Fall 2017 wordworks

BRITISH COLUMBIA’S MAGAZINE FOR WRITERS

FALL 2017 $6.95

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05

Members' Corner

06

Changes, Changes, Changes!

09

Interviewing WordWorks Editors

Romney Grant

10

Summer Contest Winner

Ellen Niemer

13

Print Still Matters in a Digital World

Carol Anne Shaw

18

The Mushroom Hunter

Lucia Terra

19

What my Clients Taught me About Becoming an Author

Chelsea Comeau

22

Poetry by Rhonda Ganz

25

FBCW Photo Archives

27

A Briefing for Would-Be TV Writers

29

Launched!

Trev Renny

WORDWORKS IS PROVIDED FREE TO MEMBERS OF THE FEDERATION OF BC WRITERS. IT IS AVAILABLE ON OUR WEB PAGE AND IN BRITISH COLUMBIA PUBLIC LIBRARIES, HIGH SCHOOLS, AND HISTORICAL SOCIETIES. TO JOIN THE FBCW, OR PURCHASE A SUBSCRIPTION TO WORDWORKS, GO TO BCWRITERS.CA

Page 1 ◆ WordWorks ◆ Fall 2017

Publication of The Federation of British Columbia Writers 2014 Bowen Rd, Nanaimo, BC V9S 1H4 bcwriters.ca Editor in Chief Shaleeta Harrison, communications@bcwriters.ca Business Manager Thomas Baxter, TomBaxter@bcwriters.ca Interior Designer/Illustrator Coby McDougall

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very three months, six WordWorks editors and a business manager gather to plan the next issue. We live all over the province, so we don’t all meet in one room—three or four will be in a living room or a library, a couple will be on Skype, and one will almost always end up on someone's speakerphone. We fall into the rhythm of our editorial meetings pretty quickly. We usually discuss the previous issue and any challenges we had within those first ten minutes, and then get on to the difficult part—compiling ideas for future issues that are both relevant and inspiring. We often have a list of articles that people have submitted, and a list from previous meetings that haven’t been explored yet, but the majority of the articles will be from our afternoon discussions, bouncing ideas off of each other, and discussing possible writers for them. The time passes in an instant, and I am always left surprised at the end of the three hours that it could go so swiftly.

This is our process, our version of WordWorks. Five of the seven members have been on the team for under two years—the others just a bit longer.

WordWorks, however, is turning 35 this year, and has been handled by possibly hundreds of people: editors, volunteers, and employees. It has evolved, both in physical form, and in its goals. The magazine exists to benefit writers in BC, it is here to inform and inspire writers, and help them achieve their goals.

This issue, we want to thank our past editors and volunteers—the ones who kept the magazine moving forward, who met in an office building or a library, who planned each issue out with careful discussions, and were proud of the work that they had done. We have begun uploading all of the past issues, so they can be read by anyone interested. Our records go back to 1982, but there are a few holes—if you have an issue that isn’t there, please let us know, we’d love to record it and send it back to you.

Thank you for reading, and for helping us continue.

Shaleeta Harrison

Fall 2017 ◆ WordWorks ◆ Page 2

Visuals Editor & Cover Designer Chris Hancock Donaldson FBCW Board Advisor Ann Graham Walker Fiction Editor Andrea McKenzie Raine Poetry Editor Chelsea Comeau Guest Editor Ellen Niemer Cover Artist Unknown (FBCW Archives) © The Federation of British Columbia Writers 2017 All Rights Reserved

ISSN: 0843-1329 Submissions

Content of WordWorks Magazine is, with very occasional exceptions, provided by members of the Federation of BC Writers. If you would like to submit something, or if you have a story idea you would like to see included in WordWorks, please visit bcwriters.ca/wordworks/submit

Advertising

WordWorks is pleased to advertise services and products that are of genuine interest to writers. Space may also be provided to honour sponsors, whose generous contributions make it possible for the Federation of BC Writers to provide services to writers in BC. For information about advertising policies and rates, see bcwriters.ca/WordWorks/advertisers

Content

Editorial decisions are guided by the mandate of WordWorks as "BC’s Magazine for Writers", and its role as the official publication of the Federation of BC Writers. WordWorks will showcase the writing and poetry of FBCW members'; provide news and feature coverage of writing and writers in BC with an emphasis on writing techniques and the business of writing; carry news about the Federation of BC Writers, and its work supporting and advocating for writers.

CONTRIBUTORS Trev Renney

Trev Renney is a Vancouver-based television and screenwriter whose work has been featured on such series as Ice Pilots NWT, Yukon Gold, The Bachelorette Canada and Save my Reno. He recently wrote and produced the Leo nominated documentary My Heart in Kenya, and has a feature-length graphic novel adaptation called Tangles in development with Giant Ant Media.

He lives in Vancouver with his wife Kate, and his two young boys, Marlow and Jules.

Carol Ann Shaw

Carol Anne is the author of the middle-grade Hannah series, all published with Ronsdale Press of Vancouver. Her most recent book, Hannah & the Wild Woods, received a 2016/2017 Chocolate Lily Award for BC’s best novel. A big fan of BC books, Carol Anne also reviews young adult novels for BC Bookworld’s The Ormsby Review.

When she isn’t at her laptop, she likes to paint, write poetry, and play “fetch" with all the neighbourhood dogs.

Margo Lamont

Margo Lamont is a Vancouver-based person who likes to write and is no longer sure if that means stories or calligraphy or maybe both.

She is a cofounder and facilitator of The Closet Writers on her worksite, and the Grind Writers group. Grind Writers is for fledgling writers and is not into intense critique, or intense anything, but is into the flow of words and why writing feels so good.

Romney Grant

An alumna of SFU’s The Writer’s Studio, Romney studied under mentor, Timothy Taylor. Her short story, "Catching Air," was chosen by J.J. Lee to lead the class anthology. Her first novel is currently under review with a Canadian publisher. Romney has a large commercial and business writing portfolio which spans marketing copy for a major redevelopment project in downtown Vancouver, business plans for high tech companies, to a monthly dating column.

A new novel is in the works. Romney currently works in an executive capacity in the television production industry.

Lucia Terra

Lucía Terra is a bilingual writer and editor based in Vancouver. An alumna of SFU’s Writer’s Studio, she writes non-fiction articles on cultural, environmental, and social justice issues. Her efforts to support books and writers includes a successful application for a Neighbourhood Small Grants from the Vancouver Foundation, which allowed her to co-conduct a book club program to promote local writers. She has also served on the Board of the Federation of BC Writers and as Regional Representative for Vancouver. You can follow her musings about words, books, and everything language related on Twitter @terra_lucia

Rhonda Ganz

Crime fiction, reality tv and bad dreams inform Rhonda Ganz’s poetry, which has appeared in Rattle, the Malahat Review, Room, on city buses and in the anthologies Rocksalt: An Anthology of Contemporary BC Poetry, Poems from Planet Earth, Poet to Poet, Force Field: 77 Women Poets of British Columbia and Erotic Haiku: Of Skin on Skin. She has been a featured reader at Planet Earth Poetry in Victoria, WordStorm in Nanaimo, Word Vancouver and at the inaugural Galiano Literary Festival. She lives in Victoria, B.C., where she works as a graphic designer and editor. She shares a home with one human and varying numbers of cats. She speaks German and has been known to write poems on the spot for people in hotel lobbies, parks and cemeteries. Poetry saved her life.

Ellen Niemer

Ellen Niemer is a writer, editor, and graduate of Douglas College’s Print Futures Professional Writing program. During her schooling she interned at alive magazine and went on to become a senior editor at the publication. Ellen has studied fiction writing with Caroline Adderson and Shaena Lambert and is working on her first novel. She is Secretary for the Board of Directors of the FBCW. Say hello on Twitter at @a_live_editor.

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ANN GRAHAM WALKER

Dear Writers, I hope you are enjoying our beautiful new colour WordWorks. We have figured out a way to sustain the increased printing costs, so you can look forward to more. Shaleeta has details. (Dear Shaleeta! I attended her wedding to Ryan Harrison on September 9 and can tell you she looked joyful and beautiful, it was such a happy, optimistic and light hearted celebration, with her tiny and enormous dogs included in the lineup of bridesmaids and groomsmen. Maybe I can persuade her to post a picture for this issue? Try and remember:

Fall 2017 ◆ WordWorks ◆ Page 4

she is Shaleeta Harrison now).

Shaleeta is our only employee. The Federation of British Columbia Writers is a volunteer-run organization, and I am really grateful to the board members, regional reps, area reps, contest readers and others who share their skills and give their time so that we can all have a writers’ federation working to serve our needs. In the past few months we have added some new benefits to your membership. We’ve told you about them but I want to be sure you know so will quickly let you know again. We have a blog on our website now, with postings of interest to writers.

(Let us know if you have an idea you want to submit). We have added a member discussion forum to our website as well—a place where you can start discussions, ask questions, seek out members for a writing group, and so on. (Nothing unkind please). Our Professional Directory is up and running— so if you teach workshops, mentor manuscripts, edit, provide social media platform consulting, or any other service to writers, this is a good place to market your skills.

If you have a new book, don’t forget to send a cover image and blurb to WordWorks for our Launched section. And if you send news of your new book or reading or writer get together to Shaleeta (communications@bcwriters.ca) to post on Facebook and Twitter, any posters or photographs will now get posted on our new Instagram.

Whether you are traditionally published, self published, indie published—it doesn’t matter.

The FBCW is here to support writers and emerging writers and to provide the tools that help you market and promote your work.

Another thing you have told us you want: the opportu-

nity to get together with other writers. Our regional and area reps will be working to organize local write ins and meet and greets as fall and winter set in—but the province is big and we cannot be everywhere. If you would like to partner with us to get some regular writer meet and greets started in YOUR community—perhaps a community where there is no FBCW rep to do that—please contact Shaleeta. We’d be so happy to try and make it happen.

One last thing: a date to mark in your 2018 calendar already. April 13-14 will be our 2018 AGM and second annual Spring Writes writing festival, happening this time in New Westminster! Home to many extraordinary writers, so it is sure to be a terrific weekend.

April seems a long way away right now. Until then, stay warm!

