Intro: Jay Diaz

George Elliot Clarke got me into this mess. He’s not at this year’s writer’s festival, but if he was you can bet I would be doing some fist shaking in his general direction.

Until I heard George read at the festival, I wanted to be a teacher. Wouldn’t that have been the life? Good pay. Summers off. Good pension. Benefits.

And then he had to go and read that poem about his mother’s kitchen and all hell broke loose. Somewhere in that kitchen (probably near the stove, I think there might have been a bready smell), I got this ridiculous notion I wanted to be a writer.

And where has this got me?

8.75 an hour is not good pay.

4% per check is not a vacation.

Smoking more does not reduce the need for a pension.

And I need a root canal.

Damn you George Elliot Clarke.

But, wait a minute...if the organizers hadn’t brought him here in the first place, none of this would have ever happened. All these years my fist shaking has been misplaced.

It’s not George’s fault (how could poetry really make that big a difference in someone’s life), it’s the festival’s. How could I have been so blind? The cause of my misfortune has been staring me in the face every September and I have done nothing.

But that ends today. No longer will I allow my fist to tremble with flaccid impotence. No longer will the guilty escape my wrath. I will find the culprits responsible for George’s appearance and...

Well, I’m not really sure what will happen, but you can bet there will be some heavy duty fist shaking involved.

* * *

Jason Diaz is a Winnipeg-based writer and bookstore employee. His poems and prose have been previously published in dark leisure magazine. He was interviewed for the Uniter once and is probably the only blogger here licensed to drive forklift. He doesn’t have any books coming out, but would most likely write one if asked.

Intro: Emma Hill Kepron

Aah, autumn in Winnipeg. Gentle readers, we all know what this means: back-to-school, sticky bands on tree trunks and, best of all, the Writer’s Festival.

Once again, I am blown away, humbled, and awestruck by the sheer number of events planned and the enormous level of talent represented.

You may see me, my fellow fans of fiction, (and other genres, naturally) furiously taking notes, as I strive to bring you the freshest festival observations I can manage; straight from my brain to the internet, piping hot.

Sadly, the job that supplies the bacon to my home will keep me from some daytime events. However, this intrepid blogger will not shirk from evening proceedings, even if they do keep me up past my usual bed-time. I am that committed!

With a line up like this year’s, though, I would gladly stay up for days. Can you believe how lucky we are to have the likes of Joseph Boyden, Paul Quarrington, Austen Clarke, David Bergen and so many other talented creators in our midst? And for free or for cheap to boot!

I know I will be gorging myself on this literary feast, but there’s plenty to go around and I’m happy to share.

See you there!

* * *

Emma Hill Kepron is a librarian at the University of Manitoba.

She is also an aspiring poet.

Her writing takes place in a small blue house near the river, which she shares with her husband and her dog.

Behind the Scenes #1: Perry Grosshans, GM

It's the day before. Loading Day. We pack up what we need from the office, and get the Hospitality Suite ready for the hordes of volunteers and writers to start taking over the space.

Everything seems in order. Everything seems in place. And this is when the momentary panic sets in...

"Did we dot the i's and cross the t's? Or did we dot the t's and cross the i's!?!"

(Perry and Charlene Diehl at the THIN AIR press conference Sept. 3.)

That, I guess, is also the the "fun" part of the job: waiting for those little bumps, those hidden crevices, those sudden disasters that you have absolutely no way to prepare for. But that's why you make sure everything else is working, so that when something unknown does pop up, you can totally devote your time to fixing it, and fixing it quickly.

The first couple of days of Festival Week is usually like that for me. I try to enjoy as much as I can, but I'm never settled in until about day 3. By then, the whole thing has it's own momentum, and really, any little bumps that crop up will be washed away by the flood of preparations.

Charlene Diehl compares our festival to a swan - it's graceful and beautiful to the eye, gliding across the water effortlessly, while underneathe the legs are paddling like crap to keep the whole thing up and going!

Yup. We're the legs. And I'll be running like crap for the first couple of days to make sure it all looks graceful and beautiful.

Flickr-ing: four of five

IMG00297.jpg, originally uploaded by hotair.2008.

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