Mark Thursday, April 7 on Your Calendar!

DATE: Thursday, April 7

TIME: 6-9 p.m.

EVENT: Reading by members of the Creative Writing 209 class

WHERE: Northern Lights College, Room 2-115 (Industry Training Centre)

WHO: You all! It's going to be special (extra-special if you're there!)

Here's your chance to find out what a Creative Writing class is like. What it could do for you. Why you should enrol the next time it's offered.

There will be short fiction and poetry readings. Everyone's been working very hard and our class has written some wonderful stories and poems.

Be encouraged about your own writing. Get inspired! Hope to see you there!

Do You Tweet?

I don't. Really. I don't think I have time to tweet. I'm not sure I know how to tweet. Maybe I need a Tweeting for Dummies guide (I see Amazon.ca currently has a 50% off sale on Dummies guides but I didn't look at their ad to see if tweeting is among them).

Anyway, for all you tweeters out there, there is list of some incredible resources for writers (tools, specialty information collections, etc.) on twitter. Just check the at WriterThesaurus feed--Angela Ackerman (see my blog post from yesterday) posts all kinds of amazing links, all of them perfect for writers. She says that the Internet is so big, she tries to save other people time by sharing what she finds.

After checking my blog, her blog, other writing blogs, and twitter, if you have any time left, get writing!

Read this Blog!

The Bookshelf Muse
Have you ever been stuck for a word? You're writing a scene in your short story, novel, or play. Your vocabulary soup is a little thin. Want to beef it up? Check out The Bookshelf Muse.

This is the thesaurus grandparent! Every situation, every emotion, every setting, every scene--they are all there. Vocabulary to play with, to mix in with what you've already got.

Not only that, The Bookshelf Muse is a valuable resource for other resources. Have a look at the list of blogs that one of the co-creators follows: it's a veritable who's who of writing blogs.

So many blogs, so little time. We're going to have to get up earlier and go to bed later. In between those two times, we're going to have to be reading. When we're not reading, we'll have to be writing.

So make a plan and get to it!

DEADLINE APPROACHING!!! March 31!

Call for Submissions DiVerseCities 2

(from Northern Groove . . . )


The Peace has many fine writers but few places to showcase their writing. Retro Relics/The Rabbit Hole, as part of its monthly Spread the Word open mike for poets and writers, is hoping to change that unfortunate fact. We are looking for submissions for DiVerseCities 2, an anthology of writing from the Peace. Submissions can include poetry, short stories, memoirs, or any other form of short writing. Well, except ransom notes and bomb threats.

The first DiVerseCities, published in November 2009, was widely acclaimed. The Guardian Books (UK) said "Astonishing!". The New York Review of Books called it a "trenchant voice from the gritty underbelly of the oil patch." The Globe & Mail commented "Who knew they could write in northern BC?"

Entries will be selected by a group of editors comprised of regulars of the Spread the Word open mike.

Entries should be submitted in electronic form by email to retrofsj@telus.net
by March 31, 2011.

For more information, contact Henry See at (250) 787-8822.

Future dates for the Spread the Word open mike are Tuesday, March 15, April 12, and May 17 at 7:00 pm.

Greg Lainsbury on YouTube

Here is the link to the YouTube video of Greg Lainsbury as he creates poetry! [See yesterday's post for the full story!]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnqlKytV1qU

The Landscape of Contemporary Poetry

What's the last book of poetry you've read? What is a poet? What is a poem?

These were some of the questions that our guest speaker asked our Creative Writing class tonight. Greg Lainsbury, a long-time resident of the north, gave us the low-down on what's happening in the world of contemporary verse.

From post-World War One Dadaism to the underground samizdat movement in Russia to the up-to-the-minute poetry news and events on Ron Silliman's blog (www.ronsilliman.blogspot.com), Lainsbury took the class on a whirlwind tour of the contemporary poetry landscape.

This is not your father's poetry. It may not even be your poetry. But for sure, today's poets are doing interesting (if not always understandable) work. Some is a mixture of art and poetry, what I refer to a visual poetry.

Lainsbury explained that such visual or collage poetry is really just one stage in the composition of his poems. Via YouTube, we watched him at work constructing a poem. He said his method consists of gathering interesting phrases, sentences, and words throughout the year. Once he has his raw material--scooped from many sources--he lays out the individual pieces of paper on which the words and phrases have been typed and somehow, through the magic of the creative process, it all comes together into lines of poetry. He compared himself to a farmer gathering and sowing seeds, then reaping a harvest.

