Aquileo | metaphysical conceit

Aquileo | imagiNation 2018 in Quebec City

noreply@blogger.com (saleema) — Wed, 11 Apr 2018 02:22:00 +0000

This past Saturday I travelled to Quebec City for the imagiNation Writers' Festival.

I love reading and working and sleeping on the train, and I brought an overstuffed purse filled with more podcasts, albums, books, games, pens and notebooks than I could have used in 16 hours. But Quebec City is only three hours away, so after some reading and a nap, I got there in time for dinner with good friends from Montreal (also visiting Quebec City), followed by drinks with my fellow panelist and her partner.

Not only had spring not yet arrived in Quebec City, there was actually a snowstorm while I was there. I was glad to have been warned to wear my boots.

A picturesque view from my hotel window.

The next day I got ready for the festival.

Festival program! I wish I could have stayed all week.

I got there early and had a chance to take a tour of the building. The Morrin Centre is run by the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec, which was founded in 1824 and is the oldest existing learned society in Canada.

Nothing like some bracing April snow

Housed in a former jail (which held prisoners of the War of 1812!), the Morrin Centre has a gorgeous old library, as well as cells in the basement that have been preserved as a museum. It also has an old science lab: the jail was renovated in the mid-nineteenth century to house Morrin College, which awarded degrees through its affiliation with McGill University.

If you're interested in history or just love books, the Morrin Centre is well worth a visit! Just look at this library:

Me in the gorgeous library of the Morrin Centre, with the famous statue of James Wolfe in the far background.

(Top tip to lovebirds: if you've always wanted to get married in a library, you can do so at the Morrin Centre!)

Then it was time for the panel itself. I was reading with awesome fellow Montrealer Anna Leventhal, author of Sweet Affliction. We talked about Montreal and female narrators and other writing-related topics with the lovely Julia Caron of CBC. Then I had a glass of wine, chatted with friends and festival-goers, signed some books and then it was back to the train, where I actually did manage to do some of the reading and listening I'd planned on before it was back to Montreal and real life.

Aquileo | happy new year?

noreply@blogger.com (saleema) — Mon, 30 Jan 2017 16:24:00 +0000

I wrote most of this post last night, then rewatched some 90s comfort television, then tried to go to sleep. A little after one in the morning, I checked the news and saw what had happened in Quebec City, and then sleep was no longer an option. I honestly thought I could not feel worse about the state of the world last night than I already did. Every day brings some new horror. I wish for the naivety of just a few hours ago.

-------------

The end of 2016 was full of work of all kinds, including a few things I'd never done before. Lots and lots of intense writing and editing. I received a lot of requests about manuscript consultations and writing coaching, but I had to put everyone off until the new year. And I still haven't gotten back to everyone as I still don't have time to do the work, which I feel bad about. I'm thinking of putting such work on indefinite hold for the year unless I can find an established press or a writing program to work with...i.e. somebody else outsourcing manuscripts for professional edits for a set, flat fee.

The highlight of fall 2016 was teaching in the Emerging Writers Intensive program in Banff. Banff is a magical place, not just for its incredible beauty but for the special alchemy of a place dedicated to art and creativity.

My students were amazingly talented, kind, insightful, and generous. I hope they don't mind me posting this photo here from our last night in Banff. (If you're in it and hate it, let me know and I'll take it down!)

2017 has started out in such a frightening way. Like most people I know, I find the news these days to be a constant horror show, and yet I can't look away. I don't want to start writing about it now, as I'm not sure how to start...or stop.

David Sipress, The New Yorker

What else? There's never enough time to do all the things I want to do. I feel like I have a pretty good handle on time management, but it's never quite good enough. One of my resolutions for 2017 is to blog more, but this is one I have rarely been successful at fulfilling.

My other resolutions are modest. I want to have people over more often. Please, if you know me, invite yourself over. This is a link that was going around about hosting that I found inspiring:

http://www.mothering.com/articles/host-crappy-dinner-see-friends-often/

How to Host a Crappy Dinner (and See Your Friends More Often)

by Kelley Powell

(who, I just realized, is a novelist who lives in Ottawa. I have her book around here somewhere)

Just know that there are piles of books and magazines and toys everywhere. We desperately need to vacuum. That is just the way things are. Maybe someday it will be better.

Little L is growing a lot. Ninety per cent of photos of her are blurry as she's always moving. And she is funnier and sillier every day. I've called her a silly goose so often that now when she erupts into giggles at her own antics, she always yells out, "Goose!"

Here she is on her birthday:

And on other occasions looking cute:

That's all for now. Stay safe and be well, friends. xo

Aquileo | Sometimes it's you...sometimes it's not: on success, randomness, and shining a light

noreply@blogger.com (saleema) — Mon, 14 Mar 2016 13:55:00 +0000

If there's one thing that's certain about the writing life, it's that it isn't for anyone who is interested in immediate gratification. It is something you do because you love language. Because you love creating characters and telling stories. Because you can't not do it.

If you're lucky, there are highs: acceptances, grants, awards. Personal notes from readers who loved your books. But most of the time, you're alone. Writing.

And of course there are the grants you didn't get, the stories that got rejected, and the 1-star Goodreads reviews that haunt your dreams.

1-star Goodreads reviews, amirite?

There's always someone who's doing better than you: who gets a better review, who sells more books, who's on the cover of a magazine.

I'm willing to bet that even if you have a book on the New York Times' bestsellers list, there's always something to be unhappy about if you start comparing yourself to other people.

Comparisons are invidious, etc.

Writing takes forever. Most of the time, you won't be the one with a book coming out, or with a book on a shortlist or a starred review. I think when it happens, you need to enjoy it. You should share your good news and be gracious and humble and remember that the same randomness and luck and quirks of taste that are working for you now might not work for you later.

And the rest of the time, you need to be genuinely excited about other books and other people's success.

Because it's worth remembering that at any given moment, there are always more wonderful books to enjoy than are being talked or tweeted about by the general public. Where is the light that will shine on every worthy book that comes out in a given year?

My kingdom for a light!

The Canada Reads books are all wonderful (go read them if you haven't!), but here are a few other random books from years past that I have loved that I don't think I have mentioned before on the blog:

Perfecting by Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer

The Darren Effect by Libby Creelman

Cricket in a Fist by Naomi K. Lewis *

So go forth and read and tell everyone about all the wonderful books you read this year...not just the ones they already know about.

* For some reason I can't quite fathom, these all happen to be Goose Lane titles.

Aquileo | snapshot of the past two weeks

noreply@blogger.com (saleema) — Mon, 29 Feb 2016 13:58:00 +0000

Things have been busy here. I think over the past two weeks, I've written five blog posts...in my head.

