THIN AIR 2009

Hey all,

We're blogging again this year, over at thinair2009.blogspot.com.

Come visit!

Hands on: Jane Munro

Jane Munro with the ring she won as part of the prize for Prairie Fire's Bliss Carman Poetry Prize.

(Yah, I know it's blurry. You try taking a good pic of someone's hand in uncertain light with a cellphone!)



Jane Munro with a motley assemblage of PF board/staff (Perry changed hats just prior to the taking of this photo...he's the chair of PF's board when not GM-ing for THIN AIR).

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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), was launched Oct. 1 at Aqua Books.

what a MAINSTAGE looks like

The point of this blog is to give people a sense of THIN AIR, and, sometimes, a behind-the-scenes glimpse that even festival attendees with their cash on the barrelhead don't get to see...

I think this video does a bit of both. But then, I'm biased.



Just for the record, this is the very end of the Saturday night Mainstage, namely the Poetry Bash, namely the last Mainstage of 2008.

* * *

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), was launched Oct. 1 at Aqua Books.

Video: JonArno Lawson

Here's the first of the last of HOT AIR material I collected over the course of the festival.

I know, I know, it's a bit late. But I had to launch a book this week!

As you can tell from the tittering, people were quite delighted with Lawson, who seemed surprised, muttering about how "no one ever had him read."



He proceeded to give a rapid-fire career retrospective of his five books of poetry for children and adults.

Good stuff, even a week or so later.

More to come, dear HOT AIR devotees...

* * *

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), was launched Oct. 1 at Aqua Books.

Bloat

Hey all,

As you may have noticed, THIN AIR is over.

That doesn't mean that HOT AIR is also over-and-done. Unlike festival staff, who are even now re-acquainting themselves with beds all over the city, we here at HOT AIR still got a couple of videos, a end-of-fest slideshow, and some summarizing comments yet to make...

The only thing is that the rest of our lives have taken over, now that we no longer have the excuse of the ACTUAL festival and ACTUAL events.

I hope to post my gak by end of week. But, then, I said that last year.

Still, there's enough here to bloat even the most highly-interested voyeur or a herd of the most avid literati.

So, digest a bit, leave comments, and come back regularly to see what bright, shiny new content appears.

Thanks, all!

Video: Roo Borson

Since most of my bloggers have commented on Roo Borson's Big Ideas lecture on creativity, I'm not going to try to find some angle not covered, some thought not aired.



So, here is a short reading by Borson from her new book Personal History.

Line of Inquiry: Lorna Jackson

After a decade singing in saloons, Lorna Jackson decided to study writing with Jack Hodgins and Mark Anthony Jarman. She has published a collection of short stories, Dressing for Hope, and a novel, A Game to Play on the Tracks.

Now an exacting university writing teacher by day, Lorna Jackson is a raucous hockey aficionado by night, and two recent biblioasis titles are hard evidence of that. Cold-Cocked has been called “absolutely one of the best hockey books of our era.” Her other new title, Flirt: The Interviews, is a cheeky collection of fake interviews with real famous people—including several notable hockey players.

Lorna Jackson lives on Vancouver Island.

* * *

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 spent many years as a saloon singer in some pretty rough BC bars and learned to call that performance and convince myself that I was getting something out of it. So reading and engaging with readers at public events feels incredibly civilized and genteel, compared to, say, that one grim Halloween, 1981, at the Blackstone Hotel in Vancouver.

I've also been teaching for about 15 years, so I'm relatively calm with a bunch of folks looking at me and expecting something to happen. Even so, the transition from that "time spent alone" you mention, to "time spent entertaining strangers" can be jarring, even mortifying. At least when we're at our desks, deep inside our own imaginations, even if we're filled with self-doubt, we seem whole and unified. But when we're on a stage and reading our work (also, self-doubting), the risk is a weird sort of fragmentation, or maybe disassociation when we're back at our desks. Who was that woman? Who does she think she is?

2) What do you want people to know about Cold-Cocked / Flirt?

Both books are intentionally irreverent. Cold-Cocked: On Hockey reads the game - and certain players - and celebrates unofficial explanations as to why we watch and cheer. While I wouldn't say it looks at hockey through a woman's eyes, I think it looks at the game through the eyes of a literate, sensitive, aging and funny woman who happens to learn a great deal about herself through an unexpected obsession. I was determined to say something new about hockey, and to say something artful.