In addition to gathering words and phrases, Lainsbury also has his eye out for interesting images that add to the story he's building. It's an eclectic collection--a gallimaufry of colours and lines and images from science, popular culture, news, and other sources--that enhances or brings out the meaning of the words.

This was all new to me. I'm more on the lyrical and narrative end of the poetry scale myself, but I was intrigued by the difference in approach. Poetry has a bad rep, beset by the whiff of the school room and the church basement.

Maybe it's time for spring cleaning.

Preciseness is a Blessing

Most of us have heard about the group M.A.D.D., which stands for Mothers Against Drunk Drivers. It was started by a mother whose child was killed by a drunk driver. This high-profile self-help group raises awareness of this important issue, lobbies governments, and helps those who have experienced similar tragedy. The acronym sounds like the word "mad," which is what these mothers must be when their children are senselessly killed.

Yesterday, I saw a sign posted at my workplace. The poster announced a fundraising effort by a local group, "Doctors for Cancer."

Now if any group knows the difficulties and suffering associated with this disease, it's the doctors who care for their patients. I am sure this group raises awareness and funds to fight cancer.

Why aren't they "Doctors Against Cancer"?

Another sign from the work place, this time a hand-written poster announcing the availabilty of a skating rink on the property: "Bring your skates or borrow one and come on out for some exercise."

One? Hmm. It might be easier with a skate on each foot.

The Men's

I have it on good authority that there are no papers with a similar message (you are handsome/strong/aggressive/macho/tender/loving/committed, etc.) with tear-off strips that say "I am handsome/strong/aggressive/macho/tender/loving/committed, etc.") in the men's washroom. [See previous post, from 7:39 this morning, for further explanation.]

Only one kind of paper there with tear-off strips.

Using Words to Make the World a Better Place

Last week and again yesterday, I had a very wonderful surprise at work. I used the washroom. Nothing too unusual in that, but as I closed the door to the stall, I saw a notice had been taped to the back of the door. An eight-and-a-half by eleven sheet of white paper, landscape orientation. Along the bottom two inches of the paper, there were words written vertically, with cuts made between the words so that the little tab could easily be torn off and taken away, like an ad on a grocery store bulletin board advertising puppies to give away or a motorcycle for sale and having the seller's phone number along the bottom on tear-off strips.


Only the sign in the washroom wasn't about puppies or motorcycles.

Three words were centred on the page:

You are beautiful.

Along the bottom, on the vertical "tabs": I am beautiful.

I noticed that several of the tabs had already been torn off and taken away, maybe popped into someone's wallet or stuck on a computer monitor (that's where I put mine).

I asked around. No one claimed responsibility for this bold social experiment and happy-making. No one knew or was telling who had posted the signs (every stall had one).

That little sign is still taped to the bottom of my computer monitor. I look at it. I like it.

Thank you to whoever used their words to make this world a better place.

(Should I get someone to check out the men's?)

An Enchanted Poem

My mother was a poet. She had a way with words. Her specialty was haiku. She had many hundreds of haiku poems published.

The following poem was not written by her. It was written by Marguerite B. Palmer. I don't know who she was or if she wrote anything else, but my mother loved this poem. It articulates many of the same sentiments evident in my mother's haikus. I present it here for your enjoyment.

The Enchanted Wood

By Marguerite B. Palmer

There was a strange enchantment on the wood:
A transient rain had beaded Queen Anne's lace
And pearled the matted grasses where we stood.
There was a jeweled look about the place.

Translucent amber glistened on the pines
Whose branches hid unnumbered singing birds;
Diamonds were caught in spiderwebs and vines.
There was a magic that eluded words.

So we were silent from the moment when
We found a jade-touched stone on which to sit
And memorize it all, for even then
We knew that we could not go back to it.

* * * *
One of my favourite poems is "Pied Beauty" by Gerard Manley Hopkins.

Do you have a favourite poem? One perhaps that you've memorized? Or just one that, when you read it, it speaks to your heart and you know that it's true.

Leave a comment to let us know your favourite poem!

Getting Down to Business!

