First of all, I want to congratulate to a brilliant young man on his graduation which took place while we were away … Nicholas, I am very proud of you and look forward to celebrating with you on our return to Toronto!

So what has my Swedish vacation been like? As expected, lots of barefoot boys … but also, the practical realities of life in the countryside: splinter removal operations and body-searches for ticks! I had one on my arm, and I keep feeling the spot where it was and imagining I have another. Yikes!

We’ve been busy with barbecues, afternoon naps, campfires and backyard paddling pools, swimming in oceans and lakes,  checking out sheep, cows and horses, and leisurely meals in cottage gardens. Best of all, we’ve been spending time with my wonderful Swedish in-laws and friends and celebrated my youngest sister-in-law’s wedding this past weekend (Swedish wedding guests are very talented — there were many songs, films, radio programs, and other tributes to the lovely couple). I’ve also been re-reading A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving for the fourth time — what a fantastic book! We haven’t done much tourist stuff — other than castles & science and train museums for my young sons. Tomorrow, we’re going to a children’s book reading in the garden of Sofiero castle in Helsingborg, which is ranked as one of  Europe’s 10 most beautiful gardens!

We try to conduct our lives entirely in Swedish when we are here … which is kind of rough at first. My Swedish seems to have improved since last year though the time I used to spend reading my Swedish-English dictionary, watching Swedish movies and doing distance courses with Folks Universitetet has given way to my writing. Luckily, my older son is a fan of Swedish literature (Pettson and Findus, and Bamse are his favourites) and I get a fair bit of practise reading to him, which I think has been enough to expand my vocabulary. 

My conversion to a country-side dweller is now complete. It took exactly four weeks in a cabin with no phone line/internet connection to kick my addiction to the computer. The first couple of weeks, I kept coming to my in-law’s house to use their computer but now, like it or not, my blog is temporarily the last thing on my mind! 

What is foremost on my mind? Berries. I’ve been picking litres of gooseberries, wild blueberries & raspberries (both wild and homegrown). I’ve been trying to make pies and jam. This is just as satisfying as writing but quite a bit more challenging for me … let’s just say, cooking is not a natural talent.

My revisions to The 29th Day  continue, but I’ve also been enjoying the slower pace of life. Watching calves suckling as the wind rustles over grasses in the Swedish countryside is probably the closest to meditation I’ll ever get and I am savouring every hour of it (yes, there has been a lot of mooing at cows and swatting flies). I am glad to have found balance again as I was starting to wonder if I had lost my ability to take it easy! 

My parents-in-law watched my two guys a couple of weeks ago we could go to a movie: Eclipse. I found it very satisfying — both as an enjoyable film but also as an example of the techniques I am working through in Jessica Morrell Page’s book on how to craft a masterful story: an active opening that raises questions that draw you into the story, foreshadowing of big scenes, flashbacks to develop characters using back-story, various subplots, images that add resonance to the theme (brilliant example: the quilt representing a mother’s love that pales in comparison to the love Bella has for Edward) and truly marvelous pacing. Though there were some cheesy parts, they seemed to be rather tongue-in-cheek (pun intended … that kiss, really?).

My revisions to The 29th Day are going phenomenally well. I am so thankful that I got an answer, and guidance from the Slopen Agency, just before I left for vacation. And, of course I rely on advice and encouragement from Terry Fallis, Anna and others who have read my manuscript. Away from my job, I’ve had time to think through the options and to find the right path to completion of my manuscript. Though I had hoped to have finished re-writing my book by now, I have the joy of discovering the best way to tell my story, and I am refining my style.

Initially, my goal was to write a novel and I wrote the early drafts as if The 29th Day would be the novel of a lifetime, a sort of stand-alone item. I didn’t particularly care whether anyone read it, writing it was enough. But then I started writing my second novel and realized that this is what I like to do for fun, and that I want my books to be read and not just by my friends. Now, in revising, The 29th Day , I am finding techniques/ways of expression that transcend the particular themes or characters in a book. So far, these are characteristics that might define my novels:

• a central plot line dealing with human relationships and a social issue (climate change, homelessless, racism, sexism etc.)
• multiple subplots that reinforce the theme and premise of the book
• written (for better or worse) in the first person present — I just like the immediacy of stories written this way, including The Best Laid Plans by Terry Fallis (which inspired me to write The 29th Day)
• lots of dialogue (my first version of The 29th Day did not have as much as Novel #2, so I am going back and adding this in)
• strong shifts in mood created through word choice and scenes: funny, foreboding, poignant etc.
• all the tricks I can think of: suspense, foreshadowing, cliffhangers (I enjoy these as a consumer of stories, and find them just as much fun to write knowing the impact they will — if executed well enough — have on the reader).

I came across some advice in Jessica Page Morrell’s book that I wish I’d known about when I wrote my first draft of The 29th Day. I normally write my books scene by scene based on a theme & premise and then piece them together (ie. still no success outlining). My fear was that this approach would make my book too patchy, so I spent a fair bit of time working in transitional pieces, some of which I was not particularly interested in other than as a vehicle for getting characters from point A to point B. It turns out that this was unnecessary. I have learnt that when scenes are put one after another without much transition between them, this builds suspense (which helps keep the reader hooked) — Jessica Page Morrell refers to this as a “scene cut” or a “jump cut.”  In my final analysis, the added transitional scenes are what caused the problem in pacing in The 29th Day -- they made the beginning drag out without adding much of value. So, I’ve been eliminating transitional scenes, or including them as short flashbacks if there is information in them that advances the theme or premise of the book.

I’ve also been able to add more of my current writing style into The 29th Day, so the two books will be more unified. People who read and liked The 29th Day, might better be able to predict also liking my second novel (which I have not worked on since May … I’ve had to put that aside while I am revising The 29th Day).

One of my wonderful friends read the revised beginning of The 29th Day from my laptop a week ago and was curious to read more — though she had already read an earlier draft and we were in the middle of a barbecue, she was hooked! So, things are right on track. Unfortunately, I won’t complete the revision while on vacation. Though I have had a lot of time,  I prefer not to spend time during the day writing unless it fits easily into our plans (ie. nothing else is happening or someone has to stay with a sleeping child) — I don’t like the idea of missing out on a fun activity just to stay home and write. My best writing time is the late evening, but we are often doing social stuff  then… and the time with our friends and family here is so limited and precious, so that seems to make sense as well.  I’ll do as much as I can on vacation and then will complete the rest at home when I am back into my regular routine. Luckily, work on the end of the book will be less taxing on the brain than what I have already done — mainly, I’ll need to change the text to the present tense and add more dialogue. Plus, I was happy that I was able to write 60,000 words of Novel #2 in the 6 months after I returned to work from maternity leave, so I know that I can combine writing my novels with the writing I do at work.