Ann Ann Graham Walker President, FBCW president@bcwritets.ca

MEMBERS'

CORNER

* SHALEETA HARRISON COMMUNICATIONS@BCWRITERS.CA

TODAY'S TOPIC: THE PROFESSIONAL DIRECTORY

T

his section provides information about accessing and getting the most out of memberships. The topics are compiled from the most common problems and questions that we see. Let us know if you'd like something specific tackled!

WHAT IS THE PROFESSIONAL DIRECTORY?

The Professional Directory is a listing of professional FBCW members and the services that they offer. All members are welcome to submit. The directory is organized first by type of service offered, and then alphabetically. Please email me* if you have any questions.

HOW TO SUBMIT

Please go to bcwriters.ca/professional-directory/#apply and fill out the short form there. Please prepare a description in advance that provides adequate information for anyone looking to hire you for your services. We do not edit the submissions, so please check your spelling and grammar before submitting. If you need to make a change to a current listing, please email me*.

WHAT ARE THE REQUIREMENTS

We don't have any formal requirements, but ask that you are clear about what services you offer, and provide as much information as possible. The FBCW cannot provide recommendations, so we don't have any form of an application process—you just submit your information, and we post it for you.

HOW MANY LISTINGS CAN I HAVE?

You can have yourself listed under as many categories as you wish, but you can only have one profile in the professional directory. If you are both an editor and a graphic designer, you would want to describe your skills and experience in both careers in the description that you submit.

HOW DOES THIS BENEFIT ME?

This new directory fills a need that the FBCW has had for a long time. We often get people asking about different services, and wondering where to look to find the perfect professional. We have a few organizations that we can refer people to, but the directory allows us to recommend our own members, and provide the information in an organized way. This benefits our members, because they can list their services, and find more business. It helps many writers looking for help across the province, because It helps writers across the province find the exact professional help they are looking for.

Come back next issue to read about How to pay for your membership with this newfangled system Thanks, and email me* anytime if you have questions or problems!

Shaleeta Harrison Page 5 ◆ WordWorks ◆ Fall 2017

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eginning in Summer, 2018, WordWorks will be extending its editorial schedule to print every four months instead of every three, essentially skipping its summer issue.

This is in order to be able to continue publishing our magazine in full colour, which is more expensive.

We strive to continue improving the quality of our magazine, working within our budget.

There are other advantages to going to three issues per year. (We have thought about this carefully).

It allows our volunteer editorial board more time to put together an issue and more time to edit the submissions that come in. As such, we expect to produce even higher quality content for our readers.

In between the increased printing costs for colour and the decreased issues from four to three, there is a small margin of cash we are devoting to paying our writers more—always a priority for the FBCW. We are increasing payment to .25/word, and look forward to being able to increase that again as funding allows.

We hope you enjoy WordWorks and support the ways it has changed and developed. Please share your ideas about WordWorks in our member discussion forum at bcwriters.ca/forum.

And here’s another great way to support WordWorks: buy a gift subscription for a writer friend!

They’re available at a discount now at bcwriters.ca Please feel free to email us at: communications@bcwriters.ca with comments, questions, and concerns.

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Fall 2017 ◆ WordWorks ◆ Page 6

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his summer, I had the opportunity to exchange some emails and a phone call with Margo Lamont, one of the previous managing editors of WordWorks. We discussed how WordWorks has evolved, and what difficulties have faced the publication over its 35 years of print and digital publishing. Margo's term was a tumultous time, but the team managed to bring together some of the most informative and interesting issues in WordWorks 35 year history. We exchanged ideas for WordWorks in future years, and had the fortune to hear about what my position was like over a decade ago.

SH: What issues of WordWorks were you the managing editor of, and what challenges did you face?

ML: Just for the record, I never wanted that title managing editor; it seemed a bit lofty. But people on the board said—well, that’s what you are. I was the editor for all of 2012. The biggest challenge? Well, In 2011, the board was told that the FBCW had received only 80% of our usual operating grant for the coming year. A sudden and unprecedented situation, it was a very tense time as we faced down the possibility that the FBCW might not even be able to survive, and tried to come up with solutions. That grant covered our office and administrative expenses, and the production,

printing and mailing of WordWorks. It all had to go until—and if—our funding was restored: the FBCW had to become a “virtual” organization, and everything done by volunteers. Not an optimum situation.

Ceasing print publication of WordWorks was like an emergency appendectomy. We had no time to plan this transition. An FBCW without WordWorks was inconceivable but it would take time to fund a print version again. What to do I the meantime? Three board members—poet Daniela Elza, and Susan Greig as art director, and I (and later volunteer proofreaders Franci Louann and Lesley Prentis) volunteered to produce WordWorks as a digital publication for the next year, until the next round of funding would—we hoped— restore the FBCW to some financial stability.

We decided to do theme issues, initially based on genres, with guest-editors steeped in those scenes, markets, and writers.

SH: Can you tell me more about the four issues you worked on? How did having guest editors work?

ML: Fall 2012 was all about “Writing for Children & Youth.” Vancouver YA writer kc dyer, who was long and deeply involved with the Surrey International Writers’ Conference and who knew the market well, agreed to guest-edit. She was marvelous and stepped up to the plate on such short notice, drawing on her Page 7 ◆ WordWorks ◆ Fall 2017

many resources and connections—articles ranging from a market overview with Vancouver Kidsbooks owner, Phyllis Simon; to a feature interview with well known kidswritingwizard and dreamer, Lee Edward Fodi… to James McCann on “Writing the Zombie Apocalypse.” Tanya Lloyd Kyi reminded us that kids like nonfiction but how the pitches are different. Eileen Cook (author of the successful Fourth Grade Fairy series and teen fiction) wrote about the differences in writing for teens vs. adults.

Spring 2012 was “The Poetry Edition” —Vancouver poet Daniela Elza who was in the midst of finishing up her PhD at the time, agreed to guest-edit the second edition. We wanted to explore the provincial poetry scene, and she did a magnificent job pulling in articles from all over BC: a feature interview with Vancouver’s third poet laureate, Evelyn Lau about how you know when a poem is done, perfectionism, Evelyn’s process, what keeps a poet awake at night, and how poetry can sometimes save your life.

Daniela curated articles by poets like Christine Leclerc whose The Enpipe Line project —“70,000 km of poetry written in resistance to the Northern Gateway pipeline proposal” —was released by Creekstone, a BC publisher! … to the work of “Warrior Poet,” Kim Goldberg over on the Island, and back to Vancouver for a catch-up with Rob Taylor who wrote The Other Side of Ourselves… then up to Prince George, then over to New Westminster, introducing us to thecanadaproject and Renée Sarojini Saklikar now Surrey’s Poet Laureate... and back to Vancouver, to the Downtown East Side to examine The Stanza Project from Elee Kraljii and writers whom she mentored at Thursday’s Writing Collective, in the Carnegie Centre in the heart of the DTES… and still more.

We devoted the Winter 2012 issue to the Literary Writes Contest, the FBCW's biggest literary writing competition, then in its 24th year. Besides showcasing the winners and runners-up of the Literary Writes contest, we wanted to talk about the perils of submitting, about winning and losing: had winning the LW contest in the past helped the previous winners’ careers? We also wanted to encourage unpublished writers to take the leap. We discussed the importance of submitting their work to competitions

Fall 2017 ◆ WordWorks ◆ Page 8

and submission calls, as part of building their writer’s resume. We wanted to explore Rejection (which could actually be a separate theme issue, maybe coming with a box of Kleenex®) since frequent rejection (losing) is something writers have to get used to and it can be very discouraging.

Daniela, in “Submit to Submitting,” described her whole system of continuous rolling submissions. Susan, in “Zen and the Art of Self-Sabotage,” wrote about the agonies of submitting and how she overcame them.

And, since so many new writers think they have to be a Writer with a capital W before they send their work out, I argued in “8 Big Fat Reasons to Enter Competitions and Send Work to Calls for Submissions,” why that is not at all the case.

That was our team’s last issue.

SH: Can you tell me a little bit about the management of issues? For instance, where did you meet, how often, where they formal or casual? How far in advance did you begin working on an issue? I'm really interested to hear what this position was like five years ago.

ML: Our three-person editorial team did most work by phone and email, occasionally working in person. We were all working full-time and caring for families, and all on the board. That year was, in part, an unbidden experiment in how a journal might be produced from within a “virtual” organization.

We brainstormed themes for each issue in advance, but you can appreciate we had to be pretty nimble in the circumstances. We liked the idea of theme issues with a guest editor who really knew the scene in BC around a particular genre. Information abounds about the literary scenes in far-off legendary places like New York or London, but we wanted to take the pulse on the scene in British Columbia, and definitely not just in Vancouver either. We have incredibly thriving and fecund literary communities in all of our regions, and they’re all different.

I had begun doing some preliminary work on an issue to focus on the whole Indigenous writers and writing scene in BC— who are the aboriginal writers, what themes are they writing about? and Daniela’s ques-

tion that could go in the Proust Interview, what keeps them awake at night? That could have expand to theme issues on other ethnic (Asian writers; SE Asian writers; we have a huge expat American community, etc.) or social writing communities. I’d like to see an issue on Federation member writers who are seniors—who they are, where they write, what they’re writing, the benefits to emerging writers of their long experience; and whether they face any special issues or barriers trying to get published as seniors, e.g. publishers who want future books, or more in a proposed series, from a writer submitting at seventy: is that a problem?

But then the FBCW became partially re-funded and our team felt we had kept our year’s commitment and could reasonably let someone else take over the publication of WordWorks. At some point, it came back as print, which is wonderful. WordWorks is, in some way, a kind of glue that holds us all together in discovering who we are and what we write and why.

SH: What is the biggest change you see in current issues of WordWorks, versus the ones you worked on?

ML: Biggest change is having a print version again. That makes an enormous difference. It’s much more readable, for one thing. A digital journal is okay, but it changed everything about WordWorks’ previous format.

Articles that you break up into two or three vertical columns become quite cumbersome to read onscreen, whereas in print it works beautifully. Onscreen reading makes certain decisions for you about things like fonts. We read 25% slower onscreen with eye and brain fatigue. Length is not a particular issue in digital, whereas in print it affects the multiples of pages, therefore weight and postal costs.

