HOT AIR elsewhere!

If you're looking for bloggy goodness of the HOT AIR variety now that the 2008 edition of THIN AIR, Winnipeg International Writers Festival is almost upon us, please see:




thinair2008.blogspot.com

In addition to a new URL and template, we've got five bloggers this year (not counting me) and a few more bells and whistles in our tech back-pocket.

Fun! Come visit!

Reeling...

Mmm. Looking over my photos, it seems that I took a lot of crowd shots and not a lot of pics of individual people, listening to authors perform their work.

Partly because people don't like point-and-shoots in their faces while they're trying to listen to literature but also because I needed particular shots of authors and crowds for my posts to HOT AIR and I didn't have the wherewithal for much more, image-wise...

I also took a bunch of THIN AIR staff photos, mostly because they saw I had a camera and they swooped down and asked me to.

Ah well, there's always next year's snappy highlight reel.

In the meantime, here it is:

Click here for
for 2007 THIN AIR
Highlight Reel.

Reading: Lawrence Hill

So, FINALLY here's the Lawrence Hill video I promised. It wasn't just HOT AIR! (Heh.)

Enough time has elapsed since THIN AIR that I could sit down and slice up the twenty minute video I shot of Hill's wide-ranging and charming introduction to his brace of new books. Part of the issue was that a twenty minute video was huge, hard-disk-wise, so I had to shuffle external hard drives and laptops to make it work.

"But it's taken soooo long, he's not even on the Giller long-list anymore!" I can hear you all exclaiming, long-suffering and wearied.

But still. You can watch the video and remember a day, a month ago, when the weather was a little warmer and the authors teemed.

Fun! (and Sorry!)

* * *



* * *

Lawrence Hill, formerly a reporter with The Globe and Mail and parliamentary correspondent for the Winnipeg Free Press, has captured both critics and audiences with his fiction and non-fiction.

His titles include Black Berry, Sweet Juice: On Being Black and White in Canada, a memoir of growing up in a mixed race family, and novels Any Known Blood and Some Great Thing.

He has released two books this year: The Deserter’s Tale (Anansi) is the account of Joshua Keys, the young soldier who was devastated by his experience in Iraq, and The Book of Negroes (HarperCollins), a sprawling epic of slavery that winds through Canadian history.

Hill lives in Burlington, Ontario.

ack!

Oh, I've been a bad blogger. Since Paul Yee made himself at home in these parts, I haven't posted any of the copy I promised you faithful HOT AIR readers.

Lawrence Hill is languishing on my hard-drive. Karen Dudley is wasting away on my desktop. Countless festival authors and their audiences are becoming a figment of my far-too busy imagination...

All I can say is...tomorrow? (Maybe?)

Fin

It's the Monday after the festival and it's safe to say that the 2007 edition of THIN AIR, Winnipeg International Writers Festival is no more.

That is not to say that I'm finished blowing HOT AIR...though the events I attended and the conversations I had are quickly fading from my all-too-human memory, the multimedia evidence of same has still to be exhumed from my video camera, my stills camera, and my computer.

To wit, I've got videos of readings by two former Manitobans, Lawrence Hill and Pamela Banting, a commentary (with artfully blurry pics yet!) on Saturday afternoon's Bitter Pint of Murder event, and a highlight reel of pictures that never made it up on the blog during the week yet to post.

But you'll have to bear with me. I've got the life I neglected whilst HOT AIRing to tend to...

That said, it shouldn't take me too long to get my (multimedia) act together, so check back soon!

Yours,

Ariel

Reading Copy: Paul Yee

Paul Yee is the leading chronicler of the Chinese immigration experience in Canada. He has to his credit many acclaimed books for young people, including The Jade Necklace, The Bone Collector's Son, and Ghost Train, which won the 1996 Governor General's Award. Recent titles include What Happened Last Summer (Tradewind), a collection of stories featuring Asian-Canadian teens, and Shu-li and Tamara (Tradewind), a picture book for middle readers. Saltwater City, a non-fiction book for adults, won the Vancouver Book Prize. His newest non-fiction book is Chinatown (Lorimer). Yee lives in Toronto.

Click here for
Paul Yee's
Reading Copy.

* * *
This is a special edition of Reading Copy. It's longer (3 minutes or so, as compared to the 2 mins that the others maxed out at) and features pictures of Paul Yee performing the story Alone No Longer from his Groundwood Books collection Dead Man's Gold instead of pictures of a reading copy.