Flirt: The Interviews is essentially comic, although the stories – each takes the form of an interview with a famous person - are pretty dark and cover some unsettling topics: suicide, addiction, regret, grief, the role of the artist in an increasingly contemptuous culture. The interviewer is desperate to use her time with these people -athletes and musicians and writers who treat her with patience and even kindness - to unearth her own past and its tragedies.

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

This is my first time, yes, and I've heard from writers that Thin Air is their favourite festival, that the audiences are fantastic. Of course I have a deep fondness for Winnipeg as not only the home of the Manitoba Moose, but as the only legitimate next home for an NHL team.

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

I've just finished Bill Gaston's wonderful, The Order of Good Cheer, Haruki Murakami's elegant little book on running and novel-writing, and my current fave writer, Tim Winton's novel, Breath, about a coupla surfer dudes growing up badly in Australia. I am full of their wonderful work.

As for writing, I'm into a novel, a collection of stories, and just gearing up for hockey season and the blogging I'll be doing.

5) Your most recent book is Flirt, a "cheeky collection of fake interviews with real famous people." How do I know this interview isn't fake?

How do you know the ones in Flirt are?! Pour me another glass of ginger ale, take this cat off my lap, and ask me something else. Ask me about that time at the Blackstone Hotel.

* * *

Lorna Jackson will be appearing at THIN AIR, Winnipeg International Writers Festival:

September 26 - Rural Tour, Selkirk, with Cara Hedley and Randall Maggs.
September 27 - Afternoon Mainstage, with Cara Hedley, Randall Maggs, and Paul Quarrington.

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.

Hands on: Nicole Markotic

Hands on: Joseph Boyden

Hands on: Marilyn Dumont

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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.

Twittering

My email, earlier today, to the handy-dandy handful of bloggers under my command:

How's this? I'll give you a shiny nickel if you'll twitter. I'll give you a whole quarter if you'll flickr.

(That is, if you have the tech. If you don't, that's fine. If you do, and you're just...scared, well, shame on you!) Do it!

Yours, Ariel

Now, I have smart-asses on my crew, so I got back smart-assery...

To wit, here's Emma's 'whimsical' response, which arrived a few minutes after my email went out:

OK, I'll try and Twitter. I don't know if my phone is capable, but what's the worst thing that can happen right?

Is there, like, some sort of dead letter depot for undeliverable twitters? That would be so sad.

Those poor lost updates, forever on a journey for which there is no destination. Hopefully they can make friends, and be of comfort to one another.

Jay by-passed the back-channel smart remarks and twittered this:

jay doesn't know if he's making twitters right.

And this:

Jay is making twitter's right, excepted for the lack of capital letters.

And Brad? Well, he looks like the straight man, like the reliable one, but then...he's not. That is not to say that he can't be counted upon for bloggy goodness (RIGHT, Brad?) but that he is actually human like the rest of us...

For instance, he sent me this business-like email as I was leaving the house:

Hi Ariel,

I'm going to sneak out of work early and go to the Austin Clarke reading. I'm not sure if anyone else is covering it, but I'll be there. Can you forward me the twitter link so that I can upload while I'm there?

Thanks,
Brad

But did he twitter, I ask you? No. He just sat there and drank in the Austin Clarke, which was especially galling, as I came late and had to sit in the hall. Like a child.

* * *

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.

Reading: Rebecca Rosenblum

Rebecca Rosenblum is one of those tricky women. Shy-looking, self-deprecating-ish, but clever and confident underneath.

Her book is only a week old. She's only ever done five or six readings in her live-long life.



But with the exception of a couple of errant throat clearings - or, perhaps, the microphone up her nose - you couldn't tell.

That's what's wonderful and terrible about writing/writers.

Thankfully, given my bugaboo about writers doing the SAME reading at afternoon and evening events, she read something different that night, appearing before Pasha Malla and David Bergen in the second half of the evening.

She wore a pink dress, I think...

I don't hold that against her.

