Canada Reads 2015

I haven't mentioned it here yet, but Bone & Bread is on the longlist for Canada Reads 2015!

The list was announced in December, right at a moment when I was on the point of bursting into tears after a very hard night with a four-week old baby, trying to recover from dehydration, having not slept for over 24 hours and expecting a house guest to arrive within the hour --- to a very messy apartment I had not yet managed to tidy up. It is definitely no exaggeration to say that regardless of what happens next, the appearance of my novel on the longlist felt like a gift that arrived at the perfect moment. It made me think of what Sara Crewe says in A Little Princess: "The worst thing never QUITE comes." ***

But now there are only a few days left before CBC announces the final five books, which means there are only a few days in which to savour the possibility that Bone & Bread might be selected. So this is me, savouring:

Ahhhhhhh.  Mmmmmmm.

For years I've had daydreams of a book of mine being discussed on this show. Ideally, defended by some well-read indie rock musician... have you noticed that the musicians' picks often win?

I'm cherishing this fantasy even more this week because my mother has just discovered CBC Radio and thinks it's the greatest thing ever. Yesterday, she was telling me about something she was listening to about Twitter and reading 50 books in a year that she thought I would be interested in!

I know there are lots of thoughts among writers, not all positive, around the notion of the themes that have been used in the program over the past few years, or the public voting that happened, or pitting fiction against non-fiction, or against the very concept of one book winning at all...but I don't think these issues are all that serious. Of course we all agree that Canada should read more than one book, but the producers are doing their best to make a lively show that will engage listeners. Another thing I've been hearing lately is a call to include poetry. And I do think it would be amazing to have an all-poetry edition. Maybe with poets as the panelists... although I suppose that might, ahem, undermine the celebrity aspect somewhat. (Well, for people outside of the literary community, anyway.) On the other hand, how else are we going to turn our poets into national celebrities?! This show should definitely happen. I want to live in a country that idolizes its poets. Hmm, but maybe this just illustrates how writers think differently than radio producers.

So can a book really change Canada, or break barriers? I think...yes. reader by reader, absolutely. Why couldn't it? I have to admit that when the theme of "breaking barriers" was announced ("books that can change perspectives, challenge stereotypes, and illuminate issues"), I did think of my novel because I believe that Bone & Bread does just that, in more than a few ways. But then we already know that all writing that put you into another person's perspective builds empathy and compassion just by taking us outside ourselves. Really, I think reading as a basic act is transformative and illuminating, so any of these books could fit the bill. And though of course I'm gunning for my own, I think can imagine great discussions emerging around all these titles. I'm especially rooting for Eden Robinson's wonderful Monkey Beach to make it through to the shortlist.

If you want to vote for your picks (just for fun...I'm pretty sure this doesn't affects the selection of the books, which is up to the mystery panelists) or just see what's in the running, you can do so on the CBC site here.

*** I'm not so naive that I actually believe Sara's notion. I do know that in many instances the worst thing does happen, but sometimes I can't help but see the world through the lenses of my favourite books.

The Walrus Summer Reading Issue

Have you gotten your copy of the new issue of the Walrus yet?

I’d already noted the gorgeous cover when people were tweeting about it online. (I've never outgrown my childhood love of infinite regress pictures either...or whatever they're called.)  And I was excited to find out who the six promising new Canadian writers were.

One of my remarkable husband’s remarkable poems is in here.

Well, it turns out I already know one of them --- my husband!  Exciting new Canadian writer Derek Webster. You might say I'm not the most objective reader in this case, but I think his poetry is amazing.

Get the new issue of the Walrus and check it out!

Taking stock on old resoutions

I was going to take stock of how well I achieved my 2011 New Year’s Resolutions, but then I saw that the last ones I posted were at the beginning of 2010. I also saw that I only posted three times in all of 2011…clearly a resolution waiting to happen right there.

So I’ve had two years to work on these goals:

Read more American fiction

I did this, a little, though less than I would have liked. (Then again, I would prefer to have read more of everything, in every category.) I read The Corrections (yes, finally), A Visit From the Goon Squad (really amazing), We Need To Talk About Kevin (really good…very curious to see the movie, especially as Tilda Swinton seems like perfect casting), Home (tremendous), The Human Stain (the only Philip Roth I’d read before was Portnoy’s Complaint…my, what I’ve been missing), and Mr. Peanut (a totally dark and amazingly clever novel about marriage and murder). This last one was recommended to me by another amazing American writer, Joanna Pearson, whose novel The Rites and Wrongs of Janice Wills is the perfect YA treat. (YA = Young Adult, for those of you who don’t occasionally take great pleasure in dipping into what’s available for the younger set.)

