose your oaks.

Ariel Gordon is a Winnipeg writer.

In Conversation: Craig Davidson

Winnipeg Free Press—PRINT EDITION
Reviewed by Ariel Gordon

Craig Davidson is a Toronto-based writer.

On the one hand, he’s a successful literary novelist with his third novel, Cataract City, shortlisted for the 2013 Scotiabank Giller Prize and the Trillium Book Prize.

On the other, he also writes suspense and horror novels under the pseudonyms Nick Cutter and Patrick Lestewka, which are regularly blurbed by Stephen King and Clive Barker.

Davidson was in Winnipeg this week, launching a memoir entitled Precious Cargo as a part of the Winnipeg International Writers Festival.

Winnipeg Free Press: By the time you sat down to write Precious Cargo — about being a single, unsuccessful writer taking a job as driver of the special-needs bus — you’d married, had a child, and published three more novels as Craig Davidson and several more as horror writers Nick Cutter and Patrick Lestewka. Why did you want to tell this story now? And how did having a child of your own deepen your thinking and feeling on the events you’re recounting?

Craig Davidson: I think it was just a matter of the book coming out of me at this time. I had a vacancy in terms of the next book I wanted to write, and Precious Cargo — or the idea that would become the book — was tugging most insistently. So that was what I wrote. I think for sure having a child sharpens the sense of what the book is about. I was always appreciative and respectful of the parents of the children I drove, but having had a son of my own I can see things a little more clearly through their eyes now.

WFP: What was the most difficult part about writing about children with disabilities?

CD: Oh, there are lots. Primarily, maybe, this sense that I’m an imposter. A lot of books about disabilities are written from first-hand experience: either the author themselves explains what it’s like to live with a specific disability, or the author details what it’s like to be, say, the parent of a child with special needs. Obviously, I didn’t have the same intimacy. So I settled on my perspective as the 98 per cent: that is, the percentage of people in our society who has likely had only token interactions with children (or adults) with special needs. My perspective was, "Hey, I’m reasonably compassionate, I’m willing to learn, I will make mistakes, but I want to be a part of this." And from there, to comment as honestly but also as compassionately and gently and carefully on whatever about those interactions made me happy, worried, elated, what made me laugh and what caused my heart to hurt. All of that. But it was an enormous worry that I’d get it wrong somehow. And I’m sure by some readers’ estimation I did get it wrong. Such is the life of a writer.

WFP: In terms of craft, how was writing a memoir unlike writing literary fiction or horror? Or is all writing, writing?
CD: I think the main thing is the most obvious: one is fiction, the other not. I think there’s a heightened level of responsibility and care in writing non-fiction (although, depending on your fictional universe, if it reflects real life, a writer might feel very responsible in that instance, too), but anyway, the "characters" in Precious Cargo are not. They’re real people. They have a life off the pages of the book I’ve written. They will live on well past the life of the book. So it’s important that everything in the book reflects that.

WFP: Speaking of the life of the writer, how did your son and your pseudonym happen to have the same first name? (And is your son’s middle name Cutter?)

CD: It’s a bit of an honorific to the boy. We’ll see if he feels that way when he’s 13. But by then he’ll likely think everything his old man does or has ever done is lame.

WFP: Tell me about the hubbub after your novel Cataract City (2013) was nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the Trillium.

CD: Oh, it was nice. It made me wonder how a really big-time writer must feel — y’know, I’m sure all the nominees felt a little tired after all the foofaraw, but it was only a few months. Imagine (J.K.) Rowling or King or whoever. It’s never-ending, and it’s so much bigger! Lines of people down the block, endless meetings, press obligations. When do they ever find a moment to take a pee, let alone write?

WFP: As a writer (in other words, as someone whose artistic practice is predicated on time spent alone) how do you approach readings? What do you get out of them?

CD: I’m happy enough to do readings. I am not necessarily the greatest reader — I’ve done readings with writers who are really adept readers (Irish writers are the best; pro tip: never follow an Irish writer at a reading, unless you want to let everyone down), so I know that’s not really my forte. But I get up there, sure. I tend to enjoy the Q&A portion more. Answering questions, rambling on at great length like a doddery old uncle. Surely that’s fun for the audience…

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

CD: Reading The Count of Monte Christo and The 48 Laws of Power. Research.

Ariel Gordon is a Winnipeg writer.

Fluid communities

* * *

So I interviewed Winnipeg-based Metis writer Katherena Vermette about her debut novel, The Break, for the fall issue of The Winnipeg Review.

(This is my second conversation with Kate. The first was back in 2012 when her first book, North End Love Songs, was published.)

