k.i.press

So, a little over a week ago, we ordered Chinese food. My fortune read thusly:

In case you can’t read that terrible photo, it says, “Something interesting will happen soon at work.” Or, on the French side of the fortune, “Il se produira bientôt au travail quelque chose d’intéressant.”

Now, “interesting” is a weak, sickly and slippery word, so this fortune struck nervousness into my heart. A little bit. As Mindy says to Homer, “Desserts aren’t always right.” (It’s in the episode with Michelle Pfeiffer guest starring, for those who can’t quite remember the line.)

The next day at work, I got a mysterious email message from a new college librarian I’d never met before, saying there was a gift he wanted to give me that he’d had for a few years, and now that we were colleagues, he thought he should give it to me, sorry if this sounds creepy, etc.

The thorough LinkedIn background check I performed revealed only an affinity for books, and for rare books in particular, so I quickly assented to a meeting, despite feeling at the mercy of a fortune cookie.

It turned out I was gifted with the best surprise I’ve had in a long time: a copy of Henry J. Morgan’s 1903 illustrated biographical dictionary Types of Canadian Women. Volume 1.

Nearly six years ago, my book Types of Canadian Women—Volume 2—was published. It’s a mock biographical dictionary in poems and poetic prose, inspired, you guessed it, by Morgan’s Volume 1. I talked about the source material in the publishers’ bumpf, and in some interviews at the time. Morgan’s book says a Volume 2 was in the works, but, having never found trace of one, I thought I’d just have to write it.

I’d been in Winnipeg for about a year when Types came out. But our mysterious new librarian, Matthew Handscombe, was still in Toronto, where I’d written all but the last few drafts of the book–partly on Toronto Island at the fantastic Gibraltar Point centre, partly in a second-floor apartment in a Victorian brick oven in Parkdale, with no air-conditioning, one summer on a Canada Council grant.

Matthew was operating a tiny bookshop specializing in fine press books. My publisher, Gaspereau Press, does some pretty fine printing, so Matthew had no doubt seen my book in the catalogue, probably read one of the interviews, and may have been familiar with my earlier Gaspereau release, Spine, which contained, among other things, poems about fine printing. Somehow, my reference to Morgan’s Volume 1 stuck in his brain.

I used to consult Volume 1 in the Robarts Library at the University of Toronto, as part of my work as a researcher on Canadian history books and book proposals. The Robarts had a circulating copy, and while I was aware of a few copies on offer from book dealers, even after I’d fallen for the book and decided to write Volume 2, acquiring my own copy—which dealers listed for around $300—had never become a priority.

Still with me? Let’s get back to Matthew Handscombe, who, somewhere in the depths of his brain, catalogued this detail about my interest in this book.

(Wait, I have to digress again to say how much I like librarians. There’s Wendy, with whom I hung out during my M.A. in Ottawa, and now works at Memorial University Newfoundland; my sister Christine who works at the library in the Law Courts in Edmonton and is finishing her MLS on the side; Brian in the cubicle opposite mine who teaches in the library tech program–Hi Brian!; his colleague Tabitha whose CanLit class I once bombarded with my collection of obscure–duh–Canadian poetry chapbooks. I used to think librarianship was my lost calling, but then remembered that I promised myself, after paying off my student loans, never to go to university again. In short–go visit your library.)

Matthew’s father, Richard Handscombe, taught linguistics and children’s literature at York University (scroll down the linked page for bio), and was an avid book collector. Though significant parts of his collection were donated to the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library at the U of T—particularly a collection of over a thousand items by and about John Cowper Powys and his brothers—when Richard died, Matthew was left with a massive number of books to find homes for. Thirteen thousand, I think, was the number he told me (he’ll correct me if I’m wrong. Right?).

Types of Canadian Women was not, alas, lurking in the collection. But slowly, as Matthew and his family donated or sold books, he started to acquire things from the dealers, essentially doing part of the transaction in trade, with the intention of gifting specific books to individuals. It was at Greenfield Books here in Winnipeg that Matthew saw Types of Canadian Women and acquired it, somehow remembering that I, a writer he’d never met, had wanted it. It never occurred to him that I was also living in Winnipeg, until he noticed that I was a colleague at Red River College, where he’s only recently arrived.

Matthew styled the gift as a present from his father. I never met Richard Handscombe, and Matthew had never met me when he picked up this book and put it aside. I ran back to my office to get Matthew a copy of my little Volume 2, as an inadequate thank-you.