This is because Yee doesn't use a reading copy - and, given that he memorizes his stories at home, he doesn't have the marked up texts he uses as memory aids either.

I decided to use portraits of Yee because in a way, his memory (and the stories he has spooled up there) is his reading copy.

Photos: Poetry Bash

Andris Taskans, Prairie Fire editor, looks on while an audience member scopes out Victorian Trisha Cull's Banff Centre Bliss Carman Poetry Prize ring, which was presented just before Cull's reading. And what a hunk of turquoise it is (covet covet)!

Apparently, 2006 was a good year for Cull. She was also shortlisted for the 3-Day Novel Contest won by fellow THIN AIR author Brendan McLeod.



THIN AIR Director and poet Charlene Diehl assumes her trademark "I'm a bat" pose at intermission. From the podium, Charlene lamented the end of the festival insofar as she would have to put away all her dramatic clothing until next year.



THIN AIR festival staff assemble to view General Manager Perry Grosshans' shoes.

You can't quite see it in this pic, but there's an overhanging chrome lamp in the 'living room' the authors (and in this case, festival staff) inhabit while on stage.

Poet Paul Savoie, who was originally from St. Boniface but who has called Ontario home since the 70s, gonged his head on the lamp while rising for his reading. Eek!



Poet and U of M Prof Alison Calder (in a sparkly sparkly ensemble) chats with Poet and U of M Ph D Candidate Melanie Branagan.

Calder had a busy week, dividing her time between THIN AIR campus program events at the U of M and The Prairies in 3-D: Disorientations, Diversities, Dispersals conference hosted by St. John's College.

Calder even split her Saturday, presenting her paper, Fear of Flooding: Mapping Competing Spatial Definitions in Winnipeg, earlier in the day.

Roch Carrier and The Hockey Sweater

Well, my favourite event so far has to be Roch Carrier reading The Hockey Sweater to a roomful of the youngest festival attendees at the Millennium Library this afternoon.

He had the children cheering for the Habs as he read the story; Carrier didn’t so much read the story as he did perform it. He made that boy who believed he was Rocket Richard, shamefully forced to wear the Toronto Maple Leafs jersey, come to life. We were with him as he helplessly pulled on the blue and white jersey, as he broke his hockey stick out of frustration and as he prayed for a 1,000 moths to come and eat the jersey.

There were many mouths agape this afternoon - mine included. Carrier has probably read this book hundreds of times, but he read it with such enthusiasm and authenticity I think we all felt like it was the first time. Even my ten-month old son – who never sits still – was enthralled.

After the reading Carrier took questions and regaled his audience with tales of his meetings with Maurice Richard.

Every time I pull out a five-dollar bill to get that latte at Starbucks I will think warmly of the afternoon I heard Roch Carrier perform The Hockey Sweater. I was so swept up in the whole thing I might have grabbed whatever hockey-related books I could find on the shelves and had them signed by Roch Carrier.

Photos: Writing Through Race

There are two things I know about THIN AIR. I may not enjoy every event I attend or even get in some good chat but Saturday's Poetry Bash and the panel discussion on the Friday afternoon at the U of Wpg are always always...well, memorable.

I'm not sure if it's the performing mojo of the Eckhardt-Grammate Hall at the U of Wpg, with its excellent accoustics (no competing with cash registers or espresso machines or even the scrape of chairs) or the careful curating of the event itself, but I always leave with a species of of heady inspiration.



This year's panel was entitled Writing Through Race and featured David Chariandy, Lawrence Hill, and Paul Yee as well as the facilitating powers of Winnipeg poet/mystery writer/prof Catherine Hunter.

David Chariandy and Lawrence Hill both spoke to the themes that underpin their most recent books and then gave brief readings from the texts. Both were eloquent on the subject of race and research and how forgetting/remembering work for immigrants but when it was Paul Yee's turn, he learned forward, flashed a smile, then started telling his story.



No text, no notes, just him and the story and us. The lot of us together, being told a story. It evoked childhood and so was familiar and intimate but it was also an adult experience. When he finished, both Hill and Chariandy joined the audience in applause, having somehow been made audience members too.

I've a video of Hill reading from his Book of Negroes and a special bookless version of Reading Copy that I did with Yee (almost making him late for his flight home, incidentally) but in the meantime, here's a photo or two from the event...