Anyway, I hope your summer is going well, and promise that I will blog more regularly in September!

In this exclusive interview with Evadne Macedo, author of The 29th Day, Karen Connelly shares her thoughts on writing. Karen Connelly is a teacher at the Humber School for Writers and author of nine books of poetry, non-fiction and fiction including Burmese Lessons, The Lizard Cage, Grace & Poison, The Border Surrounds Us. She has received numerous grants and awards for her writing including Britain’s Orange Broadband Prize for New Writers (2007) for her first novel, The Lizard Cage and The Governor General’s Award for Touch the Dragon: A Thai Journal (at age 24).

1. The Globe and Mail review of your most recent novel, Burmese Lessons, draws the link back to The Lizard Cage – noting that “[r]eaders familiar with The Lizard Cage will experience several shocks of recognition of characters and images and ideas that become the building blocks of the novel that took her eight years to write, after the period covered by the memoir.” I think about this in the context of Touch the Dragon: A Thai Journal, published as a series of letters to unknown readers. That collection could have been reconfigured as a novel or short stories, yet the concept of letters to me (as the reader) — a person you could not have imagined years ago when you were writing the pieces — is thilling in its simple genius. You have a remarkable ability to craft the truth of the life into something that resonates with the reader. How do you decide whether to write an experience as a poem, a novel, a collection of letters or non-fiction memoir? When do you know you have exhausted the potential of an experience?

In an interview with Nancy Lee at Joy Kogawa’s house in Vancouver, I realized that I have written about all the material that interests me in all three genres. This interview took place a couple weeks ago, and my answer was a revelation to me. But it’s true. All the themes I’m interested in—the experience of the self abroad, the idea of cultural and political Otherness, the body as conduit for experience and knowledge, the effect of trauma on the individual, the family, the body politic—all of these have received some kind of treatment in fiction, nonfiction and poetry. I think poetry, for me, is the first response (the most visceral), and then fiction (which is more intellectual, more thought-out), and then nonfiction, which for me is a kind of peacemaking genre. Of course it’s not always exactly like this, but when I think about the book One Room in a Castle, which is a blur of genres, and the years I’ve spent writing about Burma, that curious formula certainly applies.

I know I can’t write anymore about Burma—it’s been almost fifteen years, and my energy for the subject is tapped out. But the themes remain the same—I’ve found my themes. Politics, the body, the resilience of love paired with an innate and learned human impulse to extraordinary violence and cruelty. Obviously those are themes that a writer, or anyone, can spend a lifetime thinking about.

2. In your 1993 interview with The ShanMonster, you spoke about the challenges you faced in finding a publisher for Touch the Dragon: A Thai Journal — a non-fiction book that ended up winning the Governor General’s Award. About 15 years later, Terry Fallis faced similar obstacles in publishing his first novel, The Best Laid Plans, which also turned out to be an award-winning book (it won the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour in 2008). What changes have you seen in the publishing industry over your years as a writer? How are prospects for new writers starting out now, compared to those you faced when you were a teen with a plan of being a writer?

Clearly it’s all more competitive and stressful now for young writers—partly because Canada is a bigger country, there are more people writing, and publishers themselves are under more stress because of massive changes in technology. Writing programs increasingly school (and produce) new writers to have big expectations about what they can potentially ‘get’ from the publishing experience, whereas the reality remains the same, and is in fact, at this moment, probably worse than when I was starting out: it’s hard to get published, it’s even harder to make a living writing, and publishing a book, while important and formative, does not change your life. But it doesn’t matter how many times more established writers tell young writers this: most of them don’t believe us. And I suppose that is as it should be. I didn’t go to university, or through a creative writing program, so I grew up as a writer with the assumption that what I was writing might never be published, and that I might labour away in obscurity for my entire life. And I was all right with that. I had a lot of ambition, but I was also a great romantic. It was all about ‘my art.’

3. John Bemrose and Emily Schultz are poets who seem to infuse poetry into their fiction whereas you seem to maintain a stronger separation between the types of writing, perhaps like Priscila Uppal. In early drafts of my first novel, The 29th Day, I relied quite heavily on poetry and poetic language as that felt natural — I had captured moments that could then be woven together to form a coherent story. In writing my second novel, I am more consciously separating my writing into a poetry collection and a novel. What is your approach to writing  fiction and poetry? At what point do you really know that something you have written is a poem rather than a description of an idea that might fit into a novel? Is there a benefit to one approach over the other?

The work dictates itself; meaning the impulse comes to me strongly as poetry, or prose. I’m close to finishing my first collection of poems in a decade, and I know that I’ll now write fiction about the subject matter of the collection.

Poetry comes from a different area of the brain. Prose and poetry use different techniques, different voices—poetry is like a different musical instrument. Working on the new book of poetry—oh canada crack my heart—despite dealing with truly miserable subject matter–was like going swimming in almost warm salt water. One floats. In prose you really have to swim. Prose narrative is all about duty, making sure the reader gets the connections, building the whole scene, the whole world. Poetry is momentary and emotional. Clearly it can and even needs to mean more than one thing. This multiplicity means it is a freer element. Even if it is narrative, as much of my poetry is, very story-ish, it is still more watery, more fluid. And let’s face it, poetry can just jazz up and crash down and stun the reader in a way that prose almost never can. The sharpness and specificity of poetry has much to do with that. While it is the freer element, it also contains, paradoxically, the possibility of driving a stake into the reader’s heart.

What’s great about poetry for me is that no one reads it. Well, maybe a few hundred people. But it’s a secret place. Most poets complain about this but for me it’s a relief. Because of that wonderful obscurity, you can think write say express anything in a poem. There is no censorship, no niceties necessary. At least for me. I do think a lot of other poets do more censoring, more picking and choosing. Or it’s a stylistic consideration—I find there’s a lot of tightness in Canadian poetry these days, a lot of formalism that is not particularly interesting and absolutely not emotionally engaging, which is part of my poetics. As I get older I am more and more interested in—what? freedom? that’s not exactly it, since I have always had every kind of freedom imaginable. Something else. Not hiding. Telling the truth.

4.  Based on your experience as a teacher and mentor (through Diaspora Dialogues and the Toronto Writers’ Centre among other programs), are there any books — fiction or non-fiction — that you would recommend for writers to improve their craft?

Great books: Writing Fiction, by Janet Burroway, for both nonfiction and fiction writers. And The Art of Memoir, by Judith Barrington.

5. Could you please comment on the practicalities behind your writing? For example, do you keep notes in a notebook? If so, at what point do you transfer them to a computer? Do you write on a laptop or a desktop? Do you hide yourself away in a quiet room or write at cafés? And the biggest question of all: Do you use a Mac or a PC?