I did a bunch of syndication interviews on CBC radio. This means (I think) that all the stations around the country are informed in the morning that you'll be sitting in the booth for a certain amount of time and they can call in to speak to you and tape a segment or put you on live on one of their shows. So I got to hang out at CBC for four hours and ended up speaking to people in 12 different locations around Canada (Charlottetown, Whitehorse, Kelowna, Winnipeg and many more). I always find it nerve-wracking doing radio segments when you're not in the same studio as the interviewer. It's like talking on the phone....and I'm not much of a phone person. But they were all more fun when they were happening than I would have expected.

And while trying to prepare for those syndication interviews at CBC Radio I found this interview in Maisonneuve magazine I did in 2013 with the brilliant Melissa Bull, who made me laugh a lot. I had so much fun in this conversation, and I really liked the way she approached the novel. I always meant to share it here and never did. So voila!

Then I went back to CBC a few days later and taped segments for the Canada Reads broadcast. I think this was the deciding straw in whether or not I will listen to the show when it airs --- because as apprehensive as I might be about listening to people debate the merits of my book, I'm twice as afraid of tuning in and hearing my own voice!

But one very fun thing I got to do as part of all this was put together a playlist for the novel. This is something I've been meaning to do since before the novel came out...at first just for fun, as I thought I'd blog it, then possibly for other blogs/sites who asked me (unfortunately, I never got around to it...doh), but I'm sort of glad I ended up not getting my act together until now because I have some distance and clearer thoughts about it PLUS I think it means that some of songs will be played on CBC radio as I recorded some intros and throws. I'll share the playlist here if it ends up on the web, too.

Sitting in a CBC studio with all my cold remedies.

And if that wasn't enough, I've been pushing myself like mad to finish a rough draft of a large project that I've been aiming to complete by February. I pretty much finished on Friday, though I'm going to take Monday to fix the last, rapidly hammered out parts. Thank you, Leap Year!

Even though I didn't intend to, I crossed the 100, 000 word

threshold on my current draft. The software, in case you're wondering,

is Scrivener. (Highly recommended!)

This week my friend K stopped by Montreal on her way to Ottawa with her mom and her very sweet one-month old baby. While we were killing time waiting for the restaurant to open, we stopped by Indigo to scope out the Canada Reads display and K took some photos.

Yay, Canada Reads! Just look at the amazing company Bone and Bread is in!

I am one of those people who buys a lot of non-book items at Indigo.

They do such a good job with their displays. Look at those bunnies back there!!

I think I am going to go back and get one for a certain little someone.

And speaking of that little someone, of course, she has been keeping me busy, too.

Mixing prints: not just for fashion bloggers!

She is getting cuter every day and understands so much more than she can vocalize. Starting about a month ago, she became obsessed with books beyond just pulling them off the shelves and chewing on the spines. Now she is demanding them all. the. time. Even while she's eating. And we usually give in. It might not be cultivating good manners, but it's hard not to be indulgent when it comes to babies and books.

She moves so fast now, almost all my photos are blurry!

And a couple of slightly older photos because now I'm in baby-share mode:

Trying to get her to take a step in the snow (no go).

Attack of the cute!!! Wearing her little hat

from D in Newfoundland.

There have been lots of other fun things going on, too: choir, scotch club, Pixelles events, knitting.

Aquileo | Thank you, McGill Bookstore! And an outing tonight to the Rialto Theatre for D & Q...

noreply@blogger.com (saleema) — Fri, 05 Feb 2016 20:32:00 +0000

Although I'm on extended parental leave at the moment, I have worked at McGill since I moved to Montreal 10 years ago. I would visit the university bookstore on my lunch hour and peruse the fiction section, wondering if they would ever stock one of my books (this is before I ever wrote one) and if this imaginary book would rate one of their featured little red tags reading, "McGill Author," or if those were only reserved for alumni.

I can't remember if I ever blogged it and I can't find the photo now, but one day (and I think I have a philosophy student to thank for this) Bone and Bread appeared on the shelf with that coveted little red tag. It was an exciting moment!

Then I had the pleasure of doing a Lunch & Livres Homecoming 2014 event at the Bookstore with two other wonderful Montreal writers, Elaine Kalman Naves and Peter Kirby. I don't think I ever shared the photos, so here are a few. I was exactly 8 months pregnant at this event.

Baby bump visible! And red McGill Homecoming lanyard.

Talking about Bone and Bread at McGill Homecoming 2014

With Peter Kirby and Elaine Kalman Naves at Lunch & Livres 2014

But to get to the point, this week, a professor from the philosophy department sent me these photos of a Canada Reads display in the McGill Bookstore window. Thank you!!

Is that a Canada Reads display?

Yes, yes it is!!

Tonight I'm focusing on two other books at a Drawn & Quarterly event at the Rialto Theatre: Killing and Dying by Adrian Tomine (this book killed me...in the best way possible) and Was She Pretty? by the endlessly talented Leanne Shapton.

That's right. I get to hang out with the cool kids tonight. See you there?

Aquileo | Behind the scenes of Canada Reads 2016!

noreply@blogger.com (saleema) — Sat, 30 Jan 2016 04:14:00 +0000

Okay, I think everyone I know knows this by now (along with a lot of people I don't know!), but
Bone and Bread was selected to be part of Canada Reads 2016!

You can click the image to go to the Canada Reads CBC page.

Cue massive, ongoing celebration!!!!!!!!!!!!!! My last post was about my love of book clubs, and Canada Reads is about as close as we get to a national one.

It has been a little over a week since my whirlwind trip to Toronto for the day it was announced, and although I think I have responded to everyone who sent me kind messages of congratulations, I want to say thank you again!! It makes it even more exciting to know that people are excited right along with me.

So here's the Canada Reads scoop. I found out a little bit ahead of the announcement that Bone and Bread was on the shortlist, and a little bit after that that Farah Mohamed was going to be defending it. I arrived in Toronto late on the night Jan. 19th. Just before midnight, I received an email letting me know who the other writers and defenders were going to be. I was extra curious because the smarties over at the Goodreads CBC Books group had been speculating for a few days about who the panelists might be, based on all the clues that had been dropped. (They actually got a bunch of them right!) If I had gone to bed early, the way I knew I should have, I wouldn't have read the email and stayed up for another hour Googling everyone! Really, the night before a photo shoot, one's only homework is probably getting a good night's sleep. Oh well. I guess that's what makeup and coffee is for.

The first of the other writers I saw after arriving at CBC were Michael Winter and Anita Rau Badami -- the two I already know! After hair and makeup, while we were waiting for the others to arrive, I was excited and suggested we take a photo in front of the lunch table:

With the lovely Michael Winter and Anita Rau Badami.

(My expression here: nervous-face.)

Smiling! With two brilliant writers: Michael Winter and Anita Rau Badami.

Fun fact re: Anita Rau Badami -- we met a dinner party in Montreal!

