ACSUS Conference, November 2011, Ottawa: Ten Canadian Novels You Should Be Teaching (and Reading): a collaborative paper between rob mclennan and Steven Hayward

On Thursday afternoon, I presented a co-written paper between myself and writer Steven Hayward at the Association of Canadian Studies in the United States’ bi-annual conference at Ottawa’s Westin Hotel. It was a strange event, one Hayward couldn’t attend himself due to other conflicts, corralling me into participation but two weeks prior. I was to present a paper while on a panel with another presenter, and moderate the whole; maybe we should, Hayward suggested, co-write the paper as well? I said sure, fine, okay. I haven’t much experience presenting papers, but for the paper I wrote on Camille Martin’s Sonnets for Margaret Christakos’ Influency a few months back [see the note I wrote on such here; and the paper itself], and a panel I moderated at a conference at Grant MacEwen College back in spring 2008, during my Alberta period.

The presentation went well enough, despite the small crowd [see them here, clapping: including Peter Midgley from the University of Alberta, and Cynthia Sugars from the University of Ottawa], despite a paper I didn’t feel entirely finished yet, despite the other presenter cancelling her appearance earlier in the day. Toni Holland, from the University of Alberta, was to present a paper on “US and Canadian Poets Laureate: A Literary and Cultural History.” I wanted to hear this paper for a number of reasons, not only for the fact that I’ve been arguing for years that Ottawa should bring back the position (we were, possibly, the first in Canada to host the position back in 1980, and are now possibly one of the rare few without) but for the fact that I was on the League of Canadian Poets national council when we first came up with the idea for a National Laureate and started pressuring the Federal Government.

Since announcing that I was presenting such a paper, more than a few have asked for my list (our lists), so I thought I should at least present those. We’re planning on cleaning up the paper for publication, so hopefully a larger version of such, including our explanations for our respective choices, for the sake of increased clarity, but for now, you get only the barest list. I’m shocked, one woman offered, that neither of you have Margaret Atwood or Alice Munro on your lists. Another asked, does Hayward teach his list in Colorado? It’s one thing to think a book great, but another to be able to teach it. A worthy point, and one I couldn’t answer. I’m interested to see where this conversation might further.

Steven Hayward’s list:

Ondaatje, Michael. In the Skin of a Lion.

Toews, Miriam. A Complicated Kindness.

Vanderhaeghe, Guy. A Good Man.

Chariandy, David. Soucouyant.

Ricci, Nino. Origin of Species..

Bezmozgis, David. Natasha and Other Stories.

Bellow, Saul. Herzog.

Eliott Clarke, George. Execution Poems.

Quarrington, Paul. Home Game.

rob mclennan’s list:

Dany Laferrière, How to Make Love to a Negro (without getting tired).

John Lavery, Sandra Beck.

Aritha van Herk, Restlessness.

André Alexis, Despair, And Other Stories of Ottawa.

Ken Sparling, Hush up and listen stinky poo butt.

Lisa Moore, February.

Thomas Wharton, Salamander.

Matthew Remski. Dying for Veronica.

Lynn Crosbie. Paul’s Case.

Marianne Apostolides’ Swim: a novel.

Martha Baillie, The Incident Report

QuArc: Arc poetry magazine + The New Quarterly

We decided on a number of things at the start: we wanted our investigation of the links between science and literature to be serious but not high serious, i.e. we wanted a playful element alongside the more sober investigation of ideas. We were charmed by the behaviour of quarks and by their partly utilitarian, partly fanciful names: Charm, Strange, Up, Down, Top and Bottom (known, for a time, as Truth and Beauty). What if we sent out a call inviting writers to come up with a “particle fiction,” a short work in verse or prose taking as its theme or title one of the beguiling quark names? (We thought there'd be a rush towards truth and beauty, but our poets were most disposed to casting spells, to charms and incantations). Those interested in the life sciences exhibited a playful bent as well. We discovered amongst their contributions a strange and comic bestiary of creatures large and small, sometimes opening a window onto human behavior and anatomy, sometimes shamelessly and hilariously anthropomorphized (see Bruce Taylor on tube creatures, Patricia Young on the sex lives of animals—both on the Arc side).

