Archive for the ‘Interviews’ Category
Wednesday, November 4th, 2009
I’ve been an admiring (and sometimes envious) reader of Russell Wangersky’s prose since I first encountered it almost a decade ago in the lit journals, where we frequently competed in the same contests. Burning Down the House, the precise and gripping memoir that Russell based on some of those early essays, is now in the running for some much bigger prizes, such as the BC Award for Canadian Nonfiction, Canada’s richest CNF prize (which it won earlier this year), and the Edna Staebler Award, for which it was recently nominated. Russell began as a journalist and is now an accomplished writer in multiple genres, including short fiction and the essay; his novel is forthcoming in 2010.
Q: You’ve written and continue to write in multiple genres – journalism, creative nonfiction, and fiction. What is the particular appeal of creative nonfiction to you? What draws you to this genre as a writer?
A: Creative non-fiction is both enticing and frustrating – enticing, because of the fun of moving through experience and working elements into a narrative line, but frustrating because stories don’t draw to the strong peak they might otherwise reach in fiction. You’re both helped and hamstrung by the truth. You always know where you’re going – without always knowing how you’re getting there – but you don’t always know if the story will be strong enough. Until, finally (hopefully), you know that it is. I’ve actually been drawn to creative non-fiction by my particular work in journalism – I write columns that are about whatever I want – they draw on memory, my personal experience, and sometimes the experience of others, and often involve drawing up remembered experiences to illustrate or highlight new events. My own voice is also the easiest voice – you hardly ever put a foot wrong.
Q: What draws you to the genre as a reader? Who are some of your favourite writers of creative nonfiction or memoir, and what appeals to you in their work?
A: As a reader, I like the fact that you feel like your footing is always safe. I guess that’s a little facile – but what I mean is that the footing is already tested somehow by experience. The other thing I particularly like is the consistency of voice by the writer. I’ve been reading creative non-fiction for years, since before it was even called creative non-fiction, and many stick out in my memory, new and old.
Report from Engine Company 82, by Dennis Smith, The Making of a Surgeon by William Nolen, and The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls, are all favourites from one point in my life or another, and that’s only the tip of the iceberg. What I like about those three in particular is the combination of extraordinary events told retrospectively, so that there’s not only the immediate drama of the circumstances, but also the weight of how the experiences have changed the writers.
Q: Do you find it difficult or stimulating (or both) to move between different genres? Have you ever used the same material and put it to different uses in fiction and creative nonfiction?
A: I like moving between the two, because, strangely, my fiction almost always begins in non-fiction. Almost all of my fiction work depends on hearing or seeing something, and imagining how things would turn out if that single instance was the anchor for a whole life. I have used non-fiction experiences in fiction for sure – a new collection of short stories will have two firefighting stories, stories that spring out of particular experiences I had while fighting fires.
Q: During our panel discussion at the Vancouver International Writers’ Festival in 2008, you mentioned that Burning Down the House grew, in part, out of individual essays that you had written. Can you tell us something about the process of turning those essays into a full-length narrative? What was gained – or lost – in the process?
A: What was lost was the cohesive strength of the shorter essays: I broke them up and moved them around in Burning Down the House, and while they were still strong and significant for the narrative, I think they lost something of the jewel-like precision they had in the beginning. I think essays are like short stories – they gain part of their particular strength because the whole concept of them is defined enough that you can hold the whole package in your head at one sitting. I can work on the beginning of an essay, strengthening its development towards the end, with almost every word in my head. I think it makes essay tighter and more singular – and more effective. It’s much harder to hold the same tension throughout a whole book, and I’m not even sure readers want something pulled that tight for say, 64,000 words or more.
Q: What was the biggest challenge you encountered in writing Burning Down the House?
A: Nightmares. I thought that writing the book would be cathartic. It wasn’t – it dredged up everything right to the front of my brain again, and kept it live. I was tormented by nightmares all through the writing, and still am – especially on tour or at readings, where people inevitable come up to me to share their own accident or fires experiences.
Q: What was the greatest reward?
A: I’ve heard from a handful of emergency services personnel who have found the book to be a great help overcoming their own demons – at least four are back to work, regularly in contact with me, and I feel (hopefully,perhaps) that I’ve had a part in that.
Q: What might you tell aspiring writers to read, and why?
