DOCSLIB.ORG

A One Hour Documentary Produced by Reel Girls Media Inc

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
A One Hour Documentary Produced by Reel Girls Media Inc A One Hour Documentary Produced by Reel Girls Media Inc. BRIEF OVERVIEW Rudy Wiebe is one of Canada’s most cherished and acclaimed writers. A two- time Governor General’s Award winner, Wiebe has been compared to Hemingway, Faulkner and Balzac for nimbly marrying detailed historical fact to enthralling fiction. His novels, short stories and non-fiction books are provocative but compassionate tales about Western Canadian history and his Mennonite heritage. Renowned for giving a literary voice to Canada’s aboriginals, Wiebe is the author of several groundbreaking epics. They include The Temptations of Big Bear (a tragedy about the great Cree chief who became embroiled in the Northwest Rebellion) and A Discovery of Strangers (the gripping tale of how Arctic natives rescued the first Franklin Expedition). In the fall of 2005, filmmakers followed Wiebe around Saskatchewan and Alberta as he reflected on his experiences in the Canadian Prairies which have informed his destiny as a writer and produced the epic stories for which he’s renowned. Wiebe speaks eloquently about the death of a beloved sister, the Frog Lake massacre that was Big Bear’s undoing, and the murder conviction of Big Bear’s great-great granddaughter (a case that prompted Wiebe to controversially collaborate on her autobiography, Stolen Life: The Journey of a Cree Woman). Fascinating and wild, these places and experiences shaped Wiebe as a teller of profound stories about Canada’s north and west. Press Kit ©Reel Girls Media Page 1 of 10 SYNOPSIS Between the Stones and the Ocean: A Portrait of Rudy Wiebe is a one-hour arts and entertainment documentary that profiles Western Canadian writer Rudy Wiebe, still remarkably vital and prolific at 71, during one memorable, golden autumn on the Prairies. “He writes about the history and landscape – two significant elements of the Canadian experience, and he’s written about them memorably in all of his novels, “ says writer and director Scot Morison. Wiebe is a grand old man of Canadian literature. Twice named winner of the Governor General’s Award for English-Language Fiction (for The Temptations of Big Bear in 1973, and A Discovery of Strangers in 1994), he’s the author of nine novels, several of them epics that encompass the sprawling history and geography of Western Canada. There are also four short story collections and non-fiction works, all published globally. The documentary follows Wiebe from his rural writing retreat outside of Edmonton to the Speedwell area of Saskatchewan where he was born in 1934 and lived until age 12. There his sister Helen died as a teen, an event that later inspired his first published fiction. Recalling his adolescence in Coaldale, Alberta, Wiebe reminisces about reading through its tiny library and sparking an ambition to attend university. In Edmonton, he recalls University of Alberta professor Frederick M. Salter challenging him to write about Mennonites in Canada. With the resulting novel, Peace Shall Destroy Many, Wiebe launched a career crafting startling historical literature about misunderstood people. Wiebe is a proud Mennonite, whose parents fled religious persecution in the Soviet Union in 1930. His heritage, with its radical, ecumenical Christian vision has figured prominently in his novels. Yet Wiebe is best known for his bold historical fiction about the life of Canada’s aboriginals. In such novels as The Temptations of Big Bear, about a famous Cree chief caught up in the Northwest Rebellion, The Scorched Wood People, a fiercely revisionist portrait of Metis leader Louis Riel, and A Discovery of Strangers, about contact between the Dene people and the first Arctic expedition of explorer Sir John Franklin, Wiebe determinedly gave this country’s original residents a literary voice. The film examines the emotions fortifying that voice. Wiebe speaks frankly about his son’s suicide (which contributed to a 10-year gap in his novel writing) and about his controversial collaboration with Big Bear’s great-great-granddaughter Yvonne Johnson, a convicted murderer with whom Wiebe co-wrote the autobiography Stolen Life: The Journey of a Cree Woman. Writers Aritha van Herk and Robert Kroetsch champion his singular style: poetic and bloody-minded in both its content and punctuation. Aboriginal filmmaker