Winter 2019-2020

BRITISH COLUMBIA’S MAGAZINE FOR WRITERS

Writers for social change Rita Wong Jordan Abel Sonnet L’A b b é Kim Goldberg Sheila Norgate Susan McCaslin Yvonne Blomer Christine Lowther Muriel Marjorie

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WINTER 2020 $6.95

THREE HALF Join the Federation of BC Writers for half-price through February 15th. Any three members* of a writing group can join the Fed for half off. Or four. Or five. Or however many.

All half off.

Simple.

Log onto the website www.bcwriters.ca Go to membership And follow the prompts.

Be connected to a province-wide community of writers.

So join. You can only become a better writer by venturing out of the closet.

*Member defined—You define it. Any three people. Haul two strangers off the street. Join with your long time writing buddies from your group.

Or two people from the library. Or two from the coffee shop. Or draft a couple folks from the bus commute. You pick ‘em and join together. Three or more.

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WINTER 2019–2020 the activists: writing for social change Rita Wong: Her Public Statement

Jordan Abel: Injun Sonnet L’Abbe: Sonnet’s Shakespeare Susan McCaslin: The Han Shan Poetry Initiative Kim Goldberg: Red Zone Muriel Marjorie: Social Justice and Poetry in the DTES Sheila Norgate: Fem Noir: Hashtag Enough Already Yvonne Blomer: Writing Poetry as Activism Christine Lowther: Activist Writing

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fiction, craft, fbcw members 4 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 14

18 19 20 22 23 24 26

Karen Rivers: (Cre)mate, Flash Fiction winner R. Paul Brady: The Family Poetry Challenge Danielle E. Gibson: Writer Talk with Keith Liggett Nowick Gray: Make Friends with Track Changes Lorraine Gane: The Professional-Looking Manuscript Bill Arnott: Developing a Marketing Plan: for Writers Meet the Regional Reps and Area Reps Members’ Corner 2 President’s Letter 3 Faces 16 Contributors 28 Launched 30

Writers benefit from FBCW membership! Write for WordWorks, get paid. Get discounts on ads in WordWorks. Promote your events for free on FBCW Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Subscribe to WriteOn and Islands News to keep up-to-date on events and opportunities. Enter three writing contests every year. Launch your book in WordWorks. Sell your books in the online book market.

Get discounts to attend online conferences and workshops. Advertise your skills in the professional directory. Find and collaborate with like-minded writers in the searchable member directory (or let people find you). Attend Meet and Greets. Join a writer’s group. Write together.

See you at the Spring Writes festival on the Sunshine Coast in April!

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WordWorks is published by The Federation of BC Writers 3383 Rockhampton Rd, Nanoose Bay BC V9P 9H4 www.bcwriters.ca | membership@bcwriters.ca Copyrights remain with original copyright holders. All other work © The Federation of BC Writers 2020. All Rights Reserved. ISSN: 0843-1329 WordWorks is provided free three times a year, to members of the Federation of BC Writers. It is available on our website and in BC libraries, schools, and historical societies. Join us at www.bcwriters.ca.

FBCW Annual Membership Rates Regular: $80 | Senior: $45 | Youth: $25 FBCW Board of Directors President: Keith Liggett Vice President: Doni Eve Treasurer: Adriane Giberson Secretary: Sheilagh Simpson Executive Director: Ann Graham Walker Directors: Adriane Giberson, Emily Olsen, Jacqueline Carmichael, Cynthia Sharp, Luanne Armstrong, Barbara Drozdowich, Chris Hancock Donaldson, Ruth Lloyd, Wawmeesh Hamilton, Sheilagh Simpson, Randy Fred Advisory Committee: JJ. Lee, Steven Price, Esi Edugyan, Alan Twigg, Gail Anderson Dargatz, Anne Tenning, Betsy Warland, Darrel McLeod