Some people write for a living. I used to be one of them. Every day, I went to the office and I wrote. First I interviewed and took photos, and then I wrote. Then I attended city council meetings, school board meetings, this and that meetings and took photos, and then I wrote. Dream job? Not exactly. Ask my kids.

Anyway, writing--whether you do it at an office and are paid a wage or sit in front of your own computer at home writing a novel--is a business. The sooner we look at it this way, the better our chances of success.

At Thursday night's creative writing class, Ruth Hill, a writer from Chetwynd, spoke to us about the business and record-keeping aspects of writing. She had many good suggestions and has done lots of research on this topic.

I came home from class excited about the possibilities ahead of me! Ruth had several different information-gathering-and-tracking pages loaded with tons of questions and blank spaces for the answers. I wasn't sure I was that organized!

What I did was create an Excel spreadsheet for upcoming writing contests. The columns across detail things like name of contest, deadline date, entry fee, prizes, when winners will be announced, word or line limit, genre, web site, etc., etc. Ah, now we're cooking with gas, as my father used to say!

I'm working on filling it all in. This is where the research comes in, and I'll probably lean on some of what Ruth has done.

Another tool that I thought some people might think is handy is BirthdayAlarm.com (no, I'm not asking you to remember my birthday!) As an event, you could enter the deadline date of the contests, and then automatically, BirthdayAlarm.com would send you a reminder two weeks ahead and one week ahead! What a system!

Then I'm going to make another spreadsheet to keep track of pieces that I submit to journals or magazines.

Okay, gotta get writing so I'll have something to submit.

A Limerick, for St. Patrick's Day

There once was a young man from Cork
Who had trouble using a fork
He never could learn
How to make the thing turn
Without giving way too much torque.

Probably not a prize winner, but by the time I sat down to write my blog today, I had only three minutes before the stroke of midnight, and I wanted this entry dated on March 17, and those lines are the first things that popped into my head! It is what it is!

Show your Irish and write a limerick! (Please remember this is a family publication!)

Have some fun! Leave your limerick as a comment under this entry!

The Wearing of the Green

Tomorrow is St. Patrick's Day. People will wear green and drink green beer. Cities will hold parades and put green dye into a nearby river or lake. So in honour of all that's St. Pat, let's consider Irish literature.

It's one of the oldest modern European literatures, arising in the 5th century. Poets were respected; those from the bardic schools attended at the royal courts. Oral storytelling was an art form. Stories told the history and they were the entertainment and the crux of the Irish cultural identity.

Who but the Irish have the Blarney Stone, which, if you kiss it, upsidedown (?), it makes you wise with words. Or is it lucky in love? Perhaps those two are connected.

That was then. What about today? Whose out there? Who are the rising stars?

There are the supernovas, the big names: Oscar Wilde, James Joyce, Richard Brinsley Sheridan (one of my favourites!), Roddy Doyle, Seamus Heaney, Maeve Binchy (see? something for everyone!) Claire Keegan, Gerard Byrne, who is currently writer-in-residence at the University of New Brunswick, and Kevin Barry.

Make a list! Spread your wings! Read something green!

Your Autobiography as a Reader

How would you characterize your life as a reader?

I asked my students today what memories they had of reading or being read to as a child. Many of them had no specific memories of this. One said she remembered her mother singing to her but not reading to her.

I have lots of memories regarding books. When I was five, I was in the hospital, and my mother brought me a Little Golden Book. It was the story of the Largest Turnip. She read it to me, and when I was older, I read it many times over. Even today, I can still see the picture in my mind--all the village people lined up one behind the other, trying to pull the giant turnip from the ground.

A few years ago, I found a copy of this book at a garage sale. I've since passed it on to some little folks.

When I was nine or ten or thereabouts, I was in the "horse story" and "dog story" phase of my reading life. I can picture the low shelves in the children's section at the Fraser-Hickson Library on Grand Avenue in Montreal, where I spent many happy hours. Jim Kjelgaard's Big Red, Irish Red, and Outlaw Red were among my favourite dog stories. Those books were my friends.

From the same library a few years later, I remember a book with a bright pink cover: Put Your Best Foot Forward. It was a book about how to be a teenaged girl: how to put on lipstick, how to act around boys, how to kiss. I can see the line drawings that were sprinkled throughout the book. I guess I needed some help.