Gil Cardinal recognizes him as an honourable custodian of history. On the shores of a lake near Big Bear’s burial ground, a central truth is underscored: Wiebe was one of the first non-native writers convinced that the experiences of Canada’s first residents were stories essential to our collective memory. Over a sterling career he’s embedded that belief inside some of our country’s finest literature. “With his impressive, immersive approach to research, you really get a sense of time and character in these landscapes,” says the film’s producer Ava Karvonen. Press Kit ©Reel Girls Media Page 2 of 10 QUOTABLE QUOTES “He’s got a voice of his own. You read three lines and you know that Rudy wrote them…that’s almost more in the American tradition of the great stylists like Hemingway or Faulkner, where you read a bit and you know who wrote it.” Author Robert Kroetsch “He was really one of the very first writers who took seriously the stories and the history and the importance of First Nations people (in relation) to our larger story.” Author Aritha van Herk “One of the great writers this country has produced of all time.” Former Editor-in-Chief, McClelland & Stewart, Anna Porter “He’s somebody we should all be proud of. Not just for the work he’s done, but for the man he’s been, the way he’s conducted himself.” Filmmaker Gil Cardinal “I’m a great champion of The Temptations of Big Bear. That was news for all of us when that book came out…it was kind of giving permission to deal with a great part of our history that had been either not represented or misrepresented.” Author Robert Kroetsch “Yvonne is a kind of example of all the things that have gone wrong with Canadian government policy and the way the Canadian government has treated the native community in this country. And the abuse and the violence and the addictions that she suffered are classic addictions, abuses and suffering on almost every reserve in Canada. Exactly the kind of thing that Big Bear had feared would happen to his people.” Rudy Wiebe on Yvonne Johnson “When it got published in the early Seventies, people said to me, ‘Why do you bother writing about an old Cree Indian who’s dead now?’ And then, 20 years later they said to me, ‘How dare you write about an old Cree Indian that is dead!” Rudy Wiebe on The Temptations of Big Bear “Native people have not accused me of appropriating their voices. What they say is, “If you show respect and understanding of our world, we respect you for that.” Rudy Wiebe on his critics Press Kit ©Reel Girls Media Page 3 of 10 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY, Rudy Wiebe o Of This Earth, 2006 o Place: Lethbridge, A City on the Prairie (with Geoffrey James), 2004 o Hidden Buffalo, 2003 o Sweeter Than All the World, 2001 o Stolen Life: The Journey of A Cree Woman (with Yvonne Johnson) 1998 o River of Stone, 1995 o A Discovery of Strangers, 1994 o Chinook Christmas, 1992 o Playing Dead, A Contemplation Concerning the Arctic, 1989 o My Lovely Enemy, 1983 o The Angel of the Tar Sands, 1982 o The Mad Trapper, 1980 o Alberta/A Celebration, 1979 o The Scorched Wood People, 1977 o Where is the Voice Coming From? 1974 o The Temptations of Big Bear, 1973 o The Blue Mountains of China, 1970 o First and Vital Candle, 1966 o Peace Shall Destroy Many, 1962 Press Kit ©Reel Girls Media Page 4 of 10 BIOGRAPHY, Rudy Wiebe Rudy Wiebe was born in the hamlet of Speedwell, near Fairholme, Saskatchewan on October 4, 1934. He was the youngest of seven children. His Mennonite parents, Abram and Katarina Wiebe, had fled religious persecution in Soviet Russia and emigrated to Canada in 1930. In 1945, his older sister Helen died at age 17, after a long illness caused by rheumatic fever. Wiebe’s first published story was a contest-winning entry based on the death of his sister, published in 1956 in the magazine Liberty. He spent his adolescence in Coaldale, Alberta, a town 10 miles outside of Lethbridge in sugar beet-growing country. He did not speak English until age six, although at home he spoke a Low German Prussian dialect, and at church High German. From the University of Alberta, he received a B.A. 1956 and a M.A. in Creative Writing in 1960. He studied under a Rotary International Fellowship at the University of Tuebingen in West Germany. In 1962, he received a Bachelor of Theology degree from the Mennonite Brethren Bible College. In 1962- 1963 he was editor of the Mennonite Brethren Herald. He resigned the position because