WRITE

THE MAGAZINE OF THE WRITERS’

UNION OF VOLUME 42 NUMBER 3 WINTER 2015

Writing for the Reluctant Reader 8

Losing Her Voice: A Writer Struggles with a First Novel and a Dying Sister 10

The Authors’ Fest: Tips and Tricks From a Festival Insider 15 tbooks by Vivek 3 Shraya � CResidencies for Creative SHE OF THE MOUNTAINS A Globe and Mail “Globe 100” of 2014 and Cultural Exploration “A lyrical ode to love in all its many forms.” Creative spaces and —Publishers Weekly accommodation in a community and heritage setting Artists • Writers • Cultural Researchers

GOD LOVES HAIR A Quill and Quire Best Book of 2014 “A moving and ultimately joyous portrait of growing up and the resiliency of youth.” 3401 Pleasant Valley Road —Canadian Children’s Book Centre Vernon, , Canada V1T 4L4 arsenal pulp press arsenalpulp.com 250-275-1525 www.caetani.ca

JOIN A HEALTH PLAN THAT’S EXCLUSIVE TO THE CANADIAN THE PLAN IS A SERVICE OF AFBS, A NOT-FOR-PROFIT INSURER WRITING COMMUNITY. IT’S EASY TO UNDERSTAND, AND COVERAGE IS GUARANTEED. CALL 1-800-387-8897 EXT. 238 OR EMAIL [email protected] TO LEARN MORE. From the Chair By Harry Thurston

We are trying something new this winter in adapting our operations to the Digital Age. Instead of bringing National Council members together in Toronto for our January meeting, colleagues of the need for action, and to do so he needs the numbers. To that end we will be circulating an income survey in from all corners of this vast, snowbound country, the New Year to make our case for just how much worse things we are going to conduct our business remotely. have become since we last polled our membership in 2010. Please take time to fill in your numbers. This data will be critical Instead of three days in Toronto we will hold three meetings, in to putting planks supportive of writers and writing in party January, February, and April, connecting councillors wherever platforms in this election year. they happen to be via the Internet. It so happens that I’ll be in We already know that Access Copyright payments this year Portugal, still on the North Atlantic coast but on the other side declined on average by 22 per cent due to the education sector’s of “The Pond,” and still at my desk daily working on Union interpretation of “fair dealing” (and will continue to decline as business and, I hope, adding to my transatlantic cantos. This most collective licenses lapse in 2015). For that reason we are long distance experiment will yield considerable cost savings calling upon Parliament to review immediately the impact of but is worthwhile in itself, as we strive to make the organization the Copyright Modernization Act (C-11, 2012) rather than wait more nimble and responsive to members’ needs. for the mandatory five-year review mechanism to come into Sometimes, however, there are advantages to meeting in force in 2017. By then, the damage to writers and the Canadian person. With that in mind, TWUC Executive Director John publishing industry might well be irreparable. Degen and I were back in in late November to meet with While these challenges to our livelihood are national, even members of the opposition parties, following on our meeting global in source and scale, politicians respond to local voices, for with Department of Heritage staff in October. We handed them it is those voices who translate into votes for their future. This the same package, “Regaining Ground: Tools To Build A Stronger point was made forcefully by another MP, a spirited supporter Sector”w, in which we outline strategies to ease the tax burden of the arts, who entreated me to have our members write to local on writers, including the elimination of tax on subsistence grants MPs about the issues negatively affecting their lives as writers, and income averaging for authors. and what politicians can do to address deficiencies in public One prominent Member of Parliament challenged us, pointing policy. To that end, we will be drafting a template letter that you out that a career in the arts has always been a precarious can adapt to send to your Member of Parliament. This kind of undertaking and asking, “Is it getting any worse?” To his query, I individual action might well be the critical element in swaying might have replied, “No, it’s getting much worse.” While we had opinion in favour of greater support for the arts in this election been well-prepared for such challenges, we left with a directive year. to make our case even more convincingly with hard numbers There is no doubt that Canada can do much more to make reflecting income decline. writing a more viable enterprise. Our job is to make the case that This MP, in fact, supports our efforts for better funding government can do better, and that’s what we’re doing, whether and fairer tax laws but he must be able to convince his party remotely or in person, wherever we are.

Winter 2015 3

national council committee chairs Chair Nominating Harry Thurston Douglas Arthur Brown First Vice-Chair membership committee Heather Menzies Contents winter 2015 Jillian Dagg (Chair) Second Vice-Chair Paul Bowdring Larissa Lai Christine Cowley 3 Chair’s Report Treasurer Katharine Fletcher George Melnyk Fred Stenson 5 Writing Rights BC/Yukon Representative twuc national office Carellin Brooks 6 Executive Director Alberta/NWT/Nunavut John Degen, ext. 221 Writer’s Blot Representative [email protected] Margaret Macpherson 8 Writer’s Prompt Associate Director Manitoba/Saskatchewan Siobhan O’Connor, ext. 222 9 Quote Notes Representative [email protected] Bob Armstrong Office Administrator Dispatches Representative Valerie Laws, ext. 224 10 Losing Her Voice: When Loss and Success Andrew J. Borkowski [email protected] Coincide, a New Novelist Stumbles Through Quebec Representative Membership Development & Merrily Weisbord Fund Researcher Conflicting Realities Atlantic Representative Nancy MacLeod, ext. 226 By krista Foss Vicki Grant [email protected] 12 A Forked Tonge: Writing in Czech and English, Advocates Communications Coordinator with Triumphs and Tribulations Farzana Doctor Kristen Gentleman, ext. 223 Shauntay Grant [email protected] By jan drabek Renée Sarojini Saklikar Pacific Coordinator 14 A Slapp in the Face (of Libel Chill) Raquel Alvaro [email protected] By Ron Brown Editor Hal Niedzviecki [email protected] Features Deadline for Fall issue March 1, 2015 15 Festival Fandango Editorial Board Wayne Grady, Andrew J. Borkowski, John Degen, Kelly-Anne BY Merilyn Simonds Riess, Allan Weiss 18 Writing in Canada Today: A Conversation with Editorial Liaisons Leslie Shimotakahara, Corey Redekop Copy Editor Alison Lang Emma Donoghue, Vincent Lam, and Emily Pohl- Weary Write Magazine Advertising Kristen Gentleman [email protected] Design soapboxdesign.com 23 Fiction Layout Kristen Gentleman Cover Illustration Louise Reimer business & reports Views expressed in Write do not necessarily reflect those of The Writers’ Union 25 Committee/Task Force Reports of Canada. Services advertised are not necessarily endorsed by the Union. All submissions are welcome. 27 Provincial Reports 28 Member Awards and News We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, which last year invested $154 million to bring the arts to Canadians throughout Canada. 29 New Members

30 in memoriam We acknowledge the support of the Ontario Arts Council (OAC), an agency of the Government of Ontario, which last year funded 1,681 individual artists in 216 communities across Ontario for a total of $52.8 million.

Write is produced four times yearly by The Writers’ Union of Canada, 460 Richmond Street West, Suite 600, Toronto, Ontario, M5v 1Y1 T 416.703.8982, F 416.504.9090, [email protected], www.writersunion.ca. © The Writers’ Union of Canada, 2015.

The text paper used for this issue contains 100 % post-consumer fibre, is accredited EcoLogo and Processed Chlorine Free, and 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 on-line editions of the Newsletter. Thank you.

4 write Writing Rights You Must Never Put Down Your Pen By John Degen

As a student, I worked for a prominent bookstore chain, and I was on duty during the early days of the Salman Rushdie fatwa. Corporate management had us remove all copies of The Satanic Verses from the shelves, wrap them in brown paper, and store them under the front counter. Our instructions were to “assess” anyone who came into the store looking for a copy of Rushdie’s book. If they looked “harmless”, we would sell them a wrapped copy. I didn’t know then how to differentiate a harmless book-buyer from a dangerous one, and I still don’t. I remember a lot of embarrassed nodding and winking at the cash register. I also remember selling an awful lot of plain-brown copies of The Satanic Verses. All of a sudden, a relatively expensive book with not much more demand than any other was flying out of the store. I want to be challenged and annoyed. I think some of my best Halfway between work and my apartment there was a very small work comes from being annoyed. independent bookstore (remember the days when there might be Barely 24 hours after the attacks, many on social media were two or more book retailers in a single neighbourhood?). The owner injecting nuance into their reflexive support for freedom of of that store was not one for looking retail horses in the mouth. expression — removing Je Suis Charlie from their streams, and His entire display window was dedicated to Rushdie’s book. I suggesting the puerile, clearly offensive cartoons published in remember walking in and asking if he wasn’t nervous someone Charlie Hebdo might not be a suitable hill to hold in the fight for might throw a brick through the glass. He called that possibility free speech. Because I’ve been wandering the front lines of free “free advertising,” and laughed when I told him what was going on speech my entire career, I value the existence of those arguments where I worked. I bought my own copy of The Satanic Verses from even as I strongly disagree with them. him. Similarly, as someone who practices a private faith, I was I began writing this column on January 7, late in the afternoon, distressed and even offended by a lot of the immediate anti- after a sickening day of reaction to the Charlie Hebdo shootings religion commentary that followed the attacks. The brilliant in , . I have worked for and with small, underfunded Salman Rushdie, whom I will defend to my last breath, called political magazines for most of my professional life. I was, for a something I sincerely value “a mediaeval form of unreason” that while, chair of the board at THIS magazine in Toronto. Many of my “deserves our fearless disrespect.” These were hard words for me friends also work in this business. I believe I can picture exactly to read, but I’m so glad he said them. I’m so glad he was here how informal, irreverent, and alive that editorial meeting was just to challenge and offend my own thinking. I cherish his fearless before masked gunmen broke through the door. Did they even disrespect. have to break through? Do magazines lock their doors? When did There’s a great deal published that I think is complete garbage. that start happening? Had I paid better attention to it before January 7th, much of the The violence in Paris is an absurdity and an obscenity. People work in Charlie Hebdo would likely have attracted my scorn and whose working tools are pens and keyboards suddenly confronted dismay. That doesn’t change my mind at all that those of us who with Kalashnikov automatics? That anyone should be murdered deal in words and pictures are to be argued with or ignored, not over words and pictures is madness. I remain filled with nausea violently attacked or censored. and anger. I’m also profoundly impatient to get back to my home By complete coincidence that same awful week in January, I was Write is produced four times yearly by The Writers’ Union of Canada,

460 Richmond Street West, Suite 600, Toronto, Ontario, M5v 1Y1 a el office and write something. speaking with a respected colleague at Amazon.ca. You may recall T 416.703.8982, F 416.504.9090, [email protected], www.writersunion.ca. On January 7, my Twitter feed contained sentiments and the last issue of Write had a few less than complimentary things © The Writers’ Union of Canada, 2015. pronouncements with which I agreed, and many with which to say about the large online retailer. We were discussing the I didn’t. I assume the same is true for everyone reading these possibility of an Amazon response in Write (which I encourage), words, and I’m betting (maybe even hoping) our individual lists but we first took time to commiserate about Paris. My colleague of what we do and don’t agree with might look quite different. I became passionate on the phone and said to me “you must never intentionally follow folks on social media whose opinions bother put down your pen.”

Ph oto : C l a u d ette B oc ks t me, because I want diversity of thought all around me, all the time. That goes for all of you as well.