Since the interview was published, The Break has appeared on the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize and the Governor General's Award for Fiction shortlists and has been reviewed by the Globe and Mail and the National Post. Congrats to Kate!

In Conversation: Lisa Moore

By Ariel Gordon

Winnipeg Free Press—PRINT EDITION

Lisa Moore is a writer based in St. John’s, N.L. Her novel February was long-listed for the Man Booker Prize and won Canada Reads in 2013. She is a three-time finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, most recently for her novel Caught.

Moore will be launching her young adult novel Flannery — about a girl who manufactures love potions for her entrepreneur class that somehow seem to work — at the Winnipeg International Writers Festival on Tuesday.

She spoke to Ariel Gordon via email.

Winnipeg Free Press: What do you want people to know about Flannery?

Lisa Moore: That it’s funny and set in St. John’s, N.L., and it’s about the intensity of friendship at sixteen. How powerful those friendships are, how they have the capacity to alter us forever, and how they are sometimes ephemeral. How those fast friendships can easily unfasten and cause heartbreak.

WFP: What prompted you to write young adult fiction, after two collections of short stories and three novels for adults? Put another way, what drew you to tell this story this way?

LM: Children and young adults are able to suspend disbelief as fast as a snap of the fingers. When we’re younger, the imagination is very supple and easily set in action; a few paragraphs of a novel and the imagination goes into full-on, massive fibrillation, all aquiver. It’s a beautiful power, to be able to give over to the imagination, because we can inhabit another’s skin. I think, as we get older, that muscle — the imagination — can sometimes be subject to seizing up or even atrophying. So I knew it would be a total blast to write for young adults. I loved reading young adult literature when I was young, and I loved reading it as an adult to my kids. And I wanted to try capture what it means to be sixteen in 2016.

WFP: Were there any young adult novels you looked to when writing this book?

LM: I thought about Anne of Green Gables because I once wrote an introduction to Montgomery’s novel. What I loved about that novel how uncontainable Anne is. How alive with passion and exuberance and temper tantrums. Her melodramatic love of everything. The way she smashes that slate blackboard over Gilbert’s head.

WFP: In the novel, Flannery often feels powerless. And the adults around her are preoccupied with their own problems—they seem as bewildered as she is. What does this novel say about how you build a life? About our ability to make choices?

LM: The novel tries to be honest about the way the world is for people who don’t have a lot of money. It’d be great to be able to say: Don’t worry you’ll have lots of agency if you just try hard. But of course, very often, perhaps most often, for most people, the odds are tilted in the other direction. However, there’s also lots of humour in here. I think many things, when we look them square in the eye, can be hilarious and sad at the same time.

WFP: What function do the love potions play in the book, when everyone seems to be actively looking for love, even when it’s clearly to their detriment with partners who are sometimes manipulative, even abusive. Are we that desperate for love?

LM: The love potions are mostly comedic, a tiny reference to A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and the errant, unfettered folly of desire. What dopes we become when we’re besotted. The love potions are just a gag, as Flannery herself admits. In a way, the potions make fun of the idea that love is something that happens instantly — in fact, we must be constantly learning about love, in order to love well. It requires inspiration, yes, but also work. But you’re right; I’ve also explored, in this novel, the nature of abusive or manipulative relationships. How disorienting and damaging those relationships are, how difficult to negotiate and escape — in fact, they are the opposite of love. Despite the dangers of these kinds of relationships, do I think we need to love each other? Do we need that desperately? Yes! It’s the best part of being human.

Ariel Gordon is a Winnipeg writer.

In Conversation: Raina Telgemeier

By Ariel Gordon
Winnipeg Free Press—PRINT EDITION

Raina Telgemeier is a San Francisco-based graphic novelist. She’s the author of Smile (2010), Drama (2012) and Sisters (2014), all of which have been No. 1 New York Times bestsellers, as well as graphic novel adaptions of Ann M. Martin’s Baby-Sitters Club series.

This month, Telgemeier will release Ghosts, a story told from the point of view of Cat, a tween whose family moves to northern California. Cat’s little sister Maya has cystic fibrosis, and the family hopes the climate will be better for her. The local celebration of Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) figures prominently in the book, which explores mortality and loss.

Winnipeg Free Press: As a comic-book artist (i.e. someone whose artistic practice is predicated on time spent alone) how do you approach readings? What do you get out of them?

Raina Telgemeier: My public events are multifaceted. I like to bring kids up on the stage to read/dramatize scenes from my books with me; then I tell stories and show slides about my process and give the audience as much Q&A time as the venue will allow. Then I sign books and meet everyone! It’s a great way to connect directly with my readers. Every one of them is a unique and interesting person with a story to tell, and I wish I got more time with each of them, but their enthusiasm inspires me to keep writing stories.