SH: What do you wish you had done differently with WordWorks, or wish you could have done differently if resources allowed?

ML: We did the best we could under unwanted and averse circumstances. I’m with Heraclitus who said—“No man ever

steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.” Editing WordWorks today, things would be totally different. That Year of Digital was aPatr totally volunteer organization and BC writers rallied around being interviewed and producing articles, lending their poetry—but writers need to be paid just like printers or web host services.

SH: What do you think the focus of WordWorks should be?

ML: I see WordWorks as providing a very needed showcase for BC Writers—experienced and emerging. The FBCW is all about supporting BC writers. Ideally, contributors are paid. Though it should primarily be by BC writers, I wouldn’t totally rule out articles that offer something useful or insightful to BC writers that are written by someone outside BC. SH: What did you find most fulfilling about your role as editor of WordWorks?

ML: It’s always intriguing to see the creativity that emerges from diverse writers, and in our case geographically spreadout, on even on the same topic, the different approaches people come at things with; it’s quite exhilarating SH: What do you think is the future of WordWorks magazine? What goals should this new editorial team have?

ML: The current team is doing a great job and far be it from me to tell them what they "should" do. That said, WordWorks is an opportunity to “go boldly forth where no man has gone before” and publish all sorts of experimental or avant-garde British Columbia writers and writing, in all sorts of genres and sub-genres that may not be yet popular but are nevertheless valid and interesting— and simultaneously, a place to celebrate our finest. Here are some ideas that I've had: • I’d love to see an edition of WordWorks done in the style of a graphic novel or comic book.

• Guest-editors give aspiring literary editors a chance at practical experience.

So I would invite someone to curate an LGBTQI issue.

• A mystery writing issue: we have people writing mystery or crime series in BC. Bill Deverell comes to mind, but there are people like mystery writer Merrilee Robson, whose workshop I’m going to later this month whom I’m sorry to say I had not encountered before.

• See WordWorks hook up somehow with that wonderful new organization, The Association of Book Publishers of BC, or Read Local BC, both of whom have the same motivations. And of course with people like Allan Twigg and his fleet of literary compendia—the venerable BCBookworld—I don’t think any other province has a literary resource like ABCBookworld—BCBookLook,

etc.

• Ideally WordWorks would be carried on the BC ferries, maybe in conjunction with writers doing readings on their local crossings, maybe in a section of the cafeterias. Captive audiences for an hour or two! BC Ferries’s BC Books shelf is getting smaller and smaller, overtaken by U.S. paperback best sellers.

• Finally, so much needs to be done to help support BC indie writers and self-publishing authors. They are already fighting an uphill battle, so WordWorks especially in combination with the website, could be an invaluable leg-up for those writers. (It was our Board at that time who approached the Vancouver Public Library and pitched the idea of an all-day Self-Publishing Fair, which continues annually. And I’m glad to see VPL is now including indie books in their collection.)

So all in all, WordWorks has that function to be a finger on the pulse of the many BC writing communities and to bring us their creative output in all genres before we even know we want to read it.

SH: Thanks so much, Margo, for these wonderful ideas, and for talking (digitally) with me for the past few weeks about our magazine.

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Summer Contest Winner 2017

Romney Grant NONETHELESS 1st place

Fall 2017 ◆ WordWorks ◆ Page 10

ROMNEY GRANT

O

n the deck. Shorts, t-shirt, no underwear. Gin with a splash of tonic. That ring of silence spliced by occasional birdsong. My book, the one I’ve been waiting all spring to tackle, lies on my lap. The great swath of ocean before me is cut in half by the top rail.

I place the book down, position the gin to reach it blind, and resume a dead stare out into the wonder of this world. Not a breath of wind. Tomorrow is another day, with six more to follow. Barely long enough to reprogram the reflexive fifteen-minute email check.

My friend, retired now after doing hard time, delivers chips and dip and returns to puttering. I don’t like onions in my guacamole, but it’s her cottage. This aerie overlooking the bay. We’ll have fun, she said.

And we have all the ingredients, I know, onions notwithstanding. I exercise restraint on the gin and turn up the corners of my mouth. Generous invitation, beautiful place, and the friend—one of my very favourites. I celebrate with a sip considerably larger than the last and breathe expansively. No value in asphyxiating on one crummy week of holidays.

All I want to do is nothing.

Until flashes of yellow pull me into the trees.

Finches, a dozen at least, shooting over the roof and darting from limb to limb, taking me a thousand miles from my in-basket. Where did they come from? These birds that never so much as set foot in the city.

“Daphy, come see!”

A streak slices through my line of vision and hits the glass. Bang. Thump onto the wooden deck. A stop motion of feathers and confusion as the bird lifts. An inch, then almost three but it’s head catches in the decking. A brave flicker, and it’s out. Like a light, I suppose. I don’t dare move.

Rest, little birdy.

“Those glass panels…” My arm shoots out to stop Daphne in her tracks but I’m stopped by the look on her face.

“A moment of silence at the very least. Please.” I say.

“I’ll get a plastic bag.”

I pull myself from the Adirondack’s embrace for a closer look, a picture for the holiday album. The beauty is wedged tidily between slats of the deck, tiny claws curled in a percussive terror, ants and insects already feeding. I know this creature.

I share the photo with my twenty-year-old son. A bit too sentimental, his text in reply, but nonetheless, a very yellow bird. Nonetheless?

Page 11 ◆ WordWorks ◆ Fall 2017

The dinghy must be flipped and hauled off the dock into the drink. Daphne is blessedly stronger than me. It’s also good she likes to row. With the upper body strength of a sparrow, I’m naturally suited to the prow. It’s only ten minutes across if the winds are with you and she knows how much I love beach combing. Especially after a wee toot. And today, we have nothing but time. I retrieve her flipflop from the murky bottom as we pull the boat ashore.

“Beach glass,” I announce, but it’s old bones, old picked clean bleached white bones that I’m looking for, and though I’m not sure why myself, I’m certain she wouldn’t understand. We’re lost to the hunt immediately, she to smooth stones and driftwood, me to my glass (and bones if I can find them), heads to the ground, big toes overturning every promise.

“What do you make of this?” Her legs are braced as she wrenches a treasure from beached flotsam and lands with a thud on her generous bottom. I raise my sunglasses for a better look. The thing is neither fish nor fowl though definitely has the makings of something.

“Begonias?”

My thought exactly.

“Mayo has two “n’s”. It won’t fit.”

I wander under the trees looking for rope, anything to help us get a better grip on the planter without destroying our hands on the barnacles, and happen upon an abandoned fire pit, charred rib bones of what appears to be deer strewn amongst blackened logs and ash. Above, hanging from the branches of the Douglas fir, is the rest, each bone of the animal tied to a rope and suspended in the air like a macabre mobile. A desecration too high to dismantle.

“Did you find anything?” Daphy has taken off her hat and shirt and lies propped on her elbows. She’s lit another joint.

“No. Not a thing.” I join her bare-breasted on the sand. I want to feel the burn of the sun’s rays.

We descend at 4 o’clock. Down the rocky hillside to the water. Slathered in sunscreen. Sun hats, towels, gin-filled coolers, and Saturday’s crossword. We can’t get our

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shins under the shade of the umbrella and they fry again in the sun.

“Even the American version?”

“Miracle Whip?” She’s warming up for Scrabble tonight—which will be far less congenial.

The tide is high, the water warmed by the sunbaked rocks of the landwash. We pick our way over the ragged bank, two hot coals ready to be doused and really needing to go. Always first in, I stand waist deep, legs dissolving into the heat streaming between them, then take the plunge. If I were an element, I would be water; Daph, unquestionably earth—an observation I may not share.

She heads back up after finishing her business and I make my way out and toward the point. I roll onto my back, eyes closed, arms outstretched, my body held aloft in the salt, hair drifting into Neptune’s crown. The only sound is my breath and my body gives with each ripple and heartbeat of ocean. It’s just me in this endless watery oneness. Just me.

A very yellow bird, nonetheless.

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Print Still Matters in a Digital World ELLEN NIEMER

A

s we celebrate WordWorks’ 35th anniversary, I wish I could climb into a time machine and travel back to December 1982 when the magazine of the Federation of British Columbia Writers was launched. 1982 was the year that Canada adopted its own Constitution, and changed the name of our July 1st holiday from Dominion Day to Canada Day. Guy Vanderhaeghe won the Governor General’s Award for Fiction for Man Descending, and Alice Munro was nominated for The Moons of Jupiter.

Gabriel García Márquez won the Nobel Prize for Literature, and TIME’s Man of the Year was replaced

by Machine of the Year: the computer. The writer of the TIME magazine cover article banged it out on a typewriter, but TIME’s newsroom upgraded to word processors, the precursor of the personal computer, within a year.

Then I’d flash forward 35 years to see what form WordWorks will take in 2052. Will the print maga-

zine still exist? Will all publications be digital? Or will words be imprinted into our minds on microchips? One thing is certain: the evolution of print has been, and will continue to be, a fascinating journey. From the use of papyrus in ancient Egypt to the invention of moveable type in ancient China; to techniques such as wood block printing, engraving, and the invention of mechanical movable type by Johannes Gutenberg in Germany in 1439, print has been evolving for centuries.

HUMBLE BEGINNINGS WordWorks has taken its own fascinating journey, evolving from its inaugural issue under the guidance of Managing Editor Donna McCloskey and Executive Editor Daniel Wood. That first issue’s layout, when Page 13 ◆ WordWorks ◆ Fall 2017

viewed today, looks like a mimeographed church bulletin. But you can’t judge a book by its cover. That issue of WordWorks contained informative articles about writers’ rights, copyright problems, government support for the arts, and survival as a writer.

Is everything old new again, or have writers’ woes and publishers’ problems really not changed much in 35 years?

An article titled “Most Magazines Surviving Slump” echoes the state many print magazines are experiencing in 2017: “Although most magazine writers have become familiar with the real and imagined plight of the periodical publishing business, a report from Magazines Canada, the industry’s trade association, indicates that things are not nearly so bleak. …[This is where the article differs in some ways with present-day reality.] In fact, magazines passed newspapers for the first time in the race for Canadian advertising dollars and now rank second. Only TV, which garners 50% of every advertising dollar in Canada, is ahead.” Ah, the golden days of magazine publishing!