Out-take: Marjorie Poor

(l-r) Writer Sarah Klassen and Prairie Fire magazine Associate Editor Heidi Harms and Operations Coordinator Janine Tschuncky pick on Prairie BOOKS now editor Marjorie Poor at the Michael and Kathleen Winter Afternoon Book Chat at McNally Robinson's soon-to-be-lost-to-the-sands-of-time Portage Place location.

Reading Copy: Kathleen Winter

Kathleen Winter is a Holyrood writer who has written dramatic and documentary scripts for Sesame Street and CBC television and writes a weekly column for the St. John's Telegram. She has published a novella, Where Is Mario, and two books of creative non-fiction, The Road Along the Shore and The Necklace of Dreams.

Her new book, a collection of stories called boYs (biblioasis), is a wryly observant investigation of the distance between men and women. The manuscript won the 2006 Metcalf Rooke Award, and the collection's lead story will be included in the next volume of Best Canadian Stories.

Click here for
Kathleen Winter's
Reading Copy.

The Fashion Breakdown Pt. 2

Gwen Smid and Sara Matyas, mainstage volunteer extraordinaires, went above and beyond the call of duty coordinating their volunteer outfits. Note the shoes and beads these ladies are sporting. They will definitely be winning the volunteer fashion trophy at the volunteer banquet.

* * *

Daria Salamon’s first novel, The Prairie Bridesmaid, will be published in fall 2008 by Key Porter Books. Daria’s journalism has appeared in The Globe and Mail, Winnipeg Free Press, and Uptown Magazine; one of her non-fiction pieces appears in A/Cross Sections: New Manitoba Writing. She lives in Osborne Village with her son, Oskar, husband, Rob and cat, Dr. Puddles.

Soundslide: Alison Calder

Alison Calder's first poetry collection, Wolf Tree, was published by Coteau Books in 2007. A selection of poems from this manuscript received the Bronwen Wallace Memorial Award for writing excellence by a writer under the age of 35. Her poetry has been published in journals and anthologies, most notably Breathing Fire: Canada's New Poets and Exposed, and has twice circulated on Winnipeg city buses.

She is the editor of Desire Never Leaves: The Poetry of Tim Lilburn (Wilfred Laurier University Press, 2007) and a critical edition of Frederick Philip Grove's 1924 novel Settlers of the Marsh (Borealis, 2006), and the co-editor of History, Literature, and the Writing of the Canadian Prairies (University of Manitoba Press, 2005).

Alison Calder was born in London, England, and raised in Saskatoon. She obtained her BA in English at the University of Saskatchewan before completing Masters and PhD programs at the University of Western Ontario. She teaches Canadian literature and creative writing at the University of Manitoba. She lives in Winnipeg with her husband, Warren Cariou.

Click here for
Alison Calder's
soundslide.

Alison Calder will be appearing at THIN AIR, Winnipeg International Writers Festival:

September 29 - Mainstage, with Trisha Cull, George Ellenbogen, Niels Hav, John Havelda, Paul Savoie.

Line of Inquiry: David Chariandy

David Chariandy has explored ideas of dislocation and cultural memory as an academic at Simon Fraser University, but he now offers those ideas to a wider audience in his luminous first novel entitled Soucouyant (Arsenal Pulp).

Set in Ontario, the story focuses on the fraught and tender relationship between a Canadian-born son and his Trinidadian-born mother, a woman who is suffering from dementia and uncannily 'forgetting to forget' the traumatic secrets of her past. The soucouyant - an evil spirit in Caribbean folklore - stands as a symbol of how the legacies of 'elsewhere' continue to haunt the lives of those born here.

Chariandy lives in Vancouver.

1) As a writer (i.e. someone whose artistic practice is predicated on time
spent alone) how do you approach performance? What do you get out of it?

It’s a good question. I’m told that I do alright in front of an audience. And I’m a teacher as well as a writer, so I should be used to public speaking by now. But the truth is that I’m usually a bit uncomfortable when I have to read my work, even though, apparently, this rarely shows. I’ve found that my type of writing requires quite a lot of introspection, which doesn’t necessarily help when it’s time to perform. Still, I’m so deeply grateful when anyone is willing to listen to me. That is an enormous gift to a new writer.

2) What do you want people to know about Soucouyant?

