Author's Fest

Tonight I heard a discussion featuring three authors from Vancouver, and one from London, England. Eden Robinson, Timothy Taylor, Caroline Adderson and Tom McCarthy talked about reading, writing, and the internet, in a roundtable forum hosted by Richard Crouse. The lone Brit was Tom McCarthy, a fact he ably demonstrated through his wry wit. He remarked that a reader once informed him that his protagonist had been dead the whole novel, a fact which hadn't occurred to him. Also, in response to Caroline Adderson's comment that readers make up 50% of the work, he raised her total by 25%.
All four writers were well spoken and genial, especially Eden Robinson, who laughed at length at every opportunity, of which there were many. Richard Crouse was an affable host, asking questions about how the authors had learned their craft, and who much attention they paid to publicity and reviews, among other queries. Each author had a lot to say, and their responses varied. While Timothy Taylor had turned to writing after a career in the business world, and had learned his craft through reading alone, Eden Robinson spent five years studying creative writing for a BFA, and another three for an MFA. Tom McCarthy had studied literature in university, but he said it was only afterward that he began looking at works from a technical rather than academic perspective.
Each author taked about the need to work through spells of bad writing, and the need for constant editing and revision. Caroline Adderson talked about the need to purge oneself of all the negative influences, such as those of television, through bad writing. She remarked that when she began to write, her writing was terrible, but after a while it stopped being so. Tom McCarthy talked about his time reading manuscipts of drafts of different classic works, such as Faulkner's "The Sound and the Fury". He found that the earlier versions of this work, which he considered the benchmark for English literature, as being quite lousy. This was also the case with Eliot's "The Waste Land", which required significant editing by Ezra Pound to become the "sleek Ferrari of a poem" that it now is.
This discussion, part of the Harbourfront Centre's International Festival of Authors, was both engaging and inspiring. It was full of comic moments, such as when the authors confessed to obsessing over their Amazon rankings. I wish that events like these were a more common occurrence.

Thursday Night in Kensington

Another sign that winter is here- the ATM in Kensington has returned to its seasonal use as a homeless shelter. There's something humbling about withdrawing $60 while someone is passed out beside you, in a space 6 by 10. I was tempted to leave her some money. Instead, I went to Tutti Frutti, where I bought five kinds of soy products (milk, tofu, tempeh, tvp, and roasted nuts), Israeli pomegranate juice, California raisins, and coloured spiral noodles.

October happenings

On Sunday I walked along the route of Garrison Creek, in a walk organised by the the Toronto Public Space Committee. The route went from Christie Pits, to Harbord Park, Trinity Bellwoods, and down to Fort York. I met a reporter from Now named Jenny. She also writes for BlogTO, and told me about the sex feature they're launching, and her visit to a "cuddle party" to write a post for the site. They will also be visiting "Wicked", the swingers' club, in the near future.
Fort York, where Garrison Creek used to meet the former shore line of Lake Ontario, is a strange reminder of Canada's colonial past. Surrounded by a four foot wall, just over from the Gardiner, the fort once housed British soldiers who fought the War of 1812 against those pesky Americans.

On Monday evening, at my Native Lit class, there were a number of presentations, all involving food. Jenny and Emily handed out fry bread and pumpkin cookies with their presentation on the writer Linda hogan and her Chickasaw people. The amusing old women handed out popcorn, in three colours, and told us about her visit to the Nk'mip heritage site in Osoyoos, BC.

Today, in recognition of the unavoidable encroachment of winter, I made my first soup for the season, with potatoes, lentils and zucchini.