Vancouver Writers Fest Highlights 2014

The weather in Vancouver was
sunnier than the forecast predicted.

There were 100 authors included in the Vancouver Writers Fest and I was in heaven, surrounded by avid readers. For me, this year was all about the queer authors, even though I didn't get to a couple of my favourites: Shani Mootoo and Dionne Brand. Dare I complain of overabundance? Highlights include:

Ann-Marie MacDonald! She is razor sharp, smart and funny. Some (paraphrased) quotes:
"Everything I write is about truth coming out."
"I'm not going to be guilty of pretending that everything is roses and light."
"Comedy lights up the underworld, so you can see what you are scared of."
"Everyone has a personal abyss that opens at the darndest time. Mine is the produce aisle."
"Mrs. Dalloway haunts [Adult Onset], especially when she goes out to buy tulips."
My sweetie currently has dibs on MacDonald's latest novel, and I'm eager for my turn.

Lively conversation between Emma Donoghue and Sarah Waters (photo above) about writing historical fiction, and especially about the inclusion of real people or events. Waters disguised the sensational 1920s true crime that inspired Paying Guests by turning the heterosexual couple into lesbians. Donoghue stayed as close as possible to the facts in Frog Music, while inventing her own plausible solution to an unsolved true crime. When you've got a real woman who kept getting arrested for crossdressing, and who was murdered, there's no need to create someone more interesting. Asked if she isn't disturbing skeletons, Donoghue replied, "Yes, but in a dancing-skeleton-Day-of-the-Dead kind of way."

Michael Cho was the best surprise of the festival. I had expected to hear Cory Doctorow on a panel with Mariko Tamaki, but Cho was there instead. I had just finished reading Cho's fantastic graphic novel Shoplifter, and have been recommending it right and left. He talked about Toronto being a character in the book, which is one of the reasons I loved it. When asked about the challenge of writing a female protagonist, Cho explained that if he focussed on gender, the character would be a stereotype. Instead, he worked hard to make Corrina Park an individual. Another reason that Shoplifter hit me in the heart.

And while I'm on the subject of characters with heart, Mariko Tamaki talked about This One Summer, as well as Skim, one of my all-time favourite graphic novels. She showed a slide of Skim's original cover art (by Jillian Tamaki), which included the words: "This is the diary of Skim Dakota so fuck off." The publisher didn't go for that one.

Vancouver has the sea as well as the Writers Fest.

Characters are really important to me, so I paid close attention to authors who talked about this aspect of their creative process. Cristina Henriquez said, "There's no one immigration story" and "Latino is not a monolith culture." She began The Book of Unknown Americans when one sentence popped into her head -"We heard they were from Mexico"- and expanded her idea from there. Maylis de Kerangal talked about disguising herself by spreading out different small bits of herself into each of her many characters in Birth of a Bridge. Damon Galgut spoke about the contemplative pacing of his novel Arctic Summer, and the way he wanted to use that to mirror E.M. Forster's inner life. Nadia Bozak has placed a coyote/dog cross at the moral centre of her novel El Nino. Tom Rachman: "What is vital about literature is experiencing the world through lives different from one's own. (Yes!)

I saw Rabih Alameddine at a couple of events and I was smitten. I hadn't imagined that he would be impish and campy in person. He's the author of a book that thoroughly delighted me: An Unnecessary Woman. In the '80s, Alameddine was motivated to enter the conversation about AIDS because he didn't see his anger reflected in the gay novels being published then. (Note to self: read Alameddine's earlier works.) The book that made the greatest impression on him and gave him the idea that he could be a writer at all was Naipaul's A House for Mr Biswas, because it reflected a family much like his own. I believe this book was an influence for Shani Mootoo, also.

Tim Winton mentioned a similar experience. Coming from a working class background, he owes his greatest debt in becoming a writer to Huckleberry Finn and the way Samuel Clemens turned common folk's vernacular into poetry. Winton likes people who write about their own patch, like Michael Crummey. (Me too!) Winton said landscape is a character - a determinant - in his stories. "The ecological reality of a place determines what can come out of it." (There it is again. A reminder that the fiction I love has a strong sense of place.)