of the Mennonite community’s opposition to his first novel, Peace Shall Destroy Many. It’s the story of a young Mennonite man struggling with the pacifism of his religion as the First World War rages. Wiebe taught at Goshen College in Goshen, Indiana from 1963 to 1967. From 1967 to 1992 he was Professor of Creative Writing and English at the University of Alberta. Wiebe has published twenty-five books, including nine novels and the non-fiction best-seller Stolen Life, the Journey of a Cree Woman, co-authored with Yvonne Johnson. He was awarded the Governor General's Award for fiction for The Temptations of Big Bear in 1973, and again in 1994 for A Discovery of Strangers.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Nationalism and Globalization / Le Nationalisme Et La
    Editorial Board / Comité de rédaction Editor-in-Chief Rédacteur en chef Kenneth McRoberts, York University, Canada Associate Editors Rédacteurs adjoints Isabel Carrera Suarez, Universidad de Oviedo, Spain Daniel Salée, Concordia University, Canada Robert S. Schwartzwald, University of Massachusetts, U.S.A. Managing Editor Secrétaire de rédaction Guy Leclair, ICCS/CIEC, Ottawa, Canada Advisory Board / Comité consultatif Irene J.J. Burgers, University of Groningen, The Netherlands Patrick Coleman, University of California/Los Angeles, U.S.A. Enric Fossas, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, España Lois Foster, La Trobe University, Australia Fabrizio Ghilardi, Università di Pisa, Italia Teresa Gutiérrez-Haces, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico Eugenia Issraelian, Russian Academy of Sciences, Russia James Jackson, Trinity College, Republic of Ireland Jean-Michel Lacroix, Université de Paris III/Sorbonne Nouvelle, France Denise Gurgel Lavallée, Universidade do Estado da Bahia, Brésil Eugene Lee, Sookmyung University, Korea Erling Lindström, Uppsala University, Sweden Ursula Mathis, Universität Innsbruck, Autriche Amarjit S. Narang, Indira Gandhi National Open University, India Heather Norris Nicholson, University College of Ripon and York St. John, United Kingdom Satoru Osanai, Chuo University, Japan Vilma Petrash, Universidad Central de Venezuela-Caracas, Venezuela Danielle Schaub, University of Haifa, Israel Sherry Simon, Concordia University, Canada Wang Tongfu, Shanghai International Studies University, China International
    [Show full text]
  • Writing the Terrain Travelling Through Alberta with the Poets Edited by Robert M
    WRITING THE TERRAIN TRAVELLING THROUGH ALBERTA WITH THE POETS EDITED BY ROBERT M. STAMP PRESS n O z XI INTRODUCTION 1 WRITING THE PROVINCE i Barry McKinnon, untitled 3 Dennis Cooley, labiarinth 4 Joan Shillington, I Was Born Alberta 5 Nancy Holmes, The Right Frame of Mind 6 George Bowering, it's the climate 7 Charles Noble, Mnemonic Without Portfolio 8 John O. Thompson, Fuel Crisis 9 Robert Stamp, Energy to Burn 2 WRITING CALGARY 13 Ian Adam, In Calgary These Things 14 George Bowering, calgary 15 Murdoch Burnett, Boys or the River 17 Anne Campbell, Calgary City Wind 18 Weyman Chan, Written on Water 19 Ryan Fitzpatrick, From the Ogden Shops 21 Cecelia Frey, Under the Louise Bridge 22 Gail Ghai, On a Winter Hill Overlooking Calgary 23 Deborah Godin, Time/Lapse Calgary as Bremen 24 Vivian Hansen, Wolf Willow against the bridge 25 Robert Hilles, When Light Transforms Flesh 26 Nancy Holmes, Calgary Mirage 27 Bruce Hunter, Wishbone 28 Pauline Johnson, Calgary of the Plains 29 Robert Kroetsch, Horsetail Sonnet 30 Erin Michie, The Willows at Weaselhead 31 Deborah Miller, Pictures from the Stampede 33 James M. Moir, This City by the Bow 34 Colin Morton, Calgary '80 36 ErinMoure, South-West, or Altadore 40 Roberta Rees, Because Calgary 41 Robert Stamp, A City Built for Speed 42 Yvonne Trainer, 1912 43 Aritha van Herk, Quadrant Four - Outskirts of Outskirts 48 Wilfred Watson, In the Cemetery of the Sun 50 Christopher Wiseman, Calgary 2 A.M. 51 Rita Wong, Sunset Grocery • 3 WRITING SOUTHWESTERN ALBERTA & THE FOOTHILLS 55 D.C.Reid, Drying Out Again 56 Ian Adam, The Big Rocks 57 George Bowering, high river alberta 58 Cecelia Frey, Woman in a potato field north of Nanton 60 Sheri-D Wilson, He Went by Joe 62 Charles Noble, Props64 63 Stacie Wolfer, Lethbridge 65 Karen Solie, Java Shop, Fort Macleod 66 Sid Marty, Death Song for the Oldman 67 Michael Cullen, wind down waterton lakes 68 Ian Adam, Job Description 70 Jan Boydol, Color Hillcrest Dead 71 Aislinn Hunter, Frank Slide, Alberta 72 r.