This post has gone on too long, and there is much I still want to research and write about: how books end up in rare book collections (my books are all in the Fisher, I can only assume by virtue of being Canadian small press books); more about Matthew’s father and his collection; how all this talk of book collecting reminds me of my father-in-law, Martin Levin, and his house filled with books; how Morgan’s Volume 1 will read to me now, years after I left my project behind on the poetry circuit; and how none of this would happen in a world where books are infinitely reproducible.

A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is so terribly written and full of cliches that it makes my brain drip out my ear as I read it. AND YET I CAN’T STOP. I might even start the next book. That’s why I’m settling on three stars. I can see why it would make good TV: that’s just like what so much TV is like–compelling, addictive, offensive, and insulting to one’s intelligence.

Maybe even more to the point, it makes perfect sense that Martin was a TV writer before he settled down to this big honking set of two-dimensional characters being manhandled by a plot written in magic marker in between pointless lengthy action sequences, in a world full of sexist, racist, and classist cliches so obvious that there’s not really any point in dissecting them. Everything’s floating on the surface.

I can only attribute my enjoyment of it to my growing intellectual laziness as I get old, tired, addled, overworked, mommy-brained, addicted to the new media, and unable concentrate for very long on actual good books. It’s sad, really. I really shouldn’t read any more. But I probably will. I kind of want to see if he’s going to get the dragons to burn up the zombies. But we probably don’t get to that level get until after a several more mini-bosses. Right? Wait, don’t tell me.

For the record, I have nothing against fantasy. Not a dedicated fantasy reader or anything, but I adore Pullman, for instance, enjoy Guy Gavriel Kay, and actually found it worthwhile to suffer through all the appendices of LOR.

But man, this book.

View all my reviews

Okay, so, finally, some more thoughts on iPad, because we all know the world needs more blog posts about that.

If I were to write a post about the apps I most frequently use, it would be embarrassingly full of simulation games and a creaky progression of inadequate Facebook apps and notetaking apps used and discarded one by one for Just Not Quite Being the Thing, Yet.

Back to the notetaking apps in a minute. First, allow me to stop strategizing about SimCity or Civilization long enough to write a brief list of writerly apps I consider noteworthy and have actually used.

1. Really Cool in a Totally Nerdly Way: Ampersands. Ampersands is the baby of a designer who always wanted to do a book of just beautiful ampersands, but there isn’t really a big enough ampersand market to justify the beautiful printing costs. That’s exactly what the beautiful iPad screen is for. I love to gaze at those fancy ands.
2. Dictionaries! Let’s start with the Oxford Dictionary of English and Oxford Canadian Dictionary. These weren’t cheap, but I use them all the time. I now always have a proper dictionary with me. (Theoretically, you don’t need to buy apps of Oxford reference books if you have a library card—Winnipeg Public Library, for one, offers on-line access to the Oxford reference library, as likely do many other libraries. But I find these apps much easier to use and more convenient.) They each have a different use – the COD for verifying Canadian spelling, yes, but the OED app has recorded pronunciations. In other massive reference books, I’ve also made some use of Larousse when confronted with a translation question. Now will someone please make a Chicago Manual of Style app?
3. For That Inky Experience:  I love using the iPad to write with my finger or a stylus; I’m awful at two-finger typing. So far the best inky response from notebook apps has been from Bamboo and from Penultimate.  But for ink good enough for doodling, try Zen Brush –made to mimic an ink brush. Nice “paper” backgrounds too.
4. No More Random Purse Paper: One of the things iPad is good for is eliminating all the random scraps of paper  with notes to myself on them. (Well, theoretically. I’m getting there.) But finding the perfect notebook app is tough. I’ve tried a zillion, and there are a zillion more waiting. I’m looking for…

•  simplicity, so I’m not bogged down with functions I don’t need;
• automatic date stamping, so I know when I wrote each page/note;
• a visual way of finding different notes and notebooks/folders (cause I just am that way);
• both ink AND typing functions;
• good ink response;
• search feature;
• iCloud integration or other automatic backup;
• both landscape and portrait orientations.

If anyone knows the app that does all that, please tell me. The newest update of Noteshelf is getting there – they’ve just added typing, but still no iCloud backup.

5. And yes, I do use Pages, but it makes me angry when working with long documents.

A kind of random assortment there, yes, but all writing related. Now how about things I thought I’d use, but don’t. Until next time…. go check out my Tumblr, where I actually post short stuff regularly.

A very literary week is coming up for CreComm Section 2. Lauren Parsons will hear part of her early oeuvre come to life at the reading/launch of Scirocco/MAP [Manitoba Association of Playwrights] Manitoba High School Playwriting Competition anthology I Was a Teenage Playwright on Monday night at McNally Robinson.

