Here's a Writer to Watch!

Today I came across an announcement of a forthcoming book by someone I know! What a lovely surprise. I attended a UNBC summer creative writing course about 10 years ago when we both were students. The writing that she shared during that course was stunning.


She went on to complete her PhD and currently teaches at the University of Northern British Columbia (UNBC) in the Northern Medical Program. Rob McLennan's blog tells me she's a "cultural-historical geographer and creative writer." Along the way, she won the CBC Literary Award for creative non-fiction in 2008 for "Columbus Burning" and placed second in 2009 for "Quick-Quick. Slow. Slow."

Last year, her poetry appeared in Unfurled: Collected Poetry from Northern BC Women. I heard her read at the Prince George launch of this anthology.

Now she has a new book coming out from Creekstone Press. The title is Front Lines: Portraits of Caregivers in Northern BC.

She is a rising star! Watch for her name in literary lights. That name: Sarah de Leeuw.

The Saga of the Manuscript

I have a children's book manuscript that I'm preparing to send out. The book is written, and now I'm in the research stage, finding the best fit of publisher to my manuscript. While checking out the whys, wherefores, and how-to's, I came across a very funny but sad story by Tappan King about a manuscript sent out into the world by its author.

It will take you about 12-15 minutes to read, but the time will be well spent. The article will open your eyes as to what goes on behind the doors of editors' offices in publishing houses.

Here's the link; read it if you dare! It's from the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America web site (lots of other great information on that site, as well!)

The Sobering Saga of Myrtle the Manuscript: A Cautionary Tale

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From Literature into Real Life

I'm in trouble, and it's too late to do anything about it.

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a post [see Sunday, May 8] extolling the virtues of a juvenile fiction book, Where the Red Fern Grows. It's about a boy and his two coon hounds back in the Ozark Mountains. I wrote about it, and I talked about it. I told my grandkids what an exciting and gripping story it was. I brought the book to their house, and for the past two weeks, when I'd to their house, I'd read them a chapter or two.

Now they've turned literature into life. They live out in the country on five acres. Not too much land, but for a ten-year-old boy, his eight-year-old brother (nicknamed in our family Mr. Outdoors), and their six-year-old sister, it's become the river bottoms back in the Ozark Mountains.

They pooled their hard-earned money and they've bought a live-animal trap. This was no small feat. One of them contributed $30 and the other, $25, and off to the local hardware-sporting goods store they trooped. The youngest admitted that she wasn't really part of the purchasing plan. The trap looks something like a hamster cage, but the "door" is a one-way ticket to the inside. The animal steps in; the door springs shut, et voila!

They want to catch a rabbit and sell its pelt for six dollars (once, at a leather-craft store, they saw a rabbit skin for $6, hence the supposed market value for the pelt).

Into the trap, they put some lettuce and a carrot. "That's going to feed 10 rabbits!" Dad said. They placed the trap near the bottom of a tree where they found some rabbit poop. When I asked how they knew it was rabbit poop, the eight-year-old told me, "Dad said, and we looked it up on the Internet."

The other day, I was on the phone with my daughter, when all of a sudden, I heard the kids' voices yelling in the background, "We caught something in the trap!!"

"Uh-oh, gotta go," my daughter said.

It turned out they hadn't caught a rabbit, but a squirrel. They hadn't noticed the squirrel den in the bottom of the tree near the rabbit poop. The squirrel was hopping mad! He was poking his nose through the bars, not quite understanding why he couldn't get to where he wanted to be.

Their dad sprang the trap and the squirrel raced up the tree. The dog, who had been held in check by my daughter, yanked away and sniffed back and forth and all around, later sitting sentinel at the base of the tree.

The trap has been reset and placed in a new location. If they catch a female, they're going to let it go. If it's a male, there'll be rabbit stew.

As the kids' great-grandfather used to say: "First you catch the rabbit; then you make the hasenpfeffer."

Love Not the Word

I’m learning to not love the words I write. Not all of them, of course. Just the ones that aren’t necessary.

Many neophyte writers (and I was one of these) are so in love with every word they write they don’t want to make any revisions. To a suggestion about a possible change that would improve the piece, they declare, “But that’s not the way it happened!” or “That’s my favourite part!”

That may not be the way it happened, but that’s no reason for leaving it there if removing or changing it would make the writing stronger. Life (as it happened, or as close as you can remember) is not art. Art is life arranged. And rearranged.

To make this plain, think back to a recent conversation you've had, in person or on the phone. There are usually a lot of “um-m-s,” “ah-h-h-s,” and “uh-huhs” that, face it, don’t move the plot forward, as it were. Real-life conversations also zig and zag all over the place. Ever been waiting with a great comment to inject into a conversation, but by the time there’s a pause as someone comes up for air, the topic has changed completely and your comment is way out-of-whack?

Now, have a look at a portion of dialogue in a novel or short story. See the difference? It’s been cleaned up; there’s no loose gravel to trip over. Everything has a point. Every comment is moving the plot forward.

So back to learning not love every word you write. Look this square in the eye: some of your words are not art. They gotta go! Toss ’em out! Strike out a whole line, maybe even a whole paragraph. The earth will not spin out of orbit without the weight of those few words holding it down.

