A Writer Pushes Back Against Marginalization Writing Wounded
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WRITE THE MAGAZINE OF THE WRITERS’ UNION OF VOLUME 45 NUMBER 1 CANADA SPRING 2017 Indigequeer: A Writer Pushes Back Against Marginalization 10 Writing Wounded Histories: Respect, Reconciliation, and Reluctance 16 Indigenous Literatures Break and Beckon to Tradition 24 • INDIGENOUS EDITORS CIRCLE • EDITING INDIGENOUS MANUSCRIPTS August 13 – 19, 2017 Humber College Lakeshore Campus Toronto, ON The Indigenous Editors Presented by Humber College and the Canada Circle is a collaborative Council for the Arts with generous support from the forum for Indigenous Department of Canadian Heritage and workshop founder the Saskatchewan Arts Board editors to discuss best practices for editing In concurrent Indigenous-led workshops, explore and publishing issues related to editing Indigenous manuscripts, including cultural protocols for traditional material, Indigenous content. copyright and permissions for communally owned stories, consultation with Elders, and editing trauma. Editing Indigenous Featuring evening literary programming by Manuscripts informs and The RIEL Centre. sensitizes non-Indigenous editors and publishers to For more information or to register: working with Indigenous www.humberindigenouseditors.ca writers, editors and texts. From the Chair By George Fetherling By the time you read this, the Vancouver AGM and OnWords conference will be right around • INDIGENOUS EDITORS CIRCLE the corner. As Vancouver is my home, I thought that many of you who will be visiting from • EDITING INDIGENOUS MANUSCRIPTS other regions might appreciate a little local info. If you’re like me, and like most other writers I know, you enjoy August 13 – 19, 2017 browsing bookstores when you travel. Vancouver is far from being Canada’s most bookish city (that would be Victoria/Sydney) but it has managed better than most other places to retain at least the core of its Macleod’s is located at 455 West Pender (at the corner of Humber College Lakeshore Campus once vibrant bookselling sector. I don’t mean Indigo and other cookie- Richards, kitty-corner from where you’ll find Albion Books). cutter places, but rather stand-alone establishments with distinct Just down Pender is the Paper Hound Bookshop at no. 344. The Toronto, ON personalities — and books you’re highly unlikely to find elsewhere. owners, Kim Koch and Rod Clarke, run a beautifully curated store Harbour Centre, the downtown satellite campus of Simon Fraser that specializes, they say, in “Arts Amatoria, Abcedaria, Beatnik, University, is where our meetings and events will be held. As luck Costume & Textile, Botany, Rants & Incendiary Tracts, Vancouver The Indigenous Editors would have it, it is within easy screaming distance of a number of the Stories, [Lewis] Carroll, [Roald] Dahl, [Edward] Gorey, [Maurice] most interesting bookshops, the kind where highly knowledgeable Sendak.” Presented by Humber College and the Canada Circle is a collaborative staff sell out-of-print books along with some new ones. Of course there are other bookshop clusters that require more Council for the Arts with generous support from the Literally a one-minute walk north of Harbour Centre is MacLeod’s than walking. Kestrel Books in Kitsilano is an excellent example. forum for Indigenous Books, an immense regional institution run by Don Stewart. It is Numerically the largest number of bookshops is located in East Department of Canadian Heritage and workshop a magnet for visiting writers from around the world and has often Vancouver and North Vancouver. There’s one chain (but not a chain editors to discuss best been used as a set in feature films and television shows. in the Indigo or mall-store sense) with locations in both these places. founder the Saskatchewan Arts Board I once wrote a looong magazine article about the complicated This is Pulpfiction Books, with stores full of new and used books practices for editing workings of MacLeod’s and its owner in the context of Vancouver’s together, on Main Street and Commercial Drive in the east end In concurrent Indigenous-led workshops, explore bookselling heritage. If you’re interested you can find it online at and a third one on West Broadway, way across town by way of the and publishing geist.com; just search the name of the bookstore or my name. Granville or Burrard bridges. issues related to editing Indigenous manuscripts, I once called MacLeod’s one of the city’s three most important The above falls comically short of being exhaustive, and I of including cultural protocols for traditional material, Indigenous content. cultural institutions (along with the louche Penthouse nightclub, course apologize. There’s just barely enough space here to mention established 1947, and