In 1982, personal devices that began with an “i” were still a gleam in Steve Jobs’s eye. The digital revolution was underway, but it would take a few more years before the effects of personal computers would transform the way we worked and played, shopped and dated, wrote and edited, and consumed news and information. The digital medium has changed the way we do just about everything. It’s also created a new advertising vehicle. According to a 2016 report by IPG Mediabrands, Canadian television ad sales are projected to decrease by 4 percent in 2017 while digital ad sales will increase by 16 percent. Spending on digital ads is projected to overtake spending on television ads in 2018.

Fall 2017 ◆ WordWorks ◆ Page 14

THE FUTURE OF PRINT Where does this leave print magazines?

Magazine advertising revenue is predicted to drop by a further 9.1 percent this year, following a 2016 that saw falling ad revenue, subscription, and newsstand sales; and subsequent job losses. In 2016, Rogers Media reported a 30 percent decrease in print ad revenue, while digital ad revenue grew by 20 percent for the second consecutive year. This prompted a major overhaul of its print division, including a switch from print to digital formats for some of its flagship magazines, including Flare, Sportsnet, and Canadian Business. Chatelaine, Maclean’s, and Today’s Parent now publish fewer print issues per year.

It’s not just large media companies that are affected by dropping print advertising sales and a movement from print to digital.

WordWorks is also experiencing a loss of advertising revenue, but thanks to grants, responsible financial management, and a strong editorial vision, Editor-In-Chief Shaleeta Harrison is proud to produce a print magazine that’s a valuable resource for FBCW members and readers.

“One issue of WordWorks costs about $5,400 [to produce], and $2,100 of that is for writer and design fees, which would still exist even if we were digital only. I think print magazines have dipped in popularity about as far as they ever will,” she says.

“While digital is effective and should be embraced, I think the print versions will always have strong support as well. I do think that it’s much harder to justify [producing} a print version of a magazine, but people don't always want to read from a phone or tablet. Many people I know prefer print for reading, including myself, and there are situations when you can’t access a digital version.”

THE BENEFITS OF PRINT According to Magazines Canada, twothirds of consumers prefer reading a print version of a magazine compared to a digital version. Studies have shown that reading the printed page is a vastly different experience than reading from a screen. A major neurological study conducted in 2009 used functional Magnetic Resonance Imagery (fMRI) scanning to map the brain’s reaction to different types of media. Researchers found that physical media, such as print, leave “a deeper footprint in the brain” than digital media. Print materials stimulate sight and touch. They also create more activity in areas in the left and right hemispheres of the brain (the left and right parietal) that are associated with the brain’s integration of spatial and visual information.

Researchers found that our brains perceive printed material as “more real” and assign it a meaning and a place. The printed word engages with the brain’s spatial memory networks, helping us to better remember what we read in print than what we read on a screen.

Norwegian researchers corroborated these findings. In 2012, they asked a group of grade ten students to read two texts in print and a second group of students to read the same texts in PDF format on a computer. Then they gave a reading comprehension test to all 72 students. The students who read the print version of the texts scored significantly higher on the reading comprehension test than the students who read the PDF version.

Other experts claim that the physical act of turning pages can help us remember what we read. Touch also has the ability to engage our brains on a deeper level and make a greater impression than sight or sound on their own. Take a moment to consider the page you’re reading. Feel the

weight of the paper, its texture, and quality. If this article was printed on flimsy, tissue-thin paper instead of a pleasing good quality paper, your perception of WordWorks would be different. Touch has the power to influence our judgment in ways we’re not always consciously aware of. In this case, your judgment of two unrelated items—paper quality and magazine quality is correct!

Of course, the digital word has a growing share of readers and specific benefits too. According to Magazines Canada, eight out of ten people want to access content at their convenience while on the go. Digital content and apps allow readers to access information anytime and anywhere there’s a WiFi connection. Digital content is easily updated and provides the latest information quickly. It also provides readers with the ability to customize the content they access online.

MOST PREFER PRINT But when readers were polled about which medium they prefer, print or digital, an overwhelming 91 percent said they “just prefer print.” Many readers couldn’t explain why they hold this preference, but said they simply feel “a strong connection” to print.

Some readers prefer digital media for environmental reasons. They claim they’re saving forests because paper production for print magazines kills trees. Forty-two percent of trees harvested around the world are used to make paper. It also takes a lot of water to make paper: 324 litres of water for every kilogram of paper produced. Add to that the air, water, and soil pollution produced by pulp and paper mills, which rank number three on the list of the world’s largest industrial polluters. But waste-reducing options include printing on recycled paper,

using vegetable- or soy-based inks, and recycling waste paper rather than sending it to landfills. While WordWorks is too small a publication to absorb the expense of using recycled paper, we can all do our part to reduce waste by saving our back issues for future reference, sharing them with our writer friends, donating them to writers’ groups or libraries, or when our favourite issues have become dog-eared and worn, recycling them.

Print lovers can point out that digital devices create their own sources of pollution, from manufacture through to disposal, so no reading format is truly environmentally friendly. For those who wish to save trees, back issues of WordWorks can be accessed on the FBCW website, including the December 1982 issue.

LOOKING AHEAD As WordWorks navigates the digital age, what does the future hold? Editor-in-Chief Harrison has been at the helm of WordWorks since the Fall issue of 2015. “My overall vision for the magazine is that it will become a well-known and respected magazine for writers in BC. It’s on its way, but I’d like to increase its reputation even further in the next few years,” she says. “I’d also like to focus more on the educational and informative aspects; [WordWorks] should be something that writers look to for information that will assist them, not just for entertainment.”

The Spring 2017 issue of WordWorks underwent a major transformation; it was the first issue printed in colour. But with reduced advertising revenue and a reliance on a single grant to produce the magazine, the FBCW Board of Directors must face financial reality. The Board is working on a plan to continue printing WordWorks in co-

lour but reduce publication to three issues per year. This would allow us to align the Fall issue with major fall writing festivals, such as the Vancouver Writers Fest and the Surrey International Writers’ Conference, and make WordWorks an even more relevant resource for BC’s writers.

From its inaugural issue, WordWorks has strived to be British Columbia’s magazine for writers. Besides being a source of up-to-date information on a variety of writing genres, including epublishing, WordWorks provides a place for FBCW members to publish their work—and to get paid for their work. The “Launched!” section offers a space for FBCW members to promote their new books with a brief description of the book and a photo of the book cover. As WordWorks moves to three issues per year, plans are being made to hold writing contests throughout the year so that winning submissions will be featured in all issues.

WordWorks strives to be a source of information and inspiration for FBCW members, a place to share your stories and hone your craft. Whether your work is published or unpublished, whether you write prose or poetry, fiction or nonfiction, fantasy or memoir, you’re a part of the FBCW family. WordWorks is your magazine, each issue thoughtfully created with you in mind.

Where do you think the next 35 years will take us? We hope you’ll share your ideas and help shape the future of WordWorks.

Page 15 ◆ WordWorks ◆ Fall 2017

WHY WE READ

MAGAZINES 65%

to relax

62%

to get information

58%

for entertainment

47%

to follow a passion or hobby

47%

for inspiration

39%

to stay up to date

35%

as a treat

Source: Crowd DNA Rules of Attraction, 2014/15

Fall 2017 ◆ WordWorks ◆ Page 16

CAROL ANNE SHAW

R

ain for five days now. Been mostly inside, except to make sure the tarp is tight on the woodpile and the cabin’s gutters are clear. Jake doesn’t mind. He sleeps a lot these days, but then, so do I. Guess we’re both getting on.

It’s a cold, soaking October rain—kind that gets into your bone marrow and grows moss in your footprints overnight. The Big, Wet Dark. That’s what they call the fall up here, and these woods are about as big and dark as they can be. Aren’t many full timers in Bridgeman Lake. Come September most folks head back to the city. Head back to their nine-to-fives, and all those neighbourhoods that cut down the trees then go and name the streets after ‘em.

Happens right after Labour Day—you see the RVs and campers bumper to bumper along Lake Road, all of them headed south.

Most folks say the winters up here make ‘em stir crazy. Say the trees grow too thick—that nothing gets in but water. So they go. Suits me fine. I get tired of their ski boats, and fancy coffee demands down at Ginny’s cafe— can’t get a seat in there all summer because of all the city kids sucking up the WiFi—faces glued to their damn smartberries and electronic gizmos and what have you.

Been staying in bed longer than usual this week, just lying on my back and listening to the rain pummel the tin roof. Why not?

When the weather clears, I’ll be in the woods at first light.

Come Thursday, I sweep out the cabin. Get to thinking it’s time to throw out the mushrooms, too—those damn turkey tails are just collecting dust on the windowsill.

They’re pretty enough, with their wavy edges and those cinnamon-brown stripes. Been sitting in the window almost two years, hard as wood now. Still don’t know why I bothered to bring them home at all—kinda like closing the barn door after the horse is gone.

Bet Celia is having the last laugh over that now. She always did have a dark sense of humour. I put the turkey tails in a box, but I still can’t throw them out. *** Rain stops on Friday, and we head out at eight. The ground is spongy soft; full of water, and the air smells washed. It takes me a while to loosen up after being shut in all week, but not old Jake. He shoots out the cabin door like a bullet leaving a gun, and disappears into the bush. Seconds later I hear him bay. Mostly likely a rabbit—he never catches them but he sure as hell enjoys trying.

Mutt comes to life in the bush. Forgets about his arthritic hips and failing eyesight; is suddenly all nose. He puts his muzzle to the ground, and zigzags along the trail,

drunk on scent. Must have some hound in him, though can’t say for certain. Found him at the dump last winter. He was scrounging garbage, skinny as a rake. That’s what I called him for the first few months till he got some meat on his bones: Jake the Rake. Anyway, I opened the truck door, and he jumped right on in. That was that. Been with me ever since. Never once thought about leaving, either.

By the time I reach Bonanza Ridge I’ve worked the kinks out of my knees, and my breathing is regular. I could stop here, I guess, have a look around. It’s as good a spot as any, but I don’t. I keep moving. I like the act of putting one foot in front of the other; like the way my head empties out. It’s the only time I feel like I’ve outrun Celia—when I’m in the bush. Rest of the time I feel her pretty close—a big cloud full of shadow. And while it’s dark in these woods in October, those kinds of clouds don’t get in.