Elsewhere, we wanted to harness the energy of quarks by bringing in scientists and writers, scientific and literary rhetoric, into collision or conversation. We were interested in how literary writers (I mean a generic distinction here, no slight to writers of science fiction!) mine science for metaphor and its near cousin analogy nearly as often as poets do in order to explain what's non-intuitive or to convey something of their own wonder at the properties and behavior of animate and inanimate things. We were interested, too, in the idea of literature as experiment—both formal experiment and literal, the latter a new frontier pushed in this issue by Christian Bök, who is embarked on creating a “living” poem, encoding a verse of sorts into DNA and seeing how it mutates over time. (Kim Jernigan, “Welcome To This Issue,” The New Quarterly #119)

It doesn't happen that often, but there have been examples in the past of publications joining forces (the three publishers that brought out a Gerry Shikatani poetry collection about a decade back, for example), but it happens rarely enough that it's worth mentioning, such as Ottawa's Arc poetry magazine and Waterloo's The New Quarterly's newly-published conjoined “QuArc” special (as issues #66 and #119, respectively). After months of hearing about the project, it's good to finally see the result, an impressive and ambitious issue working to explore the connections between literary writing and science, writing and the natural world, revealing a whole wealth of responses, from an interview with Alice Munro on fictionalizing late 19th-century Russian mathemetician and novelist Sophia Kovalevsky and Matthew Tierney writing on clock radios and time machines to Christian Bök discussing language as a virus and poems from Sean Howard's electrifying work-in-progress, “The Shadowgraphs Project.” 
 

In his recent “12 or 20 questions” posted at Open Book, Toronto writer Matthew Remski mentioned ecology and the final Scream in High Park: “i listened to about thirty excellent writers expose themselves. only two wrote directly about ecology. […] are we that traumatized, that only two of thirty excellent writers can address the fact that the world is on fire?” Part of what makes this particular collaboration, this particular conjoined pair, apart from the focus on the meeting between science and art (something usually overlooked or outright denied), is in how each journal manages to respond from their own particular points-of-view while meeting, quite literally and, appropriately enough, in the middle. 

 

Pentamerous

In your navel I found a five-rayed star,

just the way the cut was made,

pentamerous symmetry, like a starfish

or all those tiny marine creatures—

urchins, sea cucumbers—

cross-sectioned and held together

just as you were held to another life

and then not.

Hold still, my love,

that's what this morphology

is best for.

In the sediment that rains

constantly through the water

the particules of other lives

that touch you and feed you

or,

and I think I forgot to tell you,

that plants are the most pentamerous

of all

like an apple that you slice in half

no, the other way,

perpendicular to the stem

and then you eat the other half. (Monty Reid, from “Host,” Arc #66)

12 or 20 (small press) questions: John Calabro on Quattro Books

Quattro Books’ mandate is to publish new and established Canadian authors whose work has outstanding literary merit. We aim to fulfill the vision that Canada is extremely diverse and the literature it produces, regardless of its style, or the context that informs it, should be accessible to all. Quattro places special emphasis on the novella, or short novel, a narrative form with strong roots in European and Latin American literature, but not issued by many Canadian trade publishers. We are cognizant that the novella poses special challenges to fiction writers and is, therefore, a genre that is evolving in Canada. Our other main focus is poetry. As with our novellas, literary quality is paramount, whether the author is a young emerging writer, or an established author working in a different genre.


1 – When did Quattro Books first start? How have your original goals as a publisher shifted since you started, if at all? And what have you learned through the process?
We started in the summer of 2006 and published our first two titles in the spring of 2007. When we started we had a vague notion of publishing authors that had problems finding a home for their manuscripts, we had this idea of publishing the “other”, to create a publishing list that reflected Canada as it is now. We wanted to publish both literary fiction and poetry. We soon realized two things; most other small presses were doing what we wanted to do with various degree of success and that there was no money to be made in publishing. We very quickly modified our mandate. We decided to focus on the Novella as a genre, so that our publishing list would become 75% novellas, and 25% poetry. The literary novellas explored the darker side of the human psyche and the underbelly of society. The poetry reflected the sensibilities of the three poets in the company.


2 – What first brought you to publishing?
The four of us started a monthly reading series in 2004 called Wordstage. We were very successful, over 100 people at each reading. We found that we were very different but that we worked well as a group, that we were quite eclectic but somehow it came together. We also found that a lot of the readers had difficulties placing their new manuscripts. We decided to start a small publishing house to give a home to those manuscript.