Winter 2015 5 The Latest on Writing and Publishing News in Canada and Beyond

literary journals the closure. The journal, founded in 1970, year the base payment for writers was $112, had come to international prominence, a 23 per cent decrease from 2013, when The Capilano Review Successfully having published work by Anne Michaels, the base payout was $146. In comparison, Raises $20,000 to go independent; Timothy Findley, Evelyn Lau, Margaret payouts dropped 26 per cent between Descant Closes Atwood, and many others. Mulhallen said 2012/2013. a celebration of the magazine is being In addition to base payments, writers For a university-funded publication, it’s planned for spring 2015. receive a supplementary payment based the worst possible scenario; your home on what genre of work was published institution cuts you loose. For The Capilano Copyright (books, magazines, scholarly journals, and Review, the 43-year-old magazine based out newspapers), how much you published, of Capilano University in North , British Librarians Protest Copyright and when. Supplementary payments also this nightmare became reality last summer Law dropped this year, and are now at $327 — a when the university ended its support and 23 per cent drop from $425 the previous funding as of July 2015. Facing an $85,000 If you happened to be visiting the Imperial year. loss to its annual operating budget as well War Museum in London, the National The number of participants in Access as losing its office and computers, the Library of in Edinburgh or the Copyright has gone up since last year magazine’s editors turned to Kickstarter University of Leeds this past fall, you might by eight per cent and now sits at 11,911 to raise funds and keep running as an have noticed a number of display cases participants (with a 35 per cent spike in independent. standing empty. participants since the program’s inception Editor Brook Holglum said it didn’t These and many other empty cases in 2008). take long to make the decision. “After across Britain were part of a protest led Access Copyright, as mentioned on their conversations with TCR’s board reflecting by librarians in response to an archaic website, attributes the decline in payments on the magazine’s long publication history, copyright law that dictates certain works to the education sector’s self-interpretation on excitement about current programming cannot be displayed without the permission of “Fair Dealing” which has led elementary plans, and on our higher-than-ever of the rights holder — even if the author and secondary schools, and universities subscriber base, the decision was made to has been deceased for more than 70 years. and colleges to stop paying royalties to go independent,” she says. Some copyrighted works can’t be displayed writers, visual artists, and publishers for The campaign launched in late until 2039, regardless of how old the copying that would normally be made November with a goal of $20,000 with documents are. The Guardian reports that under an Access Copyright license. This perks from many of the authors and this applies to a host of unpublished diaries is as a result of the changes to Canadian illustrators that have been featured in TCR and letters, many dating back to the First copyright law through Bill C-11 over the over the years, including signed items World War and many of which are deemed past 18 months. Access Copyright CEO by George Bowering, Jeff Derksen, and “orphan works” where the original rights Roanie Levy says that Access Copyright is Christian Bök. The funds will go towards holder cannot be identified or traced. doing what it can to address the challenges office setup, payment for writers and As part of a campaign called Free Our and remain transparent for creators. artists, and printing and design costs. As History, librarians have collected almost “Like everybody else, creators expect to of this writing in mid-December, it had 1,000 signatures in a petition directed at get paid when their labor benefits others,” exceeded the goal by $1,170. For Holglum, Intellectual Property Minister Baroness Levy says. “The reduction in Payback however, it’s just the beginning. “Once Neville-Rolfe, asking for reforms to reduce revenues and its potential disappearance TCR is established as an independent copyright protection in unpublished texts as a result of the education’s sectors claim magazine in Vancouver, we will also be able to the author’s lifetime plus 70 years. that past paid uses are now “fair” dealing to apply to some provincial and municipal Neville-Rolfe said the government will and no longer subject to compensation grant programs that we weren’t eligible for take a look at the regulations over the next will result in less Canadian content for our while situated at Capilano U,” she says. several months. classroom tomorrow.” Meanwhile, Toronto’s Descant magazine announced that its Winter 2014 issue (no. Access Copyright Payments Drop in Copibec Sues Université Laval 167) would be its last. Editor-in-chief Karen 2014 Mulhallen made the announcement on the The Quebec licensing agency, Copibec, Descant website in early December 2014, Access Copyright payouts to writers have has filed a motion for a $4 million class citing an ongoing deficit as the reason for once again fallen at the end of 2014. This action lawsuit against Université Laval,

6 write saying the university has copied thousands and authors alike”. Douglas Preston, the David Kent has left the company. of copyright-protected works without Hachette author who spearheaded the Kent, who moved to HarperCollins permission. Authors United campaign, told ABC News from Canada in 2001, The university previously had a he was relieved the dispute had ended announced his departure in November comprehensive Copibec license that but was sceptical as to whether it would last year. Canadian operations have been enabled it to make copies legally. As of mark any long-term change. “[Amazon] is taken over by publisher Iris Tupholme and May 2014 the university chose not to ruthless and willing to sanction books and Leo McDonald, vice president of sales and renew its licence, and put in a new policy hurt authors,” he said. marketing. The company also announced that enables professors, researchers, it was moving away from Canadian- and students to make copies without the Publishing based distribution, closing its Canadian university having to seek permission from warehouse and serving Canada from RR the authors and publishers. Université Ursula K. LeGuin: “Books aren’t just Donelly in Plainfield, Ind. as of spring Laval is currently the only university in commodities” 2015. Quebec that holds such a policy. According HarperCollins Publishers CEO Brian to the Excess Copyright blog, the university Science fiction and fantasy legend Ursula Murray told the Kent’s role copies more than 11 million pages from K. LeGuin made headlines this past “just doesn’t fit the plans going forward.” over 7,000 works annually. November with an impassioned speech on With regards to the distribution move, the state of publishing at the U.S. National he said, “nothing is going to change as Amazon 8 Book Awards. LeGuin –—known for far as the independence of our Canadian groundbreaking works like The Left Hand of list or in its direction… We are extremely Hachette and Amazon Resolve Darkness — was at the NBAs to receive the committed to publishing in Canada and for Dispute Medal for Distinguished Contribution to Canadians.” American Letters. TWUC sent a letter to Brian Murray The lengthy dispute between Internet In her acceptance speech, LeGuin expressing concern over the distribution retail giant Amazon and book publisher critiqued the publishing system’s value move, and encouraging continued Hachette over discounted ebooks has of profit and marketability over freedom dedication to the Canadian market. come to an end. In a joint statement, the of expression, alluding to the Amazon/ two companies confirmed that they have Hachette dispute: “We just saw a profiteer HarperCollins announces reached a multi-year agreement for ebook try to punish a publisher for disobedience, e-commerce program and print sales in the U.S. and will resume and writers threatened by corporate fatwa.” normal relations in 2015. She also had harsh words for her fellow In other HarperCollins news, the company The exact terms of the agreement were writers: “I see a lot of us, the producers, announced last year that it would be not disclosed, but it was confirmed that who write the books and make the books, unveiling an e-commerce program that Hachette will now be able to set the prices accepting this — letting commodity will allow authors to earn an additional of its ebooks. Amazon will also resume profiteers sell us like deodorant, and tell us 10 per cent royalty on print books, promoting Hachette books. what to publish, what to write,” she said. ebooks, and audiobooks sold through the The agreement comes after a bitter Many media outlets praised LeGuin’s company’s platform. To do so, authors battle that began last May, when Amazon speech as brave, eloquent, and honest, can add a HarperCollins “buy” button removed preorder buttons from Hachette articulating the feelings of a tired and to their site, integrate the HarperCollins books and refused to restock the disillusioned creative industry. NPR called shopping card directly into their website, publisher’s titles — all reportedly due to it “fiery” while the New Yorker wrote that or use social media to direct customers its refusal to comply with Amazon’s price “she gave the definitive remarks of the to buy their books from HarperCollins. ceiling on ebooks. The dispute spiraled evening.” Some were more measured in The program will begin in the U.S. with into a major international news story, their comments; Russell Smith wrote in the option of moving to other markets. leading to a wider dialogue in publishing The Globe & Mail that while LeGuin’s focus This move is a cause for concern among circles about the nature of digital pricing on valuing literature was noble, “such high- some U.S. booksellers, who worry about and what some characterize as Amazon’s mindedness is all very well for someone yet another added stream of competition. monolithic hold over the industry. 900 who doesn’t have to keep a money-losing, Gayle Shanks, owner of the Arizona- writers — some, but not all on Hachette employment-providing company afloat.” based Changing Hands Bookstore, told — signed an open letter as a coalition Publishers Weekly: “Any program that takes called Authors United, calling for the end HarperCollins Canada CEO leaves sales away from us will bring about our of sanctions on traditional publishing and the company; Canadian distro office demise eventually. It’s a win-win if we all using authors in “hostage negotiations”. closes understand our roles and stick with them.” In a statement, Amazon says the agreement “will be a great win for readers HarperCollins Canada president and CEO

Winter 2015 7 Writer’s Blot

stories to address previously under-explored topics (reunions between adult adoptees and their birth families; ADHD in women). Like seeing their communities reflected, non-readers may be enticed to read if their experiences are reflected on your pages. Those who wouldn’t normally pick up a book told me that they read mine because (as one reader put it), it was more like confiding in a friend at a dingy bar than reading a self-help book. So prepare to spill.

Audiobooks Writer’s Prompt / A November 2014 episode of CBC Radio One’s Spark told us, “In , audiobooks are insanely popular and the voice actors are rock stars.” In 2013 German audiobook publishers sold a Writing for the record 14 million audiobook CDs (not including downloads). The prevalence of handheld media player devices and formats like the podcast suggests that there is more and more potential Non-Reader for audiobooks, particularly the potential to target people who traditionally are non-readers. by Zoë Kessler My head hurts Audiobooks and ebooks might also entice non-readers who Not many of us deliberately set out to write a first shied away from reading due to scotopic (light) sensitivity experienced when reading black words on a bright white page. book for people who detest reading, but that These individuals make up nearly half of those diagnosed with description fits a large proportion of my target a learning disability, says Louanne Johnson, writing online for market for ADHD According to Zoë, my recent Scholastic.com. book about ADHD and women’s lives. So — Zoë Kessler is an author and speaker. Her most recent book is ADHD According to Zoë: The Real Deal on Relationships, Finding Your how do you get people who don’t read to read Focus & Finding Your Keys (New Harbinger Publications, 2013). your book? There’s no foolproof method, but here are a few ideas that show promise. Comic by Scot Ritchie Book trailers…easier than blockbusters A recent study by a Texas librarian amongst her professional peers showed that 99 per cent of school librarians canvassed believed that a book trailer can entice students to read. The jury’s out on book trailers in general, but if you’re writing for youth, a book trailer might be key in attracting readers.

Location, location Owen Sound publisher Maryann Thomas (The Ginger Press) caters to a loyal audience of readers looking to have their experiences and community reflected back to them. She estimates that over 50 per cent of her customers only buy and read books because of their community content; they would otherwise be non- readers. If you’re not doing so already, consider peppering your work with a little local flavour.

Fill a niche, fill a need Both of my first two books filled a market niche by using personal

8 write Quote notes / Atwood Gets Angry on Her Birthday; Canada Council CEO Says Arts are More than Just an Economic Driver

Margaret Atwood, speaking at the Writers’ Trust gala celebrating her changes of all kinds are already taking place at a rapid rate. 75th birthday on November 25, 2014. We need to be more ambitious, to claim more of our legitimate place in society. For without the arts, without a rich cultural fabric, “Five writers began the Writers’ Trust in 1976 (what were we our economic and sociological achievements will be unfulfilled. thinking?): Graeme Gibson — whose idea it was, he gets me into Yet all too often we give up our central position to these narrow all kinds of trouble — Margaret Laurence, Pierre Berton, and discourses and their experts. Whereas instead we must have the David Young, and myself. (Did I get them all? David, you’re here courage to say: no culture, no future — the courage to insist that somewhere.) What we had in mind was a non-governmental it is imagination, nurtured by the arts and by culture that gives organization that would be of financial help to writers; we did meaning to human life and to society. this because we knew the need. That was then, and that need Of course, as we all know, the popular dichotomy between is greater now, as cultural creators are under increased threat: a economics and arts and culture is both false and dangerous. worried publishing industry, and a university sector that under a In the 21st century more than ever before, arts and culture are badly-written copyright law feels entitled to help itself to creators’ key drivers. Similarly, social crises such as poverty, crime, and content have not improved the lives of writers. How many millions unemployment are in many ways the direct and indirect results of of dollars have been removed from authors through universities’ a failure to invest in cultural resources and training; investments misuse of their copyright? And often by the same universities that would be tiny compared to the cost of treating, housing, that charge $18,000 for an MFA in ‘Creative Writing.’ There’s supporting, policing, incarcerating, and attempting to rehabilitate a disjunct there. Sort of like saying okay, we’ll teach you to be a damaged individuals and damaged communities. doctor but by the way you’ve got to doctor for us for nothing.” What is the cost of building and staffing a cultural centre or an arts-based high school versus the cost of building and staffing Simon Brault, Director and CEO of the Canada Council for the Arts a prison or paying entire lifetimes of welfare? What is the cost speaking at the 40th International Conference on Social Theory, Politics of investing in culture versus investing in punishment? The and the Arts at the University of Ottawa, October 17, 2014 argument for public support for the arts is too often limited to micro-economic measures, such as the familiar statistic about Those who believe in the power of the arts need to invoke — and the triple return on every dollar invested in the arts. I believe support with persuasive evidence wherever possible — a much we should be making a case for public arts funding based on broader discussion on the role of arts and culture in society than macro-economics; one that looks at wider social patterns and the we have typically done in the past. We need to engage a much profound cost to society of cultural neglect. In a very real sense for wider range of stakeholders and social leaders to act in new ways, Canada and Canadians, no culture, no future is not just a slogan. It

Ph oto : T om S a n d ler particularly in our increasingly dominant urban contexts, where is a reality.