But there I go, thinking about Celia again. I guess sometimes she gets through anyway.

I stop. Have a smoke to calm my nerves.

Old Jake sniffs my pocket. Waits for the Milk-Bones he knows I keep there.

“Here you go, buddy.” I give him two.

He pretty much swallows them whole.

I finish my smoke and take a swig of the sweet tea I have in my thermos. It’s that exotic smoky kind Celia liked to buy—Lapsang Soo-something-or-other—expensive stuff in a shiny green tin. Just tastes like campfires to

Page 17 ◆ WordWorks ◆ Fall 2017

me. I don’t know why I still drink it.

I keep walking. Head down the bluff a bit, then stop a little way down and sniff the air. Apricots. And butter. Folks don’t believe me when I say I can smell them; say I spend too much time with a scent hound, but I just shrug. I know what I know.

Sure enough, something gold catches my eye—a flash of amber near some big firs on my right. I find them half-hidden under a thick carpet of moss. See the trumpet-shaped caps with their wavy, rounded edges—first one, then four more, then too many to count.

I kick aside some decaying leaves from a neighbouring stand of alders, then peel back a little of the thick moss carpet. Jake runs over, but I push him away. Damn dog still isn’t mushroom savvy.

“Go on,” I bark, and he goes. He knows how I get. Doesn’t take it personally.

I shake out my bag. It’s nothing special—an old mesh onion sack. Not like the ones the hipsters carry—fancy “fungi-friendly” bags bought from those overpriced gluten-free stores in the village.

I bend over. Pick a few choice ones— ten, maybe twelve. No more than that. I don’t clear-cut the way some of the other pickers do. Picker. That’s funny. I’m hardly that. I like the search more than the find.

Kind of like a treasure hunt. And these gems are elusive little buggers. Often come home empty-handed. You gotta keep your senses sharp to spot them, but they trick you every year. Always seem to come back somewhere different. Least they do around here.

Guess I could pick with more heart.

Make a few bucks. Restaurants in town pay good money for local chanterelles. That’s the reason for the gold rush up here every fall. But I’ll never do it. I just like being in the woods, under the trees, away from the clouds. If I come home with gold for dinner, then damn it; it’s been a good day.

Celia used to say I spent too much time

on my own. That it wasn’t good for me. Said I oughta join a club. What kind of club? I asked her. I dunno, she said, why not a men’s walking club. Well, let me tell you, I pretty much laughed her out of the room with that one. Men's walking club. Would probably end up being a bunch of middle-aged guys talking about retirement funds and the fact none of us can get it up real good anymore.

Never much was one for talk. Overrated, if you ask me. But Celia meant well. She always did.

She used to joke I’d end up some wild mountain man if she weren't around to see I kept a foot in the real world. Guess maybe she was right. Then again, guess it all depends on what your definition of the real world is. Way I see it, doesn’t get much realer than these woods.

I set the bag down on the ground and walk over to sit on what’s left of an old felled big leaf maple. Its trunk is mostly rotted, saturated with moisture. Don’t matter. I’m used to damp.

And then I see them—a straight row of turkey tails growing along the side of the trunk. I shake my head. Celia used to make fun of me and my mushrooms. You’re such a fungi to be with, Ben, she’d say. You’re gonna turn into a mushroom if you don’t get out into the light once in a while. It’s just not healthy. Not healthy. But here I am, and here she isn’t.

I stare at the turkey tails, and my eye twitches. Back near the end, I’d found an article about them in a TIME magazine at the hospital about a 7-year study. Learned the damn things boosted immunity in women with stage III breast cancer. I went out the next day, and the days that followed—Hell, I’d have howled at the moon every goddamn night if I thought it could have done some

good—but I came home empty-handed every time. Stupid thing is, right after, they were everywhere.

You’re late to the party, I say under my breath, something Celia used to say to me all the time. I was never on time. Not even at the beginning. She’d tap her watch, back when we still wore them, and hold her head to one side, her auburn curls clinging tight to the side of her face. Later, those same curls would be flecked with gray. “Damn it, Ben. Next time I’m not gonna wait.” But she’d wait. She always did. Until she didn’t.

I’d stopped at the grocery store on my way to the hospital for lemon tarts—her favourite. I knew she couldn’t eat them. She couldn’t eat anything by then, but I needed to buy them just the same. I wanted to walk into that hospital room and see her laughing green eyes and talk with her about how the neighbour’s well had gone dry and how the new Tim Horton’s over on Lampson Street was supposed to open in just another week or two. I wanted to talk about nothing and drink that god-awful smoky tea she loved so much and share a goddamn lemon tart with her. But we didn’t do any of those things. By the time I got there, she was gone.

“She finally got tired of waiting,” I tell Jake, who looks at me in that particular way only a good dog can. Then I stand up and kick every single one of those turkey tails off the rotting maple. I kick them clear across the ground then stomp on them until they’re nothing more than pulp.

WHAT MY WRITER-CLIENTS TAUGHT ME ABOUT BECOMING AN AUTHOR LUCIA TERRA

I

had been working in universities for a good chunk of a decade and a half when I began to feel that the academic style of writing was stifling the stories I was trying to tell. As a social and cultural anthropologist, I spent years delving into the lives of others, peering into their lives, interviewing them for hours on end and eventually telling their life stories. The end work was always interesting, but the stories themselves were corseted by the rigidity of academia. There was always so much more that needed to be told, so much that could not possibly be transmitted through the lens of scientific detachment and objectivity.

I dealt with the disconnect by expanding my writing to include articles for general-interest magazines and newspapers, and including non-fiction writing to my editing services. Given my formal training, it was only natural that I specialize in non-fiction pieces, texts that speak about human behaviour, culture and people. Although I didn’t anticipate it at first, the work also became very personal, particularly, when working with memoirs.

I had worked with book-length texts before—series of academic articles, theses, dissertations—but the people who brought me those texts to review, either advanced students or professors, were all scholars used to the peer review process. Receiving and providing feedback, having to go over the material

over and over, correcting, fixing, and making continuous revisions is second nature to anyone that has spent enough time as part of the academic community. Because the content and style of these works tend to be on the dry side and are highly specialized, their authors really value finding somebody to read over their texts and give them feedback. Even when sending texts covered in red marks, suggesting rewrites of whole sections or deleting entire paragraphs, I would get thank yous and appreciative comments. It was understood that the edits, though frustrating and sometimes downright painful, were meant for the greater good of the piece.

In creative writing, however, clients come from a wide array of backgrounds and with different levels of experience. Some have been writing for a while as part of their job, many have not. Perhaps they had taken a few university level courses in literature, sat in a writing workshop or two, or they might not have received any specific writing-related training at all. Most are not too much into grammar and formatting either. For a few ones, it is their first time launching into writing and decide to begin with a book-length piece (because, why not?). I quickly realized I needed to do some adjusting to my editing services.

In the academic field, clearly-stated expecta-

Page 19 ◆ WordWorks ◆ Fall 2017

tions made my job straightforward. There is a professor and an advisory committee helping the writer-student give shape to the material throughout the beginning stages. If there is any disagreement in terms of content, it is dealt with by those professors, not by me. By the time I receive the manuscript, it is at least a very advanced version, a text with a structure that has gone through several revisions already. Although we might work with this draft for another year or two, it is a text in a healthy shape, with a beginning, middle and end. There are explicit standards and guidelines that must be followed, and though there might be some creative leeway, the author is basically asking me to help them follow those guidelines.

In creative non-fiction, not only are the parameters of what a book should look like widely open to interpretation, but my clients could be at any stage in the writing process. I have received everything, from amorphous blobs of up to 170,000 words along with the question “Do you think there’s a book in there?” to a professionally copy-edited text that only needed a final round of proofreading and fact checking.

Though the material is perhaps more engaging and compelling—definitely, more fun—giving feedback is certainly trickier. Because I was working with personal stories and memoirs it was inevitable that the editing process would take a very personal turn.

The non-fiction manuscripts I received were not only of a very private nature, but they were accounts of hard, sometimes terrible moments in the lives of my clients. After all, who writes a book where everybody is happy and all goes well? In some cases, it was the first time my clients had mentioned a particularly painful episode to anyone. Ever. And it was my job to help the author decide whether it was time to bring it into the light. Nothing that delicate had ever come across my academic editing desk.

Though over my years in academic editing I had to do a bit of hand holding, the worst meltdowns were usually over by the time I showed up, as the authors were in the final stretch of the process and

Fall 2017 ◆ WordWorks ◆ Page 20

could see light at the end of the tunnel. Plus, the constant distance, that desired objectivity when writing in academia, kept things comfortably detached.

When I began editing creative writing, I soon realized this light hand holding was not going to be nearly enough to deal with the earth-shattering, axis-tilting personal revelations, breakthroughs, family drama and other earthquake-like processes that (apparently too often, as I’ve learned) happen when digging into one’s past. The academic counsellor role I had sometimes taken had to be quickly expanded to relationship and career advisor, psychologist, friend, nurse, and mom, all rolled into one. To understand where the authors were coming from and what they wanted to express (not always clear), I had to jump in with both feet first and become fully involved in their story. There is no way not to be moved by some of the accounts. The sheer nakedness when reading these oh-so-intimate memoirs, astonished me. Relationships got messy. I cried and laughed a lot.

At crucial times, I also had to become the enemy. When pieces of the puzzle were missing from the narration, I had to push and ask for them. They tended to coincide with the ugliest parts of my clients’ lives, the ones they might not have shared even with best friends, family members or even life partners. There was a lot of resistance, angry emails, more tears, some fights.

Then, after all that, there was still the fixing to be done. I’m in charge of giving feedback on these profoundly intimate pieces of work, which the authors hand me as if they are entrusting me their fragile, precious baby, and I sometimes have to tell them: “You see… your baby? Not so pretty.” Even when phrased in the nicest possible way, nobody takes that type of commentary kindly.

Once I adjusted to the drama and sheer craziness that came with this type of editing, I began to see the patterns that made the work so addictive.