Then for a few years, there was a large Black Hole in my life as a reader. I stopped reading for a few years. Fiction anyway. I thought it didn't have anything to do with me. It was made up stuff that wasn't true.

That wasn't true. One day a friend recommended a book to me. It was by Robertson Davies. The title was Rebel Angels. I saw myself on every page. Every character was me. Every incident was my life. I came back to fiction.

Then in university, I kept putting books on my To Read list and kept telling myself as soon as I was finished reading everything I was supposed to read for my courses, I'd read the things I wanted to read. I think I'm still working on that list!

Now, I'm an eclectic reader. Something here, something there, and I'm talking about my house--there's a book here and a book there--by the bed, on the coffee table, in the kitchen, and yes, next to the throne.

Currently, I'm working on:
Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis (more on this anon)
The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoyevsky - it's slow going
Les Dimanches de Julie by Sylvain Trudel (a French-language young adult novel)
Don't Waste Your Life by John Piper
The Christian Faith by Michael Horton
Easy Spanish Reader
PLUS a variety of other language learning books (Spanish, Latin, and French) from which I am working on numerous chapters, exercises, and translations.

What about you? What's your autobiography as a reader? What precious memories do you have about books?

Call Sentence 9-1-1!

Leave the other person at home. That's my advice.

Not always, of course. It's fun to go out with a friend to the coffee shop or to a movie, or maybe go shopping together. I'm talking about a different case.

The objective case, actually. I can see the question mark above your heads. Take this sentence that I heard on this past weekend:

He did it for you and I.

Now's the time to leave the other person at home. What I mean by this is get the other person out of your sentence. So in the example above, we would take out "you" and what would we have left?

He did it for . . . I.

Ah-h-h-h-h!!!! We would never say that. We know better. We know that the correct way to say this is: He did it for me.

Okay, now that we have the correct form, let's invite the other person back into the sentence:

He did it for you and me. (The convention in English is that we mention ourselves last.)

That's all there is to it. You never have to make this mistake again!

I have my own theory about why this mistake is so prevalent. It appears regularly in news reports, love songs, and movie scripts. I hear it from the platform, from the pulpit, and from the podium.

It comes from a generation of mothers correcting the grammar of their children. That in itself is a good thing. It went something like this:

Johnny: "Mommy, can Billy and me go to the store?"

Mother: "It's 'Billy and I.'"

Johnny: "Okay, okay, can Billy and I go to the store?"

Mother: "That's better. Yes, you may."

So after millions of mothers reminding little Johnny and little Janey that it was "Billy and I," not "Billy and me," this set phrase crept into daily usage as the ONLY way of connecting these two people in a sentence.

The mothers were right. Check it out. Leave the other person at home:

"Mommy, can . . . I go to the store?"

But what about case of the first example: He did it for you and me.

It all hinges on case. The subjective case or the objective case. If it's the subject of the sentence (Can Billy and I go to the store?), then you need "I."

If it's the object of the verb or the object of a preposition (e.g., for), then you need the objective case, and that word is "me."

He did it for me.

Get it right . . . for you and me.

Something Very Exciting!

I went to the public library on Saturday to find some of the books that have been nominated for the B.C. Book Prizes. I found the list on the B.C. Book Prizes web site. What I didn't find in the library was most of the books that had been nominated! That was a bit disappointing, especially since there were none of the poetry books, the group I was especially interested in.


However, I was delighted to find that one of the young adult books that has been nominated was written by someone who lives right here in Fort St. John!

The name of the book is Fatty Legs. It tells the true story of a young girl who was sent to residential school. It's not a long book. It is illustrated by both paintings and photographs.

The book is written by Christy Jordan-Fenton and her mother, Margaret Pokiak-Fenton, whose story is told.

The artwork is by Liz Amini-Holmes.

Simply put, this book deserves to win.

Trying Out Different Voices

Different poems use different voices. Finding the right one for your poem is an important step in writing.

A lyrical voice is used to tell about the feelings or emotions of the poet in relation to some object or experience. We can identify the lyrical voice by personal pronouns--I, me, my, we, our, us, mine. ours. Personal experience is in the foreground here. Originally, this type of poem was accompanied by music from a lyre, hence the word "lyrical."