    [Show full text]
  • Writing Alberta POD EPDF.Indd
    WRITING ALBERTA: Aberta Building on a Literary Identity Edited by George Melnyk and Donna Coates ISBN 978-1-55238-891-4 THIS BOOK IS AN OPEN ACCESS E-BOOK. It is an electronic version of a book that can be purchased in physical form through any bookseller or on-line retailer, or from our distributors. Please support this open access publication by requesting that your university purchase a print copy of this book, or by purchasing a copy yourself. If you have any questions, please contact us at [email protected] Cover Art: The artwork on the cover of this book is not open access and falls under traditional copyright provisions; it cannot be reproduced in any way without written permission of the artists and their agents. The cover can be displayed as a complete cover image for the purposes of publicizing this work, but the artwork cannot be extracted from the context of the cover of this specific work without breaching the artist’s copyright. COPYRIGHT NOTICE: This open-access work is published under a Creative Commons licence. This means that you are free to copy, distribute, display or perform the work as long as you clearly attribute the work to its authors and publisher, that you do not use this work for any commercial gain in any form, and that you in no way alter, transform, or build on the work outside of its use in normal academic scholarship without our express permission. If you want to reuse or distribute the work, you must inform its new audience of the licence terms of this work.
    [Show full text]
  • The Iceman Cometh Across: an Interview with Thomas Wharton
    The Iceman Cometh Across: An Interview with Thomas Wharton SCL/ÉLC Interview by Herb Wyile homas Wharton was born in Grande Prairie and spent his teens in Jasper. He moved to Edmonton to do a B.A. in English at the University of Alberta, and subsequently embarked on Tan M.A. in creative writing. His Master’s thesis became his first novel, Icefields (1995), a historical novel set in Jasper during the exploration and subsequent commercialization of the Columbia icefields. The novel won a number of prizes, including the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Book (Caribbean and Canada). Wharton went on to pursue his Ph.D. at the University of Calgary, where he wrote his second novel, Salamander (2001), a fantastical, Borgesian labyrinth of narratives set in eighteenth-century Europe and New France. Salamander was nominated for the Governor General’s Award for fiction.I talked to ThomasW harton in Edmonton in June of 2002. He is not at all icy. HW Your novel Icefields traces the history of the Rockies, and par- ticularly of Jasper and the Columbia icefields over the course of half a century. In Icefields you provide these wonderful definitions of geological terms, which serve as chapter headings in the novel, and I want to begin with your definition of a “moraine”: “Rock debris deposited by the re- ceding ice: a chaotic jumble of fragments, from which history must be reconstructed.” How does that description speak to your sense of writing history? Is that a reflection of how you see history and the difficulties of reproducing it or representing it in fiction? TW One of the reasons I write is my fascination with the com- plexity of life around us at any moment of our lives — all those things happening in our own lives and in the larger world around us — how all 158 Scl/Élc these things pass into the past so quickly, leaving us with just traces to hang onto, and that’s what we end up having to work with, as writers or historians or whatever, to reconstruct what happened in the past.