A: Read lots. Read every genre you can. One of the best things about journalism is that I exercise my reading and writing muscles every single day. It’s like a foreign language – you have to use words until they are all second nature.
Q: What are you reading now?
A: Half-broke Horses by Jeannette Walls, Last Night in Twisted River by John Irving, Galore by Michael Crummey and Arnaldur Indridason’s Jar City.
Russell Wangersky was born in Connecticut but came to Halifax as a young child. He has worked as a journalist since the mid-80s, at the St. John’s Sunday Express, CBC Television, and finally, at The Telegram, where he became editor in 2002. For many years he also served as a volunteer fire-fighter. His book of short stories, The Hour of Bad Decisions, was included in both the Globe and Mail and Toronto Star’s lists of Best Books of 2006, and garnered an impressive string of awards nominations. Burning Down the House is his most recent book.
Tags: Creative Nonfiction, Interviews, Memoir
Posted in Awards, Creative Nonfiction, Essays, Interviews, Memoir | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, October 14th, 2009
Ann Rauhala is well known as former foreign editor at The Globe and Mail and as a documentary maker for CBC television’s The National Magazine. But I met her when I responded to a book review she’d written in the Globe. The book was written by an American and it had to do with adoption from China. Ann’s review was less than complimentary. I’d read the book in question, agreed wholeheartedly with her assessment, and was pleased (or should I say, smug?) to see my own opinions expressed with such elegance. Her signature line mentioned that she was compiling an anthology of memoirs by Canadians who had adopted from China, and since I’d recently written a piece on the subject, I decided to contact her. It took a few years longer than either of us had anticipated, but The Lucky Ones: Our Stories of Adopting Children from China appeared in 2008 and was chosen as an Adoptive Families Best Book of the year. I spoke with Ann about the process of putting this book together.
Ann Rauhala
Q: What sparked the idea for this anthology?
A: People seemed curious about our adoption of a girl from China and rather than being offended by that –as some adoptive parents are- I felt an obligation to explain to them, to her, to myself. It hit me one day, walking across the schoolyard, that the obvious way to inform, amuse, maybe even enlighten the curious, given my background as a newspaper editor and columnist, was to bring together the voices of the many talented writers I knew who had adopted. And of course, by doing so, I’d get a chance to shape the narrative.
Q: Why did you choose an anthology of essays rather than poetry or fiction?
A: Collections and anthologies are a whole dinner party of viewpoints rather than a table for two. Although I read a lot of novels, when it comes to non-fiction, I like variety. Let’s carry on the food conceit and call it a preference for a smorgasbord. If I want to know about the Iranian election or mutual funds, for example, I much prefer to read four or five newspaper articles rather than one magazine piece.
Q: Does the essay genre offer something different to readers?
A: For me, essays are a more meditative genre, one in which I tend to mull over the arguments that are raised. While some great novels have changed my life, fiction nowadays feels more often an escapist sleeping potion rather than a stimulus.
Q: Was it difficult to secure contributors?
A: It wasn’t. Adoptive families are connected online and off and I tapped into that. A few people needed more encouragement than others. At least one person said yes only because I promised the book would not be sappy and self-congratulatory.
Q: Tell us something about the editing process.
A: I was a newspaper editor for almost 20 years so I knew a little bit about working with writers. I know that people, including writers, don’t always understand editing. One example: the best writers don’t get edited much so they don’t realize how much polishing may have gone on elsewhere. Ahem. Nevertheless, I was surprised sometimes by which parts went smoothly and which did not.
Q: What was the greatest challenge in getting this project off the ground?
A: Getting it off the ground wasn’t so hard – it was keeping it airborne. I knew it was a worthwhile idea but also knew that I wouldn’t be able to focus on it for a year or two after I sent out the first call for submissions. (I had started a new job teaching journalism, had a toddler and a school-age child at home and also did an MA part-time.) That year or two turned into several years.
Q: What has been the greatest reward, either in working on this book, or post-publication?
A: The greatest rewards have been my daughter’s exuberant delight in the final product and my 87-year-old mother’s quiet pride. I expect that as my daughter matures and appreciates the essays on a deeper level, there will be rewards to come.
Q: What advice might you offer to someone else who wanted to put together a collection like this?