This sort of poem has been around a long time and is often easy to identify with. We can picture what the poet saw; we can feel the same feelings. It is a humanizing kind of poem, reminding us that we are all in this world together as humans, with similar feelings, desires, worries, and hopes.

Another voice is the dramatic mask, where the poet speaks as if he or she is an inanimate or non-human object.

A third voice, the narrative voice, is used to simply tell about something else, without reference to the poet.

Of course, the use of each of these voice is undergirded by the poet's particular way of speaking, the poet's own voice. These voices, working together, give an individual, fresh quality to the poet's work.

Have you explored the various characteristics of lyrical, dramatic, and narrative poetry? Have you matched what you're saying to the voice best suited to say it?

Have you found your own voice?

Becoming Entitled

What about titles? Where do they come from? How does a poet decide on a title for a poem? How does an author of a book decide on a title that will have shelf appeal? What about blogs? What makes an intriguing name for a blog?

I'll go first and let you in on how this blog was named. It was inspired primarily by my night-owl life-style. Social media might be of particular help to northern writers, as we are far removed from the publishing centres of the country and networking with other writers is perhaps more difficult for us. So thinking of “northern” and “night,” I thought of “Knight Rider,” (the 1980s television series), and that morphed into “night writer” and the blog was named. In about 43 seconds.

About 150 years ago, many non-fiction books carried very long titles. The title was, in fact, a whole description in a very straight-forward way of what the book was about. I'm glad to say that has changed.

Fiction titles have more often been shorter and some have even been catchy. I won't hesitate to mention two of my favourite right here: Pamela by Samuel Richardson and Middlemarch by George Eliot. The first one takes its name from the protagonist and the second, from the community in which the story takes place (although the protagonist in this one spends time in other locations).

What about poetry books? Well, it's a dog's breakfast out there. Some titles are enigmatic, to say the least. Others are symbolic; some take their name from one of the poems in the book.

I'd like to hear from you. How do you pick a title for a poem? If you have a book of poems, or a novel, how did you pick the title?

It's easy to make a comment. All you need is a Google profile, which takes only minutes to set up. Maybe you already have one, and so you have no excuse for not leaving a comment and keeping the conversation going.

It's a Hard Job, but Somebody's Got to Do It, Please!

I'm taking a gander at one of the local weekly newspapers, at the section entitled, "Saluting Women in Business." This section appears this week because yesterday, March 8, was International Women's Day.

The banner above the section pages shows half a woman (from the waist down--I'll comment on that in a moment) relaxing in an office chair, a laptop balanced easily on her lap, her long legs, crossed sexily, and very nice black shoes with 3-inch heels and ankle straps. The only other item in the photo is . . . please tell me I'm wrong . . . a waste basket. No, it must be something else. The words SALUTING WOMEN in BUSINESS are stacked in four lines, and, with a briefcase handle poised above them, form the shape of a briefcase. Take a look for yourself; click on page 18-19: Women in Business ad.

Now I know many women who run their own businesses and none of them ever look like this. They probably have two or three kids clinging to those legs, and if they are reclined in their chairs, it's from exhaustion.

Two things strike me here: half a woman. How is this possible in 2011? I ask myself. So much ink has been spilled in the last 35-40 years (can it have been that long already?) about how women appear in advertising--what they wear; how they hold their faces, legs, hands, mouths, and other body parts; where they look; who they are looking good for, etc., etc. Has nothing changed? Does no one speak up any more?

Okay, next point: the garbage can. Perhaps this is where the other half of the woman is. Need I say more?

Anyway, none of that is what first attracted my attention to the section, which includes (probably paid) advertorials on nine local businesses owned by women. What originally caught my eye was the cutline beside a photo of a woman who owns an organic and natural foods store: "Owner & Health Couch."

Hmm . . . it's one thing to be a couch potato, but to be a couch?!

On the same page, in an advertorial for a new lounge in town (maybe they need a couch?), Tuesday is "Amature Comedy Night." Another business owner states that owning her own business "has been a huge dream I've been bulding to my whole life." This same business stays open late till 8 p.m. on Tuesdays and Wednesdays "just so male workers can make her hours flexable for them." I have no idea what the previous sentence means.

Now I know what you're thinking.
- It's just a small town newspaper, so what do you expect?
- It's fine to point out the mistakes of others, but do you think you're perfect?