Winter 2015 9 Dispatches notes on the writing life

memoir / Losing Her Voice: When Loss and Success Coincide, a New Novelist Stumbles Through Conflicting Realities

By krista foss

fit alternative health guru and artist with a scrupulously clean Sometimes the most wonderful things happen lifestyle, a strong marriage, and two kids. When she was at the same time as the very worst. My sister’s diagnosed with an advanced cancer that surgery and treatment couldn’t eradicate, I was just one of many who felt betrayed. We diagnosis of late-stage cancer came within a few were let down by our own wishful causality — the feeling that who months of my getting a first book deal. She died gets sick and who doesn’t should surely have something to do with supplements, sunny dispositions, and all the rest of the choices six months to the day of my novel’s publication we make. But my sister refused to get stuck there. She took on the date. She was my very best friend. disease, the fear of her own death, like it was a cosmic assignment — some impenetrable algebra she’d untangle through meditation, It felt surreal to be living through a painful experience at the same faith, and confronting the darkest of her emotions. In this movie, time as an exciting one. My coping strategy was similarly surreal. I was the supposedly supportive sidekick; except that I wasn’t able I lived as in two separate realities, movies screening at the same to really play my role. Instead, I was worried, hopeful, alternatively time in different theatres, my sister and I starring in both. And, for panicked, and occasionally filled with rage. In one scene, I throw a while, that seemed to work. my very expensive bicycle at a tree. Which is asinine. But that’s One movie was the feel-good type: I took the starring role as a what fear does. late-blooming wannabe writer who finally scored the championing Still, I managed to keep the two movies separate, unspooling agent, the enviable book deal, the thoughtful editor, the first apace. In cinema one, I reveled in the process of working with a few fist-pumping reviews. The pivotal supporting character was caring, precise editor, and a tireless, encouraging agent. My book my sister, a warm, self-effacing woman who’d already spent launch party was crowded, raucous, fun, and included my sister years cheering me on through the frustrations and trade-offs of floating among the guests, serene and beautiful. Early readings parenting, divorce, earning a living and making art. She was the went well. The reviews were vindicating. I felt coolly professional, voice of reason when the tricky selfs, everything from self-doubt to largely because I couldn’t fully feel anything — not even the self-promotion, started to mess with my head. disappointments, the things that didn’t go my way. The second movie was more difficult, not an obvious crowd Things took a turn in the second movie, when more than a pleaser, possibly Danish. My sister was its reluctant lead — a year after her diagnosis, my sister’s energy plummeted and her

10 write symptoms spiked. Suddenly, she needed even more of what she’d sister laugh.) needed all along: she needed me to stop offering advice, stop One day I came into her hospital room and found a nurse demanding explanations, stop playing that other film’s character, named Nancy kissing my sister’s sleeping face and smoothing the one that interpreted experiences and got hung up on meanings her hair. The tenderness, the intimacy, was startling. It snapped in the process. She just needed me to listen. me out of my trance, made me realize how living in two different And I did. She spoke about her regrets, the sleepless hours realities, two movies, meant I was missing the point of both. There of the night she fretted about her husband and children, the was no worse experience. There was no wonderful experience. incredulity at losing her vigor, the short-lived sense that God There was just what was happening. A novel was finished, had rejected her. She cried a lot. I could feel her big sister eyes published, and out there. A sister and friend fell ill, and was dying. watching me, making sure I didn’t crumple under the weight of And the merged reality of pain, excitement, loss, and beauty, had so much candour, so much letting go. We took out old pictures. to be lived as one experience. We read through old letters. We talked about small things which So I stopped writing, I stopped trying to find meaning. I shut I can’t remember and big things which I can: life, death, love, the up and attended to the moment. I loved more deeply than I felt I possibility of joy. could risk. I floundered, fucked-up and hurt. Inevitably, my two-movie conceit began to collapse, let down by Now, I’m waiting for the words to come back. They are, ever so the same magical thinking that had me hoping she’d get better, slowly. could get better, was hustling a miracle out of the tight-fisted, humourless cosmos. I showed up to do a few readings hungover Krista Foss is a Hamilton-based writer. Her debut novel Smoke River with pre-emptive grief. At one event, I read for 20 minutes, got was published by McClelland & Stewart in May 2014. Her short fiction interviewed on stage and walked around dazed, none the wiser has twice been a finalist for the Journey Prize. that I was wearing my top inside out. (This, at least, made my

censorship freedom of expression access to information FREEDOM TO READ WEEK FEBRUARY 22–28, 2015 ORDER FREEDOM TO READ, OUR ANNUAL REVIEW OF CURRENT CENSORSHIP ISSUES IN CANADA, AND 2015 POSTER AT WWW.FREEDOMTOREAD.CA. VISIT OUR FACEBOOK PAGE AND JOIN THE CONVERSATION: @FREEDOM_TO_READ | #FTRWEEK

Book and A project of the Periodical Book and Periodical Council Council Ph oto : F e h n fo ss

Winter 2015 11 Dispatches

translation / A Forked Tongue: Writing in Czech and English, with Triumphs and Tribulations

By jan drabek

whatever it could lay its hands on when so much of it should have I wrote my first novel, Whatever Happened to been granted eternal oblivion. The printing was accomplished on Wenceslas? in 1973. It came out in English by something closely resembling toilet paper and mostly with covers which repelled rather than attracted. Newspapers, tainted for a small Canadian publisher, then in a Czech decades by Commie propaganda and now struggling to stay alive, version by Publishers 68, a Toronto exile firm were counted on to print a flood of book reviews which — let’s face it — do not usually add to circulation figures. owned by Josef and Zdena Skvorecky. It was they When Report on the Death of Rosenkavalier was published in who found a translator so good that when my English in Toronto more than a decade earlier ’s William French treated it as serious literature, opining that “it’s brother read it he quipped that it was better than more philosophical than indigenous Canadian novels tend to be.” the original. When it hit the streets of Prague in another Czech edition, it was with the atrocious soft cover of a dime thriller. Although I had lived in Prague until I started being thrown about Wenceslas followed, also in a soft cover which was somewhat by puberty in the late 1940s, my Czech after 17 years in English- better than Rosenkavalier. Unfortunately its crazy collage cover had speaking countries was not up to it. My next book, Report on the little to do with its content. Later on it was explained to me that in Death of Rosenkavalier, was published in 1976 by McClelland and post-Communist Czech Republic, cover designers were frequently Stewart and the Skvoreckys once again brought out its Czech frustrated artists who resented being forced to follow plot lines. translation. That, I was fairly certain, would be the last time my One of them made use of historical photographs and newspaper work would appear in Czech. It was the late Seventies, the Cold clippings on the basically black and white cover of the Czech War was going full tilt and the themes of my next four books had translation of my World War II thriller The Lister Legacy. Here the little to do with the Old Country. trouble was that many of the clippings were contemporary. While The earthquake which tumbled the Iron Curtain in 1989 the English version was a Canadian bestseller, the Czech one, caught me in Winnipeg, pushing a volume about baby boomers. poorly translated, died. I hardly got home when I was off again to visit Prague for the During those early days of post-Communism there was seldom first time in several decades. Before 1990 was over my wife and I time for the author’s approval. Contracts were still signed for were ensconced in a perfectly awful Prague apartment. We were something called “quarters” rather than manuscripts, and of not only dispensing the badly needed English language to Czech course they arrived in a language I didn’t understand, but for some diplomats, but I was also busily hawking my books. reason didn’t question. Not that my Czech wasn’t vastly improved Naturally, since I was back I was anxious to have them published within a year or two. By the mid-1990s I was regularly writing in Prague. The Czech book industry, heretofore dull and controlled “feuilletons” for leading Prague newspapers and also articles in by the government, was kicking up its heels, trying to undo in English for The Prague Post. Life was exciting in post-Communist a few months the damage of four decades. It was publishing Prague.

12 write Enter , the giant German publisher and owner of when in Rome you should write in Italian, but my three Czech the Random House publishing empire. The year was 1992 and bestsellers all came out when I was already back in Vancouver. this world-wide publishing giant, operating in the Czech Republic Of course it helped that I went back to Prague to do the publicity under the name Knižní Klub (The Book Club), brought much and be treated there as a conquering hero, but back in Canada order into all the chaos. It certainly brought such to my publishing “Jan who?” was now the more typical response. I had a hell of a history. Editing and publicity, heretofore vastly underrated activities problem finding a publisher here. in Czech publishing, came into their own under the influence of Still today I’m not sure if I’m a Czech or Canadian writer. Do I Bertelsmann. enter a different philosophical framework and style when writing Although late in the 1990s I was already back, safely ensconced in each language? I don’t think so. Oh, generally Czech sentences in Vancouver, I became brave and submitted an original Czech are more complicated and they require concentration on cases manuscript to Knižní Klub — a memoir entitled Up to My Ears and their proper endings, but thoughts are thoughts and I don’t in Post Communism. I was astounded by the results. There were think they come wrapped in different languages. Both Czechs and edited proofs mailed back to me, I was asked to approve a cover Germans, for example, claim Kafka as their own, regardless of his and regrets were expressed that I would not be in the Czech language. Republic for the launch and subsequent publicity campaign. Occasionally opportunities have arisen for both Canada and the But friends in Prague reported that the book was not stocked by Czech Republic to cohabit in the same book. Such a thing came leading booksellers. After I wrote a series of angry emails I was in fiction where the hero immigrated to Canada only to return to informed by Knižní Klub that the first printing had been sold out. his native land to carry out a mission which in the end would cost It was now listed among Czech bestsellers and in the end sold him his life. In non-fiction this came a couple of years ago with about 14,000 copies. the publication of my biography of Vladimir Krajina, the legendary Two more volumes followed. For those I visited Prague to see Czech Resistance hero and later father of the unique British how Knižní Klub handled publicity. First of all, the launch was Columbia ecological reserves. Sadly, even projects featuring both not held in some smoky pub but in an upstairs salon of a classy countries don’t always bridge the divide. Although the sculpted restaurant located on the historical Old Town Square. And it wasn’t face of Krajina adorns the façade of the Charles University Botany the raspy delivery of the author who read the pertinent passages in Building in Prague, the notion of a translation of his biography a languorous monotone, but of a professional actor, a member of hasn’t excited any Czech publishers so far. the National Theater. Much time was devoted to appearances and Not nearly as much as Padesát odstínu šedi, the Czech translation interviews, the way it used to be here in Canada during the 1970s of Fifty Shades of Gray. and ’80s when such things as cross-Canada author tours were still common. Jan Drabek is the author, most recently, of Thirteen, A Child’s Still, on a more mundane level I found my decade away from Memory of WWII (Caitlin Press) and Up to My Ears in America Vancouver fairly costly. Three of my Canadian publishers — two (DonnaInk Publications). of them national in scope — had gone out of business. I suppose