I write on a PC, but am considering getting a Mac. I have a pretty steady schedule and a home office, and sometimes work at the Toronto Writers Centre when I’m very busy with a specific project. I do childcare in the morning, some email, then write in the afternoon, from about 2-6. I keep a journal but writing notes, unless I’m travelling or living abroad, are not usually the stuff of the journal. That’s more a personal record of thoughts, experiences.

6. In her interview, Emily Schultz mentioned advice she’d received from poet Patrick Lane: “Endure.” What’s the best piece of advice you received on writing or making it in the literary world?

The great Indonesian writer Pramoedya Ananta Toer, while I struggled writing The Lizard Cage, told me: Be daring. Best advice ever. It has worked.

7. In the introduction to Grace & Poison, you speak of guidance counsellors who guided you towards secretarial work and teachers who accused you of anti-intellectualism, yet your identity as a writer was established from such a young age. What can we do — as teachers, parents, and caring adults — to nurture the children around us, all of whom have potential to be writers? Who, if anyone, provided you with the mentorship or support you needed to endure your challenging early years as an aspiring writer?

I think allowing children time and space to do nothing is crucial. Or to just do whatever they want, except for watch too much TV or play too much on the computer. As we all become more technologically mediated creatures, we interact less and less with the natural physical environment, less with ourselves, less with each other. Children especially see so many images, do so many things, experience so many pressures from a young age. Freedom and time have become these golden eggs that even eleven year olds don’t have anymore. It’s sick. It is literally sick, and sickening. To be outside in natural environments and to do nothing: we should all have more of that, children included.

Nancy Holmes, a dear friend and a wonderful poet—her collection The Adultery Poems probably contains the best sonnets any contemporary Canadian has written–was my GREAT mentor and supporter through my early writing life. I met her when I was fourteen, in Calgary. And she still gives me great advice when it comes to new manuscripts. And Timothy Findley and I had a correspondence which was crucial to me, while I was living in Spain and France. He was very supportive, encouraging and no-nonsense as well. Cynthia Good, who used to be the managing editor at Penguin (over twenty years ago) was also very helpful and encouraging. She now runs the publishing program at Humber.

8. In your interview with Sarah Hampson of the Globe and Mail, you describe motherhood as a sort of cultural “experience.” You say, ”It’s altering but it makes you more yourself, I found. When you have a small child, it’s such an intense experience because you are always brought to the edge of yourself.” This sort of intensity helped me write the first draft of my first novel, The 29th Day. What impact has the creative intensity of motherhood had on your writing?

The implications of power are endlessly fascinating, and depressing. Here you have a PERFECT being—literally, that is what a healthy newborn is. And you watch how your struggle for power with and over this being deforms that perfection. How society’s constructs deform that perfection. The very best parent, the most patient, the kindest, etc, makes so many mistakes. And has power. Must have power: that is, after all, part of the job description of ‘parent’. I am a good mother, but it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done, or ever will do. Writing books is nothing beside it, honestly. Parenting is the ultimate Buddhist practice—you constantly have to reassess and release and be compassionate and loving when you just feel like saying, Oh, fuck, enough already, I’m sick of this.

I’ve already thought a lot about the parallels between one’s personal power over children and the political power wielded by rulers, because Burmese people often compare their dictatorship to a cruel, uncaring father. If it is hard to have power over a child, it is much harder to have power over a nation. I suppose having a child has taught me how truly amazing Canada and a few other nations are, how relatively well our country is run, how relatively peaceful we are as a people, and how crucial it is that we preserve that instead of letting it be ruined by an increasingly dictatorial Conservative party.

In Harper we see the classic lousy, over-controlling, withholding, hard-hearted parent. To simplify it greatly (I know, this is a long argument, not a short interview subject): the recent G20 meetings in Toronto have been a meeting of crappy parents. We have not seen more regulations formulated for banks; we have not seen more control or taxes of large money-making corporations; we have not seen power curbed or “made compassionate” in any way. Quite the opposite. Educational institutions, healthcare initiatives, social safety nets for the poor and variously disabled are all going to pay for the excesses of massive financial institutions and rich men and women. It is no coincidence that these are all bodies that, among other things, take care of the vulnerable and of children.

Allow me to say one more thing, seeing as we’re talking about babies and politics: Harper’s recent stipulation that Canada will not fund abortions in the developing world is so deeply sick, and indicative of what we are headed for as a nation: more control, more illogical moralizing. I have been in clinics in Asia where there are whole clinic WALLS covered with the hooks and sticks and wires that have been taken out of the cervixes of women desperate to abort because they cannot care for a/nother child. Many of these women died, or became so sick that their families disintegrated during their illnesses.

9. One of my goals in starting this blog was to profile writers who use their  ”platform” as a writer to achieve social justice-related goals. This could be by embedding challenging ideas about society and its values into the text of a novel or poems,  like Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale or The Year of the Flood or Don LePan in Animals. Priscila Uppal sees her writing as a sort of social work vocation, Nino Ricci supports BullFrog Power, Pasha Malla provokes people to challenge implicit racism using humour — just to name a few examples of other ways authors connect to ideas beyond themselves. I know that you have been involved with Pen Canada and Diaspora Dialogues — to what extent do you believe that you can be an agent of change, through your writing and the access to the public it gives you? Are there specific organizations, charities or causes that you use your writing, and “celebrity” as a writer to bring attenton to?

I’m never sure how to answer this question. Writers certainly have been agents for change—Zola, Camus, Voltaire, more recently the French writer Jean Yves Cendry who exposed a horrific pedophile cover-up in the northern France’s education system. And all the great feminist writers, starting with Wollstonecraft and moving right up through Betty Friedan and Susan Griffin. Some of these writers’ works have literally helped society change for the better in quantifiable ways. And writers who write in countries where censorship and freedom of speech are under constant threat—those writers and journalists often risk and sometimes lose their lives in their efforts to tell the truth, to effect change, to challenge the forces that would silence dissent. Having written a large book about a political prisoner who is in prison because he wrote protest songs, having interviewed dozens of former political prisoners, I am naturally sensitized to those kinds of issues. We have those kinds of struggles in North America too, but they are more cleverly hidden, or we ignore them because most of us are spoiled enough to ignore them. Some of our Native writers (Jeanette Armstrong immediately springs to mind) are writing or teaching about those struggles. But to be honest I find quite a few Canadian writers pretty apolitical, and, sometimes, because of that, rather dull.

I’m certainly supportive of PEN and Amnesty, and was very active doing Burma work for years. I know I’ve educated a lot of people in the West about what is happening in Burma, but I am a pragmatist: my work has not had any effect on the regime itself, and to those in the struggle for democracy there, has provided moral support at best.