Fun fact re: Michael Winter -- well, I kind of feel like every fact about Michael Winter is a fun one, but I have been a fan of his writing long before I started running into him at events and festivals in the context of being a writer myself. His novel The Architects Are Here is one of many books I read (and loved) while working on Bone and Bread, but he has such a powerful voice that there is a short passage present in the novel where I had put down his book and felt the spirit of Michael's inimitable style upon me. Of course, only Michael Winter sounds like himself and I'm sure this part is only detectable to me, but there are a few sentences in my novel that wouldn't be there, quite in the form they are, if it wasn't for him. So thank you, Michael!

Finally, everyone was there and it was time to take photos.

With Michael Winter, Anita Rau Badami, Lawrence Hill and Tracey Lindberg

Photo (along with most of the others here) by Laura Meyer of Anansi

I think it was Lawrence Hill (a former Canada Reads winner and therefore already a pro) who explained the right way to cradle your book for the photo -- so you don't cover up your name. Top tip! The professional photos are being rolled out by CBC in their various promotional materials for Canada Reads, which I will repost here as they become available.

At the photo shoot, I got to meet Farah Mohamed:

Thank you, Farah. You are amazing and

I'm so happy you liked my novel!

Farah Mohamed is the founder and CEO of G(irls)20, an organization that empowers girls and young women around the world to create a new generation of female leaders. Having read about the organization as well as her many other professional accomplishments, I was more than a little intimidated to meet her, but she immediately put me at ease as she is incredibly warm and approachable and fun. She also seems like a fierce debater!

After the photos, we all had lunch. Later, we shot some individual videos (which I dread watching...quippy I am not. Also at that point, after touch-ups, I had so much makeup on that my face felt weird. I think I might end up looking scary in HD...)

I had a chance to meet the other defenders (Clara Hughes, Vinay Virmani, Bruce Poon Tip, and Adam "Edge" Copeland), who were all as lovely as you might imagine. I would say more, but it probably isn't my place at this point! But honestly, I am so impressed by the accomplishments of the five panelists, and (thanks mostly to Google) by what I know of their level of engagement with social and cultural issues, across their widely different fields. I was really interested to learn about their projects, and I'm happy that the show will shine a light on them, too. It seems as though CBC has put together a group of people with real character to participate in Canada Reads 2016. (Hopefully I won't be insecure enough to feel differently if any of them turn out to hate my novel! But probably I just won't listen...)

The defenders said a few times over the course of the day that they all got along so well that they were going to have a hard time fighting it out, and I can easily believe it. (And so I say: why fight? Just let there be a five-way tie this year!)

At one point over lunch, Tracey Lindberg and I agreed that amid all the other things to be happy about with Canada Reads, we were both extra excited about the free books:

I know other Canada Reads fans will be jealous of this sweet stack.

No library holds for me! Another awesome bonus.

All in all, an exhausting but wonderful trip to Toronto. It was so nice to meet everyone at CBC, and House of Anansi publicist extraordinaire Laura Meyer took such good care of me...even helping me make it to the Turner exhibit at the AGO before my afternoon flight home.

So I will probably share a few more Canada Reads-related things over the next few weeks before the show happens in March. I beg your indulgence ahead of time! I will try to mix it up with a few other things, so it doesn't get too tedious.

Home again, wearing my CBC fangirl shirt.

Do I look as ecstatically happy as I feel? I think so!

Aquileo | A love letter to book clubs

noreply@blogger.com (saleema) — Thu, 07 Jan 2016 03:56:00 +0000

One of the major activities of 2014 was visiting book clubs. (That's right: I have procrastinated on this blog post for over A YEAR. The last time I opened it to edit it was November 2014. Even more amazing: this is not even the oldest blog draft I intend to finally finish this year! My excuse is that I had a baby, who really is a pretty good...and awfully cute...excuse.)

I visited many book clubs all over Montreal: the Plateau, downtown, Westmount, NDG, and even Nun's Island. I even took a suburban commuter bus to visit a book club at the Brossard Library! (As a lifelong pedestrian, I have an actual suburban phobia, so this felt like more of a triumph to me than it might otherwise seem to someone with a driver's license.)

A lot of it was a learning experience. I didn't set out to do book club visits -- it was just something that started happening, and I was flattered and happy to be invited. I'm proud to say that I experienced a lot more anxiety before the early visits than I did before the ones at the end. I struggled a lot with what I should charge (if anything), and while that is probably a whole other blog post in and of itself (why artists..who usually need the money more than anyone.. end up doing things for free that anyone in any other profession would charge for!), I consulted with other writers and did some soul-searching and eventually arrived at a number I could feel good about and which clubs were happy to pay. My only regret is not taking more photos.

The most amazing and humbling part of it was meeting so many thoughtful readers. Clever readers with questions and opinions and theories and insights. And sometimes even favourite sentences (!!!)

The fact is that as a writer, you are not necessarily the authority on everything in your own book. Yes, you can say whether the bagel shop in your novel is based on this one or that one (Fairmount, for the record) or whether your character has an eating disorder because you used to have one yourself (nope), but I like to let other people talk about what the novel is about. And I like to take notes. I've learned a lot this way.

My other favourite part (besides the always mind-blowing experience of having a dozen people discuss your characters as though they actually exist) was how inspiring it has been to witness so many friendships between women that have endured over decades and that have been enriched by books and their shared discussions. Many of the groups I visited have been gathering for TWENTY YEARS! They have seen each other through the births of their children, divorces, cancer...everything. Female friendship is where it's at, and I got a sneak peek at some amazing ones.

These visits were truly soul-nourishing. As a writer you spend most of your time working alone, and the majority of writing events (e.g. public readings and panels at writers festivals) are for an audience who is unfamiliar with your work. If you're lucky, a few people will pick up your book at the end. But getting to meet people who have made a point of reading your novel and talking about it...? It's a treat I hope all my writer-friends get to experience.

And speaking of treats, did I mention the snacks? These book clubs had some great snacks!

There were many groups in contention for being my favourites, but I think I have to give it to the club that did themed food to match Bone and Bread.

Bagels and cream cheese, of course!

And even more amazing:

Hors d'oeuvres just like the ones described

as being prepared and served at Sadhana's

housewarming party!!!

And the most fantastic thing ever:

A school bus cake! Just like Sadhana and Beena

bake for Quinn for one of his birthdays in Bone and Bread.

And here are a couple of photos of me and this amazing book club -- one of the twenty-year ones, whose members were all terrific readers and who had a very lively and passionate discussion about the novel. I'm sharing two shots as the obliging husband who took the photo caught some of us with smiles in one and some of us in the other.

Is this really happening?

Feeling ever-so-lucky!