the bar at the Sylvia Hotel). Its inventories what will be Vancouver’s newest bookshop, with one of the city’s copyright and permissions for communally owned in literature, history, and art are outstanding, but there’s hardly a biggest inventories. It is Massy Books, named for the proprietor, subject area in which it does not also specialize. For example, it has Patricia Massy, at 2206 Main Street, just down the street from one stories, consultation with Elders, and editing trauma. Editing Indigenous the best selection of Indigenous books I’ve ever seen and a notable of the Pulpfictions at 2242. It’s set to open on June 1 — the day our inventory on women’s issues. TWUC gathering gets under way. Featuring evening literary programming by Manuscripts informs and The RIEL Centre. sensitizes non-Indigenous editors and publishers to For more information or to register: working with Indigenous LOOKing ahead: Join the writers’ union of canada at our www.humberindigenouseditors.ca writers, editors and texts. upcoming conferences and Annual general meetings OnWords & AGM in Vancouver, BC Canadian Writers’ Summit in Toronto, ON OnWords & AGM in Halifax, NS June 1 – 4, 2017 June 14 – 17, 2018 May 30 – June 2,. 2019 . Learn more about our professional development offerings at www.writersunion.ca Spring 2017 3 national council committee chairs Chair Nominating George Fetherling Heather Wood First Vice-Chair membership committee Marjorie Doyle Contents spring 2017 Christine Cowley Second Vice-Chair Orysia Dawydiak Ava Homa Bonnie Lendrum Treasurer 3 Chair’s Report Michael Mirolla Julia Lin Marjorie Simmons 5 Writing Rights BC/Yukon Representative twuc national office Carol Shaben 6 News Executive Director Alberta/NWT/Nunavut John Degen, ext. 221 Writer’S Blot Representative [email protected] Gail Sidonie Sobat 8 Writer’s Prompt Associate Director Manitoba/Saskatchewan Siobhan O’Connor, ext. 222 9 Industry Q & A Representative [email protected] Lauren Carter Office Administrator Dispatches Ontario Representative Valerie Laws, ext. 224 10 On Indigenegativity: Rejection and Reconciliation in a Jeffrey Round [email protected] Pool of Liberal Tears Quebec Representative Membership & Donor Shelagh Plunkett Campaign Coordinator BY JOSHUA WHITEHEAD Atlantic Representative Nancy MacLeod, ext. 226 12 Writing About Reconciliation and Facing My Biggest Fears Chuck Bowie [email protected] BY RICHARD VAN CAMP Advocates Fund Development & Sapha Burnell Projects Manager 14 A Poet’s Words, Dividing and Bridging a Family and Waubgeshig Rice Gaeby Abrahams, ext. 223 Community Mary W. Walters [email protected] BY TANYA ROACH Editor Hal Niedzviecki [email protected] 16 Writing Wounded Histories Guest Editorial Adviser Waubgeshig Rice BY LOUISE BERNICE HALFE Deadline for Summer issue June 19, 2017 18 Leaving a Job, Becoming a Writer, Finding One’s Lost Self Editorial Board Lauren Carter, John Degen, Nikki Reimer, Leslie Shimotakahara, Allan Weiss BY ELAINE J. WAGNER Editorial Liaison Corey Redekop 20 Humour and Coping in Native Writing Copy Editor Nancy MacLeod BY GORD GRISENTHWAITE Write Magazine Advertising Gaeby Abrahams [email protected] Design soapboxdesign.com 22 On Seeing and Being Seen: Writing with Empathy Layout Gaeby Abrahams BY ALICIA ELLIOTT Cover Illustration Jessie Boulard jessieboulard.com features Views expressed in Write do not necessarily reflect those of The Writers’ Union of Canada. Services advertised are not necessarily endorsed by the Union. All 24 In Their Golden Age, Indigenous Literatures Break and submissions are welcome. Beckon to Tradition We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, which last year BY SHANNON WEBB-CAMPBELL invested $153 million to bring the arts to Canadians throughout Canada. 26 Writing Wrongs: A Panel Discussion fiction & PoetrY 28 Fat Rabbits & Wry Smiles We acknowledge funding support from the Ontario Arts Council, an agency of the Government of Ontario. BY HELEN KNOTT 30 On Receiving a Government Letter Rejecting Our Indian Status BY SHANNON WEBB-CAMPBELL Write is produced four times yearly by The Writers’ Union of Canada, 460 Richmond Street West, Suite 600, Toronto, Ontario, M5v 1Y1 30 To the High Steel Mohawk Worker T 416.703.8982, F 416.504.9090, [email protected], www.writersunion.ca. BY GLORIA MEHLMANN © The Writers’ Union of Canada, 2017. The text paper used for this issue contains 100 percent post-consumer fibre, is accredited member awards & news EcoLogo and Processed Chlorine Free, and is processed in a mill that uses biogas. If you would like to help us save on paper, please contact [email protected] or 32 Announcements & Awards 416-703-8982 ext. 223 to request future online editions of the magazine. Thank you. 34 New Members 4 write Writing Rights Where Would We Be Without Maureen? By John Degen Acting