Blogs

The Proust Questionnaire: Merilyn Simonds

The Proust Questionnaire is believed to reveal an individual’s true nature.

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Crime Fiction Friday

Book recommendations by VIWF staff member, Brenda Berck.

I’ll See You in My Dreams, by William Deverell

After reading crime novels dealing with people smuggling, diamond smuggling, spies, killers, and other bad guys, it was a particular pleasure to read William Deverell’s I’ll See You in My Dreams.  There are, of course, bad guys but in Deverell’

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Stephen Osborne, Anakana Schofield, Daniel Francis, and Jean Barman

In my previous post I considered the role writing can play in self-definition, and in the often fraught question of identity. One way of framing the event I attended on the final day of the Writers Festival is that it extended these same concerns to the city of Vancouver and its citizens.

Vancouver 125 Legacy Books gathered the members of an advisory committee responsible for deciding, earlier this year, which out-of-print Vancouver books — local classics — should be republished in a project jointly undertaking by The Association of Book Publishers of BC and the Office of Vancouver’s Poet Laureate Brad Cran, and partially funded by the City of Vancouver. The committee members were historians Jean Barman and Daniel Francis, writer, editor and publisher Stephen Osborne, and writers Anakana Schofield and Michael Turner. Turner acted as moderator for the event because, as he told the audience, none of his suggested books made the final cut, although he was “pretty happy with the process” and the final results. (Maxine Gadd’s Lost Language: Selected Poems was one of Turner’s suggestions.) Cran, who just completed his tenure as city poet laureate, was in the audience and added some comments during the Q&A.

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At VIWF event #56, Possibilities of Hope, four authors converged to discuss their new works of fiction, books written about troubled, working class men trapped in cycles of struggle. Whether pushed to violence, forced into uncomfortable scenarios or unable to access their own feelings these men are held by forces that prohibit them from moving forward.

During the ensuing conversation and question and answer period issues of violence, poverty, education and emotional communication were addressed and the words redneck and rural punctuated many a sentence.

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Kathryn Gretsinger, Jen Sookfong Lee, Ling Zhang, and Kevin Chong

I felt an interesting if subtle shift take place toward the end of the ironically titled Bamboo Lettering, a Saturday afternoon panel discussion involving Kevin Chong, Jen Sookfong Lee, and Ling Zhang, moderated by CBC radio journalist Kathryn Gretsinger. Two or three questions from the audience were of the writerly type: How do you come up with your story ideas? What do e-books mean for writers? What sort of research did you do? The intention of the event was to explore how Canadian writers of Chinese descent navigate the issues of identity, race, culture, family, or as the Festival program described it, “the tension between avoiding your heritage and embracing your heritage.” And those questions were certainly well aired and discussed. However, as the event progressed, and the personalities of the three writers emerged through what they read from their work, and through their responses to Gretsinger’s politely astute questions, the whole issue of “Chinese-ness” or Otherness seemed to drop away. As if the audience and the panel at a certain point had had enough of the topic and it was time to move on. And we were left with three writers discussing their work and the business of writing with an audience interested in hearing the details. Much as it should be, and as it would be with a panel of white Canadian writers.

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Today, I finally had the opportunity to attend WritersFest on the last day; specifically, an event with the celebrated poet Don McKay entitled We're Not the Centre of the Universe.  So, in the hazy warmth of a rarely-sunny afternoon, I filed into an intimate dark studio where the talk commenced. I was very excited - honoured even, you could say - to have been asked to blog about it.

I could tell immediately that Don McKay was a talented writer. Well, he’s won the Order of Canada, the Griffin Poetry Prize, written 12 books, co-founded Brick Books, and edited The Fiddlehead, among other accomplishments. But he’s one of those people who, upon opening their mouths, incredible things wrapped in incredible words drop out. I paid close attention to the audience while he spoke. From time to time, we’d burst out laughing at something witty he’d said. On other, rarer, but seemingly more precious instances, there was only his voice, a few nods, and profound “mmm”s in agreement.

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There is too much to say about Friday’s Truth and Storytelling panel, with Alexandra Fuller, Andrew Westoll, Gary Geddes, and moderator Barry Callaghan.  So I’ll say very little. 

First of all, Barry Callaghan is a very smart man.  And gruff and understated, so I wondered at first if, as moderator, he would lead us into a dry one and a half hours.  Not so.  By a long shot.  After each of the panelists read excerpts from their work, his level of familiarity with the limits of memory, and truth, and language—and the discomfort of writing about those close to you—brought the discussion to rich territory quickly. 

Callaghan quibbles with what he sees to be a distinctly American requirement that all details be literally, documentably, true for a book’s great truth to be trusted.  Alexandra Fuller (Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness) came down slightly on the other side of this argument, admitting to being part of what Callaghan referred to as the “Truth Squad” (James Frey “crossed a big line” in her opinion). But Fuller did also confess that her sister says she’s been far too kind in her books’ depictions of their crazy mother. 

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I should admit up front that I’m a huge fan of school related storytelling. I may in fact be a sucker for it. Election, Heathers, the Harry Potter books, Degrassi, Pretty Little Liars, I cant get enough of them.

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Last night I attended my first intimate evening – there is one each night of the festival. If you have a chance, do go. In fact, if you see this on Saturday, stop reading and get in the car. You can still get to Granville Island in time for An Intimate Evening with Aminatta Forna. The audience will be full of other authors, because the buzz amongst writers at the festival this week is that Aminatta is a writer to watch. 

In any case, last night I attended An Intimate Evening with David Adams Richards. I have long admired Richards' work. I have to say I read very little literary fiction – you may have noticed from my posts this week that crime fiction is more my thing. But I have read most of Richards’ books. He is a master at writing about the motivation behind people’s actions, and that is something every crime fiction writer needs to understand. His stories of everyday people and the choices they make, or are forced to make because of the circumstances in their lives, are utterly compelling, and completely heart-wrenching.

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Friday afternoon. A quick break for lunch before pressing on to the Revue Stage for Event #44. I repair to a cozy little eatery not terribly far from the venue called Chez Nous for an excellent bowl of chili and an incomparable square of Torta Rustica. Love that Fontina cheese.

Having absorbed the lesson of the morning I elect to leave the car and walk back to the island. It’s solid rain now in October town. Johnston Street is like a tableau out of the Floating World–land of a thousand umbrellas. People seem in a hurry to get where they’re going.

I shake out my umbrella and enter the theatre. Haven’t been in here before. It’s a fine, small, intimate setting, a stage and a semi-circle of seating up shallow risers. It’s not quite a sell out but a good crowd is on hand at show time.

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