When asked how much of Eyrie is autobiographical, Winton said, "People are quick to conflate me with Keely, which is unfair. I've had the occasional hangover, but not a 30-pager." Another question from the audience was about the ambiguous ending of Eyrie. Winton: "I'm not much interested in closure... Life is not that neat." He said he doesn't believe in housekeeping for the reader. He also said, "I don't buy magical realism. I don't buy realism either. Life is confounding and strange."

Some of my ticket stubs...

I was surprised by how much of Heather O'Neill's fiction is autobiographical, according to her. When she was 7, her mother sent her to live with her father in Montreal... since he was no longer in jail. They lived in rubby apartments in the red light district."My dad was always giving me useless advice. Like, you can't keep a diary; that'll be used against you in court."

Michael Crummy talked about how place is connected with identity in Sweetland. He also said, "Everything I've ever written is elegy. I'm interested in cultural loss."

Three First Nations authors were together at one powerful event: Thomas King, Lee Maracle and Richard Wagamese. King said "I see a lot of empathy for Aboriginal people in Canada, but not a lot of knowledge about Aboriginal people." That's why he wrote The Inconvenient Indian. Wagamese: "The story of Canada is the story of her relationship with her native people."

Maracle said she lied to her grandpa when she was very small. He looked at her for a long time and then told her, "That's a good story. Now I'll tell you one." Over the course of one summer, she learned a lot from him about storytelling. He told her, "White people pay good money for beautiful lies." Mink is a trickster in Maracle's new novel, Celia's Song. (Maracle asked the audience to repeat after her: "Raven is NOT a trickster.") She said "Salish women are strong because our mothers raise us to look after families of 400 people, even though we don't live in longhouses anymore."

At the start of almost every event I attended, the host acknowledged that the Vancouver Writers Fest takes place on unceded Coast Salish territory. Thomas King said, "All art is political. Good writing is a blueprint for the imagination." Maracle joked: "I finally got old enough to justify being idle and then these kids started up Idle No More."

Entrance to Granville Island, under the bridge.

View from the top of the Granville Bridge, including the mural
on the cement plant, created by a pair of Brazilian artists.

The final event on Sunday evening was fittingly inspirational and entertaining. Jane Smiley and Colm Toibin were interviewed by the incomparable Bill Richardson. Hal Wake warned them before they came onstage that it had a metal mesh floor: "I hope no one is wearing high heels." Richardson, waving his hand through the curtain from offstage: "I am!"

Talking about the dark places stories can come from, Smiley said, "If you turn something into a story, any experience is worth it." When he was a small boy, Toibin liked a particular visitor because she brought sweets, but even more because "she never had anything good to say about anyone." He quickly learned that what mattered was the thing that people couldn't bring themselves to talk about. "It is our job, while alive, to notice as much as possible."

Both Smiley and Toibin derive artistic nourishment from visual art and music. They closed the evening with an a cappella rendition of Whisky in the Jar. Big hit! I enjoyed hearing Toibin so much that I plan to attend his speaking engagement in Edmonton later this month. [Of his many acclaimed books, I've reviewed Brooklyn and The Testament of Mary.]

I'm always sad when the festival ends and it's time to return home. But on the plus side, I have a wonderful stack of new books to read!

The 2014 Vancouver Writers Fest

I've got a fistful of tickets for the Vancouver Writers Fest and I'm getting on an airplane today, headed for my annual week on Granville Island. Yay! These are the authors I'll be seeing at 16 different events:

Rabih Alameddine, Ken Babstock
Marthe Baillie, Jacqueline Baker
Nadia Bozak, George Elliott Clarke
Michael Crummey, Maylis de Kerangal
Kris Demeanor, Cory Doctorow
Emma Donoghue, Charles Foran
Damon Galgut, Steven Galloway
Marie-Louise Gay, Fabian Gregoire
Cristina Henriquez, Thomas King
Karl Ove Knausgaard, Janice Lee
Ann-Marie MacDonald, Lee Maracle
Eimear McBride, Billeh Nickerson
Heather O'Neill, Mary Pinkoski
Kate Pullinger, Sinah Queyras
Tom Rachman, Sjon
Jane Smiley, Mariko Tamaki
Colm Toibin, Katherena Vermette
Richard Wagamese, Sarah Waters
Kathleen Winter, Tim Winton, and Patricia Young

Plus, an illustrious line-up of 15 poets at the Al Purdy Show, including George Bowering, Daphne Marlatt, Sharon Thesen, and Fred Wah.