10. In the introduction to Grace & Poison, you note that there is a link between language diversity and biodiversity, referring to a discovery by TerraLingua, an organization dedicated to preserving linguistic diversity. You say, “Wherever there are many butterflies, big cats, flowering plants, amphibians, and old trees, there are also many languages. But languages are dying faster than the landscapes to which they are intimately bound: fifty percent of the world’s 7,000 languages will probably be dead within a hundred years. Just as deforestation and desert-encroachment destroy ancient ecosystems, the languages and the people that name, protect, and remember those places disappear. When a language dies, the accumulated knowledge that lives inside words also perishes. We become less able to take care of our environment — and it becomes less able to take care of us — when our tongues are severed from it.” I thought this was fascinating and wonder whether there is anything else you might like to say on this topic — more recent developments, ideas for social change around this topic etc. Have you had any interest in tackling this concept in poetry, or a novel or a longer non-fiction work?

Other writers (Mark Abley jumps to mind, and Wade Davis) have written eloquently about what it means for us to lose ancient cultures and languages—how complex and grave and enormous this loss really is, how tragic it is. Because I’m a polyglot (I speak five languages quite well, and a sixth quite poorly) I am interested in how language affects the mind and spirit, who we become through other languages, how language is a form of history and a receptacle for knowledge. The study of any language’s roots affirms these ideas. But no, I’ve never been deeply pulled to write about the subject in a deep way. I think there are others who are doing that better than I could.

11. Do you have any final words of advice or encouragement for aspiring writers?

Go forth, my friends. The city is a big place. The farm is endless. The country is large. The world is a ragged, messy, exuberant, heartbreaking enormity. As is an individual life. Find someone to read your work and to be critical of it, but compassionate. Don’t take yourself too seriously. Don’t drink too much. As the Buddhist lojong slogan advises, Abandon all hope of fruition. Be daring

For more information about Karen Connelly, please visit her blog at http://karenconnelly.ca. See also her 1993 interview with The ShanMonster.

This interview was originally posted on July 10, 2010 at http://books.macedo.ca. This is the first interview in Evadne Macedo’s 2010/2011 Author  Interview Series. Please also read the interviews in Evadne’s  2009/2010 Author Interview Series:

• Emily Schultz: Heaven is Small, Joyland, Songs for the Dancing Chicken (May 5, 2010)
• Sarah Sheard: Almost Japanese, The Swing Era: a Novel, The Hypnotist: a Novel (April 14, 2010)
• Kristen den Hartog: (Water Wings, The Perpetual Ending, Origin of Haloes and The Occupied Garden with Tracy Kasaboski (March 31, 2010)
• Priscila Uppal: To Whom it May Concern, The Divine Economy of Salvation, Traumatology, Successful Tragedies and many, many other published works (March 17, 2010).
• John Bemrose: The Last Woman, Island Walkers, Imaginary Horses, Going Under (March 3, 2010)
• Pasha Malla: The Withdrawal Method (The 2009 Trillium Award; The Danuta Gleed Literary Award) (February 17, 2010)
• Kim Moritsugu: The Restoration of Emily; The Glenwood Treasure; Old Flames and Looks Perfect (February 3, 2010)
• Terry Fallis: The Best Laid Plans and The High Road (coming in September 2010) (January 20, 2010)
• June Hutton: Underground (January 6, 2010)
• Thomas Trofimuk: The 52nd Poem, Doubting Yourself to the BoneandWaiting for Columbus (December 16, 2009)
• Gina Buonaguro & Janice Kirk: Ciao Bella and The Sidewalk Artist (December 9, 2009)
• Don LePan: Animals (December 2, 2009)
• Deborah Willis: Vanishing and Other Stories (GG Finalist) (November 19, 2009)

Please check back on July 10, 2010 when I will kick off the 2010-2011 author interview series with Karen Connelly’s interview. Karen Connelly is a teacher at the Humber School for Writers and author of nine books of poetry, non-fiction and fiction including Burmese Lessons, The Lizard Cage, Grace & Poison, The Border Surrounds Us. She has received numerous grants and awards for her writing including Britain’s Orange Broadband Prize for New Writers (2007) for her first novel, The Lizard Cage and The Governor General’s Award for Touch the Dragon: A Thai Journal (at age 24).

As I look forward to a new series of interviews, I remain grateful for the kind support of all the authors I interviewed in 2009-2010. Look how many there were:

In particular, I have to recognize Deborah Willis whose book, Vanishing and Other Stories, was nominated for the Governor General’s Literary Prize. Ms. Willis was the first author to take a chance on an interview with me, and for this I remain quite grateful. I want to thank Hilary McMahon and John Pearce of the Westwood Creative Artists for putting me in contact with Don LePan, Gina Buonaguro & Janice Kirk, Thomas Trofimuk and John Bemrose — this just goes to show the value a great agent can add to building a writer’s profile.

I should also mention Joy Fielding who expressed interest in my writing and who helped me refine my idea of developing substantive content for this blog (when I met Ms. Fielding, my idea was to post notes of author talks and presentations … over time, this morphed into the author interviews).  And of course, there’s Terry Fallis, author of The Best Laid Plans and The High Road whose mentorship you know all about.

After Karen Connelly’s interview, there will be a surprise interview in August 2010 (no advance warning, no idea who it is … might not even be an author … it could be anyone — maybe even one of you?). Other interviews will follow in the fall but on a less regular schedule than last year — the bi-weekly schedule was manageable when I was not actively writing a novel. As I anticipate that I will still be working on Novel #2 in the fall of 2010, I am planning a lighter interview load for the 2010-2011 series.

And now, you — my cherished, but curiously silent, blog readers — thank you! You’ve stuck with me even though I haven’t done an interview in a while and I hope that means you are here because of an interest in my own writing and not just that of the many talented authors I interview. So thanks for that! I can’t wait for you to read my novels whenever they are published.

In the meantime, anyone who donates to my Charity Water campaign will have a chance to read the first chapter of Novel #2 … or one of my many revisions of The 29th Day (if you’d like to weigh in on what I should to to fix it up). Just make a note of that when you donate and I will get in touch with you.

This past week was probably the most hectic in my life with end of school events, wrapping things up at work and some big life events: graduations and a graduation party for four young men including my wonderful son and my  brilliant nephew … and my nephew’s lifesaving friend and a darling preschooler. At the party, I performed a dance with my niece, who is a very accomplished dancer. I only had about 30 min to learn the dance and it was very satisfying though I was pretty bad (a few steps out of time the whole way through … I could do the moves (mostly) but could not remember them at all). But, it reminded me not to take myself too seriously. Plus, it really made me appreciate my niece’s boundless talent & professionalism, both in her dancing and her teaching of it.