WFP: In Ghosts, you’ve set yourself a pretty impressive to-do list: honouring Latin culture and specifically the Day of the Dead, writing about illness and mortality in children and plumbing the sometimes contentious relationship between sisters. What was the hardest part to write for you?

RT: This book gestated in my mind for over a decade and went through many changes over the years. Every part of it was a challenge, and every part of it was rewarding to research and imagine and explore. Stepping away from memoir and realistic fiction was the hardest part. Those are my favourite genres to read and write, so adding fantasy and magic into my work was intimidating. Still, I’m at a point in my career where I want to stretch my wings and try new things — write far outside of my comfort zone. Open lots of doors and peek inside of them. Because the story deals with the idea of profound loss, it was also a place for me to explore losses within my own life through a fictional lens. It was difficult, but deeply gratifying to do so.

WFP: Were you at all worried about accusations of cultural appropriation?

RT: That’s a subject I’ve spent a great deal of time thinking about. San Francisco is an amazing melting pot, and my childhood was spent amongst a rainbow of friends from every background and culture and where I was the minority among them. I try to reflect that experience in my stories, whether it’s as a major part of the plot or within the background, and that is going to be different in every story I tell. I consider my own background and cultural identity to be "San Franciscan." How artists represent their culture and other cultures in their work is an interesting discussion, and I’m open to the conversation.

WFP: You’ve said Canadian Lynn Johnston’s For Better or For Worse is an influence of yours. What about it was important to you? That it had a female main character? That it wasn’t afraid to tackle difficult subjects, such as including the first queer character in a daily comic strip?

RT: For Better for For Worse felt like an extension of my own family, my own life. There was a voyeuristic quality to peeking in on the Pattersons’ lives every day, and I couldn’t get enough. They made me feel less alone. They felt like friends. All of the subject matter Lynn tackled, difficult or not, reflected my own life. I sometimes say, "Everything I know in life I learned from reading For Better or For Worse." It had that big of an impact on me.

WFP: It seems like the traditional trajectory for comic book artists (or graphic novelists) has changed dramatically over the past decade or so. The majority of people interested in making comics don’t aim for syndication or even traditional publishing, opting instead for web comics and some combination of Patreon/Kickstarter/comic con support from fans. But, like Jeff Smith (Bone) and Ben Hatke (Zita the Spacegirl), you’ve published your stories as graphic novels and done very well. Do you think there are more opportunities for people who want to make comics these days or less?

RT: Well, Jeff Smith started publishing Bone as a serialized comic book in the early ’90s. Smile got its start on the web in the mid-aughts. Zita the Spacegirl has roots as short web-comic vignettes, too. Most of the popular graphic novels on shelves today previously existed in other formats, whether it was on the web or in self-published books, so creators getting started now have a wealth of options for getting their work to their readers and in front of the eyeballs of editors and art directors. These days, there seems to be more of a demand for comics than ever.

WFP: Have you been to Winnipeg before? What have you heard?

RT: First time in Winnipeg! I’ve heard there are big skies and friendly people. Sounds good to me.

WFP: What are you reading right now?

RT: I’m reading Martha Brockenbrough’s novel The Game of Love and Death and a couple of non-fiction titles. As for writing, I’m working on my next book, which will be another memoir. That’s all I can say about it at the moment.

Ariel Gordon is a Winnipeg writer.

Out-of-Town-Authors: Kerry Gilbert

I don't think I've met Vernon-based poet Kerry Gilbert before.

I know several people in her writing group and in the broader northern BC literary community. Partly that's because I read in Vernon and Kelowna back in 2013.

Partly it's because I value my relationships with women writers who live outside of of the 'poetry hotbeds' of Toronto and Vancouver and especially women writers who have children.

Over the last ten-fifteen years, I've befriended women/writers and then writer/mothers at conferences, at joint readings, and at retreats. And I've worked to maintain those relationships, not just because I admire their writing but because I like the idea that we're all writing in tandem.

I like that we can swerve into each other's paths as necessary. For a quick and dirty edit, for midnight chats on Facebook about everything and nothing, for commiseration when things get hard. And when there's something to celebrate, like a shortlisting for a contest or a residency or a new book, I'm loud/proud.

So, when Kerry 'friended' me and then asked for my advice on promoting her latest book, Tight Wire, it quickly became obvious that I should interview her. Because even though we've never met, I recognize her.

Hey Kerry. What do you want people to know about Tight Wire? 