There's a particularly strong showing from queer authors at the festival: I count at least eleven. The whole thing will be fabulous and I feel so lucky!

Blog postings may not be happening this week, so I invite you to follow me on twitter: @ReadingLindy

Sweetland by Michael Crummey

I'm a sucker for a strong sense of place, and the Newfoundland coastal island Sweetland is practically a character in Michael Crummey's novel of the same name. Then there's the human central character, Moses Sweetland, so vividly real.

Crummey's language is poetic and spare. Evocative Newfoundland terms like droke, skreel, pook, duckish and tuckamore are sprinkled throughout. (There's a dictionary online here.) I adored Sweetland from the very first page, where Moses is stranded by fog:

"Slept in the wheelhouse under an old blanket with a pair of coveralls rolled up as a pillow. The mauze lifted a little at first light and he thought he might be able to pick his way home. Had the island in sight when the mist muffled in, so thick he couldn't see ten feet past the bow."

The government wants to halt all services to the island of Sweetland, so they've offered a generous resettlement fee to each of the few remaining residents. The catch is that everyone must agree. Moses is the only holdout.

Sweetland is a beautifully poignant novel about important things like our connections to one another  and to home.

Readlike: The Winter Vault (Anne Michaels).

Crummey is the author of many other fine works as well, including one of my favourite poetry collections, Under the Keel, and the novel Galore. Sweetland is a strong contender on the current shortlist for the Governor General's Award.

Paradise & Elsewhere by Kathy Page

The dark, surprising stories in Kathy Page's Paradise and Elsewhere interweaves reality and myth. Celtic, Greek and biblical threads flicker in and out. Amy Bloom calls this book "moody, shape-shifting, provocative" and I can't think of better words. I was entranced.

There's a universality about the settings. The places are all over the planet, ranging from the seaside to a desert oasis, and from a stony mountain valley to a tropical locale. Each tale is quite short. They address isms - like consumerism, tourism, sexism and colonialism - from new vantage points.

The following is an excerpt from 'My Beautiful Wife'

"What use is a car, Liia says. Books are more important. A car can only take you half as far as the fuel you can pay for lasts, and then you have to come back; but books are infinite journeys and each one can be taken many times."

Paradise and Elsewhere is a journey into the truths of existence.

Readalikes: Diving Belles (Lucy Wood); Jagannath (Karen Tidbeck); and May We Shed These Human Bodies (Amber Sparks).

A Game for Swallows by Zeina Abirached

One eventful day in the life of two small children during the civil war in Lebanon is told in the graphic novel memoir A Game for Swallows: To Die, to Leave, to Return. Author and artist Zeina Abirached was born in 1981. Beirut was a city of barricades and snipers. Her family had pretty much moved into the one part of their apartment that was safest: the foyer.

The story begins with a map and then a wordless series of outdoor images that set the scene. Stacks of concrete blocks and ranks of empty oil barrels are set up to protect buildings and pedestrians. Everything is marked by bullet holes. Metal shutters are drawn over the shops, including those with small signs proclaiming they are open. The image of a piano advertising a shuttered music store is a poignant reminder of the toll war takes on cultural life.

Carefree children,
worried parents.
Zeina Abirached (detail)

Abirached's monochrome stylized art is composed of tight lines, elegant and precise. Expanses of plain white or black contrast areas of intensely detailed patterns. The effect is striking. And so is the tale.

Note the pretty font with dots inside the letter O.

Zeina's parents have left her and her little brother alone when they go to her grandmother's house a few streets away, then heavy bombardment prevents their return.