Now, I am officially off work … and looking forward to a simpler life in the countryside. Though I am a city person, and a big fan of Toronto’s art & literary events, there is something so peaceful about watching cows grazing in a wide open field while mud-covered kids walk barefoot picking and eating berries. So, that’s the plan. We’ll probably also have a fair bit of “fika” — cakes or bread with coffee.  And we’ll be doing all this with our lovely Swedish friends and family, over and over and over again! Luckily, neighbours up and down our street are looking after our place and my close friend, Gabi (who was the one who hooked me up with my #1 fan/first fan Anna) has offered to stay in our place while we are away, which of course we are delighted about. I hope she and her family will enjoy our life here during their stay (the Lake, the raspberries in our yard … maybe even our neighbours — in the summer everyone is out on the street chatting while the kids play).

I will keep blogging while we’re away … probably during a short break from all that bread and berry eating. I still have to sort out the timing around Karen Connelly’s interview … a work in progress. In the meantime, I wanted to pass on some information about two upcoming arts & cultural events in Toronto:

“Yes Men Fix the World”

This film is being presented by the Amnesty International Business & Human Rights Group and looks rather funny. If you like the satirical novels by Terry Fallis I’ve been recommending (The Best Laid Plans and The High Road ) and the themes of this blog, I’d guess you’d enjoy this movie … but I confess that I have not read more than the announcement and I have no idea if there are any reviews. Here’s the announcement from Amnesty International — let me know how it is, if you go:

The Yes Men Fix the World
a free film showing!

Thursday, July 8, 2010 at 6:45 pm
Amnesty International Toronto – 1992 Yonge St. 3rd floor

The Yes Men Fix the World is a “screwball true story about two gonzo political activists” who, posing as top executives of giant corporations, lie their way into big business conferences and pull off the world’s most outrageous pranks. From New Orleans to India to New York City, armed with little more than cheap thrift-store suits, the Yes Men squeeze raucous comedy out of all the ways that corporate greed is destroying the planet. Brüno meets Michael Moore in this gut-busting wake-up call that proves a little imagination can go a long way towards vanquishing the Cult of Greed. Who knew fixing the world could be so much fun?”

Free popcorn!

Check out the trailer at http://theyesmenfixtheworld.com/

For more information please email business@aito.ca.

Poetry, Prosecco & Pasta

Diaspora Dialogues is also holding an event the week of July 5th. It looks great if you are in the mood to treat yourself: poetry deluxe! Here’s the information:

Thursday 8th July – Poetry, Prosecco & Pasta

Molly Peacock talks with Olive Senior

Join us at the delicious Grano Restaurant on Thursday, July 8 for the first evening in the Poetry, Prosecco & Pasta series.

Your ticket will include a luscious three-course dinner, a cool glass of prosecco, your own copy of Molly Peacock’s The Second Blush – and a fascinating conversation with plenty of time for questions and answers.

About The Second Blush

You will enter these poems as you will enter a dining room: with the anticipation of feasting. This meal is beautifully laid out – simple, yet extraordinarily satisfying. Molly Peacock has the gift of using small and seemingly innocuous things to illuminate larger issues. You will never again look at a scar on your finger, a grandmother’s rocking chair, or a pink paperclip in quite the same way…

As disappointing as the violent actions of a small group of people around the G20 meeting is the fact that there is almost no coverage of the G20 and G8 issues in both mainstream and alternative media. I’d really like to know what’s at stake in the decisions being made behind the G20 security fence and why 10,000 people came out to protest in the rain. Or, what happened at the G8 meeting? Who really knows … other than an announcement: $5 Billion for maternal health. Sounds good, but some say this is not enough — why? What would it really take to ensure that women and children don’t die preventable deaths? How would that number fit into our budget? And what about climate change? Poverty? Broken windows and masked rock throwers make “good news,” but the disproportionate focus on this angle of the events takes away from discussion of important issues.

That’s where I started my research this morning. I had to dig a bit but I found some articles I think would interest you. For example, did you see the statement that came out of the G8 Meeting (known as the Muskoka Declaration)?  I would really challenge the media and other organizations to do a proper analysis of this statement based on two angles: (1) What difference will this declaration make to the state of our world if implemented as worded? (2) Based on past promises and actions, what are the chances of that coming to pass? In the meantime, I have included the part about maternal health as this is of significant concern to many:

8. Progress towards MDG 5, improving maternal health, has been unacceptably slow. Although recent data suggests maternal mortality has been declining, hundreds of thousands of women still lose their lives every year, or suffer injury, from causes related to pregnancy and childbirth. Much of this could be prevented with better access to strengthened health systems, and sexual and reproductive health care and services, including voluntary family planning. Progress on MDG 4, reducing child mortality, is also too slow. Nearly 9 million children die each year before their fifth birthday. These deaths profoundly concern us and underscore the need for urgent collective action. We reaffirm our strong support to significantly reduce the number of maternal, newborn and under five child deaths as a matter of immediate humanitarian and development concern. Action is required on all factors that affect the health of women and children. This includes addressing gender inequality, ensuring women’s and children’s rights and improving education for women and girls.

9. G8 members already contribute over US$4.1 billion annually in international development assistance for maternal, newborn and under-five child health (MNCH). Today, we, the Leaders of the G8, working with other Governments, several Foundations and other entities engaged in promoting maternal and child health internationally[1] endorse and launch the Muskoka Initiative, a comprehensive and integrated approach to accelerate progress towards MDGs 4 and 5 that will significantly reduce the number of maternal, newborn and under five child deaths in developing countries. The scope of the Muskoka Initiative is specified in Annex I. Our collective undertaking will support strengthened country-led national health systems in developing countries, in order to enable delivery on key interventions along the continuum of care, i.e., pre-pregnancy, pregnancy, childbirth, infancy and early childhood.

10. To this end, the G8 undertake to mobilize as of today $5.0 billion of additional funding for disbursement over the next five years[2]. Support from the G8 is catalytic. We make our commitments with the objective of generating a greater collective effort by bilateral and multilateral donors, developing countries and other stakeholders to accelerate progress on MDGs 4 and 5. We therefore welcome the decisions by other governments and foundations to join the Muskoka Initiative. The Governments of the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Republic of Korea, Spain and Switzerland, subject to their respective budgetary processes, and the Bill and Melinda Gates and UN Foundations have now or have recently committed to additional funding of $2.3 billion to be disbursed over the same period.

11. We fully anticipate that, over the period 2010-2015, subject to our respective budgetary processes, the Muskoka Initiative will mobilize significantly greater than $10 billion.

