Flickr-ing: before after words

Flickr-ing: before after words, originally uploaded by hotair.2008.

The view down the stairs at Aqua books just before Shane Koyczan goes on.
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Flickr-ing: the night

Flickr-ing: the night, originally uploaded by hotair.2008.

The night outside mainstage.
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Roo Borson on Creativity

Dressed in black - black blouse, black pants, black shoes - and standing against the matte black walls of the Carol Shields Auditorium at the Millennium Library, Roo Borson looked like a talking head, literally.

I decided, before she started speaking, that if her talk was in any way dry and uninspired, if she was only going to stand there and ramble like so many professors I've had in the past, then I would go with the talking head angle, and the post would write itself.

But then she started her discussion with the following quote, taken from the epigraph of the essay she was going read:

"Are both your parents still alive?"
"Yes."
"Then you still have two lessons to learn."

It was then that I shimmied up to the edge of my seat. She had me.

For the next forty-five minutes, Roo read from her new book, a collection of essays entitled Personal Histories, periodically stopping to explain and elaborate on what she had finished reading.

For Roo Borson, creativity is grounded in experience, and writing is a response to experience - to the way our experiences echo inside us and throughout our lives. It's as though she logs all the little ways she associates the people she loves with the world around her; little associations we all make without always realizing, such as the faint rumbling sound her father's car made as it pulled up to the house. After our loved ones have died, we begin to miss these little things, and it is this absence that our writing responds to.

She also took a few questions after her reading, teasing André Alexis, who was seated in the crowd, to come up and answer one she wasn't sure how to answer. Her answers, like her reading, where honest and well thought out (and after watching Katie Couric interview Sarah Palin, I almost forgot questions could be answered that way).
Roo's talk was anything but dry and uninspiring. It was personal and engaging. She is far from a talking head. She is a poet, in the best sense of the word.

* * *

Brad Hartle likes books. One day he may try to write one, though nothing is certain. For now, he spends his days in the basement of a big stone building in Downtown Winnipeg and his evenings in a big brick apartment in Crescentwood, where he lives with his wife, two cats, and a scattering of toothpicks, needed because he refuses to see a dentist. He is almost always happy.

Flickr-ing: dinner

Flickr-ing: dinner, originally uploaded by hotair.2008.

The eat platter and roo borson at Aqua Books.
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Sex & Politics

How do you call the Northern Lights?
How do you cope with a broken heart in middle age?
How is your sexuality represented ?
What do you want to say about it?
Who will be listening?

There are huge political under and over tones to the topic of last nights main stage event “Me Sexy”. We could get into them here.

Certainly my response last night was in part about what it means for the sexuality of First Nations people to be represented in the media in one of three ways, as outlined by Drew Hayden Taylor, 1)focusing on sexual abuse suffered in residential schools 2) dead hookers 3) sexual transmitted infections.

And because of this reality, how revolutionary and necessary last night was. How essential it is for everyone to have space to speak the truth of their experience and to be listened to. We could speak of that here.

But what about how to call the Northern Lights?

Richard Van Camp says, Rub your fingernails tonight. And whistle.

But if you’re in Nunavut, rubbing your fingernails together will send them away.

You need to know how to do that too.

So that they don’t come down so far that they scoop you up and take you away forever and ever.

What about the Earth that seduces the moon in Rosanna Deerchild's poem?

What about Marilyn Dumont being greeted with teenage angst in the midst of a broken heart in middle age?

What about Joseph Boyden’s characters moving towards each other for the first time, undressing each other with all of the new smells and unfamiliar skin that goes along with those first moments of exploration with someone different?

What about desire and longing. Passion, hesitation and self worth. What about sadness and heartache.

What about aching.

Can we deny, like in Richard Van Camp's reading - that we all have baby pictures? That we were all babies once?

Can we ignore that we all have valid and interesting and complex sexualities, desires and sexual lives?

And if we deny and ignore it - what does it do except create violence. And send us further and further apart.

I’m more interested in being drawn towards you, not pushed away.

Last night pulled you in, wrapped you up in words of sex and pain, love and lust, childhood first kisses, and making love with someone new for the first time.

Last night was layered in its meaning and significance.