3 – What do you consider the role and responsibilities, if any, of small publishing?
To find and nurture new/young writers, to give a home to writers who have difficulties getting their manuscripts read because of ethnicity, race, gender, or any other obstacles they may face, and to find and nurture experimental writing.


4 – What do you see your press doing that no one else is?
The main difference is that we solicit, nurture, publish and promote novellas in English Canada. We go looking for writers in the communities we are interested in giving a voice, for example, the aboriginal community, and the different ethnic communities in Toronto. We don’t just wait for them to approach us; we go out and seek them out. We will be doing more of that in the future by giving workshops in those communities.


5 – What do you see as the most effective way to get new books out into the world?
From a writer’s point of view: to become part of the literary scene, read the local authors, go to their readings, find out who the local publishers are, find writers’ groups, in effect join the writing community. You need their nurturing at first, and then you can branch out.


For a publisher: to put the book out in print, in electronic form and to send it out to as many reviewer and prizes/contest as you can, to believe in the product and tell everyone that will listen.


6 – How involved an editor are you? Do you dig deep into line edits, or do you prefer more of a light touch?
All four partners pick projects to edit and we also use outside editors. We all have different approaches, some heavier than others. Even as individuals we do both, it also depends on the project, some need more than others and it depends if we are working with a young author who may need more direction or an established author where we can be very light and allow them a lot more creative freedom.


7 – How do your books get distributed? What are your usual print runs?
We have a national sales force through LPG and a national distribution system through LitDistCo. Our print runs are as low as 400 and as high as 1000, with quick reprints if need be.


8 – How many other people are involved with editing or production? Do you work with other editors, and if so, how effective do you find it? What are the benefits, drawbacks?
There are six of us in editing and production. We contract out cover design. We are just starting to work with outside editors like AF Moritz and Russell Smith. So far it has worked well. It brings in a fresh and experienced approach, the only drawback is that it costs more than if we were doing it ourselves, but that is to be expected. We like it and we want to bring more outside editors.


9 – How has being an editor/publisher changed the way you think about your own writing?
It has limited my writing time. It becomes more and more difficult to find time to write. I have a pretty solid voice that I write in and which I am comfortable with, so that I can appreciate other writers but not change my approach to writing. I have learned about how difficult it is for publisher to promote books and that has made me more sensitive to the limitation of publishers, as a writer.


10 – How do you approach the idea of publishing your own writing? Some, such as Gary Geddes when he still ran Cormorant, refused such, yet various Coach House Press’ editors had titles during their tenures as editors for the press, including Victor Coleman and bpNichol. What do you think of the arguments for or against, or do you see the whole question as irrelevant?
I thought for a long time about it, especially with my last book The Cousin. Cormorant took a look at it, and said it was too short, that I had to add 100 pages and it would be published if it all worked out 2-3 years later. I did not want to make the book longer. At the same time we at Quattro were pushing top become the home of the novella. My partners read my novella, liked it, and encouraged me to publish it with us. The argument is that if the writing is solid we should be proud to publish with our own house. Since then it has not been an issue.


11 – How do you see Quattro Books evolving?
We want to be the go-to publishers of the novella in English Canada, for established and new authors, for national and international authors. We want to do more international translations for both poetry and prose. We want to teach people how to write novellas through workshops. We want to give an identity to the Canadian Novella.


12 – What, as a publisher, are you most proud of accomplishing? What do you think people have overlooked about your publications? What is your biggest frustration?
We are very proud of the number of new authors we have published, we are proud of the number of novella manuscripts we attract each year (about 100), we are proud of some of the more experimental writing we have published in both prose and fiction, people such as Matthew Remski and Paul Seesequasis. People have overlooked how fast we have grown and how much of an impact we have already made on the literary scene in Toronto and in Canada, especially with our novellas. Money and lack of grants is our biggest frustration. We have paid all our bills but not drawn a salary in 5 years.


13 – Who were your early publishing models when starting out?
We did not have any; we wanted to reflect the unique sensibilities of the four partners and to have a bit of fun with the press. That is why tequila is the official drink of Quattro.