    [Show full text]
  • Celebrate Alberta Arts Day at the Jubilee September 6 in Calgary
    Strong Communities August 29, 2008 Celebrate Alberta Arts Day at the Jubilee September 6 in Calgary Enjoy free daytime activities for the entire family and an evening gala featuring top Alberta artists Calgary... Make a date with family and friends to celebrate the arts on September 6 at the Southern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium, 1415 - 14th Avenue NW, Calgary. Experience a diverse range of creative and interactive arts activities, workshops and performances FREE from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Throughout the day, families can participate in dance workshops, sit in on readings by Alberta authors, listen to live music, learn how to create animation, view short films by Alberta filmmakers and much more. A thrilling evening gala of lively and eclectic performances from some of Alberta’s top artists, including the Alberta Ballet, Asani, Decidedly Jazz Danceworks, The Swiftys and many more will take place on the main stage starting at 7:30 p.m. Three major awards recognizing outstanding contributions to the arts in Alberta will also be presented at the gala. Tickets are $15 and available through Ticketmaster. Group rates are also available. The events at the Jubilee are part of the Alberta Arts Day celebrations. For details on all the activities at the Jubilee as well as other Arts Day events across the province, visit culture.alberta.ca/artsday. Alberta Arts Day aims to increase Albertans’ access to the province’s vibrant culture, one of the goals outlined in Alberta’s Cultural Policy - The Spirit of Alberta. To learn more about The Spirit of Alberta visit culturalpolicy.alberta.ca.
    [Show full text]
  • Fall 2018 Catalogue 1.Pdf
    Fall 2018 Contents CONNECT Click below to navigate Subscribe to NeWest Press video, audio, news, and more by clicking on these links: FRONTLIST THE EAVESDROPPERS 3 FRONTLIST LEFT 4 ITUNES PODCAST FRONTLIST PAPER CASKETS 5 FACEBOOK FRONTLIST SEA OF CORTEZ 6 FRONTLIST THE MIGHTY CARLINS AND TWITTER OTHER PLAYS 7 COMPLETE LIST 8 DISTRIBUTION INFORMATION 12 CONTENTS | NeWest Press Fall 2018 | 2 The Eavesdroppers by Rosie Chard When social attitudes researcher Bill Harcourt puts an advertisement in the newspaper for ‘listeners’ to work on an unconventional project, he anticipates that his team of eavesdroppers will discover previously A creepy ambush of a untapped insights into public opinion. “novel, unsettling and But as five eager listeners begin eavesdropping in the cafes, dentist profound in its ideas waiting rooms, public toilets, tube trains and launderettes of London, and fears. One feels discreetly noting the details of unguarded conversations, Bill starts the weight of history to notice subtle changes in their behaviour and realises he has underestimated the compulsive nature of his group. His anxiety is and of the future; one compounded after he receives a series of anonymous letters warning hears a warning.” him of the dangers of his experiment. - Michelle Butler Hallett, author of This As the group becomes increasingly intertwined in their subjects’ lives, eavesdropping descends into obsession and Bill has to find a way to Marlowe rein in his increasingly unruly team before they are beyond help. Part spy-thriller Informed by conversations collected over three years, The Eavesdroppers, by award-winning author Rosie Chard, is a dark, yet “in miniature, part wryly humorous tale of present-day Londoners, living in a constant fable for our state of noise and crowds and eavesdroppers.
    [Show full text]
  • Competitions 2021
    Alberta 2021 Literary Competitions 2021 To recognize and celebrate the highest standards of excellence in writing, the Writers' Guild of Alberta hosts or administers the following annual awards: Alberta Literary Awards (with categories in fiction, drama, nonfiction, poetry, and children’s literature) 2 Jon Whyte Memorial Essay Award Howard O'Hagan Award for Short Story James H. Gray Award for Short Nonfiction 3 The Robert Kroetsch City of Edmonton Book Prize 4 The City of Calgary W.O. Mitchell Book Prize 5 The Golden Pen Award 6 Alberta Literary Awards The Alberta eLit rary Awards were created by the Writers' Guild of Alberta (WGA) in 1982 to recognize excellence in writing by Alberta authors. Entries are judged by independent juries recruited by the WGA. Submissions are evaluated on originality, creativity, and quality of writing, as well as an appropriate fit within a category. Prizes of $1,500 are awarded in the categories listed below. Please refer to the WGA website (writersguild.ca) for a history of the awards and more information about the authors for whom our awards are named. The submission deadline is December 31, 2020. Winners will be announced and prizes awarded in the spring of 2021. Submission Guidelines & Rules: Gwen Pharis Ringwood Award for Drama • Authors of all entries in the Alberta Literary Awards must • Awarded to a play written by an Alberta author published, have been a resident of Alberta for a minimum of twelve of scheduled for production or staged at a live reading in 2020. the eighteen months prior to December 31, 2020. • Plays submitted to the drama category may be one-act or • All entries must have been published or produced anywhere in full-length.