Last night left me longing for more.

* * *

Courtney Slobogian likes to sit quietly memorizing all of the reasons she is in love with this city. She graduated from University of Winnipeg in 2007 with her BA in Women’s and Gender studies. Her honours thesis was entitled “mother[loss]: An exploration of our silences in grief and longing.”

She is putting that degree to use mostly by insisting that there is a need for theory in everything. Along with writing academic papers for fun, she finds herself constantly playing with poetry (where it is desire, and not theory, that she finds most useful).

By day she busies herself with women’s reproductive health issues, by night she rides her bike.

Flickr-ing: on creativity

Flickr-ing: on creativity, originally uploaded by hotair.2008.

Brad's notes on creativity.
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Flickr-ing: the finished drawing

Flickr-ing: the finished drawing, originally uploaded by hotair.2008.

Ian at the library, having finished his sketch.
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Flickr-ing: big ideas and box lunches

Flickr-ing: big ideas and box lunches, originally uploaded by hotair.2008.

Andre alexis grabs a bite to eat before roo borson's talk at the library.
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Sex on Thursday

Last night I attended the mainstage reading entitled “Me Sexy.” It wasn’t because I had to (my festival addiction had been satiated earlier in the day using an Austin Clarke reading), but instead, because I wanted to.

I know what you’re thinking, “My God, they finally broke him. How will we ever know what’s really going on?”

But please allow me to put your fears to rest, neither have they broken me, nor will I cease providing you with the truth about this festival.

I was merely attending “Me Sexy” in an investigative capacity. I needed to find out why the writer’s festival deemed it necessary to turn the main stage into a wanton display of sexuality. It takes place at Manitoba Theatre for Young People for crying out loud. There were delicate ears in the building. Have these people no decency? Oh, wait, they’re drugging us, they have no decency.

Anyway, I was there to figure out why.

At first I thought this reckless presentation of human carnality was for shock value. As any celebrity can tell you, the best way to increase interest in you is to do something controversial. But was the festival really playing the Paris Hilton of the local arts community? After careful consideration, I thought no.

If there is one thing I’ve learned about these people, it’s that the easy answer is never the truth. There was something underhanded going on and I was going find out what it was.

As always, the evening began with Charlene. She went on and on with her writer’s fest propaganda as usual. It was writer’s fest this, and books are good that, and do you like my shoes and so on and so forth. While I tried to ignore most of it, some things did catch my ear.

Near the end of her speech, Charlene began to rant and rave about how if people checked out the blog they shouldn’t believe any of it. She said it was called Hot Air for a reason. She said everyone should just consider it irreverent commentary.

Irreverent my butt. Every word I have written has been carefully researched. I’m not one of those writers who goes around making stuff up. I only deal in the truth (or possibly shades thereof).

Anyway, once Charlene had finished her blathering, the writers began to read. That’s when something strange began to happen.

All of a sudden, somewhere between Drew Hayden Taylor’s harlequinian introduction (wasn’t he in that wine tasting movie) and Rosanna Deerchild’s saucy new shoes (now those were nice shoes), I noticed a TWITTER in my stomach and an aching in my loins. All I could think about was getting home to my wife. I couldn’t help myself. So as soon as intermission came, I hit the road.

The drive was excruciating. I don’t live all that far from the Forks, but I’ll tell you it felt like I was coming back from Headingly. I think I hit 80 down St. Mary Avenue. I needed to get to my wife; the Spanish in me was awakened.

I must have made it home in five minutes flat. Within seconds I was in the house and had my arms wrapped around my wife. I leaned her back and kissed her like the war was over.

She slapped me.

“What are you doing, it’s not Saturday.”

She was right. It wasn’t Saturday. I don’t have sex on Thursdays. It’s only for Saturdays and every second Wednesday. How could I lose my head?

Then, it hit me (the reason why, not my wife). It was the festival. They read me dirty poems so I’d get all wound up and try to have sex. Why? Because if I have sex, I could make a baby. And why does the festival want me to make a baby? Because babies of addicts are addicts too. The festival would have a self-replicating fan base. This madness could go on forever.