It really almost makes one think it is enough to have engaged readers, even without literary prizes. I know a lot of writers would agree. Of course, the one (prizes) often leads to the other (readers), so it takes you back to square one, a little bit. At any rate, a sincere and profound thank you to every book club that hosted me: you made me feel as though my work mattered, and there is truly no better feeling. And thank you to all the other book clubs (I know you're out there) who have chosen Bone and Bread for your discussions over the past two years. I'm honoured and privileged to have played a part in the conversation.

Aquileo | Books I read in 2015

noreply@blogger.com (saleema) — Sun, 03 Jan 2016 03:18:00 +0000

2015 was not a banner year for reading for me. In retrospect, I should have embraced the way my reading patterns were looking early on (e-books versus paper) and adjusted accordingly. I didn't, and I ended up just reading a lot of mystery novels I'd already downloaded to my phone and not making much of a dent in my physical TBR pile. Oh well. Here is what I read by the numbers, following how I broke it down in 2014 and 2013. Not much comparative analysis is needed except to say that I read a lot less of everything. You can see what I read here on the 50 Book pledge page.

40 books

By genre

32 novels*
3 young adult
1 graphic novel
1 how-to guide
1 short-story collection
1 memoir
1 poetry collection

* 26 of the novels were straight-up mystery novels or thrillers....only six were what would usually be called literary novels.

By nation

7 Canada
2 Canada/U.S. (i.e. Canadians who live in the States, otherwise known as a distinction probably not worth making)
4 United States
3 U.K.
1 Japan

By gender

37 books by 14 women
3 books by 3 men

It turns out that almost all the books I read this year were in e-book format, either on my phone or on my Kobo. Only five of them were read on paper. This has got to be a new record for me in and of itself. But then again, this is the first year I've had an actual e-reader.

The books I flat-out enjoyed the most? Purity by Jonathan Franzen and Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel. The latter I picked up with some trepidation as for a number of years I've been working on a project prominently featuring a modern-day plague, and it is always nerve-wracking when another writer publishes something that seems as though it might be similar to your own work-in-progress. But apart from featuring a plague, the works are (of course) totally different and Station Eleven is a brilliant novel you should definitely pick up if you haven't already. (It is also on the Canada Reads longlist alongside Bone and Bread...cue squee. Station Eleven is so well imagined and the writing is so clean and the book just seems to contain so much in all the best ways. Purity by Franzen also shares all those qualities.)

But the book that had the greatest (in every sense) impact on my life? The wildly popular decluttering book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo. Really, I cannot say enough about this book. It has helped me get rid of bags and bags of stuff, and though I am still not anywhere close to finished, given how much stuff I started out with, it has helped me enormously and put me on the right path (I hope) to managing all the material goods that share my space.

Here's to a book-filled and even more decluttered 2016!

Aquileo | This is how we should all be reading

noreply@blogger.com (saleema) — Sun, 27 Dec 2015 17:10:00 +0000

A big thank you to Corey Redekop for including Bone and Bread on his list of favourite reads of 2015 over at Speculating Canada! Looking at Corey's list, I am so inspired by the eclecticism of his choices -- it is clear that he reads a lot and he reads widely. There is fiction here across all genres: horror, sci-fi, literary, adventure, and others that sound like they truly defy categorization in the best possible ways. I think this is so important. Stories are stories and we all lose out by only reading in our comfortable little niches. Thank you so much for including the novel, Corey!

Bone and Bread is also on another list of note....the Canada Reads longlist!!!! I blogged at length about Canada Reads last year when it made it onto the longlist then ...a post you can read here. Not much has changed. I am still thrilled, flattered, hopeful, and so grateful for everything CBC Books does to promote our national literature. This year's theme is "Starting Over." Fingers crossed!

Aquileo | Fall blur

noreply@blogger.com (saleema) — Thu, 10 Dec 2015 03:45:00 +0000

The one good thing about a prolonged absence from blogging is that it sometimes means I have been doing other writing. In this case, it happens to be true. I'm probably jinxing my progress by mentioning it here (doh!), but I feel like I've got momentum right now and I can see my current draft taking shape. I think I've talked about this particular project being almost done for at least two years running, if not longer, but it has been stuck at the 70% mark for a long time. Even when I edge up the word count, the scope gets larger, so the progress feels negligible. Anyway, I think I was saying, yay writing. So yay!

I also never posted the result of the Montreal Tournament of Books at Paragraphe Bookstore. Bone and Bread won! They very kindly invited me in to sign some stock.

Signing stock at Paragraphe Bookstore

Ahhh, early September, when it was still warm enough to wear a sleeveless linen dress. What you can't see is that I'm also wearing my wedding shoes: yellow flower Seychelles heeled sandals. I am colour-coordinated infrequently enough (and restrained to just one colour even less frequently) that I think this fact needs to be documented here. Actually, for a pair of yellow shoes, it turns out they match quite a few things I own! I wish I could say the same for all my other brightly coloured shoes. Also: I like how long my hair looks in this picture.

I also asked for a photo in front of the tournament poster!

Yes, that is a French poster for a tournament of English books.

Other semi-recent goings-on in the writing world include a reading at Drawn & Quarterly for the launch of Teri Vlassapoulos's novel Escape Plans. Here are some photos from the evening that I grabbed from Facebook!

With Ian McGillis (host of the evening and former QWF mentor to both me and Teri), Teri and Lesley Trites.

Just the readers.

I have been saying no to a lot of readings because they are always scheduled at exactly my baby's bedtime, but I have long admired these ladies and a trip to my favourite neighbourhood bookstore is always a treat. Thanks for the invitation!

Singing at a holiday concert tomorrow afternoon, so I'm off to see if I still have my dollar-store Santa hat from years past. I have a feeling it was a victim of the fire, but I'm hoping to be happily surprised.

Aquileo | League for Advancing the Understanding of Diurnal Illumination (L.A.U.D.I)

noreply@blogger.com (saleema) — Mon, 10 Aug 2015 15:47:00 +0000

You know that you and all your friends are nerds when a dinner conversation results in a through dictionary investigation...and subsequent website.

Z, P, and I were in Sherbrooke, delving into the possible differences and chronology of dusk versus twilight in an in-depth conversation over oysters and burgers. Apparently, the research continued after they dropped me off as the next day there was an email link to a new website:

http://diurnalillumination.weebly.com

A mere preview of the knowledge to be gleaned!

Check it out and find out everything you ever wanted to know (er, and MORE) about diurnal illumination.