Winter 2015 13 Dispatches

legal / development. Another example is a Porter Airlines defamation suit against a fuel-workers union during a labour dispute, an action characterized by a prominent Toronto attorney as an attempt “to silence people”. Still a third was initiated by a golf A Slapp in the course owner near North Bay against a reporter who had quoted some concerns by local residents over the alleged influence that Face (of Libel the golf course may have had in the political arena. Such ease of legal recourse impacted Union members in real ways. How for example could a journalist safely write a Chill) book on matters of public interest that might be critical of large corporations or wealthy individuals? By Ron brown The problem was not endemic to Ontario alone. In 2008, CanWest Global Communications, publisher of the launched a suit against a parody of the newspaper. In Quebec, Barrick Gold sued the publisher Écosociété over a book documenting that company’s mining practices in Tanzania. This action resulted in the Quebec government’s enacting, Canada’s On a sunny morning, many years ago, Union first anti-SLAPP legislation in 2009. members paraded along the streets of Toronto’s In 2011, the TWUC AGM passed a motion requiring that the Union push for anti-SLAPP legislation in Ontario, and financial district sporting placards that said… subsequently Union Chair Greg Hollingshead sent a letter to the nothing. It was a way of demonstrating how Ontario government expressing that SLAPPs did indeed stifle free expression and public debate on issues of public concern. He something called “libel chill” was affecting called for introduction of anti-SLAPP laws in Ontario as well. freedom of expression. Certainly the Union was not alone. In September of 2013 more than 150 organizations including Greenpeace, Canadian At the time, three notable libel actions were proceeding, initiated Journalists for Free Expression, and the Canadian Civil Liberties by Allan Gotlieb, Conrad Black, and the Reichmann family against Association as well as 64 municipalities and the Canadian Bar authors and journalists whom the plaintiffs argued had libelled Association, sent a petition to all Ontario MPPs calling for the them. In Ontario that was easy, for this province, like many others much needed change (interestingly, TWUC was not among the in Canada, had long become infamous for its pro-plaintiff libel signatories, although an organization called “Robots Everywhere” laws where truth was not a defence. In fact something known was). as “libel tourism” was drawing libel plaintiffs to it. To Ontario’s The first attempt at an anti-SLAPP bill came from NDP writers and journalists it was known as “libel chill”. leader Andrea Horwath in 2008. Despite agreement from the Since that silent march TWUC has actively campaigned to Progressive Conservative party at the time, it was not until correct this imbalance. Finally, in 2009, the Supreme Court June 2013 that then-Attorney General John Gerretsen brought of Canada, ruling on libel actions brought against the Toronto forward the government’s first anti-SLAPP bill. The new act Star and the , established a new defense called would require the courts to quickly identify whether the proposed “responsible communication on matters of public interest.” In SLAPP litigation was genuinely in the public interest, or just an effect the new defense would defend a journalist against a libel intimidation tactic which could be readily thrown out. action if what they had written — even where truth could not While that bill fell by the wayside with the calling of the 2014 absolutely be proven — had been in the public interest to do so. election, it didn’t take the new AG long to re-introduce it. On Libel chill was finally thawing out. Dec 1, 2014 Madeleine Meillieur brought back the bill, called A cousin to libel chill is SLAPP. That means “strategic litigation the Protection of Public Participation Act (POPP). In tabling against public participation”. It is defined as actions brought by the proposed legislation she stated, “Using a strategic lawsuit to wealthy corporations or influential citizens against citizen groups silence an opponent is not only an unfair way to win an argument, or individuals to silence critics with the threat of expensive legal but an undemocratic restriction on freedom of expression.” It still action. It had the effect of stifling public debate on controversial, requires third reading and Royal assent, but with the next election or even non-controversial proposals. Litigation of this nature more than three years away, it is highly likely to become law and typically had little or no substance but was merely intended to provide writers with the freedom to address matters of public silence citizens or groups and to curtail their advocacy on matters concern without fear of litigation. of public interest. Simply the threat of expensive litigation was To that we say “amen.” enough to do the trick. Even such routine processes as arguing planning matters before the Ontario Municipal Board fell under Ron Brown is a former chair of The Writers’ Union of Canada and such threats. chaired the former Rights and Freedoms Committee for a number of Examples in Ontario have included an action by a Lake Simcoe years. He was instrumental in launching the Union’s Freedom to Read resort developer against a citizens’ group which opposed that Award which is presented during the annual Freedom to Read Week.

14 write Festival Fandango

By merilyn simonds

During the years I was artistic director of Kingston WritersFest, bumping into writers, especially writers with new books, could be awkward. I’d madly scroll through my mental Rolodex. Had we invited them to the Festival? If not, why not?

usually hurried past the subject. Festival programming have different processes and conversations amongst themselves, is complicated, nuanced: not the stuff of cocktail chatter though my guess is that the issues that come into play in making or street encounters. If a writer pressed, “Why wasn’t I invitations to authors are much the same for all of us. invited?” I would tell them the awful, simple truth: No festival has room enough for all the great books published The Publisher Connection each year in Canada. It should come as no surprise that only a small proportion of I Now that I’ve passed Kingston WritersFest to other capable festival revenues are derived from ticket sales. Festivals rely on hands, I’d like to offer a fuller explanation. Things are tough out grants and sponsorships and donations to put on the show. At there for writers. Book review pages are withering. Radio and TV WritersFest, we were always scrabbling for funding and, within book shows have all but disappeared. Bookstore shelves are as the mix, publisher support was vital. For the most part, publishers likely to be stocked with candles and teddy bears as poetry and helped out with travel costs and sometimes with accommodation. fiction. Festivals are one of the few ways that writers can engage (Never with reading fees.) Oddly enough, small publishers were with readers in the literary conversation we all crave. just as likely to provide travel as the major players. The publishers So I feel I owe it to my fellow writers to lift the curtain on what also supplied copies of an author’s book, which we used for happens behind-the-scenes in a festival planning room. I can only publicity and promotion to spread the word about their author’s speak from my own now-outdated experience: other festivals may event to the media and to our audience. Publisher support

Winter 2015 15 TWUC member Trevor Herriot reading from his book The Road is How at the TWUC members Eric Walters and Brad Cran speaking at the 2014 Kingston 2014 Kingston WritersFest. WritersFest.

was always secondary to author selection, of course. If we were especially, we sought out high-profile authors as a way of building desperate for a writer that a publisher couldn’t support, we’d try to that audience. We always tried to program big names with lesser- find another way through provincial or federal grants (including known names, often local writers, to give the up-and-comers a the TWUC Readings Program) or local donors. full house. Gradually, an audience starts to trust its Festival: they We read catalogues. We read Quill & Quire. We pay attention to have enough experience to know that even if they haven’t heard national and local reviews. We scan the literary blogs. We meet of the writer, the audience will turn up and be provoked/inspired/ with local writers and hang out at sister festivals to talk to far-flung delighted by the choice. writers. Every year, in mid-to-late winter, we would visit publishers The choices are always tough. How many writers from a either in person or by phone and email to hear what books they distance could I afford — really? Publishers often couldn’t cover had coming out next season. pricey plane tickets, especially if they were already bringing the True fact: publicists don’t pitch all the books on their list. They author to Ontario a month later for another, bigger festival. On pitch the books they have the greatest investment in. That is, they our own nickel, out of 60-70 authors, we could only bring a pitch the books that have a travel budget sufficient to warrant a handful from the coasts. I’d have to comfort myself with: next trip to a festival. year, next book. Note to Writers: When your contract is under negotiation, ask As the wish-list whittled down, events would begin to coalesce. how much money your publisher plans to put into travel. Ask There’s a book about democracy. Our audience is political. them if they plan to pitch you to the Festivals. If so, which ones? If Are there other books, other writers who might fit into that you have contacts at the festivals, let your publicist know. conversation? If you are published outside the country and your book is Note to Writers: Do your own research. Be aware of what other available through bookstores in Canada, you can try pitching the books similar (or exactly opposite) in theme or topic or style are book yourself. Be professional about it: send a copy of the book, coming out at the same time as yours, or just before. Sometimes a tip sheet, reviews. Festivals are considering hundreds of books: you can imagine a terrific event that might never occur to the you may not get a speedy reply. festival. Maybe you and a musician friend have worked up a multidisciplinary event around the book, or you’ve got a one- Scheduling Tic-Tac-Toe woman show based on the book. At Kingston WritersFest, we All that reading and research and chatting amongst our Festival were always looking for collaborative works, mostly because they friends builds a wish-list that is three or four times as long as the offer fresh ways to tell a story, but also because they help expand number of slots there are to fill in the Festival schedule. our audience into other local arts communities. So how did I decide who to book for the festival? Audience interest is key. As Hal Wake, director of the Vancouver Authors Giving Good Festival Festival, told me when I got Kingston WritersFest off the ground, As spring wore on, the wish-list would be honed into a near final we aren’t in the business of mounting events; we’re building a guest list. By April, we’d have a pretty good idea of the kinds of community of readers and writers. As artistic director, I couldn’t events that we could slot into our September schedule. Sometimes, indulge my own taste; I had to program for the audience, pushing several books fit the bill. Who to choose to put on stage? them now and then into new literary territory. In the early years Let’s face it: not all writers are created equal when it comes to

16 write The choices are always tough. How many writers from a distance could I afford – really? Publishers often couldn’t cover pricey plane tickets, especially if they were already bringing the author to Ontario a month later for another, bigger festival.

talking to live audiences. Some are shy. Some don’t read well. Paradise Project, flash-fiction stories hand-printed on a 19th-century Some find it hard to contribute to a public conversation. Others press. She is the founding Artistic Director of Kingston WritersFest, contribute much too much. leading that festival from 2009 to 2013. Festival organizers visit as many festivals as they can; they watch the action onstage and on YouTube. They look for how a writer connects with an audience. Are they good with students? Could they be part of a high school program? Do they have teaching chops? Are they terrific solo presenters? Do they perform best in a group? Did they animate the audience with their ideas? Most festivals don’t want to bring a writer from the other side of the country to perform in just one event. The more versatile the writer, the broader their scope, and the easier they are to program in two or three events, justifying the expense and making the trip worthwhile for everyone. Note to Writers: Festivals are performance art. If you want to perform at a festival and you aren’t good at reading, find a coach. If you teach, if you have special areas of interest, make sure your publicist pitches these to the festival, too.

One Last Word I used to look with longing at Festivals like Hay-on-Wye, or Edinburgh, or the Cheltenham Literature Festival that mounts almost 600 events. But even with festivals that large, there would still be those sad-eyed writers who were turned away. Over the years, I learned to be direct — pre-empting awkward conversations with a personal note giving my regrets and hoping for another opportunity to have a writer on our stage. I will miss the big symphonic task of programming and the bouquet of books splayed on the floor by my bed, but it’s a relief, too, to be reading just for myself again. I like it better sitting here with the rest of the wallflowers, waiting for that invitation to dance.

Merilyn Simonds is author of 16 books, including The Holding, a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice and most recently, The

Winter 2015 17 Writing In Canada Today: A Conversation with Emma Donoghue, Vincent Lam, and Emily Pohl-Weary

The following is a condensed version of a panel discussion moderated by Mark Medley and presented by The Writers’ Union of Canada on October 1, 2014 as part of the the International Festival of Authors weekly series in Toronto.