So there you have it. That’s why they had erotica on the main stage. It’s just a ploy to get you to have sex and make festival-addicted babies. I was lucky my wife helped me stop before it was too late. I implore you, don’t count on luck.

Do the only responsible thing; don’t ever have sex again (please disregard if you have a same sex partner, you guys are fine).


* * *

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.

Out-take: sketchbook

This is Ian Sokoliwski, fantasy and comic book artist who lives in Winnipeg.

I know Ian from around. I've seen his work around and he/it looks nifty.

Anyways, I spotted Ian at yesterday's Afternoon Book Chat with Joseph Boyden and Marilyn Dumont as I slid into my seat. He'd installed himself at a table and already had pencils and a couple of sketchbooks out.

During the readings and subsequent conversation, Ian sketched in both books.

Though it may have looked like he was ignoring the goings-on - which, incidentally, focused almost entirely on handiwork like beading and sewing and writing - I think he was drawing under the conversation.

I've often written poems while at lectures. It wasn't that I wasn't paying attention, it was that whatever was being discussed had twigged something.

And if you don't pay attention to those jabs, those improbable gifts of image and language and energy, then you're just dumb.

After everything was all over, Ian let me photograph his hour's work.

* * *

Ariel Gordon is a Winnipeg-based writer and editor. Her poetry has recently appeared in PRISM International, The Fieldstone Review, and Prairie Fire. In addition to being Events Coordinator at Aqua Books, Ariel also contributes to the Winnipeg Free Press' Books Section and Prairie books NOW.

A hand-made, limited-edition chapbook of Ariel's poetry, entitled The navel gaze (with Kingsville, ON's Palimpsest Press), will be launched Oct. 1 at Aqua Books.

An Interview with Chandra Mayor

Chandra Mayor, the ever-so-gracious Winnipeg writer, agreed to answer a few questions about her new collection of short stories, All the Pretty Girls.

Chandra is the author of two previous books: a novel, Cherry, and a book of poetry, August Witch.

She also teaches creative writing here in Winnipeg.

Brad Hartle: There is something about your writing that is unmistakably Winnipeg. It's in the tone of the stories, the language that characters use, in the things they spend their time doing and the things they scoff at doing. How has Winnipeg influenced your writing and what is it about this city that has made you want to write about it (aside from the fact that you live here)?

Chandra Mayor: Actually, part of my answer is, truly, because I live here. I realized the other day that I haven’t spent more than a week in any other place than Winnipeg for over 20 years. That’s a long time. Mostly, though, that’s by choice. There’s much that I like about living here, and very much that I like about writing here, and about writing about here. I think that in some ways it’s much harder to set a book in New York or Toronto or London; so very many of those stories have already been told, and so many of those places have already been written. And so many of Winnipeg’s stories are still unwritten. For me, it’s a city of ghosts (ghosts of people I’ve known, places that might or might not still exist, and ghosts of various versions of myself), without quite the same literary ghosts clouding one’s vision. (How do you write about Toronto ravines, for example, without Atwood’s terrifying little Cat’s Eye girls smirking at your elbow?). And chasing ghosts always feels compelling to me.

Plus, Winnipeg is such a bizarre and ornery and tangled up city – wildly diverse and defiant neighbourhoods that barely deign to be part of Winnipeg at all (think Transcona or St. Boniface). Winnipeg is permeated with this fierce, no-bullshit, blue collar mentality that cuts any attempts at pretension off at the knee caps, and yet it wraps its arms around these incredible, abrupt, and almost unbridgeable socio-economic and racial divides – our dirty little secrets. It’s an isolated prairie island – hours and hours away from any other city – that serves to both protect its quirkiness, and also to nurture a DIY attitude to everything from culture-creation (music, theatre, festivals, etc. etc.) to fashion (remember late 80s Cougar boots and long-johns under flowered peasant skirts?) to accents (listen to Jian Ghomeshi interview Randy Bachman sometime) to political movements (Nellie McClung was a Manitoban).

It’s a “Hey, let’s put on a show!” kind of town – and the people putting on the shows all have booster cables in the trunks of their cars, and know how to use them. Winnipeg’s hearts are tough and scruffy and scarred and frost-bitten – and still, wide-open. As a writer, what more could you ask for?