Aquileo | End of July - Montreal Tournament of Books - Goodreads CBC Books Monthly Group Read

noreply@blogger.com (saleema) — Fri, 31 Jul 2015 15:03:00 +0000

It's the last day of July. July is usually the month I get the most writing done, but this year it has been the month I have done the most decluttering. I've gone through boxes and boxes of photos, sorted through huge files of saved papers, tossed things I thought I'd never get rid of, emptied a giant trunk I've had since childhood, and even went through a massive stack of unlabelled CDs to find out what was on them. I finally got a roll of film from 2002 developed. (I thought it was from 2001, from Belgium, but it turned out to be Newfoundland the following year.) Wasteful as it seems, I threw out all of my socks with holes in them (when was the last time I sewed a sock hole?) and managed to get all of the photos off of my old Samsung phone. Outside of the times I've moved, I have never done such a major overhaul. In The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up --- the popular book I read that has given me the push to do all this -- the author, Marie Kondo, says that it is a process that takes about six months and that you get better as it as you go. I can easily believe it -- both parts!

There's still lots to do, though. Two other old computers to deal with and a box of 3.5 floppy disks. Tons of other stuff to go through and (I hope) purge. It's hard to reverse three decades of clutter. We'll see if I have the stamina. I know it's important to do, but it would be nice to squeeze some writing in there, too.

Oh, and did I mention we did the books?!? My husband and I finally consolidated our collections, sold off most of the doubles and triples, as well as books we thought we'd never look at again. I think we managed to purge about 500! I'm proud of us. We even agreed on how to organize them.

Some of the books to purge

Librairie Paragraphe Books is running a fun showdown of books about Montreal and by Montreal authors: the Montreal Tournament of Books! Bone and Bread is up this week against Gabrielle Roy if you feel like voting! (In the first round, B & B improbably took out Leonard Cohen.)

The CBC Books group on Goodreads (I am mostly a lurker there, but I highly recommend it to CanLit fans) is doing Bone and Bread as its Monthly Group Read in August.

Here is the link: http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/16966091-august-15---bone-bread-by-saleema-nawaz

There is a reading schedule posted and a discussion group to follow along and comment. I have to say through experience that this is a great way to keep up with a book you've been meaning to read! I think I'll make myself scarce so people feel free to comment as they see fit, but if you do the group readalong and have any questions about the book, feel free to post them there and through coordination with the moderator I will be sure to answer them within the month. There will also be a couple of days at the end when, free of spoiler risks, I'll be available for a dedicated Q & A thread. I'm excited!

Aquileo | "yes, I'll be a writer, of course"

noreply@blogger.com (saleema) — Mon, 13 Jul 2015 13:40:00 +0000

We've been doing a lot of organizing and decluttering, as well as finally combining (and maybe even thinning?) our book collections -- which is a post unto itself, really. But one of the things I came upon was an old diary I'd forgotten about.

I was obsessed with Lucy Maud Montgomery as well as very into the notion of a lockable diary, so it should have been the perfect gift except that it looks like this:

Augugh! It's so ugly! But it seems I took one stab at writing in it...although apparently only to write about other, better notebooks. This is also seemingly where I experimented with the notion of stream-of-consciousness writing as simply containing a lot of commas:

There is lots of stuff in here that makes me smile. My main thought, though, was what on earth is a Jimmy-book?? But in the middle of the night I remembered that that's what Emily Starr in Emily of New Moon calls the notebooks her Uncle Jimmy buys her. I can't remember exactly how they're described, but I pictured them as large square-ish hardcover notebooks with creamy blank paper. The red memo I mention is a little spiral notebook -- inspired by the girl detective Abby Jones in Patricia Reilly Giff's Loretta P. Sweeny, Where Are You? -- where I used to record various facts about any mysteries I managed to uncover.

Aquileo | Everything You Know Is Wrong

noreply@blogger.com (saleema) — Tue, 30 Jun 2015 16:19:00 +0000

The more precise writer in me almost called this post Commonly held beliefs that I suspect of being untrue, but I suppose it's a little less interesting that way. Anyhow, here is where I randomly begin dismantling bogus advice that has come my way.

Never pluck the top of your eyebrows - WRONG

Okay, so maybe you shouldn't *start* at the top and most of what you'll want to remove is below the brow line, but the idea that there are no stray hairs creeping upwards to threaten the sanctity of the forehead has nothing to do with my reality. However, I used to see it printed in magazines like Seventeen and YM Magazine over and over again. Maybe it even appears in magazines not aimed at blond American teens. Pluck wherever you want. Only YOU can prevent forehead hair.

Never keep your coat on inside in the winter - WRONG

The logic of this one is all about relative heat, I guess (?!), but no matter what your mother told you, you will not feel colder once you go back outside even if you leave your coat on. It is just plain warmer to keep the warmth you generate with an extra layer of insulation around you before venturing back into the cold! Do you know how sometimes once you're cold, you just can't get warm again? Well, once you're warm, it's much easier to just stay warm. And I don't know much about science, but I'm sure it will back me up on this one.

Write what you know - WRONG

Do I need to dignify this one with a retort? Many of us know much more than what we've simply lived or been taught. The joy of writing (for me, anyway) is in imagining, dreaming, learning, and discovery. If I had to only write what I know, I would stop writing today.

Aquileo | End of June

noreply@blogger.com (saleema) — Fri, 26 Jun 2015 17:09:00 +0000

I'm ignoring (for the moment) all my half-written drafts about events I've done and books I've read. A blog is about what's going on now, so here's what I've been up to:

playing with the baby

reading books about decluttering (maybe one day I'll even actually DO it)

feeding the baby

eating fudgsicles

obsessing over the baby's sleep schedule

marveling at the baby's cuteness

That's about it! Some of these things take up more time than others...mostly, the last one!

Aquileo | Canada Reads 2015

noreply@blogger.com (saleema) — Fri, 16 Jan 2015 05:51:00 +0000

I haven't mentioned it here yet, but Bone & Bread is on the longlist for Canada Reads 2015!

The list was announced in December, right at a moment when I was on the point of bursting into tears after a very hard night with a four-week old baby, trying to recover from dehydration, having not slept for over 24 hours and expecting a house guest to arrive within the hour --- to a very messy apartment I had not yet managed to tidy up. It is definitely no exaggeration to say that regardless of what happens next, the appearance of my novel on the longlist felt like a gift that arrived at the perfect moment. It made me think of what Sara Crewe says in A Little Princess: "The worst thing never QUITE comes." ***

But now there are only a few days left before CBC announces the final five books, which means there are only a few days in which to savour the possibility that Bone & Bread might be selected. So this is me, savouring:

Ahhhhhhh. Mmmmmmm.

For years I've had daydreams of a book of mine being discussed on this show. Ideally, defended by some well-read indie rock musician... have you noticed that the musicians' picks often win?

I'm cherishing this fantasy even more this week because my mother has just discovered CBC Radio and thinks it's the greatest thing ever. Yesterday, she was telling me about something she was listening to about Twitter and reading 50 books in a year that she thought I would be interested in!