What these people all had in common were amazing stories to tell combined with a deep need to tell them

and an unshakable belief in their purpose to do so. The challenges that came with working along first time authors or clients without prior experience of working with an editor were more than compensated.

It was compensated in the satisfaction of seeing them go for their second or third books, land a speaking engagement with TED Talks, appear on radio and TV, launch their careers, or receive expressions of gratitude from readers they had touched and helped (which they then forward to me).

The rewards also came in the shape of a job well done and a person who, in part, healed their wounds, bringing into the world a story that needed to be told.

And then, very selfishly, there is my own learning. After all these years, I’ve started to recognize the patterns: people who are willing to jump head first into an

enterprise for which they are usually unprepared are the same type of people willing to make themselves vulnerable and be totally exposed. My writer-clients, without exception, have all been fearless.

They also seem to have endless amounts of energy, an unshakable can-do attitude and an inherent incapacity to take no for an answer. They might not have an adequate sense of the scope of what they are embarking on but they are willing to learn all the different aspects of the business. Create an electronic version of the book? OK. An audiobook? Done. Translate the book into several languages? Check. Copyright, legal aspects, distribution, social media?

They either learn to do it themselves or hire whoever can help them, but they get it done. Charisma? Tons of. None shy, they will spritz their presentations with singing

or dancing if it helps the message. Writing a memoir and some other non-fiction books, I learned, comes with a certain degree of carelessness, a do-first-think-later approach to life. In short, a healthy dose of being nutty.

If anything, my writer-clients have taught me that I probably should stop reviewing and rewriting my manuscripts.

“There is always room for improvement” is probably an editor’s motto, and as an editor, I can keep on working on a text forever. As a writer, though, perfection is apparently overrated. If the roles were to be reversed, my writer-clients would probably tell me: Drop a bit the critical thinker of academia, the picky reader of your editing hat, and just go for it.

Page 21 ◆ WordWorks ◆ Fall 2017

Chelsea Comeau Rhonda Ganz’s poetry collection Frequent, small loads of laundry is a collection ten years in the making, and one that seems very much destined to have happened. It was in 2004 when Ganz serendipitously found herself on a WestJet flight to Victoria, where a flight attendant made the announcement that a poet named Wendy Morton would be reading a poem over the speaker. This poem ended up moving Ganz to tears. Although it would be some time before Ganz and Morton crossed paths again, Ganz eventually began attending the Mocambopo (now Planet Earth Poetry) reading series equipped with open mic material written over three summers of week long classes at the Victoria School of Writing.

Ganz soon realized that Victoria was a veritable hub of likeminded creatives who shared “the same passion for words strung together in fantastical, moving, funny, and heartbreaking ways.” It was refreshing to her to realize that there were others in the world who didn’t think it strange to be fascinated by “how a ladybug moves its feet or how many squares of linoleum there are between the bed where your father lies dying.”

Frequent, small loads of laundry does not contain every poem Rhonda wrote throughout her journey, rather, she worked with her publisher at Mother Tongue to select what would become her full-length collection.

Ganz says, though her poems’ most common thread is that they’ve been written by her, if pressed, one “could

loosely say that they share the subject of love or depression or suicide or domesticity or revenge or preconceived notions.” She is a poet who confesses to “constantly flitting” thoughts, but it is this very perceived chaos that lends itself to a remarkable and eclectic collection.

Two of Rhonda’s poems, "I mistook a streetlight for the moon and could not stop from howling" and "Frequent, small loads of laundry," are included here as two of my personal favourites. I asked Rhonda to delve a little deeper into these pieces, specifically. The former’s abstract nature was particularly interesting to me, and Ganz explains that this poem “is one that arrived all at once.” The poet’s emotional state contributes to a truly stunning glimpse into strange but gripping images that, ultimately, achieve the challenging goal of “convey[ing] the sensation of being unable to focus or experience joy” while also “reflect[ing] some of the chaos of the way thoughts can bounce around as one is trying to feel better.”

The latter poem, which shares its name with the collection itself, bears imagery concocted by the poet’s imagination. Ganz had been writing remembrance poems for Summer Soulstice, an annual event at Royal Oak Burial Park, when this piece was penned. She says she found herself “always astonished at how complex and fascinating people’s lives were, and would be privy to some remarkable details, such as “hearing about

twins who drowned together or a woman who kept a bullet in her jewellery box from when she worked in the munitions factory. She “imagined [Frequent, Small Loads of Laundry to be] an obituary written in an unconventional form.” Ganz hopes that, in reading pieces like this one, readers’ imaginations will create more complexity for the characters. The space to do so is created, skillfully, by the vividness she offers, leaving room for the reader to expand on the richness.

Ganz flexes her technical muscles, too, in her handling of enjambment within her poetry. She admits that “line breaks are often a struggle” and would often read her work aloud within her poetry group to discover that the way she read did not necessarily correspond to how the poems appeared on the page. Ganz appreciates well-done line breaks, however, and polished her work to reflect her philosophy that, when handled well, “good enjambment is like a poke; an extra bit of content that is invisible.”

Ganz’s connection to the written word, however, prods beyond an appreciation for line breaks and imagery. She says “poetry has opened [her] up” and that “it has been an outlet for [her] darkest thoughts and deepest despair, but has also given [her] hope.” The written word condensed to perhaps its most potent form, poetry has the power to reshape lives, and ignite sparks within poets and readers alike without them even realizing a flint has been struck. The beauty within Frequent, small loads of laundry is a testament to this intangible, but very real, force.

Content with the company of cats, she on occasion took a lover, but only in months having thirty days or when she wanted to rearrange the furniture, smell a different animal.

For some, she feigned an interest in organized sports.

For another, wore only white cotton beneath her dress.

She called all of them Cowboy, baked sour cherry pies, asked most to leave before daybreak.

The man who visited most was legally blind, saw her as darkness leaning in for a kiss.

It pleased her to be seen this way—for him she wore an anklet of tiny silver bells and did not smile.

She screened calls, did frequent, small loads of laundry.

Never locked her bicycle, preferred to drink alone.

She declined insurance, refused to buy in bulk.

Knew the neighbour who butchered rabbits for stew.

The cats chewed on fresh rabbits’ feet, devouring good luck.

To counter, she planted horseshoes and four-leaf clover.

She took baths, not showers, lay perfectly still until the water was barely warm. If you drove past her house late at night, there would be one light on, in the room where she sang fado and watched consolation tv.

She didn’t believe in repeating herself. Given the chance, she would do everything differently.

Page 23 ◆ WordWorks ◆ Fall 2017

Show me the mother who does not have a favourite child. Kiss it better and accommodate. The signs told me it would come to this. Sickness is changing my brain. To clarify: I keep stepping in the same bucket of eels.

Officer, if I hadn’t run the red light, the clinical trials would have caught up with me.

I have to go, confides a woman on the street, I have to see my psychic. Envy is a fist on my cheek. This woman with no home to go to is convinced a prediction will cure her but all I know for sure is I cannot eat animals and this hole I’m in is shaped like the God who drops my uncles to their knees.

Look both ways before you cross, it’s over when the pill tastes worse than the disease.

You ask what you can do to help— I say just water the tomatoes while I’m away.

Fall 2017 ◆ WordWorks ◆ Page 24

FBCW Photo Archives Here are some historical photographs from the early days of the Federation of BC Writers, found in the FBCW records.

Above: Soviet Authors Tour, March 1989. Left to Right: Ed Gould, Gordon Turner, Vasili I. Belov, Victor V. Petelin, Olga A. Fokina, Egor A Isaev, Robert Webstar, Alexander V. Vaschenko, Judy Villeneuve Below: Delegate Loranne Brown at Ryga House, Summerland, BC. May 1996. Caption, handwritten on the back: "Her reading blew everyone away. Caroline introduced her as a future Journey Prize Winner"

Page 25 â—† WordWorks â—† Fall 2017

Above: AGM June 1996 Caption handwritten on the back: "Wow. Fine (past) presidents of the Fed. 96—Dennis Reid, 9496 - Constance Brissenden, 92-94 — Dan Francis, 91-92—Julia van Gorder + long time ago pres. David Matmough.

Below: Spring 1995. Caption handwritten on the back: Year 2—The Canadian Writers' Summit. This year in Montreal (last year—the inauguration—in Banff) Constance Brissenden (president) + Larry Loyce (treasurer) first row, 2nd & 3rd from left.

Fall 2017 ◆ WordWorks ◆ Page 26

A Briefing for Would-Be TV Writers TREV RENNEY

"Oh… what’s the difference?"

Trev with his wife Kate Walker at the 2017 Leo Awards, where he was nominated

I

t happens two or three times a year, usually between gigs. My mother comes to me with newspaper headlines trumpeting crew shortages in the bustling Vancouver film industry.

"That’s good for you, right?" she asks hopefully.

"I guess so… not really. Actually, it’s kind of irrelevant," I reply. "Those articles are about service productions. Hollywood shows being shot in Vancouver with local crews."

"And that’s not what you do?"

"No, mom, I’m a writer."

"Well can’t you just write for one of those shows?"

"Not really. Those shows and movies are written in Los Angeles. Also, I work in factual television."

My mother’s puzzlement can be forgiven. After all, she did pay to send me to film school, not factual television school. Like her, most British Columbians are only vaguely aware that my industry exists, and are even less mindful of any distinction from the film-industry-proper so often discussed in the papers.

The word factual is an umbrella term that covers several genres, from “documentary” (Border Security, Emergency Room: Life + Death at VGH), to “reality” (The Bachelorette Canada, Real Housewives), to “lifestyle” (Love it or List it, Chopped Canada)—and anything in between that features real people rather than made up characters. The Vancouver factual industry is comprised of a handful of homegrown production houses, most of whose facilities skew towards post-production—meaning, the content is shot elsewhere in Canada and assembled into a show at the facilities in Vancouver. Funding for factual shows flows from Canadian broadcasters, rather than American ones.

After film school, I worked as a Production Assistant/rain sponge on film sets. I knew I wanted to be a writer, but the path to becoming one was murky.

A friend offered me a job logging footage on a documentary series, and when I learned that this doc series had a story department, I jumped on board. Here was a chance to pursue my dream, and with a roof over my head to boot. I worked my way up to writer and felt I had found my forever career. Within a few years I met another writer, and we got married. The hours—nine and a half per day on average—were much shorter than on film sets or even dramatic writing rooms, and the pay decent. Thus we were able to to start a family.