12. As a consequence of the commitments made today towards the Muskoka Initiative, this support, according to World Health Organization and World Bank estimates, will assist developing countries to: i) prevent 1.3 million deaths of children under five years of age; ii) prevent 64,000 maternal deaths; and iii) enable access to modern methods of family planning by an additional 12 million couples. These results will be achieved cumulatively between 2010-2015. We will track progress on delivering commitments through our accountability reporting, which, in 2011, will focus on health and food security. In line with the principle of mutual accountability, we expect these joint commitments will encourage developing countries to intensify their own efforts with regard to maternal and child health, leading to the saving of many more millions of lives of women, newborn and young children.

Here are some further articles to help put the G8 Muskoka Declaration in context and provide more information about the G20 meeting:

• G8 Muskoka Declaration: Recovery and New Beginnings – same as above but posted by the National Post
• Oxfam’s media briefing– what world leaders have done/need to do to alleviate poverty
• Government of Canada’s statement – $5 million for maternal health, with accountability framework
• Amnesty International — G20 countries’ record on human rights and their statement on the G8 meeting
• A statement on the protest by the Canadian Labour Congress
• Rabble.ca — “G20 coverage for the rest of us” and musings inside the G20 summit
• National Post reports G20 deficit reduction deal is near
• Toronto Star article about the G20 leaders not reaching consensus re: the economy
• Greenpeace International Executive Director Kumi Naidoo’s address to the crowd (video)

I’ve been so busy at work you’d think I would forget all about my novels, but it has been just the opposite. The more hectic things are in real life, the more tempted I am to slip into my alternate world and the more ideas I have to make my alternate world more real. The scene I wrote today for Novel #2 featured police officers in clusters tapping out crowd control strategies on their hand-held devices, helmets hanging from belt buckles, tank-like horses stomping down the street etc. … you see how these real life images (my office is in the middle of downtown) could fit into a world ravaged by a savage virus?

I will be on vacation for the month of July, and am planning to have fun times with my family and daytime hours for writing — both of which will make me very happy. In terms of the writing, I’ve worked out a deal where I will have three whole hours to write every morning! So, my hope is to finish the revisions on The 29th Day, and likely also work on Novel #2.  I actually have no idea whether I will be able to actively work on two novels at the same time. I often have multiple writing projects going at work (non-fiction), so I think I could juggle the work. However, it might be difficult to keep the separation between my characters’ voices — Annika (the narrator in The 29th Day) is quite different from Andrea (the narrator/protagonist in Novel #2).

It will also be a challenge to find the balance between the two novels. It is way more fun to write a new novel, than to revise the old one — so I need to be disciplined about that and spend as much time as I can on The 29th Day. I’m still planning my revisions to The 29th Day by re-reading Between the Lines by Jessica Page Morrell . Luckily, there is a full chapter on pacing. I am also sorting out more clearly what my characters’ motivations and fears are, and why they have acted in certain ways. Between the Lines has great tips for all of this (thank goodness for this resource). Because of this book, I am excited about revising The 29th Day. My goal is now to achieve a much higher level of mastery than I had anticipated was possible when I first submitted it. It could have been published as it was, but it would not have been as nuanced as it will be once I finish this layer of edits.

As a major theme of The 29th Day is the power of water, to nourish and destroy, I have set up a campaign on Charity:Water. Charity:Water is a “non-profit organization bringing clean water to people in developing nations.” 100% of money donated funds sustainable clean water projects. I set the goal of $5000 which is kind of ambitious, but I am hoping that 200 people could contribute $25 each. That’s not so much, is it? I believe this to be the amount of money needed to build a freshwater well in a village and provide clean water to 250 people — we’d be able to see where our money has gone with the GPS coordinates they provide. Anyway, I’ll try not to bug you about it … but I’d love to see how much we can raise by September 20, 2010. I understand that even if we don’t get to the $5000, we can still see where our money has gone. So, if you can spare $25 (or more), please donate — http://mycharitywater.org/Evadne. And if you can’t, well maybe you know someone who would be able to — please pass on the link. Thanks for all your support — knowing that you like reading my blog motivates me to complete my novel(s) and I  hope that I can also have your support in proving that the idea of “fiction for a change” is a viable concept. And, even if you don’t want to donate, please post a comment — I’d LOVE to hear from you!

Back in April 2010, Terry Fallis kindly assisted me in submitting my novel, The 29th Day, to the Beverley Slopen Literary Agency. I want to publicly thank Terry for this — this was a dream come true for me, as any aspiring writer can appreciate. Unfortunately, that did not pan out. Earlier this week. I received a kind rejection with an explanation and a response to my further request for constructive feedback. I am extremely grateful for this and will make very good use of the information provided.

I have found out that my writing style is fine, which I take to mean that my manuscript is of publishable quality. I was also told that the voice of my narrator is humourous — voice is very important in writing, so this is a big compliment — and that the premise of The 29th Day is good. My first 50 pages did not hook Beverley’s assistant who read them . She indicated this was because she did not bond with the characters. I value this feedback tremendously and will be using it to improve my manuscript before I submit it again. Thank you again to Shangeetha for this incredibly helpful information!

My initial reaction was to rewrite the whole book from Karine’s perspective (the mother of the child with the extraordinary knowledge about the climate change) rather than Annika’s (the awkward observer, who comments on Karine’s life). This would have added immediacy, but also made it an entirely different novel — probably a less humourous one. I consulted with my advisory group (the 14 people who had read my manuscript at various stages) and sent them two versions of the first page to comment on (the existing humourous one written from Annika’s perspective and a more dramatic one written from Karine’s perspective — what I thought of as a more “authentic” voice).

Anna (my #1 fan/first fan) took me to task for thinking of taking Annika’s story away from her and reminded me to have confidence in what I have written. My friends and family were willing to support me regardless of which decision I made and were therefore perhaps less blunt in their assessment than an objective third party (such as Anna). Here’s an edited version of what Anna said when she read both sample pages (I note that the page from Annika’s perspective had changed quite significantly from when Anna first read it. The version she is commenting on below is the one that was positively reviewed by Sam Hiyate and Kim Moritsugu at the Humber Writer’s Circle):

I imagine Karine’s story to be very lengthy in details and all the metaphors - I just think it will sound like a bad violin.  I hope I’m not too cruel, or maybe my devotion to
your first draft is just too strong.  But I always found it amusing and interesting to read or watch a movie from the perspective of a funny character.  All the comments which Annika made were gold, but I see Karine’s story having none of that.  I just think it will lose the charm which the first draft had.

Annika’s version — This is hilarious.  Maybe I’ve been working too hard and my life became dull – but I actually laughed out loud a couple of times, and this is just the first page!  This is what I’m talking about.  I love Annika’s jokes, they’re great. In conclusion - I wouldn’t re-write The 29th day from Karine’s point of view.  I think if you were to do that, you would be satisfying the agent and not yourself.  Leave it be, maybe work on it more until an agent takes it on but leave the general writing as it is now.