I know there are lots of thoughts among writers, not all positive, around the notion of the themes that have been used in the program over the past few years, or the public voting that happened, or pitting fiction against non-fiction, or against the very concept of one book winning at all...but I don't think these issues are all that serious. Of course we all agree that Canada should read more than one book, but the producers are doing their best to make a lively show that will engage listeners. Another thing I've been hearing lately is a call to include poetry. And I do think it would be amazing to have an all-poetry edition. Maybe with poets as the panelists... although I suppose that might, ahem, undermine the celebrity aspect somewhat. (Well, for people outside of the literary community, anyway.) On the other hand, how else are we going to turn our poets into national celebrities?! This show should definitely happen. I want to live in a country that idolizes its poets. Hmm, but maybe this just illustrates how writers think differently than radio producers.

So can a book really change Canada, or break barriers? I think...yes. reader by reader, absolutely. Why couldn't it? I have to admit that when the theme of "breaking barriers" was announced ("books that can change perspectives, challenge stereotypes, and illuminate issues"), I did think of my novel because I believe that Bone & Bread does just that, in more than a few ways. But then we already know that all writing that put you into another person's perspective builds empathy and compassion just by taking us outside ourselves. Really, I think reading as a basic act is transformative and illuminating, so any of these books could fit the bill. And though of course I'm gunning for my own, I think can imagine great discussions emerging around all these titles. I'm especially rooting for Eden Robinson's wonderful Monkey Beach to make it through to the shortlist.

If you want to vote for your picks (just for fun...I'm pretty sure this doesn't affects the selection of the books, which is up to the mystery panelists) or just see what's in the running, you can do so on the CBC site here.

*** I'm not so naive that I actually believe Sara's notion. I do know that in many instances the worst thing does happen, but sometimes I can't help but see the world through the lenses of my favourite books.

Aquileo | Books I read in 2014

noreply@blogger.com (saleema) — Tue, 06 Jan 2015 17:16:00 +0000

The first thing you need to know is that I feel like a failure. I was ultra geared up and ready for year two of the 50 Book Pledge, and I didn't make it, mostly because my belated charge to the finish line --- armed with poetry collections and graphic novels --- was interrupted by the arrival of the baby in mid-November. Ah, well. I came close! 43 books in 2014. And it would be more if I counted all the Dickens and Austen rereads, or the reread of a bunch of Lois Lowry's Anastasia Krupnik series, after I found a bunch of them at the McGill Book Sale. Or if I hadn't abandoned quite so many books partway through...or gone travelling for three weeks in UK (awesome), instead of sitting around at home reading (typical).

You can see what I read here. Or find me on Goodreads.

Here is the breakdown according to the same categories I assessed last year:

By genre*

22 novels

7 children's/YA

4 poetry collections

3 graphic novels

3 memoirs

3 non-fiction

1 short story collection

Compared to last year, I read the exact same number of poetry collections and children's/YA (huh), and just one shy in memoir and graphic novels. I read three more short story collections last year, but then again I read a LOT of short stories in 2014 for the Room fiction contest and the Journey Prize jurying. Five fewer novels.

* Some of the books fall into more than one genre, e.g. a graphic novel that is also a YA book or a graphic novel that is also a memoir, but I've kept each book to one basic genre.

By nation

15 American

9 Canadian

3 English

1 Scottish

1 dual American-Canadian

1 Australian

1 New Zealander

1 Nigerian

1 Dutch

I think this must be the first year in my life where I did not read mainly CanLit! Interestingly, the same number of Americans as last year.

By gender

30 books by 25 women

13 books by 8 men

Highlights

The first two books I read in January, The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt and The Dinner by Herman Koch, remain among the most memorable reads of the year. I also really liked Americanah.

The last two fiction titles I read in 2014, The Opening Sky by Joan Thomas and The Freedom in American Songs by Kathleen Winter, were also outstanding. I have so much love and admiration for these women, so while I might technically be biased, I truly adored these books and you should still run out and buy them immediately. And as many of you might know, sometimes it is harder to be completely transported by the writing of someone you know...and I was.

Also, the Susin Nielsen books are wonderful. Strongly recommended for the young people in your life, or just, you know, you.

Lowlights

The Happiest Baby on the Block by Dr. Harvey Karp was thoughtfully gifted to me by a friend and it was full of useful information that I have already put to use...and I can definitely endorse the basic premise and techniques outlined in this book. However, I feel like it was written for morons, or at least people with some kind of hyper-amnesia, like the guy in Memento. It really sticks with that principle of "Tell them what you're going to say, say it, then tell them what you've said," but it adds in "say it seven more times." It would be a lot better if it were condensed into about twenty pages written for neurotypical readers, or maybe just a large infographic. I cannot express the annoyance of having a newborn baby and precious little reading time that I then spent trying to power through this repetitive book that kept trying to prove a premise I was already willing to accept merely by picking it up. (Fourth trimester, yo.) That being said, thanks, Dr. Karp, for your valuable techniques!

And I didn't really love any of the Divergent trilogy, but the last one, Allegiant, was especially annoying to me in the way it ended.

Best Discovery?

Well, I had a very relaxed stretch of reading after I finally picked up a book by Alexander McCall Smith at the library. I ran through a bunch of his Edinburgh-set mystery series (the Isabel Dalhousie books), which made for excellent light pregnancy fare.

Aquileo | Two weeks old

noreply@blogger.com (saleema) — Tue, 02 Dec 2014 19:55:00 +0000

Well, it looks like I won't reach my goal of 100 blog posts for this year, but I have the best excuse possible:

So far she is the cutest, sweetest little baby ever, and I am just stunned and elated that she is finally here.

Aquileo | Judging the Journey Prize

noreply@blogger.com (saleema) — Tue, 04 Nov 2014 03:26:00 +0000

I'm not sure if I've mentioned it here before or not, but I was on this year's Journey Prize jury! I still feel pretty lucky to have been selected. Lucky in a very peculiar, synchronous way: the day before I was asked to participate, I was actually idly wishing that I could be part of the jury. I was reading something about short fiction in Canada, thinking about how I hadn't read any short stories in a little while and how fun it would be to read all the best ones of the year. I even wondered if there was a way to go about being invited...like tweeting about it or emailing someone. But I did nothing except think it and the very next day when I got an email about it I basically fell off my chair in the office. (And yes, promptly began all manner of very earnest wishing...for a sudden million-dollar windfall, for perfect bangs, etc...but I'm still waiting on all of those.)

The Journey Prize Anthology 26

I wrote a little bit about the judging process in our collective introduction to the anthology (which you should go buy right now!), as well as in a more detailed Q & A with Brad de Roo just posted on the blog of Guelph's wonderful bookstore, the Bookshelf.