Page 27 ◆ WordWorks ◆ Fall 2017

Cut to a few years later and and we’re raising two boys in East Van. The inevitable response when I tell people that I write for factual TV is as follows: "Waitasec, if it’s reality—why do they need writers?!"

I explain that actual writing is quite often involved, be it for voice-over narration, interviews and pickups, or episode outlines.

In any case, the bulk of our job has to do with storytelling—choosing just the right bytes and clips from piles of raw footage, and shaping them into a logical and engaging composition. For this reason, we’re as often referred to as "Story Editor," or "Story Producer."

The gig has its drawbacks. We don’t typically get benefits. We do not have a union like the movie people. The work is contract-based, and so comes in fits and starts, often with month-or-longer paycheck gaps.

And this mercenary-like employment style makes it hard to really feel at home within any single production company.

When the work is available, it has its upshots. The people—show runners, directors, producers, camera people—are talented yet down to earth. Switching formats from gig to gig means new writing challenges every day, and building an episode feels like solving a puzzle. I love sitting in a dimly lit suite with an editor, honing a story for hours and hours. It’s hard work, and there’s lots of pressure to nail the screenings, but we laugh a lot too.

I’ll be the first to admit that much of it isn’t exactly high art. I’ve certainly worked on more than one program that only ever existed thanks to minimum spending requirements on Canadian content as mandated by the CRTC (Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission). But for each of those duds, there are just as many world-class shows, intelligent and entertaining as anything produced south of the border (or across the pond for that matter).

Despite the dry spells, I’ve managed to

Fall 2017 ◆ WordWorks ◆ Page 28

scrape by at this line of work for nearly a decade. Sadly, and while I’ve yet to candidly tell my mother this for fear of sending her into an article clipping panic out of concern for my well-being, it’s looking like my streak of middle-class work/life balance may be coming to an end.

This past May, the CRTC implemented a rule-change allowing the big Canadian TV broadcasters to slash minimum spending on Canadian content by nearly half—down to five per cent of revenue. This could result in a loss of nearly a billion dollars in Canadian film and TV production over the next five years alone. Hundreds of jobs are on the line—many of them right here in BC. Without getting too deep into the politics of the issue, the basic argument on the side of the broadcasters is that with the rise of online streaming services like Netflix, Amazon, Hulu et al, cable viewership is dropping, and they want to be able to spend however they like in order to compete— without government constraints (i.e. more license money for popular American shows).

And I get it. The old, schedule-based content delivery model is rapidly outdating, and the broadcasters are trying to keep their heads above water.

Needless to say, we on the production side would rather those broadcast dollars be directed at us. After the rule change was announced, my little corner of the biz went into a stall. A number of shows were cancelled. Green lights for new shows all but ceased. Rumors have spread of shops shutting their doors, and of production drifting to Toronto. The rumours have so far turned out to be crushingly true.

Our employers have encouraged us to have faith in the quality of our work, and to try to to weather the sea change taking place.

Also, they told us to write letters. Hundreds of Canadian television workers from across the country did write letters. Early this August, heritage Minister Melanie Joly

officially asked the CRTC to review their big decision. (Now, I’m not sure how much weight "asking them to review’ a decision has. It seems "ordering them to reverse it altogether" would have been more of a comfort) We still don't know if anything will become of their review. There's news of money going into the film industry, yes, but not Canadian television. It's going into Netflix.

Part of me still hopes that the CRTC decision can be reversed. If it isn’t, the jobs that seem to have vanished overnight will not return. And I’ll be left with few options: I could move to Toronto, though this probably isn’t the answer. Friends there tell me that they’re just as squeezed for work. I would very likely end up competing for fewer jobs against tenured locals.

I could just put my head down and hustle hard for the remaining jobs. But I’ve got two young kids, I’m already working only eight months of the year, and if I dip below that I won’t be able to afford to live in Vancouver—a city that’s experiencing an exodus of young families such as my own due to unaffordability.

The last resort: get out of the biz altogether. My wife recently made the leap, opting for a mid-life career change to something more stable and transferable. This option does hold a certain allure; the thought of freeing myself from gig-based industry angst is something I daydream of semi diurnally. Though, the thought of downgrading my writing passion from "career" to "hobby" would break my heart.

But on the bright side—I’d have a much easier time explaining my job to my mother.

NEW TITLES BY FEDERATION OF BC WRITERS MEMBERS If you are an FBCW member with a newly published book, (self or traditionally published) let us know! We'd be happy to promote it here.

Books from the past 6 months are given priority, but we are happy to promote older books if there is room. Books may only be promoted in Launched once.

Short Takes on the Apocalypse Patricia Young Biblioasis, October 2017 ISBN: 9781771961356, $18.95 This twelfth collection from Governor General’s Award nominee Patricia Young features poems built entirely upon the words of others.

Originating as a response to Elmore Leonard’s “Ten Rules of Writing,” and expanding to include poetic responses to quotations about writing from other sources—from Leonardo da Vinci to Neil Gaiman, Margaret Atwood to Jimmy Kimmel—the resulting pieces traverse a myriad of themes. Playfully exploring subjects as wide-ranging as veganism, gun violence, sex, parenting, feminism, death, and Coachella, Young bounces off the selected epigraphs with a vital energy and crackling wit.

PRAISE FOR PATRICIA YOUNG “Young is a masterful technician. She masons each brick into place just so. She thrives on ambiguity and twists while fostering a rapt interest in them in the reader.” —Prairie Fire “With her sure hand wielding the knife of understanding, Young cuts not just to the bone, but well beyond into realms that transcend the here, the now and the merely personal.” — Monday Magazine “Accute and quirky observation which cumulates at insight.” —Freefall

Into the Open : Poems New and Selected Susan McCaslin Innanna, September 2017 ISBN: 9781771334655, 22.95 Into the Open: Poems New and Selected is both a compendium and compression of the best and most representative of Susan McCaslin's poetry over nearly five decades. In addition, it showcases new work. The explorations of Into the Open begin with McCaslin's intense early interest in mystical Christianity, but expand to include global wisdom traditions from cultures east and west. Her work does not advocate for a particular system of belief, but exemplifies the open-ended probings of an inquiring mind. A selection of her new work in a powerful sequence called Lineage takes up some of her earlier themes but pushes them into new arenas, addressing questions of how to age into elder-dom; how to take one's place with humility and gratitude in a world fraught with pain and loss; how to remain open to wonder. In the words of her editor Katerina Fretwell, "Selecting from Susan McCaslin's eighteen-book oeuvre Into the Open has been a pilgrimage through her poetic and spiritual evolution. Her visionary poetscapes conjure William Blake, Thomas Merton, Greco-Roman mythology, angels, the Canadian mystic Olga Park, John of Patmos, Teresa of Avila, Henry Vaughan, Lao Tzu, Han Shan, Mary Magdalene and other unitive mystics of many cultures, faiths and eras. Such diversity suggests the range and reach of McCaslin's work.

Here is a poet at the peak of her powers."

Page 29 ◆ WordWorks ◆ Fall 2017

A Tree for Teddy

Narrow Bridge

In Case I Go

Sandra M. Walton Self-published, September 2017 ISBN: 9780995962101, $9.95

Barbara Pelman Ronsdale Press, September 2017 ISBN: 9781553805083, $15.95

Angie Abdou September, 2017 ISBN: 9781551527031, $17.95

For Teddy and his widowed mother it just didn't seem like Christmas that first winter in the citythat is until a Christmas tree landed at their door.

“All the world is a narrow bridge,” states Rabbi Nachman of Bresnov. “The important thing is not to be afraid at all.” These poems, Barbara Pelman’s third collection, explore bridges both real and metaphoric: the bridge connecting Denmark to Sweden where her family lives; the bridges she has travelled across Europe; and the bridges we build through words and actions to overcome our separateness from one another. The poet writes about lovers, mothers, daughters, ex-husbands, grandchildren, and her attempts to construct solid foundations for the heart to travel across time and space. Pelman writes of her love of landscapes and the things in them, as well as the everyday epiphanies that happen in one’s backyard. These are poems that explore the tension between living in one place but wanting to be in another, the losses and freedoms contained in solitude, the process of learning to age gracefully. The act of writing, Pelman says, is itself a talisman against fear, a mantra of boldness and courage to live con spirito.

The latest by Angie Abdou: young Eli invokes the spirit, and the mistakes, of his great-great-grandfather.

Could it really be Christmas after all?

This children's Christmas book, A Tree for Teddy, is a true story that takes place in Vancouver during World War II. The book is illustrated by Alberta artist Ida Heron.

Sandra M. Walton, born and raised in Vancouver and currently living in the Fraser Valley, is a non-fiction writer and her articles have appeared in a wide variety of magazines including Home at Home, War Cry (now called Salvationist) and Legion in Canada and Reminisce and GRIT in the US. This is her first book and will be available in the Lower Mainland at Hager Books in Kerrisdale, Kidsbooks in Kitsilano and North Vancouver, Black Bond Books and Little Cricket Gift Gallery in Maple Ridge.

Fall 2017 ◆ WordWorks ◆ Page 30

“Barbara Pelman’s third collection of poetry is indeed a bridge, word after delightful word, a passageway into the human heart, the longing that lies there—in wait. Read Narrow Bridge for its tenderness, and read it for its darkness too.”

—Arleen Paré, Governor General’s winner for Lake of Two Mountains

In Canada Reads finalist Angie Abdou's fifth work of fiction, Eli and his parents have returned to their family home in Coalton, a small mountain town. The parents, Nicholas and Lucy, hope that by escaping their hectic city lives, they will restore calm and stability to their marriage, but they find that once charming Coalton is no longer the remote idyll they remembered. Development of a high-end subdivision has disturbed a historic graveyard, drawing negative press from national media. While Nicholas works long hours at the local coal mine and Lucy battles loneliness and depression, Eli befriends Mary, a troubled Ktunaxa girl who lives next door. Both children, disturbed by visions of people and places long forgotten, are challenged to account for past lives of seduction and betrayal.