    [Show full text]
  • Biocritical Essay (Robert Kroetsch)
    University of Calgary PRISM: University of Calgary's Digital Repository Projects & Workshops Special Collections 1986 Biocritical Essay (Robert Kroetsch) Aritha van Herk University of Calgary Press The Robert Kroetsch papers : first accession. - (Canadian archival inventory series, no. 3). - Calgary : University of Calgary Press, 1986 http://hdl.handle.net/1880/43979 Essay Downloaded from PRISM: https://prism.ucalgary.ca Canadian Literary Archives - Robert Kroetsch - Biocritical Essay Special Collections Robert Kroetsch Biocritical Essay by Aritha van Herk © 1986 Reproduced with permission Any attempt to bio-criticize Robert Kroetsch into position can only end in frustration. This writer distrusts coherent story, sees closure as a self-imposed death, mistrusts the author/himself(1) so much he over-glosses his own text. Not one of his works has managed to escape his own arm's length and after-the-fact commentary, but we must approach that commentary with doubt. There is no one metaphor, no one autobiographical detail, that can help us to fix this master of the art of deception, this trickster incarnate, this expert at the sleight of hand. Critical responses to his fiction and poetry range from outrage to awe; he has been praised as an innovator and damned as an overly intellectual adherent of the post-modernist school of thought. In a recently published conversation, his close friend Rudy Wiebe, responded to a deconstructionist remark with the exasperated words: "Bob, you're always horsing around with language!"(2) In Kroetsch's writing, words do not mean what they usually mean; language goes beyond signification and contains its own possibilities: "The person who becomes a writer is a person who starts to notice the language itself instead of what it signifies."(3) That concentration on the possibilities of language is perhaps the most telling aspect of Kroetsch's approach to literature, both fiction and poetry.
    [Show full text]
  • Movement Beyond Roads and Writing Beyond Fiction an Interview with Aritha Van Herk
    E KATERINA K OZLOVA Movement beyond Roads and Writing beyond Fiction An Interview with Aritha van Herk _____________________ Hotel Graf Zeppelin, Konstanz, Germany, July 8th, 2017 Ekaterina Kozlova: Canadian heroines and their way towards psychological free- dom were always the focal point of your writing. Like Judith Pierce in Judith and J. L. in The Tent Peg, Arachne in No Fixed Address embarks on a journey of self-discovery through Canadian landscapes. How does she come to terms with herself? Aritha van Herk: Arachne is a different kind of character, because I don’t think she ever stops being restless. Her disappearance at the end of the novel, which some people take as negative, and some people read as an escape, is actually a kind of recognition that in the landscapes of Canada she is a restless moving force and she will always embody the places that she passes through. Although she drives all over Western Canada, she keeps going home to Calgary, but she also can’t stop leaving. And that persistence of movement, which is itself a kind of Odyssean myth (even though I know, in the end he goes home, but who knows whether he stays there), becomes a kind of Odyssey of discovery for the parts of Canada that very few people know about. As for the course of her final movement north, where she is travelling, some peo- ple say, ‘Oh, it’s because she killed this man.’ But that’s all coincidence along the way. The episode in the mine, as well as the very strange women’s meeting in the Banff Springs Hotel are just continuations.