Write and rewrite. Don’t be in love with your words. Use the Delete and Backspace keys. Select and Cut.

When I was at the newspaper—and this was before the day of fancy computer compositing programs—my boss-teacher-editor-publisher-mentor used to say, always kindly and with a smile, “There’s nothing here a little knife can’t fix.”

That was a good lesson to learn.

Reading Poetry . . . Lots of It

Right now, I'm in love with Billy Collins. I just read his poem, "Canada." You can read it by following this link because it's probably not legal for me to reproduce it here without written permission: Billy Collin's poem, "Canada."

This poem whooshed me back, back to Camp Oolawan in the Eastern Townships when I was 11 and my mother helped in the kitchen so my sisters and I could go to camp even when we couldn't afford it. To the smell of pine and campfire and wet green. Back to Girl Guide camp at Morin Heights, Quebec, with groups named for birds like in Atwood's "Death by Landscape."

Back to hours of reading Cherry Ames' nursing adventures. I remember blue-grey hard-cover books, uninteresting library editions, but oh, how they swallowed me whole.

Although I never had the pack of Sweet Caps on the table, I have heard that train whistle in the night. I've written a letter on a piece of birchbark, mailing it home from camp to my friend, Anne Marie, her mother mad when pieces of bark and pine needles fell out on the carpet, previously immaculate.

That's what poetry does. It lifts and carries. It supports and transports.

Thank you, Billy Collins.

So Many Books . . . So Little Time!

It seems as if I've been doing nothing but reading lately. Well, that and going to work, cleaning my house, making meals, and the hundred and one other things that I do daily. I mean in my spare time, which has encroached on my other time.


Yesterday and today it was The Paris Wife, by Paula McLain. It was strange to be reading a novel based on a real person's life, especially since I had already read a scholarly biography of this woman and her husband, who happened to be Ernest Hemingway.

I almost didn't want to read it because I already knew the ending. They couldn't keep it together. It wasn't in him or them. He strayed, which is a nice way of saying that he ditched his wife for another woman.

As I was getting to the place in the story where the Other Woman makes her appearance, I didn't want to read on. I wanted to be spared that unhappiness. I made excuses for not reading. I got up and refilled my glass of iced tea. Then I came back and read, dreading the inevitable.

Hadley Richardson was the "Paris wife," Hemingway's first of four wives, and according to this novel, many other women besides.

I wanted the story to be like one of those juvenile novels where the reader gets to choose the ending. If you want such-and-such a thing to happen, turn to page 56. If you want some other thing to happen, turn to page 72.

Only it wasn't like that. The events of the novel, told in the first person through the voice of Hadley Richardson, closely followed the events of her and her husband's life as it is recorded in Hemingway's novels, autobiography, and the scholarly biography by the late Michael Reynolds.

No amount of wishing or stalling could change it.

It was sad, but I loved to hear the story from Hadley's point of view.

Even if you're not a Hemingway aficionado, this is a good read.

A Fantastic Book!

I've been doing a lot of different reading for a research project that I've undertaken. My reading has taken me into the realm of juvenile fiction. These are the kinds of stories that middle-schoolers (grade 4-8) read or have read to them.


One title that kept popping up is Where the Red Fern Grows, by Wilson Rawls. He spent his youth in the Oklahoma Ozarks and never encountered a book till he went to high school. I don't know if he wrote anything else besides this novel. When I was roaming the stacks at the public library yesterday, I spotted this book and took it out. It's a boy-and-his-dogs story.

At around six o'clock last night, I sat down on the couch and started reading this book. I was absolutely hooked from the first page. Six hours later, I finished the book. It's not a long book--249 pages--nor a large book--4.25 inches by 7 inches--but it pulled me into what Nancie Atwell calls "the reading zone." I was gone. I was living in that story and through that story.

When I was growing up, I was a reader, especially of dog and horse stories. I don't remember encountering this book. I'm sure I would have remembered it if I had read it back then.

The characters are believable (though the good are very good and the bad are very bad) and the plot moves along at a brisk pace. There are many twists and turns in the story. I couldn't put it down! I give it a 10++ out of 10.

I took six hours of my life to read a book that grade schoolers read. I'm glad I did.

Good writing is good writing, no matter where we find it.

Celebrate! It's Children's Book Week!

This week has been designated as Children's Book Week. There is a theme for celebration: Global Citizenship - Changing the World, One Child at a Time. Throughout every province and territory, authors will be presenting readings in schools.


Teachers and parents - anyone, really - can access the Theme Guide, which is packed full of information and activities. The guide describes many books, categorized according to age groups, that deal with the theme of global citizenship. There are Internet links to other pages that extend the activities and provide more information about various organizations, some started by children, that are changing our world for the better.

There was a writing contest, the winners of which were announced today. The deadline was Feb. 18, so we'll have to put that on the calendar of events for next year, for the 2012 Children's Book Week.

Writers, take note: the Theme Guide, along with descriptions of umpteen children's and Young Adult books, lists the publishers of all these books. Do you have a children's book waiting in the wings to be published? Here's a ready list of Canadian children's book publishers! The legwork's already done for you!!


Children's Book Week is sponsored by TD Canada Trust and the Children's Book Centre.