A new kind of ghost story, In Case I Go is about the many ways we're haunted by the misdeeds of our ancestors.

A Matter of Issue

Unfolding a Lost World

What the Soul Doesn't Want

Carollyne Haynes Pepperpot Publishing, July, 2017 ISBN: 9781987915365, $22.50

Joy Barratt Expression Press, July 2017 ISBN: 9781775009504, $17.75

Lorna Crozier Broadview Press, May 2017, ISBN: 9781988298122, $16.95

A contemporary family drama that takes a closer look at family relationships, elder abuse, and the problems that can occur when children allow greed and avarice to cloud their judgment, once money becomes involved. Charles has worked hard all his life and created a nice little investment portfolio for his retirement. The death of his wife has hit him hard and his health is on the decline.

Enter son Kirk and his wife, who will provide the much-needed help for Charles, but at what cost?

When an old friend, Mary, now a widow, re-enters Charles’ life and romance blossoms all hell breaks loose as Kirk takes draconian measures to protect his inheritance.

Unfolding A Lost World is a series of interpretations of letters written almost two hundred years ago by a trio of original Canadian settler women.

Frances Stewart, Susanna Moodie and Catharine Parr Traill began the settlement of the Peterborough area of Upper Canada, now the province of Ontario, with their husbands and children. The first of the three, Frances Stewart, arrived from Ireland in 1822. She was followed by the two Scottish sisters, Catharine and Susanna, a decade later. These women, uniquely among the immigrants of that time, wrote elaborate, numerous and illuminating letters back to their families in Ireland and Scotland. The poems presented here have been found in the words of those letters.

In her newest collection, Lorna Crozier describes the passage of time in the way that only she can. Her arresting, edgy poems about aging and grief are surprising and invigorating: a defiant balm. At the same time, she revels in the quirkiness and whimsy of the natural world: the vision of a fly, the naming of an eggplant, and a woman who—not unhappily—finds that cockroaches are drawn to her.

“I found A Matter of Issue to be a sensitive look at what is doubtless a common problem across all western cultures. The characters were well drawn, almost to the point of caricature, with the ‘evil’ Kirk and his sense of entitlement balancing beautifully against the rational, caring brother, Bill. With a number of clever little side plots, Haynes has done a wonderful job of wrapping her story around some very big and very under-rated societal issues that affect our ever-aging population. With Haynes not afraid to be ruthless in her arcs, I found A Matter of Issue to be an excellent family drama that highlighted a pressing concern. Kudos to the author for this story whose time has come." [Review by Readers’ Favorite]

“God draws a life. And then begins to rub it out / with the eraser on his pencil.” Lorna Crozier draws a world in What the Soul Doesn’t Want, and then beckons us in. Crozier’s signature wit and striking imagery are on display as she stretches her wings and reminds us that we haven’t yet seen all that she can do.

COMMENTS “New poems by Lorna Crozier are always a reason for rejoicing.” —Globe and Mail “a late-career highlight… [Crozier] can speak for the inanimate with whimsy and empathy, knows when and how to conjure sensuality, and can sneak in an emotional payload.” — Quill and Quire

www.carollynehaynes.com

Page 31 ◆ WordWorks ◆ Fall 2017

WIPF & STOCK

An Imprint of WIPF and STOCK Publishers wipfandstock.com • (541) 344-1528

Hopeful Realism in Urban Ministry Critical Explorations and Constructive Affirmations of Hoping Justice Prayerfully

Barry K. Morris foreword by Tim Dickau

Widow's Luck Lin Weich

Friesen Press, 2017 ISBN: 9781525509575

What, pray tell, does a faithful urban ministry require if not a triadic relationship of prayer, justice, and hope? Could such a theologically conjunctive relationship of prayer, justice, and hope fortify urban ministry and challenge students and practitioners to ponder and practice beyond the box? Frequently, justice is collapsed to charity, hope into wishful thinking or temporarily arrested despair, and prayer a grasp at quick-fix interventions. An urban ministry’s steadfast public and prophetic witness longs for the depth and width of this triad.

Via three countries’ decades of endeavors, one chapter brainstorms urban ministry practices while another’s literature survey signals crucial convictions.

Amid many, seminal theologians are summoned to ground urban ministry intimations and implications: Niebuhr on justice, Moltmann on hope, and Merton on contemplative prayer. Evident is passion that fuels compassion in the service of justice, hope that engages despair, and prayer that draws from the contemplative center of it all—thankful resources for long haul ministry.

The triad presses to illumine a concrete ministry’s engagement of relentless, forced option issues yet with significant networks resourcing. Contrast-awareness animates endurance. The summary exegetes the original grace-based serenity prayer.

Hence, hope vitally balances realism’s temptation to cynicism. Realism saves hope from irrelevancy.

Land on Which We Live Barbara MacPherson

Caitlin Press, October 2016 ISBN: 9780888876508, $24.95

Barry K. Morris is a United Church of Canada Hopeful Realism in with the minister in Vancouver, British Columbia, Longhouse Council of Native Ministry. He has been in Urban Ministry urban ministry for forty years in five cities and two

countries. He is the co-author of The Word on the Street (1991) and the Book of Rita’s Living (1989); also, Engaging Urban Ministry (ThM thesis, V.S.T., 1999).

Barry K. Morris Wipf & Stock, 2016 ISBN 13: 978-1-4982-2143-6 | $24 | 210 pp. | paper ISBN: 9781498221436, $24.00

romantic backwoods landscape known Behind her back they call her “The Black“AtWidone point inThe this book, Morris characterizes one who hopes as one who shows up. After a lifetime of showing up, all who share his passion for urban ministry—past, present, and future—will be grateful that he has showed up with this theologically serious, resourceful, and realistic reflection on the ow”. Daphne McNeil has been widowed four as the North Bonaparte, stretches east from What, pray tell, does a faithful urban ministry reneeded interaction of hope, justice, and prayer in the work of such ministries.”

—BILL BLAIKIE, ChurchHouse Minister; Former and MLA; Adjunct Professor of Theology Politics, of Winnipeg 70United Mile toMPBridge Lake and is and full ofUniversityquire times in ten years. Each time, her husbands if not a triadic relationship of prayer, justice, “This engaging narrative and analysis skillfully presents hope, justice, and prayer as a framework for stories about urban includingconjunctive have left her considerable sums of money. She small remote ranches, hidden abandoned andexamining hope?

Could such aministries, theologically Barry’s own experience with Vancouver’s Longhouse Ministry. Readers will be introduced to interesting experiences of urban ministry, and challenged to and rutted roadsof facing leading to future. finds that she must use these inheritances to ownhomesteads, relationship of prayer, justice, and hope fortify clarify their assumptions about faith, justice, and the challenges an uncertain ” —ROGER HUTCHINSON, Emeritus of Church and Society, Emmanuel College of Victoria, University of Toronto graves inProfessor forgotten meadows.

High on the support her beloved charities. The money urban ministry and challenge students and prac“In this fine book, Morris shares the scholarlythe thinking that underlies his inspiring minister to in my neighborhood East Vancouver.

Cariboo Plateau, land was once thework do-as an urban titio-ners ponder andinpractice beyond the box? does not go far enough and with increasing This is a book to read.”

Frequently, justice is collapsed to charity, hope into main ofAuthor, theTheSecwepemc who hunted financial pressures, she becomes desperate.

Globalization of Addiction:people A Study in Poverty of the Spirit; Professor of Social Psychology emeritus, Simon Fraser University, BC —BRUCE ALEXANDER, When Steve Johnson, a forensic scientist, and fished throughout the region. White wishful thinking or temporarily arrested despair, and prayer a grasp at quick-fix interventions.

An your favorite bookseller or order directly Media, and Review Copies: settlers began to arrive in 1891 andOrders: dis- Contact discovers human remains in an isolated lake Examination, from the publisher via phone (541) 344-1528, Contact: James Stock urban ministry’ s steadfast public and prophetic covered land they chose was tough and344-1506 or e-mail us at orders@wipfandstock.com near Daphne’s drug and alcohol rehabilitation fax (541) (541) 344-1528, ext 103the or James@wipfandstock.com center, he unwittingly puts himself in danger. challenging. Winters were long with frost witness longs for the depth and width of this triad.

He begins to suspect the beautiful widow is in July and September, the soil was inhospi- Via three countries’ decades of endeavors, one not as innocent as she seems. Will he become table, the location remote from any ameni- chapter brainstorms urban ministry practices ties. Those who made it their home had to while another’s literature survey signals crucial her next victim? convictions. be tough, resourceful and resilient in order Amid many, seminal theologians are summoned Lin Weich, a retired teacher, writes suspense to thrive. This is the story of those people: to ground urban ministry intimations and implithrillers, enjoys freelance writing and pho- colourful, hard-working, hard-playing in- cations: Niebuhr on justice, Moltmann on hope, tography. She grew up in West Africa and has dividualists. Tales of well-known pioneers and Merton on contemplative prayer. Evident lived in various places in both eastern and such as Bill and Mary Boyd and the Saul is passion that fuels compassion in the service of western Canada. She lives in Quesnel, Brit- brothers of the 70 Mile House, the McDon- justice, hope that engages despair, and prayer that ish Columbia with her husband Brian. Her ald family of The Rainbow Chasers, and draws from the contemplative center of it all— kayaking adventures, teaching experiences, Jack Dubois, the famous rustler and horse thankful resources for long haul ministry. outdoor activities and travels have influenced breeder of Outlaws of Western Canada are The triad presses to illumine a concrete ministhe substance and voice of her stories and among those included in the book. Barbara try’s engagement of relentless, forced option isphotography. When she isn’t busy creating MacPherson’s The Land on Which We Live sues yet with significant networks resourcing. stories, she enjoys travelling both in Canada fully captures a life that depended on tenac- Contrast-awareness animates endurance. The and abroad. This northern B.C. writer is the ity, skillfulness, and on the kindness and summary exegetes the original grace-based serenity prayer. Hence, hope vitally balances realism’s author of four suspense novels, Strength of an help of neighbours and friends. temptation to cynicism. Realism saves hope from Eagle (2012), Half Truths Total Lies (2012), irrelevancy.

Alone (2014) and Widow’s Luck (2017).

Fall 2017 ◆ WordWorks ◆ Page 32

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