Indies Rock, Indies Rule!

Great news. Four of the five finalists for the Scotiabank Giller Prize are writers from indie publishers, some very, very small, others mid-sized. What a great change, as the short list for this major national award often consists of local judges rubber-stamping predictable picks, usually from the big houses, already approved and buzzed up by the cognoscenti and the media.

A short-list nomination, a win, these can make such a difference to the writers who publish with small presses, whose work, though wonderful, may not even be on the readers' radar.

Two story collections are nominated, Light Lifting, by Alexander MacLeod (Yes, he is the son of senior MacLeod), and This Cake is for the Party, by Sarah Selecky. The other two indie picks are novels, in fact debut novels. The original and beautifully written Annabel by Kathleen Winter and The Sentimentalists by Johanna Skibsrud. Both Winter and Skibsrud live here in Montreal and both are originally from Atlantic Canada: Winter from Newfoundland and Skibsrud from Novia Scotia.

Another welcome change is a jury drawn from outside of Canada as well as inside. This year we have two judges from outside of Canada--Claire Messud (yes she was born in TO, but lives, I believe, in NYC) and writer Ali Smith (from Scotland). Our homeboy is broadcaster Michael Enright. This is excellent because it wards off the kind of internecine back-patting and favour granting that can occur in our small writing world up here in the North.

If I don't luck out with a Guess the Giller Gala invite, I'll be tuning in to watch the spetacle on Nov. 9th. So should you.

More importantly, read the books!

Turning Point: La'Shana Tova

For many of us, autumn truly feels like the start of the new year, especially those of us with children who are heading back to school with their sharpened pencils and shiny notebooks, their stacks of new books ready to be consumed and studied, all stuffed into worn knapsacks. In less than a week, it will be Rosh Hashonah and we will gather with family, friends, and community to celebrate with the sweetness of apples and honey and to hope, both individually and collectively, for a good new year, to be inscribed into the book of life.

For me, the High Holy Days always signify a time for reflection, to unearth ways of being a better person, which always entails the rather painful process of examining where one fell short, where one might have acted differently, or spoken more carefully. Rather than cringing with regret or remorse, I see the Jewish New Year as an opportunity to engage, to enact changes, to look not only at surfaces, but to see more deeply.

Two poems by Rainer Maria Rilke speak to me during this time of reflection and change: "The Panther" and "Turning Point." Both beautifully convey themes of the potential danger of merely looking, of short-sightedness. "The Panther" dramatizes in powerfully concrete images that sense we all have of being imprisoned by our own failings. Even if we are not literaly behind bars, we can feel trapped by our own flaws and mistakes, hemmed in and isolated. "Turning Point" contrasts the chronic superficial looking at surfaces, with vision: truly seeing, feeling and knowing, with what Rilke calls "heartwork."

Here, enjoy these two excerpts; notice how juxtaposing these two poems only amplifies their meanings and power. To read the full text, go to The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke translated by Stephen Mitchell.


His vision, from the constantly passing bars,
has grown so weary that it cannot hold
anything else. It seems to him there are
a thousand bars; and behind the bars, no world.
-The Panther


For there is a boundary to looking.
And the world that is looked at so deeply
wants to flourish in love.
Work of the eyes is done, now
go and do heart-work
on all the images imprisoned within you...

-Turning Point

Ron Charles--You're the bomb!

For anyone who is a bit weary of the recent, well, not so recent FranzenFrenzy (talk about overexposure, even if the man is a gifted writer, talk about BLOCKBUSTER mentality--remember there are other wonderful authors out there with brilliant and worthy and exciting books), please, pull-ease view Ron Charles video review of Freedom, that doorstop novel you have been hearing so much about, not to mention its lanky bespectacled author whose visage is everywhere at once.

Mr. Charles, please give us more...videoreviews.

Laptops, cellphones, 'berries make me lonely

I have a great family and dear friends but find myself a victim of new media loneliness. I'll come home and want to talk with my daughter about her day, my son about his, what they are thinking and feeling and reading, what they did with their friends, what is happening with my hubbie at work or in life and each person will be:

On their laptop...or on their phone, talking or texting, or on their 'berry (husband is only one who has one). It is so challenging to have a real conversation these days, to get concentrated focused attention. I miss eye contact!! (Mind you, I am the one who often never bothers to turn on her cell phone.) Not a fan.

I can commune with my Bernese Mountain dog Monty Booh, though, anytime, anyplace. Love you dear dog. What would I do without our time together?

Feeling expectant, grateful that in a few days we are returning to Vermont en famille for a a rare family vacation including Monty Booh. At the log cabin there is no internet or cell service. Just a bubbling creek behind the house, miles of firs, time to read, to write, to talk, to listen, to hear the birds, to hike, to bike, to sleep to the sound of that creek. Can't wait!

Perhaps when we return home to Montreal we will crave some of these gifts and give new media a little rest from time to time.

AWAY

Off to a secluded cottage in Vermont to write, read, renew. May be MIA for a bit, not a bad thing for a novelist.

Will try to get some pics of the place to post...anon.

Happy Heat!

New Chapter

Here are some fun photos of my oldest's high school grad. On to college and the wider world.






Thanks to Kate for taking these great shots. Mazel Tov to you and yours!

NOT... The Real World, or a paradise for artists

I know how those cows feel--not wanting to cross the border into the "real world," to stay on the grounds of the colony (see final photo). I just returned from a month in a paradisal place, The Virginia Center for the Creative Arts on a fellowship to work on a first draft of my third novel and fourth book, "Faraway Nearby," a place where a day is like a week, a week is like a month, and a month is like, well, about six months--in terms of deep concentrated focused attention, as well as productivity.

I had been to the VCCA before, perhaps as many as six times, over a span of about twenty years, as well as to other colonies, such as Yaddo, Ragdale, The Julia and David White Arts Foundation in Costa Rica,and the St. James Cavalier Centre for Creativity in Valletta, Malta. What these residencies provide is the gift of time and space, and more importantly, to use that buzz phrase,"head space." While in residence, I am cut free for a time from the quotidian demands of mother work and money work, for caring for a home and worrying about signing homework and bringing an eggplant to school! My head-space is often so cluttered at home, like so many working mothers, I am fragmented and feel as if I might burst apart from centrifugal force. While at VCCA, I miss my kids, my husband and my Hollywood star of a Bernese Mountain dog, Monty Booh, but I don't miss cooking and cleaning and nagging and worrying.


At VCCA, each artist has a private studio, as well as a bedroom in the residence or cottage. Three meals are provided, as well as clean towels. If a morning goes badly, there is always the afternoon and the evening and the night (studios provide beds.) If one chooses to participate, many evenings are rich with readings, open studios, screenings, or recordings of work that the resident novelists, poets, playwrights, painters, sculptors, video-artists and composers are creating or have created. It's up to you if you attend, or if you sleep, or if you continue to work.

For me, as a novelist and short story author, something magical happens when my day is not chopped up into pieces and when I can think and dream and imagine into my book and characters on long, long walks on the thousands of beautiful acres encompassed by the colony and the college across the road, when I can gaze at the Blue Ridge Mountains and chat with the cows, the horses, and the goats, when I can swim in the lake, or wander a woodsy trail.







I am up to page 365 in Faraway Nearby. Need I say more?

Thanks to gifted installation artist Andrea (Andy) Lilienthal for these wonderful images of VCCA and do check out her work at andrealilienthal.com