    [Show full text]
  • University of Calgary Aritha Van Herk Implicit Acts of Filth
    van Herk Implicit acts of filth University of Calgary Aritha van Herk Implicit acts of filth: the parodic virtues of cleanliness Abstract: From ‘the Wolf’ Wolfe in Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction to the laundress in Kate Grenville’s Joan Makes History, the act of nettoyage is called into service as an inter- textual gesture toward decoding all that is virtuous (or not), all that is filthy (or not). As an inevitable repetition or agent of redundancy, complete with all the recursive energies of concealment and discovery, cleaning and the cleaner serve a parodic practice that has been entirely overlooked in its representation in various forms of narrative (fiction, film, and image). Parody may be, as Hutcheon claims, ‘a more restricted form, in pragmatic terms, than allusion or quotation’ (1985: 50), but it has also not been accorded the power that it wields in a quotidian presence, its gestural and recitative marking performing a contestation that is ignored because it is ‘unmarked’ (60). In short, its association with the erotic and the criminal, erasure and commodification, make nettoyage a transgressive site in disguise. Scouring and laundering’s ‘trans- contextualizing’ power resides in its invisibility, and its work as an ‘authorized transgression’ (Hutcheon 1985: 101) enunciates a persistent parodic presence in an aesthetically incognizant world. The play of disinfectant as part of Foucault’s ‘writing of things’ thus alludes to parody’s most powerful affect: its connection to the most ordinary and quotidian of gestures, doubled by cultural aesthetic and instructional pragmatism. Biographical note: Aritha van Herk is a novelist, critic and writer.
    [Show full text]
  • Annual Report Table of Contents
    2019/20 ANNUAL REPORT TABLE OF CONTENTS ABOUT THE WRITERS' GUILD OF ALBERTA 3 PRESIDENT'S REPORT 5 EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR'S REPORT 6 YOUTH COMMITTEE REPORT 7 REPORT ON ACTIVITIES 9 WGA EVENTS 17 WGA LITERARY AWARDS 23 IMPORTANT ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 25 DONORS 26 WGA STAFF & VOLUNTEERS 27 TREASURER'S REPORT 29 FINANCIAL STATEMENTS 31 STRATEGIC PLAN 43 2 About The Writers' Guild of Alberta ABOUT THE WRITERS' GUILD OF ALBERTA The Writers’ Guild of Alberta (WGA) was formed in October 1980 on the SAIT campus to provide a meeting ground and collective voice for all the writers of the province. Our members write in every genre at every level of expertise. The WGA helps give Alberta writers a sense of unity and community and is the largest provincial writers’ organization in Canada. VISION STATEMENT A thriving writing community that is diverse, valued, and celebrated. MISSION STATEMENT We support and advocate for all writers and provide opportunities to grow and connect while enriching Alberta’s culture and economy. VALUES GUIDING BELIEFS The WGA believes that: I. The literary arts are essential to the well-being of all individuals, communities, and the economy of Alberta; II. Working in partnership with other organizations contributes to the quality of life in Alberta; III. Networking and collaboration are beneficial to innovation and the creative process; IV. A free and safe environment is essential for writers to pursue their craft; V. Knowledge and ongoing development are fundamental to cre- ative growth. 3 About The Writers' Guild of Alberta MEMBERSHIP WGA membership is open to all writers who are residents, or former residents, of Alberta.
    [Show full text]
  • Aritha Van Herk Bawdy Bodies : Bridging Robert Kroetsch and Bp Nichol
    Aritha van Herk Bawdy Bodies : Bridging Robert Kroetsch and bp Nichol Review of International American Studies 5/1-2, 37-56 2011 FEATURES BAWDY BODIES: Bridging Robert Kroetsch and bpNichol The landscape is locked deep inside my body. Returning to the Battle River country, heart of the central Alberta parkland, I endure a painful arousal, the residue of those many thwarted couplings I knew as a young woman. It was the size of my desire that troubled me, the way it grew when I wasn’t looking. And waits now, to ambush my desertion. ************ e may not be big but we’re small’ is the mantra Aritha van Herk University of Calgary ‘Wfor Canadian humorist Stuart McLean’s variety show, Canada The Vinyl Cafe, and the motto for the record store that his fictional character, Dave, runs. The double-back of nega- tion for the catchphrase is as telling as the ironic definition that won the contest held on Peter Gzowsky’s popular radio show, This Country in the Morning in 1971; the call was sent out to complete a parallel to the phrase, ‘As American as apple pie’ by completing ‘As Canadian as — — —’. The winning answer still speaks volumes: ‘As Canadian as possible under the circum- stances’. These two aphorisms gesture toward the always ironic interface of Canadians in terms of size and influence, credibility and plausibility. Our determination to invert our own expanse and measurability results in a tautology of essence and existence. A Canadian is likely to mumble an embarrassed excuse that sounds something like ‘we may not be small but we’re big’.
    [Show full text]