Mark Medley: So I ask you all the same question. What is the Mark Medley: Emily, as somebody who throughout the course greatest challenge facing Canadian writers today? of your career has done various things — you know, magazine editor, arts educator, writer — what would you identify as the Vincent Lam: Well, in my opinion the biggest challenge facing biggest challenge facing yourself? Canadian writers today is getting paid — very simple. The business model is changing radically. And the power Emily Pohl-Weary: I think my answer would be similar to dynamics between the publishers and retailers and authors and Vincent’s in that it is difficult to be paid — to get paid to work full- so forth are changing. time as a writer. But we’re really lucky in Canada to have the kinds But there’s a very real sense, I think, in which lots of authors of supports we have like grants and encouragement for other kinds would actually like not to think about any of that. And they of community activities that relate to the arts. basically just want to write, which is very reductionistic. And If you think of writing as something bigger than just sitting maybe you can’t quite do that as a modern writer. around a computer and typing, it can be — you can be creative and But the fact remains that you have to pay for the rent and food figure out ways to make a living. and having necessities. And the truth is that most writers cannot But yeah, definitely letting people know that there are local do so on what they’re paid for their writing. So I think that’s a authors who work and who make their living that way seems to be real impediment to the work. a challenge. Especially when competing with names from the U.S.

18 write Emma Donoghue. Photo Credit: Andrew Emily Pohl-Weary. Photo Credit: Derek Wuenschirs Vincent Lam. Photo Credit: Barbara Stoneham Bainbridge

Mark Medley: Is this something that’s noticeably worse while producing good work that just didn’t happen to sell in big throughout the courses of your respective careers? numbers and remain supported. And that may not be the case anymore. Emily Pohl-Weary: I think for me definitely when I started writing, there were more paid writing gigs if you were a journalist Mark Medley: Well did you ever find yourself in that position? or an arts reporter or writing feature articles. It seems like a lot of the writing jobs that pay well have shifted to different kinds of Emma Donoghue: Of being dumped? media like film or television or video games or things that actually are more commercialized or more openly commercialized. Mark Medley: Of being dumped.

Mark Medley: I remember years ago I sat down with Guy Emma Donoghue: Personal question — but yes of course. Vanderhaeghe. And he was telling me when he published his first collection of short stories in, I think, 1984 with McClelland Mark Medley: So, I mean, had you gone through multiple & Stewart, which at that time was, you know, the Canadian publishers before you found success? publisher, he got an advance of, I think, $400 he said. And so it seems to me that writers have always felt that things are dire. Emma Donoghue: I’ve had a number of serially monogamous publishing relationships, yes. But, you know, you start with a Vincent Lam: I have heard a lot of people say that it used to be publisher and you’re both in love. And then they slowly go off you that you would expect that your publishing house would stick with as your sales decline. And then you crawl away. And then you — you. fall in love again. And it’s good again. And then it declines. It’s a And you would have three, four, five, six books, which were not kind of a rollercoaster effect. commercially successful. But if they were judged to be good books But I’ve heard of the same things from other writers that there’s within the eyes of the house, then you would assume correctly no safety anymore, if there ever was, to that writer/publisher that your next book would be published, and you would continue relationship. to have a chance to, you know, to get up to bat as it were. However, I don’t think young writers today, I don’t think we And more and more what I’ve heard from people who have should be telling them to concentrate on the money issues. I wish published that number of books, and who haven’t broken through for them that they were paid better. commercially, is they’re being dumped. That they’re not getting But I think when they sit down to write, the last thing they their books published again. should be thinking about is what will sell, because then that And, you know, there was a time in which you could go for a would be a fatal kind of — an enclosing of the creative process.

Winter 2015 19 My British publisher was both aghast and disappointed when they couldn’t put me up for a literary prize for which you had to have an Asian citizenship. Because they just assumed that they had bought some guy, you know, who was a citizen of some sort of Asian country. — Vincent Lam

I think it’s appalling when every time you have a successful a certain self-consciousness about being small but very literary vampire novel you then see 20 more of them the following year. cultures, small in the sense of population. And you know that hundreds more are being written. So in a way And what’s really nice is that Irish readers seek out Irish writers I would prefer writers not to have to think about money. and same here in Canada. So I like that. I like the way readers are looking to us for something specific. Mark Medley: I want to ask a question that’s kind of on the flip And there’s a certain loyalty there. But yeah I think in either side of my last question then, and I ask all three of you. Do you Britain or America, because they see themselves as culturally identify as a writer or a Canadian writer? bigger, they would probably not have the same labelling.

Emily Pohl-Weary: I’ve never been much of a nationalist. But, Mark Medley: Vincent, Canadian writer or just writer? you know, I am proud of the fact that we do support the arts in Canada. You know, more than many countries and encourage that Vincent Lam: I would definitely say that I’m a Canadian writer. kind of diversity of more and more of voices. But I’d probably say And I say that more from the perspective of how I think about my I’m a writer. writing than how I think about my branding. I think, you know, because I am a member of a visible minority, Mark Medley: Emma? I get branded in all kinds of ways. And I’ve certainly been in situations where people are surprised that I’m Canadian because Emma Donoghue: I say writer. And what I hate is when that’s not what a certain book is about. people call me a local writer. But I’ve no objection once they start applying the big labels of Irish Canadian, woman writer, gay Mark Medley: Well how do you get branded? writer, you know. I’m fine with all of those. But I would probably just say writer. Vincent Lam: As an Asian writer. And, you know, in fact my British publisher was both aghast and disappointed when they Mark Medley: Well does this kind of same kind of labelling exist couldn’t put me up for a literary prize for which you had to have in the U.K. for example? In Canada I have the sense that if you are an Asian citizenship. Because they just assumed that they had a Canadian writer that label is often affixed to you in the media. bought some guy, you know, who was a citizen of some sort of Whereas I don’t think it is applied the same way if you are in Asian country. America or in the U.K. You know, is Martin Amis always referred So, you know, you can’t be in the Man Asian Literary Prize if to as a British writer in the British press or is he just a writer? you actually were born and grew up in Canada. But I say Canadian writer because I realize that when I’m Emma Donoghue: I think Ireland and Canada would both have writing and when I realize all the invisible things that I have

20 write to struggle against as a writer, like in my recent novel The CanLit community and kind of claimed as one of our own — Headmaster’s Wager, set in Vietnam. You have this character who is — he’s bigoted. He’s misogynistic. You know, he’s offensive Emma Donoghue: I was delighted, yes. I mean I’d been here in many sort-of-Canadian ways of looking at things. And so, I about 10 years before anybody bothered adopting me. But you realized how uncomfortable I was writing to that time and to know I was happy to get into the party at last. that story, because I was dealing with the discomfort of being a And no, I think CanLit is a personally neutral label. And as Canadian and looking at things a certain way. So it’s kind of when long as nobody assumes that you’re writing a novel about an epic I come up against these unconscious barriers. But I think yeah, struggle in the far north, you know, as long as nobody tells you yeah I guess I’m a Canadian writer. what to write. One thing I loved as soon as I noticed it on arrival is that Emma Donoghue: And something that gave me a bit of Canadian literature absolutely includes and sees as central its international perspective on being a Canadian writer was this immigrant writers. In Ireland there’s a sense that there’s the Irish morning when I was filling in an online survey I was sent from and then there are a few colourful outsiders who have been let in. PEN. It was asking about state surveillance of the Internet and so Whereas I got to Canada and it seemed to me the people like on. And it included questions like: do you fear that if you write Ondaatje and Mistry, they were bang in the middle representing about a certain subject you will have your work banned? Or will Canada — often through stories about their homelands and you be, you know, arrested, shot? And I’m thinking wow, I don’t journeys to and from Canada. fear any of these things. So I suddenly had this sense of writing in a very privileged space where we can literally tweet what we like [Conversation shifts to influences, discussing how writers are and nobody’s going to come to our house with guns, you know. influencing pop culture and how a work might influence pop culture in particular] Mark Medley: All three of you, I’m sure, have been kind of branded with CanLit at one point in your careers as writers (or Mark Medley: Emma, I think if I was going to ask this question perhaps not). Do you think that term should be retired? I mean, to you I’d kind of reverse it. Have you seen writers following in does it do more harm than good? your footsteps, in the sense that Room came out and it was a huge international bestseller? Vincent Lam: No, I think it’s a very good thing. I think that it Have you noticed any kind of knockoffs or books that you should be an expected part of what a country does to think about would say probably wouldn’t have been published without Room? its vision of itself, and to think about the stories that it wants to tell. Emma Donoghue: So it’s just bizarre. I open my post every day And if anything I think that we are too shy of that as Canadians and there’s either a martyred mother figure or there’s a girl locked in general, you know, in many fields not just in writing. We sort up in a bunker, you know. So yeah, I currently feel a bit nauseous. of have this aspirational sense that, “Oh well if I really make it big Oh not another girl in a bunker story. But you know, I don’t kid then I’ll end up in America or in the U.K?” myself about my huge effect on the culture. I’m sure they were And we’re actually not ashamed or sheepish about that attitude published before Room too. It’s just now they’re all sent to me. at all. It seems somehow natural to us. But I don’t think that that’s helpful in terms of national vision. Mark Medley: Well are they asking you to blurb them or — I think that we should be intensely interested in the stories we’re telling each other, and a prime medium for that needs to be Emma Donoghue: To blurb them — Canadian literature. Mark Medley: Or are they just making sure they’re not too Mark Medley: Emily? close.

Emily Pohl-Weary: Yeah, for me, I don’t mind — I like to Emma Donoghue: No, no, a publisher would never worry that see local writer in someone’s bio because I want to read about their book was too close to a bestselling book. Not a bit. No, they my community and my city. And I grew up here. I grew up in want you to blurb it. And I think publishers should never go for Parkdale. And so rarely do I get to see my neighbourhood, you the obvious and blurb it, you know? I mean [to Vincent] do you know, as my neighbourhood. get sent a series of medical based books?

Mark Medley: Well as somebody who’s been adopted by the Vincent Lam: I have. Stacks and stacks — it’s so true, you know.

Winter 2015 21 Now accepting applications for the 2015-16 funding year.

NATIONAL PUBLIC rEADINGS pROGRAM Funded by the Canada Council for the Arts

• This program is open to all TWUC members for public readings taking place across Canada. Doctors write, you know — a doctor writes a novel or someone writes a novel set in a hospital where there’s a patient — yeah, we • Through this program, authors are paid a $250 reading should trade sometimes. fee and reimbursed up to $300 in travel expenses for a full (solo) reading. Authors are paid half of the above Emma Donoghue: Sure. Let’s do it. I’d love to read your doctor for a half (joint) reading. books — • Funding is limited and allocated on a first come, first served basis Vincent Lam: I can have your girls in bunkers.

Mark Medley: I was wondering what books you have read lately NATIONAL PUBLIC rEADINGS that point to an interesting new direction in Canadian writing? Northern pROGRAM Funded by the Canada Council for the Arts Vincent Lam: Well I think the book that comes immediately to mind is Rawi Hage’s Carnival, which is his most recent. And I • This program promotes author tours to remote think the reason this springs to mind is because it’s an immigrant Northern communities within Canada. story. But the immigrant is rather angry and vindictive and sometimes spiteful. He masturbates quite a bit, and also flies • In order to be eligible for this program, a host must around on a magic carpet And so it’s very counter to the form organize an author tour in their remote, Northern of what you expect of the Canadian immigrant story — noble, community for three full readings or six half readings. hardworking, long suffering, yadda yadda yadda, all these very Readings can take place in different venues within the virtuous things. same community. • The Union will pay the author a $250 honorarium per Emily Pohl-Weary: I’m always looking for different models full reading (for a total of $750) and up to $1800 in of femininity, different angles on what it means to be young, to transportation expenses. be female, to be empowered or sexual. So I was thinking actually — Tamara Faith Berger is there in the audience, and her writing, • A limited amount of funding has been allocated for which, you know, explores the fine line between erotica and porn. this program. Applications must be submitted at least Or Doretta Lau’s How Does a Blade of Grass Thank the Sun? I’m 4 weeks in advance of tour, and the tour must take so excited to see different kinds of female voices coming into place between April 1, 2015 - March 31, 2016. This the arena that aren’t kind of, you know, the things that I grew up program will close on August 31, 2015. reading.