A: It could take longer than you think but delays can enrich the final outcome. In my case, the longish time between the original notion and the delivery of the manuscript meant that the oldest cohort of adopted girls had reached 16 and had more insight about their experience and more to say than they would have at 11 or 12.
Ann Rauhala spent 16 years at The Globe and Mail, where she worked as a copy editor, assignment editor, beat reporter, foreign editor and featured columnist. From 1994 to 1997 she was a television reporter, making documentaries, mostly on health and social policy, for CBC television’s The National Magazine. She has also written editorials, business stories, book reviews, magazine articles and radio commentaries. She’s currently director of the newspaper stream at the School of Journalism at Ryerson University in Toronto.
Tags: Anthologies, Interviews
Posted in Anthologies, Interviews | No Comments »
Saturday, September 19th, 2009
Merilyn Simonds recently interviewed me about women and writing for her column in the Kingston Whig-Standard. Find the article here.
Tags: Essays, Interviews, Pathologies: A Life in Essays, Women and Writing
Posted in Appearances, Essays, Interviews, Women and Writing | No Comments »
Tuesday, September 15th, 2009
Theresa Kishkan is the recent winner of the inaugural Creative Nonfiction Collective’s Readers’ Choice Award, in recognition of two fine collections of essays, Red Laredo Boots and Phantom Limb. Her answers to the questions in this interview offer clues to her writing process and suggest why, for her, the essay is such a congenial form. She watches the world intently. She reads widely and she reads deeply, without regard for fad or fashion. She follows her own passions and preoccupations, lets her questions take her where they will, and trusts in the journey. I talked to her about Phantom Limb and her other work.
Theresa Kishkan
Q: What inspired you to write this book (Phantom Limb)? Why did you choose to use the essay form in particular, since you also work in other genres?
A: I love the essay for its space and potential, for its generous willingness to expand to include so many of my preoccupations. I’m less certain that I chose it than that it chose me. What happens is this: I find myself musing about particular things and I begin to write about them, usually by following a thread. When I begin, I don’t always perceive that the thread is part of a skein and so I discover that the thing that has interested me is connected to other things, many of them unexpected. I didn’t know, for instance, when I began to write about bears in “month of wild berries picking” that the piece would ultimately concern itself with the wild nature of women’s sexuality. Or that writing about quilts would lead me to plunder the rag-bag of family history.
Q: What, if anything, do you feel distinguishes the personal essay as a genre?
A: Its capacity to be self-revelatory, to range across a wide field and share the writer’s pleasures and discoveries, in an intimate voice.
Q: What was the biggest challenge you encountered in completing this book?
A: I had difficulty restraining myself in particular essays. I’ve suggested that the form is expansive but sometimes I found I was testing its limits. I felt such urgency to get everything in!
Q: What was the greatest reward?
A: The luxury of writing about things I love and have paid attention to, then having others read and respond to such personal passions.
Q: What do you like about writing essays, or how would you compare your experience of writing essays and poetry (or fiction)?
A: I began my writing life as a poet but stopped writing completely when my children were small. Returning to it later on, I found that I couldn’t stretch the line of a poem to get it to do what I wanted it to do. Other poets could, and did, but I needed a different kind of narrative line, I suppose – one that reflected the tension between the private and public, wild and domestic, Cartesian and quotidian. Poetry did teach me to trust that connections could be made and sustained across time and space. I never intended to write fiction at all but discovered that by employing a fictional perspective, I could sometimes get closer to what I wanted and couldn’t quite negotiate with my own voice, my own experience. Essays use techniques and strategies from these other genres, of course, and that’s part of their intense satisfaction to me, both as a writer and a reader.
Q: Why did you choose this particular title for your work?
A: I wanted a title which would reference the past, the layers of history that we carry, lose, and constantly try to relocate and come to terms with: a shifting and transitory archive.
Q: What books might you tell aspiring writers to read, and why?
A: I read like a magpie, I suspect, choosing books like bright objects. It’s often only after I’ve read them that I realize their value to me as a writer. I have shelves of field guides, for instance, and have come to understand how they form part of the scaffolding of my own work. I consider myself a citizen of a specific geography and I think it’s important to know the place as well as I’m able to. This means reading it with the same attention that I’d devote to any other text, alert to its grammar, its syntax, its word-hoard and tropes. Plant taxonomy, marine systems, geology, the archaeological record – they have a lot to tell us about relationships, precision, and history. So I’d suggest that aspiring writers read any and everything and in the process they will absorb something of the beautiful possibilities of language and form.
