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Cross-Country Funding Opportunities Tomson Highway Talks Language WRITE THE MAGAZINE OF THE WRITERS’ UNION OF VOLUME 46 NUMBER 2 CANADA SUMMER 2018 Cross-country Funding Opportunities 14 Tomson Highway Talks Language 18 On Poetry & Carpentry 28 From the Chair By Eric Enno Tamm If economics is the “dismal science,” as one Victorian historian once wrote, then bookonomics is surely its even uglier offshoot. The mechanics of this market — the push of supply and pull of why we, as writers, are so consumed by copyright battles. demand for books — has faced some unprecedented upheavals At its heart, copyright infringement is really about suppressing of late. Schools and universities wantonly copy our works without demand for our commercial creations. If you can freely copy part recompense. Big-box bookstores are closing across the continent. of a book in a university course pack, then you don’t need to buy Publishers are merging or dissolving in bankruptcy. While self- it, reducing its sales and ultimately royalties to us, the authors. So, publishing has created welcomed opportunities for professional while strong copyright protection may not increase demand for writers, it has also flooded the market with cheap, amateurish our books, at least it stops it from sliding. supply. Apple, Amazon, and Alphabet (Google) appear to be the Yet even if we win all of our copyright battles, we may not be able new publishing oligarchs. The traditional book industry, at times, to stop the decline in writers’ income. Why? Because bookonomics feels like it’s in the remainder bin of history. and the business model behind it are broken — at least for writers. Bookonomics is indeed more Malthusian than Malthus, freakier How did the economics of books get into such a shattered state? than Freakonomics. The publishing industry is as odd as it is brutal. Three words: Supply. Supply. Supply. Traditionally, there’s been a But as writers, we already knew that. high barrier to entry to publish a book with most first-time authors And so, while I cast a dark cloud over you on this surely sun- being established professionals in their forties. Publishers also splashed day in July as you peel open this summer edition of systematically excluded many marginal voices, due to the brutality Write, I don’t mean to depress you, but refresh you. Diving into of mass-market bookonomics and, frankly, discrimination. the cold, clear reality of bookonomics, I believe, can invigorate us, Self-publishing, ebooks, and digital printing have lowered these perhaps even awaken us to new possibilities. barriers, making even small print runs viable for niche audiences. I was told that members of the Writers’ Union are curious to As a result, authors are going to be younger and more diverse in know what the Chair is “thinking,” which is one of the purposes the future. At the Margaret Laurence Lecture in June, for example, of the Chair’s Report. Well, I’m thinking bookonomics — the Tomson Highway pointed out the recent explosion of published unsparing dynamics of supply and demand on which every writer Indigenous writing. That’s the good news. swims or sinks. But the result has been what I call the “killer content So, let’s start with demand. The challenge here is that tsunami,” a world awash in digital content where nothing ever demand can only grow with the sheer number of readers (think goes out of print. A recent search of Amazon’s Kindle Store population), how much each Canadian actually reads (think retrieved 7,278,530 titles. This deluge of supply — much of it habits), and what they are willing to pay for our writing (think unprofessional and posted online for a pittance or free — has copyright royalties). Writers may be able to influence population made making a living as a writer tougher and tougher. Indeed, the growth by perhaps writing more (and better) romance and erotica, number of traditionally published titles in Canada slipped by 6 but even the best writers among us will have only a marginal percent between 2014 and 2016. And most of us have personally effect on Canadians’ libidos. We know that habits are best formed felt the pinch on our writing income. when young, and so promoting CanLit in schools — the earlier, My sense is that the Writers’ Union should invest more time the better — is likely more effective at nurturing a hunger for investigating the supply challenge. How do we increase income Canadian culture and stories in the long term. for writers in a market flooded with digital content? Proactively Ironically, it has been the least sexy topic of all — copyright exploring new ideas and business models for publishing and — that has preoccupied the Writers’ Union since the Copyright writing is trying work. There’s no easy answer. Act was revised in 2012. Behavioural economists call this “loss Over the course of my one year as Chair, I hope to provoke aversion”— a cognitive bias in humans and other animals designed thinking on this important issue. It is time for us to think beyond to give priority to bad news. Losses loom larger than gains, which is copyright. Summer 2018 3 national council twuc national