So I'd planned to write about it here, but I think I've pretty much covered it everywhere else. I'll just say, again, that it was a true pleasure and honour to read and discuss these stories by so many talented Canadian authors. I also feel really fortunate to have been paired with Steven W. Beattie and Craig Davidson, who are both very perceptive and fine writers --- as well as gentlemen and all-round good guys.

All still smiling after a long day of judging!

I've written about it before, but winning the Journey Prize in 2008 was truly one of the greatest things that has ever happened to me...and not only because it helped me to pay off my student loans many, many (many) years earlier than expected. The Writers' Trust does so much good work for writers in this country. Check out this week's profile in Maclean's, aptly titled "How the Writers' Trust of Canada Saves Authors," where you can also read excerpts of the five shortlisted books that are up for the fiction prize.

Tomorrow night all of the prize winners, including the winner of the Journey, will be revealed at the Writers' Trust gala, but before that happens I want to again congratulate all of the amazing writers who appear in the anthology. It was a privilege to read your work, and thank you for writing.

Aquileo | Côte Saint-Luc Reads 2014

noreply@blogger.com (saleema) — Wed, 22 Oct 2014 02:06:00 +0000

I'm really thrilled that Bone & Bread has been chosen as this year's Côte Saint-Luc Reads pick! The Côte Saint-Luc library book club has already read and discussed it, and I get to stop by and meet some readers and librarians later this week. (Thursday, October 23rd, if you'd like to come.) I hear that there will be music...and food! I'm really excited, actually. Nervous, but maybe even more excited than nervous! This might even be a first for me.

The event is part of Canadian Library Month....and Quebec Public Libraries Week. I wish I'd known earlier that October was Library Month. I love libraries!

Isn't it a lovely poster? It makes me a little shy to see how much of it is taken up with my photo. But I'm going to try to rise to the occasion by wearing a fancy purple dress I bought in Kensington in London...

Aquileo | Why Natalee Caple teaches brand-new CanLit (and why you should, too!)

noreply@blogger.com (saleema) — Tue, 14 Oct 2014 02:43:00 +0000

In case you missed it, novelist and English professor Natalee Caple contributed a brilliant guest post to the QWF Writes blog called "Why I teach Brand-New CanLit."

I urge you to read the original post, but I am going to quote at length from it here about her excellent reasons for teaching new Canadian books, even when it makes her job as a professor (in terms of constantly redesigning her syllabi and lecture notes, etc.) harder:

The books are never out of print.
Pre-ordering books helps to let the publisher and the bookstore know that the titles are desired.
The material is often quite relevant to students’ daily lives. This allows students to identify better with the settings, characters and scenarios.
Authors are accessible, alive and often available to Skype into the classroom so that students can ask them questions directly.
Student presentations are much better. Instead of Googling a biography and retyping a handful of academic quotes they have to read the whole book (they do complain about this).
Student essays are much better. Their close reading skills really improve because that is all they have to rely on.
Student confidence in their own readings improves. Because they don’t have to compete with the scholarly opinions of experts they learn that it is okay to rely on and develop faith in their own readings. This causes them to engage more deeply and so…
Students get better marks. When they see this they start to appreciate the work they did.
Students become more willing to take risks in thinking.
Plagiarism is greatly reduced. In fact, because a brand new book is so unlikely to have essays on it in circulation, to plagiarize really means paying someone to create an essay. Far fewer students are willing to take this extra step as it requires more planning and seems somehow more actively dishonest.
Canadian culture is reinforced as real and ongoing, lively, diverse and present.
Book sales show up in a timely fashion for authors. Titles get circulating at a time when it is most beneficial. We all know that numbers have become incredibly important to the sale of future books and that there is some self-fulfilling prophesy there.
I get to stay engaged with my peers in the writing community. I am giving them my support and staying on top of my field.
I get to read all the books I wanted to anyway and call it work! Did I say that it is my dream job?

Isn't this amazing? I can say that as an aspiring writer in university, it was completely life-changing (and ambition-fueling) to read contemporary Canadian Literature in the classroom. One professor assigned Strange Heaven as an extra-credit assignment in an Atlantic Fiction course and mentioned how Lynn Coady had been a student in his classroom not that many years earlier. (And I felt affirmed, somehow, to hear that she was quiet in class, like me.) I can only imagine how much more galvanized I would have been if I had had the opportunity to meet or Skype in class with one of the writers whose work I had read and studied.

I also strongly agree that close reading develops crucial critical faculties. Education shouldn't be all about research and organizational skills, important as those are. When students begin grappling with texts on their own and developing their own arguments, learning becomes more profound and, I think, more rewarding. But Natalee has already covered all this more succinctly in her original post....

...so I'll just add that as a published writer, it has truly been a privilege to be invited into several classrooms where students have read and studied my work. The experience has been incredibly positive -- and instructive, too. Students actively engaged in trying to make sense of a text will ask very incisive questions. And of course it is intensely rewarding to know that students are reading and engaging with your work at that level. I might even go so far as to say there is almost nothing MORE rewarding for me as a writer. This is the kind of knowledge that gets you through the occasional long bad days of struggling to finish the next story or novel, slogging away at the day job unjamming another photocopier, or thinking about people with business degrees who make eight zillion times more money, etc.

So all of you wonderful, lovely, gorgeous Canadian Literature professors out there: please consider teaching brand-new CanLit!

Aquileo | Wolfe Island LitFest

noreply@blogger.com (saleema) — Sun, 05 Oct 2014 22:48:00 +0000

All year, as I’ve been going around from literary festival to literary festival, there has been a quiet but persistent legend growing in my mind of the Wolfe Island LitFest.

“Have you heard of Wolfe Island?”

“Have you been to Wolfe Island?”

“If you get invited, GO!”

And then I was invited. So I went!!!

The 11th Annual Wolfe Island Joe Burke Literary Festival

You can see from the poster that this happened in June. But that was a mere blink of the eye ago in blogging time...

Rumour has it that Gord Downie of the Tragically Hip (!!!) is sometimes in attendance. Joseph Boyden is usually there, and this year his absence was lamented by many (including me). I was told by a few people that the first public readings of sections of The Orenda and Through Black Spruce happened on Wolfe Island. (I don't know if this is true, but it was a fact related with a significant amount of pride.)

The mystique of Wolfe Island was such that right up until a few days before I left, I wasn't 100% sure how I was getting there or where I might be staying. It was the kind of uncertainty that otherwise might have made me nervous (I like to plan! I like to visualize!), but I also knew that I shouldn't worry...I knew it was all going to come together.

I was charged with connecting with visiting Irish writer Kevin Barry upon leaving the train and to take a taxi to the dock, where we would be met by someone in a boat. Somehow, without ever having met before, Kevin and I spotted each other immediately, and along with his wife Olivia, easily found a cab.

The taxi drove along Tragically Hip Way, which caught the attention of the Irish, and as a long-time Hip fan, I had the fun task of trying to explain how awesome they are and the place they occupy in the national consciousness.