Tight Wire came out of a place of imbalance. I was trying to manage that illusive parenting / working / writing balance and it wasn’t going well. I wasn’t writing at all, actually, and many of the poems erupted from that lack—a rebellion.

Speaking of rebellion, the circus and the carnival are central to this collection. They had a very particular idea of the feminine, didn’t they? Women were either exaggeratedly or transgressively feminine: the tightrope walker (“beauty. sequins. perfection. poise.”) or the tattooed lady (“how could this happen to you?”). Tell me how you found yourself at the circus…

I was/am really interested in the arbitrary nature of gender expectations and of the feminine on display. In the circus we normalize and celebrate abnormal behavior, which served as a fantastic metaphor for these things. There is something about the show of outward appearance—of holding things together—versus an inward falling apart that has always interested me. While trying to balance the work / writing / family life, I felt suddenly submerged in a kind of circus and yet everyone just kept smiling painted-on smiles as if everything was just fine.

This collection is also about women in danger. Women—mothers—sacrifice themselves for their children, for children who in some cases are “already saved.” Women find that their bodies are made of clay or seaweed. Is this a nod to all the transformations, all the transmogrifications, of pregnancy and mothering?

Yes, it’s a nod to the contortionists in most of us. I know some of the women in this book. Some of them are me. Some of them are women that I’ve never met, but their own anecdotes echo as a warning of what happens when we spread ourselves too thin with expectations, trying to put on this lovely, grotesque show.

What were your goals for Tight Wire?

There was a moment, very early on in the manuscript, where I was feeling really, really frustrated / stagnant / resentful / burnt out as a person; the poet in me said: what does this look like? The poem “with a tiny scalpel, she carefully cuts the skin just underneath her blouse line. down the sides to her hips. to her ankles. around and up her inner thighs—both sides” came out of that question. For me, it captured all of my abstract “angst” into something concrete and tangible. The rest of the collection 

was a succession of different versions of the same question—what does this look like?

Which leads me to my next question. In addition to the ‘what does this look like’ moment in “with a tiny scalpel…” there are all kinds of surgeries in the book, all kinds of interventions, from childbirth to hysterectomies. There are also a number of hearts in jars…

All of the surgeries and interventions and scalpels are really about loss. I don’t think we can truly find balance without letting things go. Cutting things out. Having things taken away. Faking the real thing and hoping it’s good enough.

What does guilt do to your writing? Feed it or starve it?

In the case of Tight Wire, it fueled the manuscript and the urgency I felt to write at the time helped create the style/tone. If I take myself too seriously, though, guilt (and fear) could certainly starve it.

In terms of craft, tell me why you’ve gravitated towards the prose-poetry form. Does a prose-y line have more bounce for you than a standard line of poetry?

This is the first time I’ve worked in all prose for a collection. The theme and tone needed the denseness of the form, for me. And, because balance became central, the juxtaposition of the single line on the left side of the page made the prose all that much more important on the right.

Now that Tight Wire is out, have you found your ideas around balancing your time between teaching AND raising a family AND trying to write have changed?

This is a work in progress. I’m getting better at valuing all of those acts equally, which is going against the grain (society only truly values the one that makes money).

What is the arts community like in the Okanagan compared to the other places you’ve lived?

The Okanagan has a vibrant writing community, and many talented writers calling it home, but you have to work at outwardly finding it here more than other places. Maybe that makes it all the more rewarding and special when you find it.

You’ve found a writing group within that community, yes? Tell me how being in a group influences your process. In the case of this book, did it help that the people giving you feedback were also writer / mothers?

Yes, I am very grateful to be part of a seven woman writing group, called Spoke. It is absolutely central to my process, in that it keeps me accountable, productive and humble. As a group we share the ups and downs of this whole writing business, which is a great reminder that there are both. I value their feedback and support for this book and for many other things. These talented women inspire me to keep writing, no matter what.

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

I’m reading Hannah Calder’s Piranesi’s Figures for fiction and Lorna Crozier’s The Wrong Cat for poetry. I’m working on two different poetry manuscripts—one on fear and parenting and one on women and education. I’ve said too much. :)

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.

In Conversation: Winona LaDuke

By Ariel Gordon
Winnipeg Free Press—PRINT EDITION

Winona LaDuke is an author, environmental and Indigenous rights activist, and former U.S. Green Party vice-presidential candidate, as well as a member of Minnesota’s White Earth Reservation.

A graduate of Harvard, she was once noted as one of Time magazine's top 50 most promising leaders under 40. LaDuke is the executive director of Honor the Earth, which she co-founded with the Indigo Girls, which seeks awareness of indigenous environmental issues, and financial and economic resources for the creation of sustainable indigenous communities.