Which brings me to my point: it's a hard job, but somebody's got to do it. Please, somebody do it!

Read over everything. Once. Out loud. Slowly. Word by word. Read it again! Don't hit that SEND button yet! Think about it. Read it again.

Why? Because as difficult as writing is, proofreading is even more difficult. But somebody's got to do it.

Writers and their Personal Demons

What do the names Percy Shelley, Lord Byron, and Sylvia Plath have in common? Or Hunter S. Thompson and William S. Burroughs? Or for a Canadian twist, Milton Acorn and Elizabeth Smart?

For one, they were all writers. For another, they were narcissistic and depressed. Please understand that this is not my personal opinion, but historians and biographers tell us that these writers were -- dare I say "haunted" by their personal demons. Some of them acted and lived outrageously (I haven't mentioned them all here, but perhaps Oscar Wilde as another example might come to mind) and as in Lord Byron's case, was refused burial services at both St. Paul's Cathedral and Westminster Cathedral because of his, um, shall we say, "flamboyance"?

Others had what have been referred to as public meltdowns.

Among movie stars and sports personalities, a "Three Mile Island" is perhaps not totally unexpected. Apparently, from recent news reports, Charlie Sheen has been under pressure, so much so that, according to today's interview with Jen Sookfong Lee on CBC Radio's All Points West, hosted by Jo Ann Roberts, Sheen's last name has become a verb, as in "We went to Las Vegas and went sheening down the Strip."

(But didn't we always know he was a meltdown waiting to happen?) I imagine "sheening" to be some kind of wild cavorting with friends of questionable reputation. There, I've just used the present participle as a noun. But maybe I'm wrong about Charlie.

What does this all have to do with us? Well, we need to be careful. Be careful of what photos we throw on Facebook. Our future fans could see them. Speak kindly to those around us. Share our knowledge and expertise even though publishing is a competitive world. Yes, all those things we learned in kindergarten are still important.

Most of all, if we feel a meltdown coming, let's decompress by getting our angst out of our system through writing.

We'll produce some fabulous fiction and poetry!

Rockin' Robin . . .

I admit it. I've been Left Behind. Educational policies notwithstanding, I have been left behind in the technorevolution. A few years ago, I might have been close to the front of the pack, but now, I feel as if I'm the last to cross the start line at the Boston Marathon.

The truth is I don't tweet. I have tweeted once. I signed up, signed in, and signed out.

In our creative writing course material, we were given a list of sites to follow. The Plus of tweets is the fact that they are short. Only 140 characters, and that's counting spaces.


The Twitter.com web site promises that "Twitter is without a doubt the best way to share and discover what is happening right now."

I liked the certainty of "without a doubt" and the immediacy of "right now."

What I discovered was a string of personal sentences congratulating this writer or that poet on winning such-and-such a prize. It was the equivalent of electronic chit-chat--maybe birdseed would be an apt metaphor--cluttering up the screen and my day.

I know I'm probably missing something terribly important, but how useful is this:

Lady Gaga has canceled her partnership with Target due to their anti-gay rights donations, a source says.

Or what about this?

The inside of Charlie Sheen's urethra must look like Willy Wonka's boat ride.

And then this display of public grief:

Devastating to hear of Mike Starr succumbing to his illness. So very sad. Our prayers are with his family.

Undaunted, I searched the creative writing sites:

Oh no! Heal quickly, Ms. Didion! RT @LATimesbooks Joan Didion breaks collarbone in fall.

Big announcement next Tues: finalists for RBC Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers to be revealed.

And this from MP Bob Rae:

Congrats to my friend (and constiuent!) Anna Porter for winning the Shaughnessy Cohen book prize!! Great book too - The Ghosts of Europe...

And the French-language version of Châtelaine, the national Canadian women's magazine, recently asked: Je twitte, donc je suis?

Apparently, everyone's doing it. Which is what high school students used to say about some other social activities when we were young. Only that wasn't really true!

For me, I think my time is better spent actually writing. I'll leave the tweeting to the other birds!

Every little swallow, every chick-a-dee
Every little bird in the tall oak tree
The wise old owl, the big black crow
Flappin' their wings singing go bird go

Rockin' robin, tweet tweet tweet
Rockin' robin' tweet tweetly-tweet

B.C.'s Bestsellers!