BH: With the publication of All the Pretty Girls, you have now completed a book of short stories, a novel and a book of poems. As you were writing the stories within All the Pretty Girls, did you find that writing short fiction is more like writing poetry or closer to writing a novel? Or is writing just writing?

CM: When you’re sitting at the computer, staring at the blank screen and weeping a little, writing is just writing. At the same time, the interplay between form and content fascinates me. When I started the stories in All the Pretty Girls, I didn’t really know a damn thing about short fiction. I’m not sure that I still do, but I learned a lot. The short story form requires a similar kind of economy, of writing close to the bone, that poetry does, and yet, more like a novel, is engaged with different kinds of plot requirements. (Or, at least, expectations of plot). It’s the notion of plot that I feel I learned the most about in this project.

Sometimes I’d send drafts of the stories to my girlfriend (then living in Montreal). She’d call me and say, “The writing’s really beautiful [she’s required to say that, obviously], but, you know, nothing really happens.” I’d be silent on the other end of the phone for a moment, and say, “Oh, yeah. Do you think that matters?” “Umm,” she’d very diplomatically answer. “Yes. Yes, I do.” And I’d laugh, and take another crack at it. I started off that project trying to capture moments. I hope, by the end of it, I also, sometimes, figured out how to capture movement.

BH: Your stories are filled with telling little gestures, gestures that hint at the reader that everything isn't as it seems. Sometimes these gestures suggest that things are far worse than they seem, like the way an old man runs his fingers through the hair of a little girl, and sometimes these gestures are in the form of small acts of kindness, even grace, like a bag of Wonder Bread left on the doorknob of a down-and-out neighbour. These moments, however brief, however sparse, seem to shine amidst all the gritty-meanness and selfishness that mark so many of your characters. Why is it important to you that your fiction contain these little gestures and how do you work to incorporate them into your stories?

CM: This is a great question, and a difficult one to answer. I’m not sure how to respond without sounding trite. I think that people are complicated, messy, and fragile. No one is reliably selfish absolutely all of the time (just as no one is reliably kind all the time). It’s part of what makes bad relationships so hard to extricate yourself from; just at the moment that you decide that your partner is a total jerk, they do something small and vulnerable and sweet, and you get sucked back in. Black-and-white characters and situations don’t make for compelling fiction – largely, I think, because they’re just not true. And if it’s not true, it doesn’t resonate. And if I’m writing untrue things and characters, and it doesn’t resonate with anyone, I’m doing a lousy job as a writer. (And probably being lazy). When I write, I try to get right inside of those places and those people. For me, if it doesn’t feel emotionally wrenching to create, then I’m probably not actually inside, and I’m probably not writing the true things. But when I can get inside the true things, then those small gestures and moments don’t feel like something I have to consciously incorporate or layer – in some ways, the gestures and moments themselves are the story, and everything else gets built around them.

BH: Children play an important part in your stories, like in Casey and Finnegan. The kids are usually on the periphery of things, but they are crucial to the tension that your stories have. What is it about children you hope to capture and what are the challenges in writing about them?

CM: One of the biggest challenges in writing about children is just getting it right...would a three year old really say that? When is it they start walking? The children in my stories are all quite young, but my own daughter is 14 now. Trying to remember some of that stuff is like digging back into the dark ages. I don’t have any illusions about the supposed innate wisdom and purity of children – like everyone, they also have immense capacities for cruelty and kindness and everything in between. There is sometimes nothing more boring in the world than playing the same game, for the millionth time, with a two year old. And there is sometimes nothing more astonishing and revelatory than playing the same game for the millionth time with a two year old. They’re creatures of routine, and yet also wildly unpredictable. Incredibly resilient, and yet immensely fragile. Children, especially small ones, are often the wild card in any setting or life, both in terms of their own selves in their own bodies, and also in the various ways that adults interact with and react to them. They exist in completely separate worlds, and yet are entirely dependent on us, on our own capacities to care for them. Or not.

BH: How do you edit your stories? Do you finish a draft and then go back over it or do you edit as you go? What have you learned about self-editing since you started out?