On Saturday at Knox United Church, LaDuke will appear as part of the Spur Winnipeg festival. The event features Niigaanwewidam James Sinclair in conversation with LaDuke, as well as a performance by Winnipeg poet Katherena Vermette.

Winnipeg Free Press: Have you ever been to Winnipeg, which sits on Treaty 1 territory, the traditional lands of the Anishinaabe people, and the homeland of the Métis Nation? What have you heard?

Winona LaDuke: I have been to Winnipeg a number of times. I live about five hours south. On our last visit there we went to the Louis Riel museum in St. Boniface. I love to roam Anishinaabe Akiing (the land to which our people belong)—the border is irrelevant to me. Last week I was in Thunder Bay and Manitou Rapids. Our territory as Anishinaabeg people is beautiful.

WFP: What advice would you have for the people of Winnipeg, which has a large urban indigenous populations and was recently dubbed Canada’s Most Racist City by Maclean’s magazine?

WL: Canadians, like Americans, have an incredible case of denial about indigenous people and how the process of continued theft of our land, water and way of life — Cross Lake and Attawapiskat are two recent examples and maybe we can add the fires in Alberta. There's this amazing disbelief that the urbanization of native people is directly related to the destruction of our land and our wealth and then we are treated as second- or third-class citizens. Our humanity is linked.

WFP: This week, Canada became a full supporter of the United Nations' Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. What does this change in status mean to you? What could it mean?

WL: It's about time. It is time to actually respect the rights of indigenous people, including the right to say no. Prior and informed consent also means the right to say no. The destruction and genocide in Canada which continues with Canada's ability to pretend there is no connection between mega-projects that destroy a people's territory, food and lifeblood, and the suicide epidemics in Pimicikamak and Attawapiskat, the sexual abuse and missing and murdered women, is astounding. Time to wake up and uphold international law.

WFP: Tell me about Honor the Earth, the organization you co-founded with the Indigo Girls. What are some of your current projects?

WL: We're a 23-year-old organization that works on environmental and economic issues in indigenous communities and nations. Our primary program work now is focused on the three Enbridge pipelines proposed through northern Minnesota — the Clipper expansion which we sued to oppose, the proposed abandonment of Line 3, with all the risks being assumed by the Anishinaabeg and the people of northern Minnesota, with the profits to benefit a Canadian corporation, and the proposal for the Sandpiper pipeline to transport Bakken crude oil.

We are also working on a set of solar thermal installations in Minnesota’s Pine Point village — and also plan on a solar school project there.

WFP: I got a Gete Okosomin squash this past fall from Canadian Mennonite University’s CSA farm. As I understand it, you and the White Earth Land Recovery Project had a hand in recovering the 800-year-old seed from a clay ball on the Menomonee reservation in Wisconsin. Can you tell me why that project was important for you? And what’s your favourite way to eat "Cool Old Squash?"

WL: My father, who passed away 20 years ago, used to come see me at Harvard when I was an undergraduate. He once said to me, "You're a smart young woman, but I don’t want to hear your philosophy unless you can grow corn." That's what I do; I am involved in the restoration of traditional varieties of northern hominy and flour corn. I do this because I love the plants and I love that they are pre- and post-petroleum. They are the seeds of the future, including Manitoba White Flint. Most of them have twice the protein of sweet corn and are amazing.

I like the squash with sausage and maple syrup and wild rice: roast it in the oven with the sausage and wild rice and maple syrup inside it.

WFP: I saw you give a talk titled Keystone XL: We Are Not Protesters, We Are Protectors in Calgary in 2014. You had hundreds of people hanging on your every word. What do you get out of doing lectures and speeches, as opposed to writing books or one-on-one community organizing?

WL: I love both. To write a book and write articles gives you the time to hear the words in your head and then look at them on paper. When you say them, you are naked in the front of all.

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

WL: My latest book is coming to the Spur Festival with me — The LaDuke Chronicles.

It’s collection of current, pressing and inspirational stories of indigenous communities, from the Canadian subarctic to the heart of Dine Bii Kaya, Navajo Nation. Chronicles is a book literally risen from the ashes — beginning in 2008 after my home burned to the ground — and collectively is an accounting of my personal path of recovery, finding strength and resilience in the writing itself as well as in my work. Long awaited, Chronicles is a labour of love, a tribute to those who have passed on and those yet to arrive. (You can find it at www.winonaladuke.com/bookshop.)

Ariel Gordon is a Winnipeg writer.