14 – How does Quattro Books work to engage with your immediate literary community, and community at large? What journals or presses do you see Quattro Books in dialogue with? How important do you see those dialogues, those conversations?
We attend many workshops and conferences with other publishers; we give workshops on the novella. We attend countless of readings and scout new talent. We partner with the library system and high schools, as well as writing schools. We are in very good terms with different presses like Cormorant, Guernica, Mansfield, Tightrope, and Coach House. We have learned a lot from talking to them.


15 – Do you hold regular or occasional readings or launches? How important do you see public readings and other events?
We have 4 main launches a year in Toronto (very well attended 80-120 people), and various ones in the authors’ home towns. I think they are extremely important for small presses who are introducing new writers. They have been very helpful to us.


16 – How do you utilize the internet, if at all, to further your goals?
We are strong users of Facebook, Twitter, and (less so) of YouTube. We want to do more. We are redesigning our website to make it more of an interactive place for writers. We sell our books on our site, and on Kobo and Kindle.


17 – Do you take submissions? If so, what aren’t you looking for?
Yes we do. We get too much poetry. We don’t accept genre novellas, like Romance, Sci-fi, Erotica or Mystery. At least not yet.


18 – Tell me about three of your most recent titles, and why they’re special.
Being the senior fiction editor, I can only really speak about our fiction. Of course I am very proud of my own book, because it uses the form of the novella to its full advantage and turns a well explored Italo-Canadian theme (going back home) upside down and sideways. But I am very proud of Tobacco Wars and how it explores and blends aboriginal issues of history, myths and present day living for First Nations people. Break Me explores the thin line between normal and abnormal, between sanity and insanity. Shrinking Violets explores the theme of abuse. I like the strong female voice, which seems oblivious to the horror around her. You want to jump into the narrative and shake her. Having said that I must admit that we carefully choose all our novellas and I am proud of every one of the 15 we have published so far and the 8 we are publishing this year.


12 or 20 (small press) questions;

syrinx and systole, words arranged by matthew remski

The songbird sings from his syrinx, at the bottom of his trachea, where the two bronchi become one. It is a hollow space framed by reverberant cartilage and smooth muscle tympanum. There are no chords to split and differentiate the breath. The tongue does not direct the sound, nor are there teeth for sibilance, nor labia for nuance.

The song of the warbler comes from an impossibly deeper place in the body than human speech. From below the threshold of distortion. When the vireo sings he feels breath and desire delivered directly of the heart.

If we were to experience such raw song, we would die from the uncontrolled internal resonance.

Our ancestors, gentle souls, who tried to learn language from birds, perished from the exquisite effort.

Ornithologists named the avian vocal organ after a nymph known for her chastity. Syrinx fled to the river to escape the lust of Pan. The river turned her into a clutch of hollow reeds. Pan sighed in desolation at the riverbank. His breath passed over the reeds, and they intoned her vanished body. So he cut them down, luminous channels, and bound them with cord to breathe and dream and sound her absence. He blew his breath through what she became to escape him.

He named these pipes after her, but we name the pipes after him. For us, her name has been absorbed into his desire. We steal the names of the creatures we drive into extinction.

The oriole does not know this story, which we tell to share the sorrow of not being birds.

There has been quite a silence from Matthew Remski, author of the bpNichol Chapbook Award-winning Organon (Coach House Printing, 1994), and the novels dying for veronica (Toronto ON: Insomniac Press, 1997) and Silver (Toronto ON: Insomniac Press, 1998). Quite a silence, but quite an impact when he finally returns to break those silences, resonances that still ripple from his first novel, for example, or that very first chapbook of prose-poems. From the work he has produced, it seems Remski has long been interested in silence and sound, and in turning one form inside out through the scope of another, twirling experimental fiction from prose, or, in the case of Organon and this new project, syrinx and systole (Toronto ON: Quattro Books, 2010), poems from prose.

A tilt of a wing, a wall of wind. The mind plummets from level to level like a sparrow. Your body is peeled from its orbit of assumption, and loses the gravity of limit and shape. When your balance returns, you’re in a different room, the windows of which are etched with fragments of the sentence your falling wrote.

Is this a poetry collection or a small novel? Just what is happening here? A book of sentences, whether as couplets or prose, somehow both shaped as poems in a long line of narrative thinking. Think of comparisons with Michael Turner’s infamous Hard Core Logo, originally called “poetry,” then “novel,” and wonder what might be the story here. There is a story, certainly. You just have to find it, discover, in the midst of such song. Such beautiful song.