CM: I do a lot of editing as I go, and try to not have drafts that need substantial revisions. (Probably due to the aforementioned laziness). Learning more and more about writing (through reading, through courses, through just doing it, and a great deal through teaching) has taught me a great deal about self-editing. I think I learned the most crucial thing about self-editing from Catherine Hunter. I’d write something, and I’d suspect that there was a word or a line or something that wasn’t quite working. But I’d think, “Oh, good enough. No one will notice.” And, of course, it was always, always the first thing she’d notice. And circle. And write a pointed comment about. It was fantastic. It helped a lot with the laziness. And it also helped to create and strengthen my instincts and critical awareness of what I was doing. Or, at least, trying to do.

BH: What's the best writing advice that you have been given?

CM: Oh, this one’s easy (and also came from Catherine Hunter). The best writing advice I’ve ever been given is to just write. Write and write and write. I mean, you have to read, talk to other people and writers, learn about the craft however you can, etc etc etc. That’s all important too. But at the end of the day, it’s just you and your notebook. You may have read millions of books, know lots of important authors, and have taken hundreds of courses. But whether or not your notebook is blank or full is only up to you. No one’s first poem is any good. Probably your fiftieth poem still isn’t particularly great. But maybe, maybe your two-hundred-and-fiftieth poem will finally be getting somewhere. You learn by doing it. So do it. Lots of people in this world have great ideas, or a facility with language, or a particular sensitivity to whatever. Lovely, wonderful. But writers write. Even (albeit unwillingly and occasionally interrupted by weeping) the lazy ones like me.

BH: Thanks Chandra!

* * *

Brad Hartle likes books. One day he may try to write one, though nothing is certain. For now, he spends his days in the basement of a big stone building in Downtown Winnipeg and his evenings in a big brick apartment in Crescentwood, where he lives with his wife, two cats, and a scattering of toothpicks, needed because he refuses to see a dentist. He is almost always happy.

Hands on: Nicole Markotic

Hands on: Joseph Boyden

Hands on: Marilyn Dumont

* * *

It has occurred to me, lo the last few days, that although writing is an intellectual & imaginative act, writing it down is utterly reliant on the writer's hands.

If you're a writer and your hands don't work, you have to employ the services of all manner of dictation machines, stenographers, and helpmates.

While I would greatly like a helpmate/wife, I would also like to retain the use of my hands.

These hands have been responsible for several books between them. Makes your own hands cramp a little, eh?

So, for your contemplative viewing pleasure, here are the hands of Marilyn Dumont, Joseph Boyden, and Nicole Markotic.

(What you're not seeing is that Marilyn is missing the last joint of her background hand, that Joseph has the word 'jacob' home-tattooed over the lifeline of his foreground hand, and that Nicole attempted to apologize for the veins in her hands.)

* * *

Ariel Gordon is a Winnipeg-based writer and editor. Her poetry has recently appeared in PRISM International, The Fieldstone Review, and Prairie Fire. In addition to being Events Coordinator at Aqua Books, Ariel also contributes to the Winnipeg Free Press' Books Section and Prairie books NOW.

A hand-made, limited-edition chapbook of Ariel's poetry, entitled The navel gaze (with Kingsville, ON's Palimpsest Press), will be launched Oct. 1 at Aqua Books.

Video: After Words #1

Here's a video that introduces you to After Words, the post-Mainstage spoken word series, hosted by Aqua Books.

(A disclaimer: I happen to work at Aqua Books as Events Coordinator, which is why I'm frightfully familiar with Kelly Hughes, proprieTOR, in the video.)

(A disclaimer: I'm frightfully familiar with most everyone. Which has nothing to do with my virtue. I just say outrageous things to people I hardly know and expect them to take it.)

As luck would have it, the video also serves as an introduction to Aqua Books' second floor space, which also includes three (unseen in this video) writers' studios.



There are two more nights of After Words, one with Shane Koyczan and one with the Winnipeg Slam Poetry Team.

There is also an afternoon mystery event on Saturday afternoon with (Aqua Books' new Writer in Residence) Michael Van Rooy and Phyllis Smallman.

(The tally: Michael's second book, Phyllis' first.)

So, if you make an appearance, I'll be there, taking pics and selling books and making wise.