The Association of Book Publishers of B.C. puts out a weekly list of the best-selling books in B.C. There are two categories: adults' and children's. Fiction and non-fiction are not separated.

Here's the most recent list.

Adult Bestseller List

1.Patriot Hearts by John Furlong
2.Quinoa 365 by Patricia Green & Carolyn Hemming
3.The Sentimentalists by Johanna Skibsrud
4.Adventures in Solitude by Grant Lawrence
5.The Zero-Mile Diet by Carolyn Herriot
6.Vij’s at Home by Meeru Dhalwala & Vikram Vij
7.Everything Works by Mike McCardell
8.And to Think I Got in Free! by Jim Taylor
9.Bateman: New Works by Robert Bateman
10.Voices of British Columbia by Robert Budd

Children’s Bestseller List

1.Field Guide to the Identification of Pebbles by Eileen Van der Flier-Keller
2.Storm Boy by Paul Owen Lewis
3.Fishing with Gubby by Gary Kent
4.Fraser Bear by Maggie de Vries
5.Frog Girl by Paul Owen Lewis

This is what's selling!

Letter-Writing - Revive the Art!

It's a northern night. It's very dark as the moon has already set. It's very cold-- it's -19 C but headed for -24 C overnight. It's a perfect night for writing a letter!

Letter writing--actually taking a piece of paper or a card and using a pen or other writing implement to make some marks on it--is a bit out of style, having been overtaken in speed and ease by electronic means, but writing by hand has several advantages.

First, there is the element of surprise when the recipient opens the mailbox and finds, like a ray of sunshine on a cloudy day, the envelope from you buried beneath bills, bank statements, and grocery store flyers. Oh, the delight of it all!

In addition, there's a sense of accomplishment. You've done something that people have been doing for at least two thousand years--using the postal system to carry a missive to a loved one, a friend, a relative. Did you know that the Romans had a very efficient mail system in which a letter could go from Rome to the outposts of civilization, say in Spain or Gaul, in less than two weeks? Canada Post could perhaps take a page from their book! So you're carrying on a long tradition when you affix that stamp and drop your letter into the mail box.

Finally, letter writing is a fantastic way to get the creative juices flowing. It's a way to rev up your writing engine. Take time to think. Take care with what you say. Pour out your thoughts and your heart.

I don't often get such letters, but I hope that someone you know sends you one once in a while. Read it, tuck it into a box or a drawer, and years from now, you'll be able to pull it out, and with it, the fond memories that it brings.

Here's the List!

World Book Night – The Books

Here is the list of the 25 books that will be distributed today in Great Britain. One million books—given away! What an idea! What a luxury!

Links to information about each author, about the books, and first-chapter excerpts can be found at worldbooknight.org.

In alphabetical order (except I’ve put the Canadians first!):

A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
A Life Like Other People’s by Alan Bennett (UK)
Agent Zigzag by Ben Macintyre (UK)
All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque (Germany)
Beloved by Toni Morrison (US)
Case Histories by Kate Atkinson (UK)
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell (UK)
Dissolution by C.J. Sansom (UK)
Fingersmith by Sarah Waters (UK)
Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Nigeria)
Killing Floor by Lee Child
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez
New Selected Poems 1966-1987 by Seamus Heaney
Northern Lights by Philip Pullman
One Day by David Nicholls
Rachel’s Holiday by Marian Keyes
Stuart by Alexander Masters (UK)
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time by Mark Haddon
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark
The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John Le Carré
The World’s Wife by Carol Ann Duffy
Toast by Nigel Slater

How many of these have you read?

There's your reading plan for the next few months!!

A Must-Read!

Russell Smith has written an interesting article about the creative-writing course industry (who knew that it had gained industry status?).

It's short, and will take you only several minutes to read it. You'll find the article here.

I'm interested to hear your opinion about what he says. Leave a "comment" below.

World Book Night Coming - March 5, 2011

World Book Night is a celebration of the written word. On the March 4th, the eve of World Book Night, Margaret Atwood, Alan Bennett, Nick Cave, John Le Carre, Rupert Everett, Mark Haddon, and other writers will join an audience of 5000 Givers and 5000 members of the public for a glittering celebration of the written word.