It’s a book about the elsewhere past, and about what haunts us when we think we’ve moved beyond. It’s also a book about forgetting, about the fragility of memory, and about the impossible burden of history. Really, it’s just a book about a mother suffering from dementia, and a son who is conflicted about his responsibilities. It’s a book that I worked on very carefully over many, many drafts, since I felt I owed this to the themes and characters.

3) What are you looking forward to in Winnipeg?

Frankly, I’m looking forward to hearing other writers read. I get inspired by that, the ebb and pitch of words in the air. And this particular festival has gathered together so many extraordinarily writers, both mature and new. Also, just about every writer I know tells me that the audiences in Winnipeg are the most lively and enthusiastic in the nation. I feel both thrilled and humbled to be able to participate in the groove.

4) What are you reading right now?

Lots of stuff. I usually dip into several books at once. (The tower beside my bed is sometimes outright hazardous…) I’ve recently read the new Ondaatje, Vassanji, Gowdy, and Hill, and I’m looking forward to perusing other CanLit offerings of the year. I’ve also been trying to catch up on books published a year or two earlier, like The Law of Dreams and The View from Castle Rock. I’m also right now re-reading Delible by Anne Stone, which I can’t seem to get out of my head. I’m always reading a lot of poetry. Poetry feeds me in a way that’s absolutely essential, even though I’ve never attempted that most daunting and demanding art. So Moure, and Brand, and Brathwaite, and Walcott over and over again, as well as a bunch of newer voices. I’ve co-founded, with Wayde Compton and Karina Vernon, a very (very) modest press named Commodore Books, and I’m really hoping that we’ll get to publish, as our third book, the poetry of an emerging Winnipeg-based writer named Troy Bailey. His poetry is exceptionally interesting, but I think he has the same neurosis that I do – he’ll never stop working on a manuscript until someone physically wrests the thing away. Maybe I’ll try pulling a heist when I’m in town…

5) What can being longlisted/shortlisted/winning an award like the Giller Prize do for a book and/or for your career? How does it feel to be nominated?

I’m both thrilled and shocked. As I mentioned, I worked extremely hard on my book for a number of years. Eventually, after painstakingly studying the works of more experienced writers, after many, many drafts, and after considerable pain and self-doubt on my own part, I got the narrative and language of my short book into a form that satisfied me. But I assumed, for a variety of reasons, that it wouldn’t get much attention, and I was honestly OK with that. Now, I’m suddenly in the company of the very writers, like Michael Ondaatje, whose work inspired me so profoundly in the first place. It’s such a strange and wonderful experience. I can’t fully express how meaningful it has all been to me, how deeply grateful I am by the nod from the Giller judges, and by the subsequent attention from people who, otherwise, might never have heard of my book or else taken me seriously. But I also know who supported me right from the beginning: a small and “regional” press, an independent bookstore or two, and a community of readers and writers, of all backgrounds and degrees of fame, who have taught me to understand “literature” not as the product of a few stars, but as a wild democracy of voices.

* * *

David Chariandy will be appearing at THIN AIR, Winnipeg International Writers Festival:

September 28 - Writing through Race Panel, U of W, with Lawrence Hill and Paul Yee.
September 28 - Maintstage, with William Gibson, Lawrence Hill, Linda Leith, Brenda Hasiuk.

The Fashion Breakdown

Last night’s mainstage event was funny and moving. The young adult writers thoroughly entertained. But what everyone is talking about today is...Charlene’s boots. In fact, I feel far too much attention has been devoted to the writers and not nearly enough has been said about festival fashion.

So, let’s talk about those boots. Charlene purchased them at the Aldo outlet when she attended Book Expo Canada earlier this year. She was supposed to be seeking out fine authors to bring to Winnipeg Words, but really it was a charade to expand her footwear collection. Quite frankly it’s a hot miracle we even have any writers.



I told her I didn’t think it was appropriate to use festival funds to broaden her boot collection. Last night at the readings she even audaciously tried to connect her crazy boots to the theme Surviving Adolescence.

(Ed. - I'm sure Daria means 'festival time' or even 'time off from festival time'...heh.)

The rest of her outfit she explained is cobbled together “from here and everywhere.” She is extremely proud of her ability to seek out deals. I should hope so, Charlene, if you’re pilfering festival funds for your unique wardrobe. The earrings are twenty years old – from the last time long dangly earrings were in fashion.