On Wednesday night (Nov. 30), the last installment of the CreComm reading series at Aqua Books (274 Garry) runs with Jamie McKay, Ryan Kessler and Mark McAvoy opening for visiting (but Winnipeg-educated) Montreal writer Saleema Nawaz, 7:30 p.m.

Saleema will also be reading to CreComm Section 3 the next day on Dec. 1. Saleema’s Winnipeg visit is supported by the Canada Council for the Arts.

It turns out that the narrator of Richard Brautigan’s prescient 1968 masterpiece In Watermelon Sugar was Steve Jobs. To whit:

iDEATH

It was about dark when I arrived at iDEATH. The two evening stars were now shining side by side. The smaller one had moved over to the big one. They were very close now, almost touching, and then they went together and became one very large star.

I don’t know if things like that are fair or not.

Too soon? You should have seen the Jack Layton/Yoda joke I stopped myself from posting a while back.

I found a few people online who’ve mused about iDEATH’s connection to Apple, but I’ve always been surprised it hasn’t been commented on more. Maybe Apple-devotee nerdiness and Brautigan-reading nerdiness do not often go hand-in-hand.

Prairie Fire Press & McNally Robinson Booksellers present:

Bliss Carman Poetry Award – Judge: Sylvia Legris
Short Fiction – Judge: Marilyn Bowering
Creative Non-Fiction – Judge: Lawrence Scanlan.

$6,000 in prizes. 1st prize in each category $1,250, 2nd prize $500, 3rd prize $250.

Deadline: Postmarked November 30, 2011. Entry fee $32.

For full contest rules check out www.prairiefire.ca, or contact: Prairie Fire Press, 423-100 Arthur Street, Winnipeg, Manitoba R3B 1H3. Phone (204) 943-9066, E-mail: prfire@prairiefire.ca.

At the risk of writing a completely unoriginal blog post, I feel the need to vent about The Apple Store.

Three times, my friends, I have now gone to Polo Park to buy an Apple accessory I required, and found that they did not have it in stock. Nothing too obscure. A Camera Connection Kit (I tried twice). A VGA adapter (i.e. dongle).

In both cases I probably should have gone over to Advance to look for said item, but as a mom who trudges over to the mall with my two-year-old, once I’ve visited one store on a Saturday, it’s lunch time, then it’s nap time, then the day might as well be over. Heck, the weekend might as well be over.

The Apple Store not having Apple products is bad enough, but it takes me forever to come to the conclusion that the product is not in stock because it is so hard to get someone to help me. Sure, the place is absolutely crawling with folks in blue shirts, but they are all demonstrating how to use an iPad. Maybe I don’t look like a big-ticket-item purchaser (a few years till the next one, I hope). Maybe it’s the toddler. Or maybe there’s something about me that says I’ve been an Apple user since 1983, and there is probably nothing they can do at this point to change that.

Anyway, I’ve come to the conclusion that The Apple Store exists primarily for branding purposes, and secondarily to sell items over $500. They make it so difficult to buy things there that I’ll just keep ordering them on-line, despite the fact that I can walk to The Apple Store in under half an hour. I tried. That’s the modern flippin’ world we’ve created, folks.

Insert grumpy harrumph here.

As for the App Store, I’m slowing down, but spent far too much money there over the first few months of my iPad. This is why I both love and hate it.

Something that desperately needs to be changed in both the App Store and in the iBookstore: you need to be able to sort media for children by age group. Try to find a bookstore where everything for anyone under 18 is lumped together in one section. In the iBookstore you’ll find a very unhelpful browsing category called “Children and Teens.” Yikes.

End rant. Next time I’ll talk about my favourite apps with a literary/publishing bent. See you!

This year’s Thin Air events at Red River College feature a butcher, a baker, and a candlestick maker–by which I mean a fiction writer, a non-fiction writer, and a poet, but multi-talented all. I probably shouldn’t have called anyone a butcher. Visit www.thinairwinnipeg.ca for the complete festival program. All are welcome!

The Campus Program at Red River College Roblin Centre at the Exchange District Campus, 160 Princess Street

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Tuesday, September 20, 11:00 am – noon
CGA Manitoba Room, P107
READING: Lynn Coady
Lynn Coady’s signature wit and insight power her new novel, The Antagonist, a narrative of a young man struggling to define himself against the expectations of others.

Thursday, September 22, 11:00 am – noon
CGA Manitoba Room, P107
READING: Glen Downie
Glen Downie has a way of making familiar things—like the tool shed and the local mall—surprisingly fresh in his most recent poetry collection, Local News.

Friday, September 23, 11:00 am – noon
CGA Manitoba Room, P107
READING: Myrl Coulter
In The House with the Broken Two, Myrl Coulter explores the changing dynamics of adoption through her own experience of losing and finding her first-born son.