Emma Donoghue is a writer of contemporary and historical fiction Writers-in-the-School Program whose eight novels include the international bestseller Room. Her most Funded by the Ontario Arts Council recent novel is Frog Music. • Applications are now being accepted for readings Vincent Lam is from the expatriate Chinese community of Vietnam. taking place between April 1, 2015 - August 31, 2015. He is an emergency physician. His first collection of short stories, This program is open to all TWUC members for visits Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures won the 2006 Scotiabank Giller taking place in Ontario-based schools. Prize and his novel The Headmaster’s Wager was shortlisted for the • Through this program, the Union subsidizes a portion Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction. of the author’s fee. Authors are paid $150 for a full day and $100 for a half day visit, and are reimbursed up Mark Medley is the books editor at the Globe and Mail and former to $250 in travel expenses for a full day and $125 for a books editor for the . half day. Emily Pohl-Weary is an award winning author, editor, and arts educator. Her previous books include a Hugo Award-winning For more information about all Reading Programs, please biography, a female superhero anthology, a series of girl pirate comics visit: http://www.writersunion.ca/content/programs and a young adult novel, Not Your Ordinary Wolf Girl. She’s currently the 2014 Toronto Public Library eWriter in residence for Young Voices.

22 write Fiction Why I Write

by Jim Smith

1. Isaac Asimov woke up in a foul, foul mood. It had been three 11. A horde of gerbils, working together for several days, pulled days since the African bull elephant had suddenly appeared in Alice Mary Norton out of the shipwreck. Sadly the Andre went the middle of the radar lab. There was a war on. down.

2. Far too late, I discovered that a barn owl had declared war on 12. But for a single hermit crab, the levee would not have failed, Leigh Brackett. She glanced at me sideways. and Robert Heinlein would have had himself frozen to offset Disney. 3. The chameleon fled down one alley after another to escape the riot. At last, a crack in the wall of this very library allowed him 13. On entering the Oort Cloud, a Giant Clam bows in the to resemble Ray Bradbury. direction of the former Pluto, which causes a cyclone localized to Nancy Kress’s neighbourhood. 4. In a distant war room, they plotted to massacre John Brunner and everyone who had read him, with dragonflies. 14. Damon Knight was decorated for having helped a flamingo survive a forest fire. 5. One anteater to another, near the end of day: “Have you noticed we have suffered almost an epidemic of Octavia 15. I drank as much as Fritz Leiber, whose play about the mass Butlers in recent days?” evacuation of Toledo, entitled, simply, Hamster, was performed three times. 6. In my imagination, Judy Merril encountering a bobcat in a blizzard could only end one way. 16. A manatee, thrown at a tower, causing it to collapse, was too much for Vonda McIntyre. 7. You would be frightened to discover that nuclear accidents are as common as the common toad, attributed to Groff Conklin, 17. According to Larry Niven, oysters are responsible for the global but more likely it was Willy Ley. warming fiction.

8. A single duck could have been responsible for the bridge 18. Conversely, an ice age caused the pig’s vestigial intelligence, if failure that terminated L. Sprague de Camp. you were to believe that silver-tonged devil Fred Pohl.

9. Lester del Rey changed his name briefly to Bulldog Oil Spill. 19. It took only two bottles of Red Wolf to persuade Spider Robinson to write about a zero gravity avalanche. 10. I can’t remember the name of Samuel Delany’s wife, nor the gorilla that she lost in the earthquake in which Chip made a 20. I am the toucan that Joanne Russ attempted to save from last confession. week’s volcanic eruption.

Winter 2015 23 Fiction

Selections from 1000 FASCINATING THINGS ABOUT ME he swam naked but he later died and there was a lot of nostalgia. (Short Fictions) Personally I can’t remember the name of his younger brother who was really really cute and beloved and who talked me almost into 3. They used to call the open fields around St. Lawrence College trying out for cheerleaders for Grade 12 because I was drinking by the Wayne Clifford buffer. then. Victor lived upstairs from Wayne, or with Wayne in one sense, Chapter review: Wayne Clifford is alive but is a hermit in the they shared an entrance. bowels of the earth, Victor is alive and is sitting in this room or Tom Marshall lived way the fuck downtown in an apartment on wants to, Tom Marshall is not alive, Nigel was imaginary, Gail the ground floor of a small apartment building that would likely Fox is alive I think but her later husband that guy who edits that have been the super’s place if he didn’t write poems and wasn’t a powerful literary magazine down east, or did, may not be, and Queen’s professor. I don’t know if Gail ever got over having to live on earth, Don Wayne called him Nigel over and over again at a party until Tom Knotts, the Michael Fox of 50’s movies is not alive, Michael Fox got screechy and jumped up and kicked Wayne in the shin. I’m not sure, Stuart Mackinnon applied for and got to be older I wasn’t sure at that time where Gail Fox lived, with Michael Fox and is still around somewhere though I guess we are not friends the Don Knotts of the Queen’s Quarterly editorial board. because of Joyce Wayne and the passage of 40 years with one card, Stuart Mackinnon lived all over the place and in each place he and Sally is just the very thinnest sliver of a shadow of a partial grew his hair and his beard until he had to move. I first met him memory of some form of desire which has survived (or not) with when Sally had punched him in the eye, she was a wicked painter her in that old lead box stamped “Wish I’d Not Lost Track”, dressed with a great angry hook. provocatively in a shadow of a flowered dress in a cave, Michael Michael Barnes was somewhere but when he died he gave up Barnes is not alive, David Helwig is, I believe he is the writer his apartment. He also stopped editing Quarry. king of some island, Michael Macklem is either alive or not alive, David Helwig was sort of a red-bearded legend who lived Mulvena is irrelevant and Terry O’Hara was me if I had a more everywhere at once at least around the university or at least the secure family, I am alive. fifth floor of Watson Hall once it was built. I go back to Kingston sometimes for court now, but never all of For the longest time, I thought there was a secret tunnel from me. the Quarry offices in Kingston, to the Oberon offices in Ottawa, where some twisted legend named Michael Macklem made people 17. I was in the yard when several lemurs escaped from Little happy or unhappy by publishing books. I think he was made up, Big Books as the gyre widened, were throwing firecrackers because Where to Eat in Canada paid for any number of short story at me as I rushed up the tree to get away, and then I realized the collections by a movement of writers who did not believe in using last lines were up there & I was a jungle monkey that drew a names. picture-graph of me in a moon capsule wrapped in a newspaper There were no Quarry offices anywhere, or they were a with only pictures of Ted Berrigan who when I was an ignorant distributed network, like the rad in Tom’s apartment and the table child I thought was a really fat Abraham Lincoln who talked dirty in Helwig’s house and the big soft chair of Gail’s attention and because he was driven mad by the thinner Abraham Lincoln, the countertop in Special Collections Douglas Library where Stu whom I had just mentioned in my grade 8 talk to 32 students on worked and the post office down across from the public library the second floor of the absolute evils of communism. about two blocks over from Marshall’s apartment, who kept the Ted Berrigan had appeared to me in Fatima, Portugal, and told envelopes and the stamps and the glue. me it was the absolute shits and he wrote something and said “this I entered town from the east and the west and from the north. is a poem of mine which I am going to sign ‘quizzical old bag in Or at least from the direction of the oil tanks and Jean and Joe’s blue skirt’ and they will put this eight floors down in the Vatican garage, from Mulvena’s farm and the St. Lawrence. I walked beside a pipe where the Pope’s shit runs, communists touching it over bridges to get to the National Defence College on Ontario with their fingers as they tunnel.” and down Princess to the Commodore bar and out Union to a No, I have not fact-checked this. confluence of old roads one of which had a fairy tale prison on it from a distance, one that in fact could never be seen close up. Jim Smith writes and litigates in Toronto. Judy Merril pressganged him Over on the hill by Fort Henry, a big fat white body turned out into the Union way back. Most recent book is 2012’s Happy Birthday, to be older brother Terry O’Hara who I thought was just fat but Nicanor Parra (Mansfield Press). Catch him at this year’s Fringe turned out to be a true hippy and an early protester and someone Festival. who went to law school and who time-travelled to sit as a large but colourful judge out in Brampton which did not yet exist when

24 write Business & Reports

aligned with the Canada Council’s urgent call to action regarding Public Lending Rights innovation (to increase the impact of funding and activity, and to make a compelling story about what we do for Canadians and Commission Report Canadian society), and simplification — the streamlining of the many complex administrative processes, so that the maximum Genni Gunn, Liaison resources are available for artists and artist organizations. High on the list of priorities, though still a couple of years away, is the importance of modernizing PLR both in its administration On September 19th 2014, I attended the PLR Executive meeting (with online registration, direct deposits, etc.) and in its approach in Ottawa. This was our first meeting with a new Chair, Beatriz to existing and future technologies within the library sector and Hausner, whose opening remarks reiterated the clarity we now the book industry (for example, ebook lending models). In March have regarding the relationship between PLR and the Canada 2014, a working group met to discuss the commissioning of new Council. research to explore the presence and holdings records in library A little background if you haven’t been in the loop. Three years use, which would help in developing a more “robust regionally ago, Mr. Robert Sirman, former CEO of Canada Council sought to representative sampling methodology to support the program better understand the relationship between the PLR Commission mandate.” and the Canada Council. As part of its cycle of governance, the The research will compare two program payment models — Canada Council’s board initiated an internal audit of the Public our current one where we look at presence of titles in the library Lending Right program. From the audit’s recommendations came catalogues, versus a modified one in which presence incorporates the three reports authored by Roy MacSkimming that cover the the number of copies held by libraries/library systems. The history of PLR, international comparisons and the arrival of new research will also include a pilot project, using one or more technologies, and options for program renewal. These reports libraries to compile data on the impact of the modified approach are available on the PLR website, www.plr-dpp.ca. The bottom on author payments. line is that PLR is now understood to be a program within the At the moment, in order to continue to operate with the same Canada Council, one that constitutes roughly five per cent of the budget while approximately 5,000 titles are being added every Canada Council’s annual budget. In its advisory role, the PLR year, the PLR Commission has decided to make a significant Commission continues to endorse the program’s methodology, its change, which will take effect in February 2015. This is to raise the eligibility parameters, and the application of the sliding scale to payment threshold to $50 from the previous minimum payment determine level of compensation. The Commission also compiles of $25. Considering the desire of the Commission to make wise and presents its annual report to the Canada Council’s board each use of funds and to ensure that the payments continue to have June. meaningful impact as compensation for public use in libraries, For the past year, the Chair of PLR and the CEO of Canada it makes little sense if the amount of the cheque is less than the Council have been meeting quarterly to create a more co-operative cost of delivery. (It now costs roughly $40 over the course of a relationship. This Fall, our new Chair Beatriz Hausner had her year to administer a file.) As a point of reference, in 2013–14, the first meeting with Simon Brault, the new Canada Council CEO. Category I rate of return for a sole-authored work discovered in a Mr. Brault is a longtime outspoken advocate for arts and culture, single library collection in the PLR sampling was slightly above and has authored a book, No Culture, No Future, in which he $50. Those most impacted by the new payment floor of $50 will be establishes that the arts are not only a right, but a necessity. For anthology contributors, and authors whose single registered title is a primer into Mr. Brault’s ideas and direction, please read the more than five years old and present in only one sampled library. excerpt from one of his recent speeches in this issue of Write (page The revised payment floor compares favourably to other countries 9). which use a similar, presence-based method of calculating PLR At the December Executive meeting, Ms. Hausner reported payments. on a very positive exchange with Mr. Brault, who she felt is A reminder of the four categories in the sliding scale currently knowledgeable about PLR, has a deep understanding of libraries in use: Category I: 0-5 years receives the maximum hit rate; not just as disseminators of Canadian content, but as cultural Category II: 6-10 years receives 80 per cent of the hit rate; memory banks, and is leading a charge to move the Canada Category III: 11-15 years receives 70 per cent of the hit rate; and Council into a public sphere — so that rather than simply a Category IV: 16+ years receives 60 per cent of the hit rate. Detailed purveyor of cheques, it is seen as a public good. As such, he is information is available on the PLR website. interested in advancing understanding of PLR not only as a benefit The next PLR update report will come after our Executive for writers, but more importantly, as a common good associated meeting in mid-March 2015, when we anticipate preliminary with public benefit and use of library collections. PLR is well results of the research project.