The necklace, a lovely piece of jewellery, is a “talisman of when I was pregnant with Anna seven years ago.” I was actually thinking of stealing it until she said that. The ring is from a trip to Cuba, the watch exceedingly cheap. And her best accessory was the glass of wine she was sporting compliments of the hospitality suite.

The woman’s got style. And sometimes I wonder if the writers up on stage feel they are competing with Charlene’s wardrobe for audience attention.



* * *

Daria Salamon’s first novel, The Prairie Bridesmaid, will be published in fall 2008 by Key Porter Books. Daria’s journalism has appeared in The Globe and Mail, Winnipeg Free Press, and Uptown Magazine; one of her non-fiction pieces appears in A/Cross Sections: New Manitoba Writing. She lives in Osborne Village with her son, Oskar, husband, Rob and cat, Dr. Puddles.

Out-take: hospitatlity suite

Charles LeBlanc, THIN AIR Foyer des Ecrivains author, unmasks himself in the THIN AIR Hospitality Suite after last night's Mainstage performance.

(His sixth collection, called Heures D'ouverture and featuring several plates with reproductions of Winnipeg urban landscapes, was launched yesterday.)

Out-take: Armin Wiebe

I sat next to Creative Communications faculty member and Campus Program emcee Armin Wiebe at the Lois Braun and Janice Kulyk Keefer reading/Q&A at RRC yesterday afternoon.

As I was snapping pics of the crowd and the readers I caught Armin’s hands in the frame.



Now forgive me for the faint whiff of lame but…looking at Armin’s hands through the lens, I realized that four novels and countless short stories (okay, okay, you can probably count them...) have moved through those hands and onto the page.

Even though I presume to call myself a writer, I couldn't tell you precisely where stories reside in the body and where they come from. But it's sort of strange to think that the stories rely on fingers and knuckles and hands in order to be made manifest in the world.

Reading Copy: Anita Daher

Anita Daher was born in PEI and has spent much of her life moving, and she draws writing inspiration from the many places she’s been fortunate to spend time in – Summerside PEI, Yellowknife NT, Churchill MB, Baker Lake NU, and Sault Ste. Marie ON, among others.

This year has been an important one for Daher. She has three new titles: Racing for Diamonds (Orca) is her third adventure story for young readers; Two Foot Punch (Orca) and Spider’s Song (Penguin) take that intensity up a notch for teen readers.

This spring she received the John Hirsch Award for Most Promising Manitoba Writer.

Daher now lives in Winnipeg.

* * *



Click here for
Anita's Reading Copy.

Reading: Brenda Hasiuk

Attended Brenda Hasiuk's reading/Q&A at Red River College today.

Watching Hasiuk settle in, I realized that the THIN AIR Campus Program readings, at least at RRC, is in many ways the ideal reading.




Creative Communications students, who study public relations, journalism, and creative writing, are mandated to attend. Furthermore, they've all bought, read, and discussed the book as a part of their coursework.

There are usually four or five other attendees, but because the reading is what would be an unfamiliar venue for most people, they're either a friend of the writer or someone who likes your writing enough to seek you out.



Either way, you've eliminated the tire-kickers and scenesters, and you've got an audience that is more than willing to debate your book with you.

In Hasiuk's case, they wanted to know WHY Rena and Adam got together, they wanted to know EXACTLY how she was able to write about a small town in Manitoba's north and from the perspective of an Aboriginal character AND a Bosnian refugee when she's the urban middle-class grandchild of Ukrainian immigrants.



And while you could make an argument that book launches are also pretty fun, they're mostly about celebrating the eventness of a book. It's also sales/marketing event for the press and a social event for all concerned.

But the campus readings are only about the book - enough to make the average attention-starved writer swoon!

But Hasiuk didn't swoon...she was eloquent and engaged and candid.

Fun!

okay...

...I'll admit it. I didn't go to a single festival event today, after two very long days and nights at the festival (and also at work).

I pledged that tonight I would stay away from the festival, plug away at the book review I have due this weekend (ack!) and maybe go to bed early.

Sure, I'd check my email every so often to see what my fellow bloggers had come up with, but I wouldn't spend another evening with a laptop searing my lap, another evening giving myself virtual papercuts.

But as you see from the excellent contributions from both Daria and JS, this wasn't possible.

Ah well...

Tomorrow will be a compromise. Two readings in the morning (Brenda Hasiuk, Lois Braun, and Janice Kulyk Keefer) but also a nap in the afternoon.