* * *

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: Steven Galloway

Steven Galloway is the author of three novels. His first, Finnie Walsh, was nominated for the 2000 Amazon.com/Books in Canada First Novel Award. His second, Ascension, confirmed Galloway’s promise as a writer. His most recent book, The Cellist of Sarajevo (Knopf, 2008) is an international best-seller, praised widely for its clarity and courage.

His work has been translated into over twenty languages and optioned for film. He is currently the Cliff Writer-in-Residence at the UBC Creative Writing Program, and the fiction mentor at the Writer’s Studio at SFU.

Galloway lives with his wife and two young daughters in New Westminster, British Columbia.

* * *

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?

There’s two ways to approach it. One is to be grumpy about having to find a way to take what is essentially a solitary act and turn it into a public act, and the other is to view it as an opportunity to bring a text alive for a group of people who may not be familiar with it. My natural inclinations are typically grumpy, but in this case I’m very pleased that people are willing to sit and listen to a bit of the story. If you can do a reading properly you can create an experience that is similar to that of reading the story. It’s a skill, and I’m still working on it.

2) What do you want people to know about The Cellist of Sarajevo?

That it’s not really about a cellist, or even Sarajevo. The book follows the lives of three ordinary people who are trying to survive a war, and looks at how they’re tested and inspired by a cellist who plays in the street after a massacre. Though the book is set in Sarajevo, I think that what happens applies to any number of places, from Iraq to Palestine to Georgia.

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

This will indeed be my first time to Winnipeg. I’ve heard there are mosquitoes the size of houses, that the winter is colder than Jupiter, and real estate is reasonably priced. Much of this book was written while listening to The Weakerthans, who are quite possibly my favourite band, and I’m a huge fan of Miriam Toews and Daria Salamon. I was sad when the Jets left, but I follow the Manitoba Moose closely as they’re the Canucks’ farm team. I’m looking forward to the trip.

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

I’m currently reading Tim Winton’s Breath and Lee Henderson’s The Man Game. Both are excellent. I’m not writing much right now, but I’m trying to sit quietly and think about what I might write someday. Thinking is underrated, I believe.

5) In three novels, you covered small town hockey, circus life, and the war in the Balkans. What's your process when it comes to researching a topic for fictional use?

I do a lot of quiet thinking and planning. I’ll read and watch whatever material I can find on the subject, think and plan some more, talk to people who know the subject better than I do, think and plan some more, and then write a draft, throw it out because it’s bad, start again. It’s probably not the best way to do things, but it seems to work for me, more or less.

* * *

Steven Galloway will be appearing at THIN AIR, Winnipeg International Writers Festival:

September 25 - Campus Program, University of Manitoba, with Gerald Hill.
September 26 - Mainstage, with Andre Alexis, Austin Clarke, and Maggie Helwig.

Reading Copy: Duncan Thornton

Duncan Thornton established his reputation as a compelling young adult fantasy writer with Kalifax, which was short-listed for many awards, including the 2000 Governor General’s Award, the Mr. Christie’s award, the Manitoba Best First Novel and Best Children’s Book awards, and the Manitoba Young Readers’ Choice Award. That first book has been followed by two highly successful sequels, Captain Jenny and the Sea of Wonders, and The Star-Glass.

His new novel, Shadow-Town (Annick), is the first of a four-book series which introduces readers to cousins Jack and Rose — and the ghostly Whisperers. Duncan Thornton also writes non-fiction and drama, and he lives in Winnipeg.

* * *



* * *

So this one nearly killed me. Various tech nightmares, from dead batteries to weeping babies. And, dolt that I am, I called Duncan 'Kenneth,' as in Kenneth Oppel, while all the tech nightmares reared their girl-horse-that-has-had-babies heads.

(Duncan, if you're reading this, I know who you are and I picked you, not Kenneth! Did I mention that I'm a dolt?)

All that aside, I'm glad to present my first 2008 Reading Copy. It should go without saying that I hope to do several MORE of these Reading Copies before fest-end...

Out-take: separated at birth?

There were murmurs around the book signing table Tuesday night about how Andrew Hood didn't look anything like his author photos. Also, that they MUCH preferred the in-person Andrew.

So I thought I'd compare and contrast here on HOT AIR...and Andrew obliged me.

* * *

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.