Also, speaking from the bookseller side of my mouth, I should let you know that Aqua is selling Paul's new Giller-longlisted The Ravine for $25, several bucks below its listed sticker price.

* * *

Ariel Gordon is a Winnipeg-based writer and editor. Her poetry has recently appeared in PRISM International, The Fieldstone Review, and Prairie Fire. In addition to being Events Coordinator at Aqua Books, Ariel also contributes to the Winnipeg Free Press' Books Section and Prairie books NOW.

A hand-made, limited-edition chapbook of Ariel's poetry, entitled The navel gaze (with Kingsville, ON's Palimpsest Press), will be launched Oct. 1 at Aqua Books.

Line of Inquiry: Charles Wilkins

For writer and magazine journalist Charles Wilkins, research has no limits.

Among his dozen books are Walk to New York, which chronicles his 2,200 km journey—on foot—from Thunder Bay to Manhattan, and A Wilderness Called Home, which features Canadians coast to coast whose lives connect with the wild.

In The Circus at the Edge of the Earth, shortlisted for the Rogers/Viacom Non-Fiction Prize, he travels with the Great Wallenda Circus. His new book, In the Land of Long Fingernails (Penguin), is a hilarious memoir of his stint as a grave-digger.

Charles Wilkins lives in Thunder Bay with his wife and three children.

* * *

1) As a writer (i.e. someone whose artistic practice is predicated on time spent alone) how do you approach performance? What do you get out of it?

I approach performance with the attitude that I’m going to give the listener the most theatrical and memorable time that I can (by which I mean the most laughs, the shrillest screams, the deepest heart palpitations, the reddest sunsets, the most despicable politicians, the bloodiest revolutions, the scariest basements, the sweetest summers, the sharpest pointy things, the sexiest writers, and of course the bounciest mattresses).

What I get out of it is the somewhat ambivalent thrill of watching the audience howl with laughter, weep with rage, etc.

2) What do you want people to know about In the Land of Long Fingernails?

I want them to know that it’s a memoir about a summer I spent working in a big corporate cemetery in the east end of Toronto when I was 19 years old. And that parts of it are seditious to the point that, for fear of getting sued, or worse, I had to change the names of the people and cemetery, etc.

I want them to know, too, that there really was a guy who stole the watches off dead orthodontists, and that on occasion the management really did dig up untended graves, throw the bones into a common pit, and resell the plots.

I should add that the book is also about mortality, longing, and so on… and about some pretty strange people, as well as personal and literary matters too complicated to get into at this moment.

I’ve been told it’s all quite funny, although it would be presumptuous for me to mention it in the context of this interview.

3) Will this your first time in Winnipeg? What have you heard?

I lived in Winnipeg for ten years (mid-70s to mid-80s), started my writing career in the city, and still tend to think of it as a kind of crucible for my imagination at that time. I love the place to this day but don’t want to die there.

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

I have just finished reading (for the second time) James Elroy’s memoir, My Dark Places, about the unsolved murder of Elroy’s mother in Los Angeles in the 1950s and Elroy’s attempts forty years after the fact to find the killer...and am half way through Luc Sante’s Low Life, a detailed, dream-like book about New York City in the 19th century.

As for writing, I am finishing a book of essays on my adventures in the Canadian north, entitled High on the Big Stone Heart, and am revising In the Land of Long Fingernails for publication in the U.S. next spring.

5) You joined the circus for a book. You walked half-way across the continent for a book. Is there anything you wouldn't do for a book?

I joined the circus and walked across half a continent not just to write about the experiences but because I believed such travels would be worthy and distinctive explorations both of the world around me and of myself...and would stimulating both to the senses and imagination. Which they were. For purposes of writing, I wouldn’t do anything that didn’t interest me in some profound personal way (and might add that I have turned down some invitations to adventure that would undoubtedly have been somebody’s idea of the makings of a good book… e.g. the exploration of the Titanic some 20 years ago, which struck me as somebody else’s story, but not mine...at least not at that time).

* * *

Charles Wilkins will be appearing at THIN AIR, Winnipeg International Writers Festival:

September 26 - The Nooner, Millennium Library.
September 26 - Mainstage, with Andre Alexis, Austin Clarke, and Maggie Helwig.