Read more British fiction Unless you count rereading Villette, the only British novel I’m sure I’ve read is The Little Stranger. It’s a great story – I got spooked reading it – and it was the perfect companion piece to Downton Abbey, which I got swept up in last January. Oh no, wait! At some point I also read Skippy Dies (solid, enjoyable).

Read more poetry Yes, I absolutely did! Not only did I read a fair bit from the library, but I'm also fortunate enough to know a number of amazing poets who've published books recently. I promise you will not be disappointed by any of the following: Hypotheticals by Leigh Kotsilidis, The Id Kid by Linda Besner, A Complete Encyclopedia of Different Types of People by Gabe Foreman, and All This Could Be Yours by Joshua Trotter. Now I just need people to do this all the time and I'll be totally covered on the poetry front.

Finish my novel Well, what does finish really mean? I finished and submitted the initial draft I’m sure I was referring to here. And then another. And…one more? And now I’m waiting for notes. That’s about as much as I feel like saying about this right now.

Write another one Hahaha, it is to laugh. Well, not really. I have two other serious projects underway, and a few other less ambitious things somewhat started/imagined/idly planned. But a lot of major work needs to happen before this gets crossed off the to-do list. 

Try writing something in another genre Yes! A little. Though I haven’t tried submitting anything yet.

Conclusion: Decent progress? Unless you consider the fact that I had two years to work on these. (Secondary conclusion: time to make some new goals.)

It takes an ocean not to break

Still daydreaming and slacking off. I've been dipping into books and abandoning them around the apartment. Poetry is easier, but I need more suggestions of who to read. Sometimes somebody tweets a poem and I get turned on to someone new. That's when I'm lucky. I'm starting to get a sense of how casual fiction readers must get lost looking for their next book (I get lost, too, but I think from an excess rather than a dearth of knowledge on the subject).

Went to see Winter's Bone, which is apparently based on a book. One of my movie companions leaned over to complain that it was brutally slow, and since he, ahem, woke me up in telling me this, I was hard pressed to disagree, and yet it wasn't an unpleasant slowness. It felt real and hard. And it had an absolutely incredible payoff scene. I left thinking that if you could just come up with one scene like that, the rest of the story could fall into place around it.

I've also been listening non-stop to the National's new album High Violet. I saw them play Osheaga on Saturday and this has had no effect on my singular listening dedication (sometimes I find that seeing a band during the height of an obsession can kind of satiate it, for the time being, or spur it on even further). I'm wondering what kind of effect it might be having on my psyche to keep hearing lyrics like It's a terrible love and I'm walking with spiders or Sorrow found me when I was young / Sorrow waited, sorrow won over and OVER and OVER.

War (what is it good for?)

Always, on Remembrance Day, I end up thinking about poetry. I grew up in Ottawa, singing in choirs, and for a few years singing "In Flanders Fields" at the cenotaph during the official ceremony (and trying not to freeze! I think I managed to fit three layers under my white turtleneck). Then I went to a high school (Lisgar Collegiate Institute) where a lot was made of the fact that John McCrae was inspired to write his famous poem about the death of his friend and Lisgar alumnus, Alexis Helmer. So for a long time I thought the poem loomed large in my mind mostly because of where I was from.

It took me a little longer to realize just how huge this poem is, though it was somewhere in between graduating from high school and visiting the truly amazing and interactive In Flanders Fields museum (imagine, a war museum that doesn't glorify war) in Ypres, Belgium. (The museum also had a powerful interpretation of 'Dulce et Decorum Est' by Sir Wilfred Owen. Though it certainly seems to be true that people don't buy and read poetry very much anymore, the ability of a poem (or a song) to touch millions of people is pretty unbeatable.

I also remember the Remembrance Day in elementary school when I figured out that the poem was written during the World War I, which was so sad and incomprehensible to me at the time. (Something along the lines of "Why would anyone want to have another war after reading that poem?" Sigh.)

by way of introduction

...I'll start with a book list or two.

Recently read:

Crabwise to the Hounds by Jeramy Dodds
City of the Mind by Penelope Lively
Open Arms by Marina Endicott

Currently reading:

Horse Latitudes by Paul Muldoon
Between Mountains by Maggie Helwig

Up next:

Not sure. I have a huge pile, full of Amazon orders, books of friends, and a bunch of things I picked up at the recent McGill Book Fair. I think it will probably be Cockroach by Rawi Hage (unfortunately, I don't already have this) because I feel out of the loop for not having read it yet.