Jaspreet Singh & Heather Hermant at Diaspora Dialogues / Nino Ricci & Bullfrog Power
Diaspora Dialogues
Last night I went to the Diaspora Dialogues event — absolutely fabulous. The highlights for me were discovering Heather Hermant and Jaspreet Singh (who was a chemical engineer and then switched to fiction and poetry!). Heather Hermant’s spoken word performance from Ribcage: this wide passage was just mesmerizing — apparently there’s an upcoming show in Montreal … and hopefully it will come to Toronto, too! Jaspreet Singh read from his novel, Chef with the audience laughing along. It is the exact sort of wry humour I like (and that I tried to include in The 29th Day). I regret that I had no cash with me, and was unable to get an autographed copy … but I will try to get that one at the library. I should also mention that Garvia Bailey from CBC was an engaging host with a hilarious but complimentary analysis of people who describe themselves with slashes … like Monica Rosas (artist/educator/agitator). Monica Rosas read from her novel-in-progress (which I thought was particularly brave) and we heard four actors read a bit of Spin Alley by Donna-Michelle St. Bernard. Imagine all that in one night!
My Writing
On the way home from last night’s event I finally wrote the poem I’ve wanted to write for ages — inspired by the bakery at Bathurst. That is the best smelling station in the world! I’m piddling along with my projects … working on whichever one I feel like … right now poetry is leading. I have to say that I find that the downturn in the weather and the return of cooler days has had an impact on my productivity/motivation. From this, I infer that I like to write when it is warm (weird, eh?).
Nino Ricci & Bullfrog Power
I just came across an interview with Nino Ricci about his fiction writing and environmental themes in a newsletter by Bullfrog Power (I just signed up — it took about 2 min online; here’s a video about it if you want to know more about how green electricity through Bullfrog Power works). Nino Ricci is the author of The Origin of Species, Lives of the Saints, In a Glass House, and Where She Has Gone. The article links to one of my aims in starting this blog – to profile writers who connect their fiction writing to something bigger in the world than the words themselves (powerful as they may be). Sometimes I worry about talking about this theme, as if the expectation is then going to be that I am perfect, which of course I’m not.
Karen Connelly opened her fourth book of poems: The Border Surrounds Us with a quote by Albert Camus from Resistance, Rebellion, and Death: The Artist and His Time. The quote speaks of writers groping around in the dark, contributing to injustice though they dream of justice. The sad fact of human existence is that we will strive and fall short, we make mistakes and grow — these are themes in my first novel, The 29th Day. It is inevitable that most of us will not fully achieve our ideals — I shudder every time I order coffee in a paper cup, and yet I still do it sometimes. But, that is not a reason to shy away from the challenge… of vegetarianism, environmentalism, anti-racism or whatever. We’ve got to start somewhere … and it doesn’t make sense that we have to be perfect to work towards the world we imagine. There’s also the power of the collective — individually, we are flawed, but together what potential could we have?
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