Winter 2015 25 Business & Reports

Education Sector Access Copyright Report In its efforts to redefine its relationships with the key sectors in its marketplace Access Copyright has undertaken a number of Michael Elcock, Liaison important initiatives. For the first time ever (as I understand it), senior personnel from Access Copyright have held meetings with senior representatives from Canada’s post-secondary sector in order to better assess their needs with regard to copyright and Introductory content access. This has resulted in the development of creative TWUC members will be aware of the diminishing revenues they and cooperative trial programmes — relatively small at present, are receiving through Payback and/or other income they might but filled with future potential. Similar steps have been taken in receive for the licensed use of their works. It should go without the K-12 sector. As a result 2015 will see some interesting pilot saying that the reduction in these payments is a direct result partnerships with educators. of the fact that many of Canada’s educational institutions and organisations have taken decisions not to renew licenses with Governance Access Copyright — Canada’s copyright licensing agency. As well, As mentioned above, and reported before, Access Copyright has Access Copyright has had to place a sizeable amount of funds radically redesigned the way in which the organisation is governed. in trust pending the results of Copyright Board decisions, and The organisation has had to design a structure appropriate to pending the outcome of litigation. (See the news section in this survival in today’s marketplace — in the face of changed laws issue for details on this year’s payout to writers). In this report, I and 21st century technological realities. Although election and will focus on some of the initiatives that Access Copyright is taking appointment to future Boards of Directors will be based on to deal with the challenges that we are all facing in this area. competency rather than constituency, the constituents who created AC in the first place — creators and publishers — will retain a Staff/Personnel strong advisory role; a role guaranteed through AC’s constitution Access Copyright has now reduced its personnel complement by and bylaws. 40 per cent since Roanie Levy was appointed Executive Director nearly two years ago. Partnerships There is much more — international joint ventures and Overview cooperative initiatives with domestic organisations, partnerships With support from a Board which fully understands the difficulties into the tech sector, and so on. A number of these will be revealed faced by Canada’s creative and publishing sectors, Roanie Levy in the coming months. But the point of all of it is to ensure that and her staff have promulgated an imaginative and pragmatic we are able to unite those sectors that have obvious common blueprint for the organisation to follow into the future. To quote interests — creators, publishers, educators, librarians, learners, from her most recent report to Access Copyright’s Board — “...we researchers, and readers. That is the only way we can hope to have have devised a clear vision towards transforming Access Copyright sustainable creator and publisher industries into the future — and so that it remains in the service of creators and publishers by an educational sector with a strong, vibrant and intelligent core of better serving the needs of educators, learners, researchers, and Canadian content. readers.” Access Copyright has extended its multinational agreement with That suggests a very different approach to the way I for one, the UK’s Copyright Licensing Agency. The agreement will allow viewed the organisation in the past. It is an approach that Access Copyright to license UK subsidiaries of Canadian head- recognises that Access Copyright must transform itself from a office corporations (and vice-versa) with our combined repertory. ‘rights protective’ organisation into one that provides content and AC has similar agreements with the U.S., , New Zealand, services that are relevant to today’s marketplace. That sounds and Finland. straightforward and relatively easy, but it is a radical shift from the organisation that existed a couple of years ago. Most of all it Access Copyright’s three-year Strategic Plan is a huge transformation in the culture of the organisation, and Without going into details here, I can say that this is the most that will be reflected as much as anywhere in the shape, style, and thorough and practical such plan I have seen at any Board I have make-up of Access Copyright’s Board of Directors. In the past AC’s ever been privileged to serve on. The Plan stems directly from Board has been made up of representatives from the Creator and the 2012 AGM where the following — among other things — Publishing constituencies — basically writers and publishers. Over was agreed. “The Board of Directors of Access Copyright directs the next two years — with 2015 as a ‘transition’ year — that Board the organization to transform by expanding its existing mission will change entirely to a competency-based model. It will include with new services, business models, and brand identity that are representatives from our client base — our marketplace. It will inclusive of all those who use and value content.” include people who are knowledgeable about creating new value In the view of this somewhat sceptical and distrustful observer chains in creative industries, individuals who understand change who was asked 18 months ago to allow his name to go forward as management and the demands of systems in transition. the TWUC representative on Access Copyright’s Board we could Despite, or because of, the challenges that we all face, it is an not be in smarter, more hard working hands. intensely exciting time to be involved with these changes.

26 write Ontario New Year’s resolution is to start putting the fine words of our Statement into action, and I’m all ears as to ways we can do that Report in communities across Ontario. It’s all about outreach, putting “handles” on our Union so that By Andrew J. Borkowski. those who want more involvement can find more involvement. Regional Representative We’ve made a start. Our monthly meetups in downtown Toronto are going strong. In the New Year we’ll be adding some guest speakers to the program starting with legendary editor (and now The new year finds me a quarter of the way through my term author and TWUC member) Douglas Gibson on February 9. At as Ontario Representative, with a raft of resolutions to carry the gathering on April 13, The Toronto Arts Council will give the forward into 2015. My first National Council meeting in October Toronto group a presentation on their programs for writers. was a galvanizing event, helping me to frame those resolutions. Lest anyone think that this is a Toronto-centric effort, I’d like to Our day-long planning session for the Union’s Strategic Plan give our colleagues in Ottawa a shout. TWUCers in the Nation’s reminded me of the historic turn at which we find ourselves. To Capital have arguably been the most active, meeting regularly be sure, the monumental challenges facing writers around the and posting on the regional forums area of the TWUC website. world cast their shadow over the proceedings, but the group’s Their most recent innovation is the TWUC Ottawa Reviews site, resolve that there are things that must, can, and will be done to a blog on which members can post book reviews that they’ve stem the tide was an inspiration. With the Union poised to begin written or reviews of their work written by others. Check it out at accepting membership applications from self-published writers, twucottawareviews.wordpress.com. The site offers a tantalizing National Council gave final ratification to the Union’s new Equity glimpse of what we can do under the TWUC banners to take back Statement. The Statement is broader and more emphatic than its publishing and open new channels for literary discourse. predecessor and acknowledges that we in the Writers’ Union have The settling-in phase of my tenure is over, and I’m planning on a job to do in ensuring that our membership reflects the Canada making 2015 the year I hit the road in Ontario. On March 1, I’m not just of today, but of tomorrow as well, as the society we strive meeting up with the Ottawa gang (the date is confirmed, time and to reflect becomes more and more diverse with each passing year. venue are TBA at press time), from whom I’m hoping to prise a Diversity isn’t just a matter of ethnicity or gender; it’s also a few pointers on local organization to pass on to other regions. An generational concern. Looking at the cultural mix of my students April gathering is in the works for Kingston and London is on my at George Brown College in Toronto is a weekly reminder that radar. In the meantime, if you’d like to host or help organize a to be young is to be living in a world whose face has radically TWUC meetup in your area drop me a line at changed the world many of us TWUCers grew up in. So my first [email protected]. All the best in 2015!

as well as consulting on additional places, besides the Minister of BC/Yukon Education, to send a letter urging the return of qualified teacher- librarians to B.C. K-12 schools. Both motions were proposed by Regional Report Heidi Greco. As well, member Rita Wong requested support for the provincial ESL Matters campaign (eslmatters.ca); a letter of By Carellin Brooks, support went out on December 1. Regional Representative Here in the Lower Mainland, we’ve tentatively scheduled our next Vancouver meeting for March 2015. As well, member Elizabeth Buchanan has kindly volunteered her home for a Salt Our most recent BC/Yukon regional meeting was held in Victoria Spring Island meeting in April 2015. The meeting will be within on December 6 at the Library. Members discussed agents, pros walking distance of the ferry for members without cars. and cons; marketing efforts or the lack thereof by publishers; the Canadian Authors for Indies Day: May 2, 2015. Following up on benefits of traditional publishers in the realm of distribution; the success of a similar U.S. initiative last year, Canadian authors self-published author applications; possible lobbying of BC Ferries will have the chance to work for independent booksellers on to include more local books and author signings; royalties for May 2, 2015. A list of participating bookstores in B.C. (no Yukon secondhand book sales; and our next rep. booksellers listed yet, unfortunately) can be found at this link: In October I was in Toronto for the last set of in-person National authorsforindies.com/#!british-columbia/c6zp. To apply, simply Council meetings before the AGM in Winnipeg next May. (We contact your local indie bookstore and offer your services! voted, as previously reported, to hold our January meetings by Needed: BC/Yukon Regional Representative for 2015-2017. Don’t teleconference to cut down on costs.) There, AGM motions were forget the upcoming vacancy for regional representative. I’ve heard accepted by National Council for routing through our Chair, Harry from a couple of interested parties so far, and would love to hear Thurston. The national office is currently updating its list of B.C. from more! Contact me at [email protected]. post-secondary institutions and their status with Access Copyright,

Winter 2015 27 Business & Reports

Member Awards and News

New Releases and Announcements TWUC member nominees included Phil Hall for X (Thee Hellbox) and Christine McNair who won the $4000 prize for her work B.C. member Shelley A. Leedahl announces the release of her new pleasantries and other misdemeanours (Apt. 9 Press). book of essays, I Wasn’t Always like This (Signature Editions). These brave and intimate essays explore the implicit complexities when Member Mark Zuehlke is the Recipient of the 2014 Pierre Berton personal and professional lives both complement and clash. Award/Governor General’s History Award for Popular Media. He has been honoured as “one of the country’s pre-eminent military Member Jillian Dagg’s latest contemporary romantic novel Music historian” having “written more than fifteen books on our military to her Heart (Black Lyon Publishing, Baker City, OR) has now been legacy.” released worldwide. Paul Bowdring’s novel The Strangers’ Gallery, winner of the 2013 Member Susan McCaslin recently launched her new memoir Into Winterset Award, has been long-listed for the 2015 International the Mystic: My Years with Olga (Inanna Publications), a mixed- IMPAC Dublin Award and is the winner of the Writers’ Alliance of genre account of her sixteen-year relationship with an elderly Newfoundland & Labrador 2014 Heritage & History Award. mystic living in Port Moody, B.C.. CBC Books has announced the longlist for the 14th annual Canada B.C. member Lois Choksy, writing as Blair McDowell, announces Reads competition. This year’s edition intends to recognize “one the release of her latest novel of romantic suspense, Romantic book to break barriers.” The longlist for books that might be part Road (Wild Rose Press). The action is a wild romp down the of the competition includes books by members Dionne Brand, Romantische Strasse in Germany, on to Salzburg, Vienna and What We All Long For (Vintage Canada); Naomi Klein, This Changes Budapest, ending with an explosive finale on the shores of Lake Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate (Knopf Canada); and Eden Balaton. Robinson, Monkey Beach (Vintage Canada).

