Farewell, Ye Writers

Posted October 28th, 2008 by Nikki Reimer

Could there be a better setting for a literary festival than Granville Island in autumn? (Rhetorical question; don't answer.)

With the breathtaking vista of fall leaves and False Creek in the background, VIWF hosted 69 events and almost one hundred authors (cribbing Lachlan's math) in less than a week. Incredible! There were some wonderful literary moments, some tense moments, some moving moments, and plenty of funny moments, but for me the strongest moment occurred during the couple of hours I spent at and but also, a tribute to David Foster Wallace, already well-covered textually by Lalo Espejo and aurally by Anu Sahota.

I'd be remiss if I didn't also mention the part where Zsuzsi Gartner couldn't see the text she was reading, so Michael Turner lent her his reading glasses. This moment was but one of many footnotes inserted throughout the evening.

During the open mic portion, a young woman named Kate with red gloves and long bangs in her face got up to the podium and recounted in a faltering alto voice her stint as a fire-watcher in Alberta during which her only companions were her gun and Wallace's Infinite Jest. She told us how she read the story and became part of the story, how her loneliness became part of the story's loneliness, and how when she heard of his death, she thought, "there but for the grace of" and here she broke but didn't stop speaking "there but for the grace of ... of ... of something ... go ...go all of us."

But this was not hopeless or depressing; it was instead a communal gathering of respect and esteem. Though at times the feeling of the room was akin to that of a wake or a seance, this ad-hoc gathering of writers and readers was ultimately a celebration, and to me it spoke to the immense power of literature to approach certain emotional truths. And perhaps that's why we read, and write, and attend wonderful festivals such as this. Can't wait for next year!