We were found by the lovely people who needed to find us (including the inimitable Mark Mattson, whose family plays a role in this wonderful festival), and we crossed very choppy waters on a little speedboat. Not knowing exactly what to expect -- or rather, having ignored some of the concrete information I did have at hand -- I was wearing heels, which made the boat boarding process slightly more nerve-wracking than it ought to have been. City girl mistake!

On a boat!

Then we crossed to the island, which was beautiful. We were fed, welcomed, introduced to a whole host of lovely Wolfe Islanders, taken to a remarkable abode known as the Duck Club, and then, later, to the venue.

Beautiful peonies on the lunch table

The reading venue was a beautiful spot. The festival is supported by Lake Ontario Waterkeeper, an charitable environmental group that works to protect the lake and keep it safe for drinking, fishing, and swimming.

Gorgeous light at the venue

Listeners gathering

Posters from previous years

Steven Heighton introducing Ken Babstock

Ken Babstock reading

Kevin Barry's (hilarious) reading

The photos are lacklustre and incomplete, I know. But all of the readers were amazing, those pictured as well as those not. Mostly, I was too much in the moment to worry about documenting things. Tanis Rideout read a poem about Wolfe Island which was full of references to past festivals and which was somehow moving and funny even without access to the full knowledge to understand all the allusions.

My own reading started with an introduction from Dave Bidini (!!!) and some microphone trouble, and I really enjoyed the reading itself. There were actual, palpable good vibes. At one point, I was startled to look up and notice Sarah Harmer in the audience. I got super into the band Weeping Tile after they broke up (sadly!), but Sarah Harmer’s solo album You Were Here was a major theme with me and my friends during my undergrad. (Listen to this as a sample if you don't already know it...then buy it.) I was lucky enough to see her play at least half a dozen times over those years. I was so thrilled she was there and even more thrilled when she came up to speak to me afterwards!

After the readings, everyone ate, drank, and made merry. A lot of us watched part of the World Cup game between England and Italy in a nearby garage while an eclectic soundtrack, (including "Poets" by the Tragically Hip, achieving a quintessential interdisciplinary artistic CanLit moment for me!) blared at full blast.

Merry-making evidence

Dreamy drive through a wind farm

Bundled up outside the Duck Club before a night out

Then that night Dave Bidini and his band played at a beautiful patio venue on the water, where sadly my phone was too dead to take any good photos. Although I did work up the nerve to ask Sarah Harmer for a photo that Kevin Barry was kind enough to take and send to me. She is so gracious and lovely!

Me and Sarah Harmer!

I don’t want to unravel any more of the Wolfe Island mystique, so I won't get into the antics that played out after dark (most of which, due to exhaustion, I didn't even witness). Maybe you really don't want to know what the poets are doing... Let's just say that there are good reasons to keep guns under lock and key....

Aquileo | Ten U2 songs that have stayed with me

noreply@blogger.com (saleema) — Wed, 10 Sep 2014 02:30:00 +0000

In honour of today's exciting free U2 album release, I decided to skip ahead of all my half-written blog posts about book clubs and literary festivals and do an alternate version of the meme that has taken over Facebook lately.

For the record, I don't think these are the ten best U2 songs. And some U2 songs meant a lot to me at the time, but I basically drove them into the ground through overplaying. I also haven't listened to the last two albums at all, although I've heard some of the songs when I last went to see them.

So...10 U2 songs that have stayed with me, in no particular order:

1. One

2. Electrical Storm

3. Red Hill Mining Town

4. Beautiful Day

5. New Year's Day

6. Dirty Day (hmmm, notice a trend?)

7. One Tree Hill

8. Until the End of the World

9. A Sort of Homecoming

10. In A Little While

Aquileo | Sitting in judgment

noreply@blogger.com (saleema) — Thu, 31 Jul 2014 14:19:00 +0000

Just in case you're the kind of amazing writer who can whip something off in a day, it isn't too late to mention that I'll be the fiction judge for this year's Room Annual Writing Contest! The extended deadline is August 1st at midnight.

A few weeks ago, I answered some questions over at the Room blog, which you can read here.

I also thought it would be worth mentioning that although I will be judging the contest, there is a chance I won't be reading your story.

The Room contest, like many (if not most, if not all) other fiction contests in this country, employs readers to read and vet the entries before they go on to the main publicized judge or jury. These readers are no slouches, I should add. Often they are published writers with one or more books to their credit, or editors or critics of long-standing. They are used to reading stories, and they know what makes a good one. I've been an early reader for a number of literary fiction contests, and I've always done my best to make careful and considered choices.

But still. There is a certain degree of subjectivity in any matter of art, and there are questions of taste and style and subject matter that differ from reader to reader. Maybe in one of my previous incarnations as an early reader I passed over something brilliant because I couldn't see past the magical duck or the narrator named Toothpaste or the Pre-Cambrian time period.* (*Not real examples.) Some contests have a safeguard against this, which is to have everything read by TWO readers, so that one person's magical duck bias won't rule out a rare duck masterpiece.

Maybe you read that I was the judge and you looked at all your carefully polished drafts and selected the one you thought *I* would like best. Maybe you even checked my collection of short fiction, Mother Superior, out of the library. I might do something like that, if I was submitting to a contest.

This is a long-winded way of saying that I will not be reading all of the entries for this contest, but a pre-selected, anonymized stack of what has been vetted to be the very best work submitted. And I'm so delighted to have been asked and to be able to come in at the end and take credit for lots of other people's thoughtful reading and consideration.

But when the winners are eventually announced I don't want you (or you or you) to think that I didn't like your story. Maybe I never even read it.

Aquileo | Becoming the book: Bronson Pinchot

noreply@blogger.com (saleema) — Fri, 25 Jul 2014 13:39:00 +0000

I don't usually share most of the wonderful things I read on the internet here, mostly because I suspect I am mostly reading the same things that everyone else on Twitter is already reading. However, I occasionally remember that I have readers who fall outside of the social media circuit, and so I will set aside my fears of redundancy. (And thanks, Kelvin K, for sharing the link!)

Do you know how writers sometimes talk about writing for the "ideal reader"? The reader who will intuitively understand what they mean and/or give them the benefit of the doubt, the trust to go on, if they don't? A faceless, nameless, quasi-mythical being who gives one the hope to keep on writing even when one suspects that nobody really cares about literature anymore? Well, it turns out that the ideal reader is actually Bronson Pinchot, or Balki from the late eighties/early nineties sitcom Perfect Strangers, as you probably remember him.

As a voice actor and narrator, Pinchot has voiced over 100 audiobooks. This long interview with him in Vulture is a fascinating and heartening read for anyone who cares about books and the worlds that authors are trying to create when they write.

Click here to read it.