This tells me that readers can bond with my characters and already have a devotion to The 29th Day, which I don’t want to mess with. I think the problem identified by the Slopen Agency is one of pacing — the book’s strength is the last 200 pages where the mystery of Karine’s relationship with her son Luke unfolds, but right now the reader has to get through almost a hundred pages before they get there. This is fine for many, but impatient readers (including agents) will want to be drawn into the characters’ lives and the central conflict earlier.  My plan is now to revise The 29th Day using the techniques from Between the Lines by Jessica Page Morrell (which I discovered after I submitted my manuscript) and the brilliant insights provided to me by the Beverley Slopen Literary Agency. The main substantive change I would make would be to eliminate some of the backstory — in the current version, Karine does not have the baby until 100 pages in. I will need to cut out those first pages and have the baby born earlier as the story focusses on the time she is pregnant through to her son’s fifth year. I hope to be able to use much of the beginning material throughout the novel, blended in as flashbacks and short scenes of backstory (ie what has happened prior to the events covered in the main part of the story). Then I will submit to another agent. So, finding an agent is still a dream I’m working on.

Another dream that came true is that I heard my all-time favourite musician, Ron Hawkins (formerly of the great Canadian band, Lowest of the Low) in a solo performance in an intimate setting (Ryerson university pub on Gould Street) on June 18, 2010 — thanks to CUPE for organizing that! I saw him on stage with the Lowest of the Low at least 6 or 7 times but that was many years ago. I was sad they had broken up and hadn’t really paid attention after that … but in the meantime Ron Hawkins continued on his own. It is safe to say that everything that was great about the Lowest of the Low came from Ron Hawkins, who still has it! His voice is even better now and his new songs are fantastic — last night fans were raving that they were just as good as Shakespeare My Butt and now having listened to his newest CD, 10 Kinds of Lonely (which he gave out last night), I agree. My kids and I had a great time listening to it this morning — it showcases Ron Hawkin’s incredible talents (he sings harmonies and plays the harmonica, drums, guitar, and piano on it … laid down in different tracks). Incidentally, Ron Hawkin’s paints as well — a selection of his work is on his website: www.ronhawkins.com .

Last night, I told Ron Hawkins about my novels on social justice themes and asked whether he’d be interested in playing at my book launch, if I ever get published, and he said yes. Wouldn’t that be great? Here’s what I’m envisioning for my book launch … a charity fundraiser with a reading by Terry Fallis (author of The Best Laid Plans and The High Road and my mentor in writing The 29th Day … if he’s not off on international book tour or something by then), music by Ron Hawkins, a couple of poems by Salimah Valiani (my first writing friend) and me reading from The 29th Day. Maybe it could be at the Drake Hotel? Sounds like fun to me and I hope you think so too, as I would expect to see you there! This will be the motivation I need to get my book revised over the summer. My goal to have it completed by the beginning of August 2010.

Ron Hawkins performed right after the first event of the 2010 People’s Summit on June 18th: an excellent line up of music and speeches hosted by the delightful Annahid Dashtgard of Anima Leadership. Contrary to what you might be thinking, this was no group of subversive protesters. They were regular people — like you or me – whose view’s are just plain old common sense. In fact, that was another dream come true — to be surrounded by people who care about the same things I do. These types of events are portrayed in the media as being for a small group of radicals on the fringe of society. This is not accurate — the views expressed at events like these mirror those of a majority of people (though they may not even know it).

People are coming to the summit events because they disagree with the following statements:

• Not every child deserves to eat, learn and play – only children in rich countries should have that opportunity. Kids everywhere else should get back to work … now.
• Who cares that 80% of people who die in tornadoes, hurricanes and other climate change disasters are women? Not me — that’s their problem for being in the wrong place and gender at the wrong time. 
• If women do 80% of the work, it is only fair that they should earn 10% of the world’s wealth. Women are such complainers — they should be grateful for what they’ve got … 10% is a heck of a lot of money.
• A man elected to represent a country only needs to consider what is good for other men and business because in the big scheme of things women and children don’t really matter (which is why I am so pleased that almost all of the G8 and G20 leaders are men!).
• Children are more important that women – let the women die, we just want the babies (babies, especially orphans, are so cute)
• It is unecessary to talk about access to clean drinking water across the globe because now we have a wonderful fake lake just beside Lake Ontario – an innovative made-in-Canada solution for that problem!

If you agree with the above statements, you would not be interested in the People’s Summit – you can probably get all the information about the G8 and the G20 you need from the mainstream news. But, if you disagree with the above statements, and want to find out the real facts about how our world works and what could be done to rectify it, check out some of the great events (includes programming for children): www.peoplessummit2010.ca .

Equal access to opportunities and resources for everyone in the world is a dream I — and many others — will be working towards. I will also be working towards finding an agent and getting published. You may have a role to play in both of these … my goal is to write novels with social justice ideas embedded in them (ie. people will read them for fun, but end up thinking about some important issues). I also intend to keep working and use the novels I write in the evening as vehicles for fundraising to address the types of inequities I have referred to above (through my portion of the proceeds or charity events associated with my books). So, please support me as a writer in getting published & think about how you can advance social justice goals. Any of the following would be helpful:

• Post a comment linking to your blog or website, if you have one on topics relating to writing or social justice
• Tell people about my writing and this blog — http://books.macedo.ca
• Email people links to the author interviews on this blog as a means of encouraging other writers to use their platform to advance social causes (see for example, Priscila Uppal)
• Let me know of any authors who are interested in social justice ideas or who use their celebrity to raise funds for good causes — I might be able to interview them
• Send me information about writing or social-justice related events that you are aware of, so I can post them on this blog — email me at evadnekm@gmail.com
• Contact me if you have ideas thant link to the topic of “Fiction for a change” — using fiction as a vehicle of positive social change
• Inform yourself about social justice issues, such as those covered in the 2010 People’s Summit
• Believe that you, as an individual, can effect positive social change (consider what the Kielberger brothers say: that passion plus talent improves the world — think about what you like to do and what you are good at and go with that … you can make a difference!)

I came across an example of that last point at a symposium for educators I went to on June 17, 2010 – a representative from Right to Play spoke about their programs. Right to Play exists because one person combined his talent & celebrity as an Olympic Athlete with an interest in empowering kids through play — his program is now available around the world with multiple applications (in schools, with Aboriginal youth etc.) & transforms children’s lives and communities. Think how different our world might be if the leaders involved in the G8 and G20 negotiations were guided by Right to Play’s simple message: ”Look after yourself, look after each other.”