Q: Who are some of your favourite authors, and why?
A: I’ve counted Gary Snyder as a literary mentor since I first began to write. His work grows out of an attention to the world around him and he’s that rare thing (these days, at any rate), the passionate amateur – house-builder, philosopher, naturalist, activist, poet-scholar, traveller. . . John Berger’s essays and novels always engage me. Pliny the Elder’s Natural History has pride of place on my desk because no one has quite that arrogant confidence and insatiable curiousity. A few years ago I discovered Ellen Meloy’s books about the red rock country of southern Utah. She wrote with ardour and humour. I read Jorie Graham’s poems because of their electrifying intelligence. I admire Harold Rhenisch’s work in general for the originality of his vision. I keep Herodotus’s The Histories (in the excellent Landmark edition) at hand because it’s such a sustained careful work of historiography. I love the poems and translations of Michael Longley for the delicacy of his language and the density of his affections. I think the Scottish writer Kathleen Jamie is extraordinary. Her poetry is concise and fine, and her essay collection Findings is quietly brilliant.
Q: What are you reading right now?
A: I’m reading a strange and wonderful book by John Keast Lord, a veterinarian and naturalist with the Northwest Boundary Commission from 1858-62. He wrote a memoir of this experience, The Naturalist in Vancouver Island and British Columbia, published in England in 1866, which in fact ranges all over the Pacific Northwest and California. It’s wildly eccentric and disorganized but it has moments when one realizes what an astute observer this man was. Nothing escapes his notice or comment. There are windows in this book that allow a long view, a historical view, to a time and place I love and which I fear is threatened by the nervous energy of a culture unaware of what it’s losing (Barry Lopez calls it “the commodification of landscape”). The great runs of salmon described by Lord, the vast groves of Garry oaks on Vancouver Island, the camas and butterflies and grey wolves near Fort Victoria…
Theresa writes:
I was born in Victoria, B.C. and have lived on both coasts of Canada as well as in Greece, England and Ireland. I make my home on the Sechelt Peninsula with my husband, John Pass. John and I built our house and raised our three children on an acreage near Sakinaw Lake. We operate a small private press, High Ground Press, printing broadsheets and chapbooks on a 19th century platen press.
I began my writing life as a poet and published three full-length collections of poetry – Arranging the Gallery (Fiddlehead Poetry Books, 1976), Ikons of the Hunt (Sono Nis, 1978) and Black Cup (Beach Holme, 1992) – as well as several chapbooks, including Morning Glory (Reference West, 1992) which won the bpNichol Chapbook Prize the year it was published.
After the births of my three children, I turned to prose and published Red Laredo Boots (New Star Books, 1996), a collection of personal essays about history and travel. Since then I have published two novels, Sisters of Grass (Goose Lane Editions, 2000) and A Man in a Distant Field (The Dundurn Group, 2004), and a novella, Inishbream (first published in a limited edition by the Barbarian Press in 1999 and then as a trade edition by Goose Lane Editions in 2001).A second collection of essays, Phantom Limb, was published by Thistledown in 2007. The Age of Water Lilies, a novel set in the orchard community of Walhachin in the years just before and during the Great War, has just been published by Brindle & Glass. My work has been nominated for a number of awards, including the Pushcart Prize, the Relit Award, the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize and the Hubert Evans Award for Non-Fiction. Inishbream won an Alcuin Award for Design Excellence.
Here is the beautiful cover of Theresa’s new novel, just released today!
Tags: Creative Nonfiction, Creative Nonfiction Collective, Essayists, Essays, Interviews
Posted in Creative Nonfiction, Creative Nonfiction Collective, Essayists, Essays, Interviews, Women and Writing | 6 Comments »
Thursday, August 20th, 2009
I met Kathy Diane Leveille in 1996 at the Maritime Writers’ Workshop and we’ve kept in touch ever since. Kathy’s the author of an exciting new suspense novel, Let the Shadows Fall Behind You, and a short story collection, Roads Unravelling. She interviews me today on her blog. You may need to scroll down.
Tags: Blogs, Interview
Posted in Blogs, Interviews, Women and Writing | 2 Comments »