Out-take: owning the blur

* * *

I hate using the flash on my camera when shooting indoors. The light in the pics is usually stark and ugly while ambient light is usually warm and orange-y.

But if I ONLY shoot without the flash, sometimes I don't get a SINGLE sharp image. And that makes me mutter to myself...so when shooting events, I usually shoot lots of pics, some with the flash, some without.

And then I see what I get.

Shooting without the flash means standing really still or finding something to rest the camera against, because I do not, repeat not, have a tripod.

I mean, there are tripods at home, knocking about (did I mention my partner, M, is a Winnipeg Free Press photographer?), but who wants to try to fit one in my bag? Plus, M is leery about equipping me with anything that I could then use to hit him with.

So, here are a few of the photos I 'got' from last night's Bloodlines edition of Mainstage.

Leave a comment if you know who any of the people are. It'll be like a game, see...

(Psst. Tonight's mainstage should also be a cracker.)

* * *

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.

Recap: day two

There is something so decadent about a room full of people listening to authors talk about process, and work habits, and other authors during the middle of the day.

There is something so decadent about a room full of people listening to authors talk on a beautiful fall day.

What do you do with such privilege? The ability to ignore the (fleeting) sun, the need to earn money under the sun.

What do you do with such privilege? You enjoy it, because it's yours and things could be MUCH worse.

You enjoy that art and story is available, that you are one of many gathered in the interest of art and story, and you watch the closed and open faces of the others.

It strikes me that the few truly communal experiences we have left are all in the interest of art and story, as we've lost interest (for better or for worse) in more solemn gatherings.

Though the afternoon book chats are meant to be intimate spaces, with room for conversation and interaction with the writers, this felt thronged, in perhaps the best way.

It's my belief that we need to spend time in the dark with a room full of other human beings to be right in the head.

We need to rise to our feet as a group, to feel strong and full-throated, to hurt our hands and to yell yell yell. We need to laugh and hear other people laugh.

And David Bergen and Mary Swan were up to the challenge of a full-to-the-brim afternoon book chat. They were different enough, in terms of process, in terms of writing styles, to spark off each other.

The Q & A portion of the chat was good too, though the majority of the questions were addressed to David. Mary will have to forgive Winnipeg audiences for being so interested in David's brand new book, especially in light of his recent Giller long-listing.

(Mmm. Mary was also long-listed, wasn't she...but you know what I mean.)(Imagine Winnipeg actually being proud of it's successes! But that seems to be where we find ourselves, with two major novelists living in town.)

* * *

Though I was intrigued by Mary's answers to the questions posed her, I wasn't compelled to buy her book until after her Mainstage reading later that night.

She read a selection from her novel? book of linked short stories? that featured a character looking back on his life. A familiar pose that almost caused me to drift off but then, but then. Something about Mary's deep-ish voice, something about this character, this series of recollections.

Part of it was that the character - and the writing - weren't sentimental or precious about their recollections.

Quietly, solidly, Mary caught me. And I wasn't the only one. I watched Miriam Toews, sitting on stage, and she seemed to be getting caught too.

But I'm being unfair only mentioning Mary. Shockingly, I enjoyed EVERY SINGLE READING.

Usually, I usually like 2 of 6 readings. I admire one or two more, for the craft of the story if not the content, and I appreciate the performance of the piece, the performance of the author's personality, in maybe one more.

But to enjoy all the readings? Unprecedented. (Really. I mean it.)

And I wasn't alone, if the masses of people at the book table at the break and after it was all over (also, the attendant flushed exclamations: "Wasn't that GOOD?") was an indication.

Beyond the opportunity to spend some time in the dark with other people, I also appreciated being able to bring my love with me and hold his hand while listening to some very good writing.

I also was very happy, personally, to see two people. Gisela Roger, the administrator of Creative Retirement Manitoba's Senior Writers' Workshop, and Margaret Keller, a friend of my childhood who gets all worked up, and all worked up by reading.

As I walked out into the dark and rain, I was satisfied. By the chat, by the lit, by the writing life.

One final note: Maurice Mierau's poetry and his manner MORE than stood up to the fiction on offer. He came off wry and sad and smart, all very acceptable take-aways for a reading.

I'm very glad that poetry has snuck back onto the main stage besides just (just?) the Saturday Poetry Bash.

* * *

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.