Earlier this week, I had the great pleasure of receiving a response from Jessica Page Morrell on my earlier posting regarding her book, Between the Lines.  Until now, I had been renewing a copy of the book from the library, but my partner very thoughtfully ordered me a copy for my birthday and it just came!  So, I look forward to working through the techniques described in the upcoming years.

I printed a first draft of my “manuscript” for Novel #2 on Thursday June 10, 2010. At that time, I’d written 62,000 words, which came out to just under 200 pages (Times New Roman, 1.5 spacing and 12 point font). It feels great to hold a physical copy of my second book in my hands (at this stage, I just have it three-hole punched in a binder). Even though I know it still needs lots of work, this is a huge step forward.

I have started marking up the hardcopy with my ideas about how the scenes I have written can be best organized to achieve the objectives I have for the novel. As it turns out, this is rather complicated. Using Between the Lines by Jessica Page Morrell has been a fantastic help, but it has also raised the complexity of writing this novel. I am trying to combine techniques used by Stephen King or Michael Crichton with my literary interests in romance, social justice and medicine, and still make it an easy read (ie. my techniques in writing this book should be unapparent to the reader, if well executed).

This part of writing is like putting pieces of a 3-D puzzle together — a sort of rubics cube composed of words. Unfortunately, this sort of logical, rational process does not necessarily come easily to me. Confronted with this challenge, I’ve been sleeping more than usual — falling asleep at 8:30 pm with my kids, napping on the weekend etc. After many late nights, I clearly need to catch up on sleep. But that, too, is good for the writing – my subconscious will play a large part in my process of fitting the disparate parts of my manuscript together.

Brief update on Novel #2

I am now at 62,000 words organized into about 50 random scenes (other than the first four chapters which read as a book should)  — I have done a detailed outline of most parts of the novel, but also have bits and pieces that I will need to fit into my rough chronology.  I am starting to find the manuscript a little unwieldy to work with electronically. It is much more complicated than my first novel, The 29th Day, because of the intersecting story lines. That being said, I enjoy this challenge tremendously … hence my interest in working on it in my evenings after my kids go to bed, after a full day at work!

What’s new?

June seems to be shaping up to be a busy month. Here is a random sampling of ideas, events and resources that interest me, and possibly you — I assume we share some interests since you read my blog!

• Podcasts by Terry Fallis are climbing the charts on itunes — The High Road is at number five and The Best Laid Plans is at number seventeen. Having two books in the top 20 is quite an accomplishment — see, hard work eventually pays off!  I’ve listened to chapter 1 and 2 and am looking forward to chapter 3 … the wait is excruciating as I am not particularly patient. Both podcasts are available for free on Terry’s website — www.terryfallis.com
• There was a record number of submissions to Diaspora Dialogues’ Mentorship Program — perhaps including some of you? Post a comment if you were chosen. Sadly, I was not (sigh!). On the other hand, this is my first rejection so I am now officially a writer!
• There was a fantastic write up about Robert Sawyer in Toronto Life Magazine in March 2010 which I just got around to reading this month — though I have not yet read any of his novels, I admire him for two reasons: (1) he is a great speaker; and (2) he is remarkably disciplined as a writer. The speech he delivered at the Ontario Writers’ Conference was funny and motivating. It has kept me going, especially as concerns the perseverance that is necessary to see my novels published once written (reference point above). If you are curious, the tips he gave at the conference are on his website under the name Heinlein’s Rules — I’m working on steps 5 & 6 concurrently!
• I have just come across a project called The Women’s Court of Canada (WCC) whose mandate is to literally rewrite court decisions with a view to “articulating fresh conceptions of substantive equality.” Substantive equality refers to the idea that sometimes you need to treat someone (or a group of people) differently in order to achieve equality of outcomes (as compared to formal equality where you treat everyone the same). Writers (as self-employed professionals) might be interested to see the WCC version of the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) decision in Symes v. Canada which dealt with a female lawyer’s attempt to claim child care expenses as a deductible business expense on her taxes. So, take a look at the rewrite keeping in mind that the WCC is only a “virtual court” … SCC decision still stands!
• June 11 – 20, 2010 — The Luminato Festival: while this is not primarily a literary festival, it is a fine celebration of art and culture on Toronto’s waterfront and one of my favourite festivals in Toronto. There are a number of literary and dance performances — here is the link to the full schedule — and I have thoroughly enjoyed all the events I have attended in past years, whether with my kids or on my own (ie. there are great family activities, as well as those that would appeal to adults).
• June 18, 2010 — Book Summit at Harbourfront:  “Hot New Models: The Amazing Transformation of Business and Culture in the World of Books” (a conference on the world of publishing aimed at writers, booksellers, librarians, media technology professionals, educators, literary agents, policy makers, cultural commentators, publishing students, and industry professionals)
• June 24 – 27, 2010 — The Canadian Authors Association’s 89th annual conference is taking place in Vancouver BC.
• June 27, 2010 (11 a.m. – 4 p.m.) – 4th Annual The Stellar Literary Festival in Oshawa ON (Talent Registration and Exhibitor’s Application are open until June 15, 2010).

Since my last posting, I have realized that a number of my friends — male and female — are sports fans. Now that I am talking about sports and showing an interest, I am finding out so much more about my friends and the world of sport.  I would have missed out on all this, had I not been writing Novel #2. 

For example, I had no awareness of the significance of “a perfect game” in baseball. In fact, I’d never even heard the term. But then, I spoke with a friend about my admiration for the Blue Jays – I thought they were particularly impressive when I saw them on May 28th. That led to a discussion of shutouts and no hitters (the sort of conversation I had never willingly participated in before). Then, I learnt about the human drama flowing from the June 3, 2010 game and the graceful acceptance of a difficult situation by both Armando Galarraga and Jim Joyce. I have checked into this more and have found all of it fascinating and a perfect fit for the story I am writing. So, I have already incorporated this into my plotting & thinking about themes in Novel #2.

This in turn leads me to Terry Fallis, whom I can officially credit for turning me into a writer and, now, in a round-about way, a sports fan! Many of you have read Terry’s first novel, The Best Laid Plans (and if you haven’t you must!!! What on earth are you waiting for?).

The great news is that The High Road, Terry Fallis’s second book is now available as a podcast for free on Terry’s website — www.terryfallis.com. This is the first time a mainstream publisher has allowed this, and it is as Doug Pepper of McLelland and Stewart said, an experiment. This a very exciting development for Canadian publishing, and for all of the people who have been looking forward to the sequel to The Best Laid Plans.

It has been agonizing to know that the first two chapters are available and that I haven’t had a chance to listen to them yet — of all weeks for my home internet to crash! My connection is now fixed and I plan to start listening as soon as I have a quiet moment. It will be great to hear Terry perform the book (really, he does the voices and everything in the podcast), but I am really a visual person and will be looking forward to getting the actual book when it comes out in September.