Awards The Hamilton Arts Council announced the winners of the 21st annual Hamilton Literary Awards. member Lawrence Hill won Several members were finalists in the 2014 Ottawa Book Awards. the non-fiction award for Blood: The Stuff of Life (House of Anansi In fiction, they include Rita Donovan for her novel, Maura Quell Press), based on his CBC Massey Lectures. Member John Terpstra (Buschek Books); Henry Beissel for Fugitive Horizons (Guernica won the poetry award for his collection Brilliant Falls (Gaspereau Editions); Barbara Fradkin for The Whisper of Legends (Dundurn Press). Press), and Sonia Tilson for The Monkey Puzzle Tree (Biblioasis). In nonfiction the member nominess were Charlotte Gray for The The B.C. Achievement Foundation has announced the shortlist Massey Murder (HarperCollins), and Andrew Steinmetz for This for the 11th annual B.C. National Award for Canadian Non- Great Escape: The Case of Michael Paryla (Biblioasis). fiction. The shortlist includes member James Raffan for his book Circling the Midnight Sun: Culture and Change in the Invisible Arctic The BP Nichol Chapbook Poetry Award was awarded in November. (HarperCollins).

Cynthia Flood Ann C. Jamieson Fran Muir- Sadler Thank you Peggy Gale Marthe Jocelyn Ms. Karen Ms. Robina Salter Gary Geddes Sandi Johnson Mulhallen Mary C. Sheppard for your donation. The Writers’ Union Carole Giangrande Smaro Kamboureli Mr. Robert Munsch Mr. Glen Sorestad would like to thank the following lian goodall Deanna Kawatski Susin Nielsen James R. Stevens individuals for their donations to the Judy Haiven Stephen Kimber Charles Noble Daniel Stoffman Union. Trevor W. Harrison David Koulack Don Oravec Ms. Merna Audrey Andrews Rene Chartrand Eldon Hay Jane Lind Ms. Uma Summers Janet Barkhouse Patricia Cove Ms. Burton MacDonald Parameswaran Mr. David Suzuki Bob Barton Farzana Doctor Ms. Dorris Heffron Walter Bruce Ms. Kit Pearson Mr. Moyez G. Daniel Jay Baum Allan Donaldson Michael Helm MacDonald Mr. Edward O. Vassanji Steven Benstead Sonja Dunn Lawrence Hill Carol Matas Phillips Steve Venright Donna Besel Maggie Dwyer Crystal Hope David Mills Mary Pike Ms. Elizabeth Lynne Bowen R. Bruce Elder Hurdle Gloria Montero Jocelyn Reekie Verkoczy Kate Braid Soraya Erian Edith Iglauer Mr. Roger Moore Mr. William N. Barbara M. Walker Barry Callaghan Krystyna Wanda Kevin Irie Mr. Daniel David Rowe Judith Wambera David Chariandy Fedosejevs Dayv James-French Moses Ms. Judy Ann Rachel Wyatt

28 write New Members

Robert Ashe, They Efim Cheinis, How Watchdogs and Lynda Anne Gabrielle D.C. Troicuk, Loose Called Me Chocolate to Find a Job in Gadflies: Activism Monahan, What My Prendergast, Pearls and Other Rocket, Formac, Canada, Oxford from Marginal to Body Knows, Coteau Audacious, Orca Stories, Cape Breton 2014 Univeristy Press, Mainstream, Viking Books, 2003 Books, 2013 University Press, 2008 Canada, 2001 2010 Richard Austin, M.J. Moores, Time’s Maria Saba, Three 1969: Once Upon a Carmela Circelli, Elinor Florence, Tempest - The Persian Love Deborah-Anne Time In , Sweet Nothing: An Bird’s Eye View, Chronicles of Xannia, Stories, Gardoon Tunney, The View Thou Art That, 2014 Elemental Case for Dundurn, Oct 2014 Part One; GWL Publications, 2011 from the Lane, Taking Our Time, Publishing, 2014 Enfield & Wizenty, Astrid Blodgett, You Marie Viviane, Can Heather Smith, Quattro Books, 2014 Haven’t Changed Love Heal, Publish Shani Mootoo, Baygirl, Orca Book 2014 a Bit, University of America, 2011 Moving Forward Publishers, 2013 Alberta Press, 2013 Warren Clements, Sideways Like a Crab, Charmaine The Full Mountie, , 2014 Annette Bower, Hammond, Toby McClelland & Woman of the Pet Therapy Dog Julia Nunes, Beyond Stewart, 2003 Substance, Soul Says Be a Buddy Not Crazy: Journeys Mate Publishing, Pat Crocker, Flex a Bully, Kendahl Through Mental 2013 Appeal: A Vegetarian House Press, 2013 Illness, McClelland & Cookbook for Stewart, 2002 Alexis Kienlen, 13, Families with Meat Frontenac House, Dianne O’Connor, I Eaters, Whitecap, 2011 Can Be Me: A Helping 2014 Book for Children Arno Kopecky, The Michael Dallaire, from Troubled Nirmala Thomas, Oil Man and the Teaching with the Families, Health Pampum Koniyum Sea: Navigating the Ryan Sohmer, Wind: Spirituality in Communications, (Snakes and Northern Gateway, Looking for Canadian Education, 1990 Ladders), DC Books, Douglas and Group Volume University Press of 2014 McIntyre, 2013 Sanford Osler, 5, Blind Ferret America, 2011 Canoe Crossings, Entertainment Inc. Lois Lorimer, Marika Heritage House, 2012 Stripmall Subversive, PROVISIONAL Deliyannides, 2014 Alec Butler, Rough Variety Crossing Kevin Sylvester, Bitter Lake, The Chelene Knight, Paradise, Quattro, Press, 2013 Naïma Oukerfellah, Neil Flambé and the Porcupine’s Quill, Braided Skin, 2014 Ici, d’est different Marco Polo Murders, 2014 Merle Massie, Mother Tongue d là-bas, Baynard Simon & Schuster, M.H. Callway, Forest Prairie Edge: Publishing Ltd., due Jeunesse Canada, 2012 Windigo Fire, Place History in March 2015 2014 Seraphim Editions, Saskatchewan, Sylvia Taekema, Cassy Welburn, 2014 University of Kerry-Lee Powell, Seconds, Orca Book Changelings, Manitoba Press, Inheritance, Biblioasis Publishers, 2014 Richard Cavell, Frontenac House 2014 Press, 2014 Marinetti Dines with Ltd., due September the High Command, 2015 Guernica, 2014 Charlene Challenger, The Voices In Between, Tightrope Books, Randi Druzin, 2014 Between the Pipes, Greystone Books Rie Charles, A 2013 Hole in My Heart, Dundurn, 2014 Tim Falconer,

Winter 2015 29 In Memoriam

in British Columbia. Blanche published three works of fiction in Claire Festel the 1970s, The Immortal Soul of Edwin Carlysle, Pretty Lady, and The Manipulator, which won the Canadian Booksellers’ Award in 1973. She co-wrote A Celibate Season with Carol Shields and their long-time friendship resulted in the book A Memoir of Friendship: 1957–2014 Letters Between Carol Shields and Blanche Howard. Blanche lived the later part of her life in North Vancouver with her husband, where she pursued a varied career in writing, stints at chartered accountancy and numerous volunteer activities.

Born in a small town on the Gaspe Peninsula in Quebec, Claire Festel had a long career as a writer, storyteller and booster of Canadian outdoors experiences. Claire moved to the Yukon in Kevin Leonard 1977, where she lived on and off for more than thirty years. It was after earning her BA from the University of British Columbia and returning to the Yukon that she met her husband and long time travelling companion Ed. The Yukon inspired Claire’s nonfiction 1957-2013 book Remarkable Yukon Women, published in 2011. The book is a series of portraits that “paint a picture of what life was--and is- -really like for Yukon women.” In 2009 Claire and her husband moved to the hills above Penticton, British Columbia.

Born in Montreal in 1957, Kevin Leonard met his wife Sandra in 1982. The couple moved to Toronto where he became a professor at the ’s Institute of Health Policy,

Blanche Howard Management and Evaluation. Leonard, who was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease at age 14, became a passionate patient advocate who encouraged his students “to actually talk to patients 1923–2014 about their perspectives. How they felt about their role in their own care.” He founded Patient Destiny in 2005 to promote “patients as partners in their health care” and advocated for the advancement of eHealth and giving patients electronic access to their health information. In 2005, he released the book A Prescription for Patience: Dr. Leonard’s Guide To Keeping Our Healthcare System Healthy! Something of a Renaissaince man, Leonord was the author of six plays, including Coaching Matters, Blanche Howard died at age 90 in West Vancouver. She was based on a period in his life when, after a letter to then Vancouver born in Daysland, Alberta and earned a science degree from the Canucks coach Roger Neilson, he was hired by the team as video University of Alberta, which she enrolled in at the age of 16. She coach. His 1994 tenure with the Canucks included creating a married her husband Bruce Howard in 1945 and eventually the computer system that captured both data and video, making couple settled in Penticton B.C., where they lived for 25 years. In information available almost instantly at a coach’s request. In 1956, Blanche had early success as a wrtier, publishing a short tribute to Kevin, the University of Toronto has established the story in Macleans Magazine. In 1960, Blanche decided to article as Kevin J. Leonard Award for students in the Institute of Health a Chartered Accountant, graduating as one of the first female CAs Policy, Management and Evaluation.

30 write Black Locust Studio: Portraits in paint or cast stone by James Walke, visual artist.

Consultations by appointment.

[email protected], 705-924-3847

jwalkeart.wordpress.com

WRITERSUNION.CA Have you logged in lately? Take advantage of the Union’s tools to raise your profile!

The Writers’ Union of Canada’s Once you have entered your city and member but your first initial and website is here to help you. This is province in your member profile you last name in all lowercase letters, where you can find the latest TWUC become searchable by location as well i.e. our chair Harry Thurston would news, professional resources, post as name, which helps when reading be hthurston. Your password is the announcements for your upcoming hosts and media members are looking same as it always was and if you can’t activities, and converse with your for an expert author in your area. remember, you can reset it. If that still fellow members on hot topics in the isn’t working, please contact info@ discussion forums. Every time you visit, MEMBER ANNOUNCEMENTS writersunion.ca and Valerie will give you please log in — there is information Post your member announcements by a hand. only visible to members! logging in and hitting the red “Post” in the For Members section of the website. TWITTER MEMBERS PAGE Tell the world about your latest book, If you are on Twitter follow us at Be sure to keep your member page up your upcoming reading, your recent @twuc; we’ll follow you back. If you to date. Include a photo, a bibliography, award. It’s not bragging, it’s self- add @twuc to your tweet we will do our a biography, and a link to your own promotion. Member announcements best to retweet it for you, but only a few website if you have one. Every time appear in their own section as well as tweets per event please. someone visits the TWUC website a being randomly refreshed on any page collage of members’ pictures appears of the website giving you more chances FACEBOOK on the front page. This is randomly for more eyes to see your good news. If you are on Facebook, don’t forget to selected and refreshed at each visit but “like” us to receive TWUC updates in you won’t appear if you don’t have a TROUBLE LOGGING IN? your newsfeed. picture in your member profile page. Your username is no longer the word save the date

The 2015 AGM and OnWords Conference is taking place in beautiful Winnipeg, MB on May 28 – May 31, 2015, hosted in partnership with the League of Canadian Poets.

Featuring keynote speakers from Booknet and Kobo, professional development sessions, the 2015 Margaret Laurence Lecture, lively conversation, and more! Hope to see you there.

For more information: writersunion.ca/onwords-conference-and-annual-general-meeting

Register at writersunion.ca

Photo Credit: Zyron Paul Felix

Publishing 2.0 — Tips and Traps Professional Development workshop for writers in all phases of their careers

Coming to a city near you! Presenters Caroline Adderson & Mary W. Walters discuss writing in the digital age.

• Victoria, BC: March 4, 2015 • Vancouver, BC: March 6, 2015

Learn the skills needed to succeed in today’s publishing landscape, both the traditional and independent route.

Visit www.writersunion.ca/pd- workshops for more information, and TWUC Members to register online today! receive a discount on Can’t make it? A web-based video registration! presentation of this workshop will be prepared and offered for sale on our website at a later date.