Application Deadline: October 31st for the January – May 2012 Program

The Sheldon Oberman Mentorship Program pairs emerging writers with established, professional writers to work together one-on-one for a five month period. During the program, the emerging writer is encouraged to utilize the expertise of the professional writer in the areas of manuscript evaluation, markets and publishing, and grants and employment opportunities.

The Program is designed for emerging writers who have made a commitment to their writing and is not to take the place of a creative writing course. Emerging writers are expected to have been writing for some time and have a body of work. For many emerging writers who have participated in the program, the experience of working with a professional writer often marks the transition from beginning writer to published author.

In March, 2004 the Board decided to name the Emerging Writers’ Mentor Program after the late Sheldon Oberman, to pay tribute to his effort and encouragement when working with new and emerging writers. Founding Guild member Sheldon Oberman participated in the first annual Mentor Program as an apprentice in 1988 (mentor, David Arnason) and as he developed as a writer, he became one of the program’s longest serving mentors.

“I approach the work of an emerging writer with a great deal of respect for personal process. I seek the teaching methods with which the writer feels most comfortable… I offer my response first as a reader describing how I understand and feel as I read the writer’s work. Only when I understand the effect the writer wishes to achieve do I make suggestions on how the writer can alter the work to better achieve it.”

Sheldon Oberman was one of Canada’s most popular children’s authors, winning several awards including the McNally Robinson Book for Young People Award (By the Hanukkah Light, Boyds Mills Press in 1997, The Wisdom Bird, Boyds Mills Press in 2001). His book, The Shaman’s Nephew was nominated for a Governor General’s Award in 2000 and his book The Always Prayer Shawl won the Sydney Taylor American Librarians Award and the National Jewish Book Award in 1994.

THE 2012 PROGRAM

Six emerging writers and six senior writers will be selected from among the applicants, and will be paired for a five-month mentorship. Writers are asked to specify the literary genre in which they are currently working, and to send support material in that genre. Eligible genres are: poetry, fiction, creative non-fiction, and writing for children and young adults.

Apprentices and mentors are asked to commit to ten one-on-one meetings between January and May 2012. At each meeting, mentors will comment on a piece of the apprentice’s work, focusing on issues such as writing process, literary techniques, self-editing and manuscript development. Attention will also be devoted to markets, publishing and grants. Applications are invited from writers in every part of Manitoba. Where rural writers are chosen, the mentorship will be conducted on-line.

At the end of the program in June, apprentices will have the opportunity to read their work at a public event hosted by the Manitoba Writers’ Guild.

Eligibility & Application Process

Apprentices
Emerging writers with a clear commitment to writing are encouraged to apply. Applicants may be published or unpublished, and must be members of the Manitoba Writers Guild for the 2011-12 membership year. Apprentices will be asked to submit materials to their mentors prior to each meeting, and to write a program assessment at the end of the mentorship. There is no cost to the apprentices.

Please submit the following:
A page with name and contact information
A writing resume outlining your recent writing activities and any creative writing courses or workshops you’ve taken. If you are a published writer, provide a list of publications.
A letter describing your current work and explaining why you think this program would benefit you at this stage of your career. Discuss what you intend to work on during the program and what you would like to achieve.
A 10-page writing sample. Prose should be double-spaced.

Mentors
Writers with two or more published books are encouraged to apply to be a mentor. Applicants must be members of the Manitoba Writers Guild for the 2011-12 membership year. Past experience as an editor, mentor, or creative writing instructor is an asset but not a requirement. Successful applicants will be asked to sign an agreement outlining their responsibilities as mentors.
Mentors selected to participate in the program will receive a $1,500 honourarium provided by the Manitoba Writers’ Guild. This will be paid in two installments: $700 upon completion of an interim report halfway through the program, and $800 upon completion of a final report at the end.

Please submit the following:
A page with your name and contact information.
A concise statement describing your mentoring philosophy and process.
A curriculum vitae listing your published work and highlighting your teaching and mentoring experience.
Letters of recommendation from previous students or apprentices (optional and a maximum of two).

THE SELECTION PROCESS

Apprentices and mentors will be selected and matched by a jury of established writers and editors chosen by the Manitoba Writers’ Guild. Selection will be based on two factors:
The jury’s assessment of the strengths and potential of the applicants, based on the submitted material.
Whether a suitable match can be made between the senior and emerging writers, with respect to genre and writing experience.
The mentors and apprentices selected for the program will be contacted by telephone in December and the program will begin with a welcome reception in January.
To facilitate sending materials to the jury, applicants in both categories are asked to submit their application, including writing sample, by e-mail to info@mbwriter.mb.ca. Please send the package as a Word attachment.