office Chair Executive Director Eric Enno Tamm John Degen, ext. 221 First Vice-Chair [email protected] Anita Daher Contents SUMMER 2018 Associate Director Second Vice-Chair Siobhan O’Connor, ext. 222 Heather Wood [email protected] Treasurer Fund Development & Julia Lin Projects Manager Gaeby Abrahams, ext. 223 BC/Yukon Representative [email protected] Sapha Burnell Office Administrator Alberta/NWT/Nunavut 3 Chair’s Report Valerie Laws, ext. 224 Representative [email protected] 5 Writing Rights Gail Sidonie Sobat Equity, Membership & Manitoba/Saskatchewan 5 Editor’s Note Engagement Coordinator Representative Rebecca Benson, ext. 226 6 News Bruce Rice [email protected] 7 Community Corner Ontario Representative Mia Herrera WRITER’S BLOT Quebec Representative Shelagh Plunkett 8 Industry Q & A Atlantic Representative 9 Wellspring Chuck Bowie Advocates FEATURES Benj Gallander 10 Writers Finding Inspiration in Other Art Forms Carmen Rodriguez Anna Marie Sewell BY SHARI NARINE 14 Something from (Almost) Nothing Editor Doyali Islam [email protected] BY LEAH HORLICK Deadline for Fall issue August 27, 2018 18 Languages like Plants Editorial Board Sylvia Gunnery, Ava Homa, Anna Marie Sewell BY TOMSON HIGHWAY Copyeditor Nancy MacLeod 21 Prelude to a Score Write Magazine Advertising Gaeby Abrahams [email protected] BY JIM SELLERS Design soapboxdesign.com Layout Gaeby Abrahams DISPATCHES Cover Illustration Hayden Maynard haydenmaynard.com 24 Four Reasons Coworking Might Work for You BY NANCY FORNASIERO Views expressed in Write do not necessarily reflect those of The 26 A Spotlight on Four Disabled Writers Writers’ Union of Canada. As a member magazine, Write provides space for writers’ individual opinions. We welcome a diversity of views BY ADAM POTTLE and respectful debate in these pages. All submissions are welcome. 27 Poetry on the Trails: A Sudbury Initiative Services advertised are not necessarily endorsed by the Union. BY THOMAS LEDUC We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, which last year 28 Constructing Language invested $153 million to bring the arts to Canadians throughout Canada. BY KATE BRAID 29 Editing Marriage BY FIONA TINWEI LAM & JANE SILCOTT We acknowledge funding support from the Ontario Arts Council, an agency of the 30 La Palabra en el Tiempo: Poetry and Flamenco Government of Ontario. BY GARTH MARTENS 32 COLLABORATION Write is produced four times yearly by The Writers’ Union of Canada, 34 MEMBER NEWS & AWARDS 460 Richmond Street West, Suite 600, Toronto, Ontario, M5v 1Y1 T 416.703.8982, F 416.504.9090, [email protected], www.writersunion.ca. 37 IN MEMORIAM © The Writers’ Union of Canada, 2018. The text paper used for this issue contains 100 percent post-consumer fibre, is accredited EcoLogo and Processed Chlorine Free, and is processed in a mill that uses biogas. If you would like to help us save on paper, please contact [email protected] or 416-703-8982 ext. 223 to request future online editions of the magazine. Thank you. 4 write Writing Rights Post-secondary Relationship Status: It’s Complicated By John Degen You will (hopefully) have seen the announcement in June that needed a good news story to tell itself. Laval was not that. Laval University reached a settlement agreement with Quebec’s I have written a series of articles on Medium about Canada’s collective licensing agency COPIBEC, effectively ending the class- copyright review. In that series, I wonder why educational action lawsuit that was making its way through Quebec courts. administrators have so completely locked themselves into the Details of the settlement were not immediately available as the terrible legal strategy of not paying their bills. The folks from agreement awaited court approval, but The Writers’ Union of education who arrive on the Hill these days are often different Canada put out an immediate statement in support of the very idea from those who were there five years ago. This is a file they’ve that a settlement — any settlement — was reached. inherited, and it is full of decisions made by people who are now In today’s Canada, any time a post-secondary institution agrees not required to justify them in the hot seat of a Parliamentary to stop fighting about collective licensing and return to a licensed Committee. I believe you can read on these new folks’ faces how environment for its copying, that’s a very good news story for much they resent carrying these decisions forward when over and Canadian writers. We can haggle over price, and both sides may again they appear like unrepentant scofflaws by doing so. not always feel we’re getting all that we deserve from licensing, In the meantime, I’ve accepted a role on the Professional but at least Quebec showed the rest of Canada that there can be Advisory Council for Sheridan College’s unique Creative Writing agreement between education and culture on the efficiencies and and Publishing degree program, an exciting hybrid that should value of licensing as a means of providing students with broad encourage greater understanding across the two silos of our access, and cultural workers with their rightful compensation.
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