The audience will be treated to wide-ranging performances and readings from some of the most celebrated artists from stage and screen, literature and art, as well as from some of the authors whose books feature on the list of 25 World Book Night titles.

The countdown begins. World Book Night will take place on Saturday, March 5, 2011. This dynamic and unprecedented industry-wide initiative to celebrate adult books and reading will see one million free books given away on World Book Night by 20,000 passionate readers to other members of the public across the UK and Ireland. World Book Night will take place two days after World Book Day, the established nationwide reading campaign.

A growing list of high-profile figures from publishing, media and the arts are lending their support to this ambitious initiative by becoming Patrons of World Book Night.

Jamie Byng, Chairman, World Book Night says:

“World Book Night is a unique collaboration between publishers, booksellers, libraries, writers and individual members of the public and one that I think is going to have an enormously positive impact on books and reading. There are few things more meaningful than the personal recommendation and having one million books given to one million different people on one night in this way is both unprecedented and hugely exciting.”


An independent editorial committee composed of a broad mix of booksellers, librarians, authors, broadcasters and other individuals carefully selected the 25 titles to be given away to the public on World Book Night. Prior to this, the entire book trade was canvassed for recommendations and hundreds of lists were received. The final selection offers a wide array of outstanding books encompassing all types of fiction be it historical, literary, crime and commercial as well as poetry, memoir and young adult. Whether a huge bestseller, a prize-winning debut, a lesser known gem or an undisputed classic, it was felt that every book needed to be an accessible work of enduring quality that people would feel passionate about sharing with others.

Author John le Carré says:

“No writer can ask more than this: that his book should be handed in thousands to people who might otherwise never get to read it, and who will in turn hand it to thousands more. That his book should also pass from one generation to another as a story to challenge and excite each reader in his time -that is beyond his most ambitious dreams.”

Author Margaret Atwood adds:

I [am] amazed not only by its magnitude but by its simplicity. The love of writing, the love of reading – these are huge gifts. To be able give someone else a book you treasure widens the gift circle. I was thrilled to be asked to support World Book Night, and doubly thrilled that The Blind Assassin was chosen to help launch it. Long may its voyage be!”

The World Book Night website is at www.worldbooknight.org

Novelteens a Novelty!

A recent headline in one of the local weekly newspapers stated:

"Novelteens" sets out to promote reading for teenagers

As my headline indicates, I believe there is a play on words between "novelteens" and "novelties" and, of course, "novels."

Novelteens is a group that is "aimed at encouraging a love for reading among teens aged 13-18." I'm not sure why the 19-year-olds were not included, but, there you have it.

The group is sort of a book club combined with a library and second-hand book store. Teens can borrow books for free or buy them for half of the original price of the book (the newspaper article said that they could buy the books for half the value of the book, but we know that the value of a book in a person's life may be incalcuable).

So it's like a library but not exactly. There is no time limit on how long a book may be borrowed for. If teens have books they are finished with, they can donate them. This keeps the collection circulating.

It's also not quite like a library in that the group meets at Faking Sanity, a cafe in the downtown area. It's a bit more relaxed perhaps, and, for some, maybe not as intimidating.

The group has other activities, such as a book drive and a Scrabble tournament, coming up soon.

Why should writers be interested in this group? These people are our readers now and our future readers! We can find out what they like in books. What they want to read. What makes a book "work" for them.

Novelteens may even have some budding writers in their midst!

It's Not a Poem Yet, But Just Wait . . . !

At work today in the lunch room, I heard a line of poetry. The speaker perhaps didn't realize it was poetry since she spoke it as part of a conversation around the table, but to me it was. As faithfully as I can, I reproduce it here:

I have been in Rome when . . . and the lavender was in bloom

It doesn't look like much at the moment, especially since I can't remember the middle section, but the important thing is that I heard it--I heard it with a poet's ears. It sang to me. It wrapped me in its warmth, in the warm hues of its Mediterranean-ness. I could taste the olives still warm from the vine and smell the aroma of bread from the stone oven. I could see the vision of what it was expressing.

So I asked. I asked if I could use it. "Can I use that in a poem?" Yes, said the person who had originated what I considered to be a beautiful line. I took it away with me (well, most of it, anyway), and now all that's left is the hard work of melding it with other lines to bring out the poem that I heard in my head.

I'll keep you posted.