The small foyer is the most secure room in the entire building, and gradually the neighbours are all gathered there with the children, waiting. The boredom, the restlessness, the fear, and the resignation experienced by trapped individuals -- Abirached's art portrays these emotions very well. The neighbour with a handlebar moustache pulls on it repeatedly. Panel by panel, cigarette smoke gradually envelops a smoker. Worry is expressed in sideways glances, small sighs.

We get to know the individuals and what comes through most strongly is a sense of community support. Zeina and her brother are in good hands, beloved. This is a remarkable book, suitable for readers from age 10 to adult.

Readalikes: Persepolis (Marjane Satrapi); Sami and the Time of the Troubles (Florence Parry Heide). For a much darker look at the war in Lebanon, there's Waltz with Bashir (Ari Folman & David Polonsky).

I Am Malala by Malala Yousafzai

I am delighted to see the announcement today that Malala Yousafzai and Kailash Satyarthi were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their activism on behalf of children.

My book group read Yousafzai's memoir I Am Malala last month and every one of us found it moving. As a teenager, Yousafzai started speaking up about girls and their right to receive education in Pakistan. When she was 16, she was shot in the head as a direct result of her activism. She survived and has continued to campaign for educational rights.

I Am Malala is an inspirational memoir that offers a window into the lives of real girls and women in Pakistan.

Arctic Summer by Damon Galgut

South African writer Damon Galgut takes readers on a journey into E.M. Forster's interior life in the novel Arctic Summer. It covers the dozen or so years that Forster spent writing (and mentally stuck, not writing) A Passage to India.

During that time, Forster travelled extensively, but movement did not dispel his inner inertia. Repressing his desire for the love and companionship of other men forced him to control all emotions equally. Returning home, Forster felt at odds with his own life, as one does after spending extended time away. There is a sense of waiting, slowly building towards readiness to move forward; it requires patience on the part of the reader.

It's not for someone looking for a propulsive plot. The pace is stately -- I want to say 'glacial' because of the title, but that would sound pejorative. I admire Galgut's eloquent, introspective style. Arctic Summer makes a close examination of the complicated contradictions that form a unique individual.

"Was he a conscientious objector? The description didn't fit comfortably. The principle of abstaining didn't ennoble him, any more than bloodshed would. Both sides had their idealism, which he heard everywhere he went, till he felt that he might choke. What was most distressing was the ability to understand both viewpoints while being able to follow neither."

Homosexuality was discussed in couched terms in the early twentieth century. Forster refers to 'minorites' and 'homogenic love.' He calls Maurice "my Uranian romance:"

"The feeling of release was huge. An enormous pressure had built up behind the words, years and years of silence, which now pushed into the open. Few things are more powerful than confession, and he told it all to the page. The uncertainty, the doubt, the slowly dawning realisation: he could let it spill."

"Of course, he could never publish it."

Maurice is the only one of E.M. Forster's novels that I have read so far. (My blog comments are here.)  

The following passages from Arctic Summer have given me wonderful insights into the mental work that a writer does: 

"Though he couldn't let go of himself enough to worship, he had never lost a sense of an ultimate cause, a Thing at the back of things, which propelled events without actually shaping them. Whatever the ruptures and ructions of human life, he felt, the universe operated according to some vast, unfolding principle, and to abandon oneself to its rhythms wasn't a senseless undertaking.

  It came to him now that his book might express something of this unity through its structure. It was always a useful moment when a story revealed its deeper nature to him -- told him, as it were, why he was writing it -- and he experienced such a realisation now. He had a sense of a gathering shape, of an underlying architecture to his narrative."

"So his characters, he felt, weren't likeable. No, they had been forged in angry gloom, scored and scratched by their maker."

The title, A Passage to India, comes from a line in Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass, adding another layer of queer context to Forster's writing.

"Everybody had finally given up on expecting anything new, and then he had slipped it out. He had written a great book, apparently, a masterpiece: the best of his career. And the timing, with the questions of Indian independence so much in the air, couldn't have been better."

Damon Galgut has inspired me to read A Passage to India and I feel quite excited about that! I also look forward to hearing Galgut at the Vancouver Writers Fest later this month.