WORDWORKS STAFF Editor in Chief: Ursula Vaira Advertising Manager: Sherry Conly Visuals Editor: Chris Hancock Donaldson Cover Design: Chris Hancock Donaldson FBCW Board Advisor: Ann Graham Walker Typesetting and Graphic Design: Ursula Vaira Editorial Board: Doni Eve, Chelsea Comeau, Barbara Pelman, Jacqueline Carmichael, Caitlin Hicks, Adelia MacWilliam UPCOMING THEME Spring 2020: Publishing Pitch article ideas and cover art to editor@bcwriters.ca by February 11, 2020 CALLS FOR SUBMISSIONS We are looking for fiction, non-fiction, and poetry from BC writers. Submission deadlines for the Spring issue is February 11, 2019.

CONTESTS: We run three contests every year; all the details are on the website. Upcoming: Spring Writes (poetry) deadline February 1, 2020.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The Federation of BC Writers acknowledges that Indigenous writers have not been able to take their deserved place in the literary culture due to wounding by colonization, by racism, and by the failure of the gatekeepers to recognize a rich culture of storytelling, to nurture Indigenous writers, and to share opportunities to be heard and honoured. We will continue to invite those writers and their stories; to read, to listen, include, support, and recommend.

As well, we know the power of the written word and strive to recognize and call out biased language; to use instead the language of inclusion and dignity and autonomy when we speak about reconciliation.

We thank Mario Vaira for creative input, skill, and time, Mary Ann Moore and Stephen Collis for their advice and mentorship during the production of this issue, and Manfred Klein for the use of BirdsXtreme.

The Federation of BC Writers gratefully acknowledges the support of the Province of BC, the BC Arts Council, The Canada Council for the Arts, and the Magazine Association of BC.

ADVERTISING: WordWorks is pleased to advertise services and products that are of genuine interest to writers. For advertising policies and rates, see bcwriters.ca/WordWorks/advertisers or email Sherry Conly at ads@bcwriters.ca.

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Members’ Corner This fall we welcomed Keith Liggett as FBCW’s new president after Ann Graham Walker stepped in to fill the vacant ED position. Keith lives in Fernie and also serves as Regional Rep for BC’s Southeast. He is a journalist, award-winning cookbook author, poet, novelist. Find his interview by Danielle Gibson later on in the magazine and visit at keithligget.ca.

WordWorks Reader Survey: What We Heard. We wanted to know how you felt about recent changes and to hear your ideas to help inform decisions if future changes are needed.

We had a great response to our reader engagement survey—130 readers provided feedback. To show our appreciation we offered a draw for a free FBCW membership for one respondent. Congratulations to Carolyn Daley of Duncan!

Here’s a quick summary. The general sentiment is that readers prefer quality over quantity. Many of you appreciate having a high-quality colour printed magazine so you can flip through the pages, take it to your local writing events, share with other writers and even leave in coffee shops! This a great way to get the word out about BC writers, writing, and the Fed.

There was not strong support to convert to a digital publication. We still, however, have that option for those members who prefer it.

We received a lot of ideas for future themes and articles and we thank you for them. Ideas for future themes overwhelmingly focused on the craft of writing and business of publishing. You want articles to provide relevant knowledge, and you want us to continue providing you with promotional opportunities such as the “Launched” section.

Eighty-two percent of respondents told us they were extremely or very satisfied with WordWorks. There were a few who felt that WordWorks tends to be targeted to novice writers, others appreciated that it helped them feel connected to other writers.

If you have an idea for an article for WordWorks, please write to editor@bcwriters.ca.

If you are not receiving WordWorks please check your profile on www.bcwriters.ca and ensure you have checked the box to receive WordWorks by mail, or a digital copy. If you have any questions or need assistance, please write to Ann at membership@bcwriters.ca.

Doni Eve, Vice-president, Federation of BC Writers

Cover Artist: David Lester Making a Life of Art and Politics.

I grew up in a Vancouver household that wasn’t particularity interested in art, but for some reason I liked to draw. I read Classics Illustrated and Mad Magazine and discovered Picasso and Matisse in the local library.

But I was lucky to have a much older brother who was a sixties radical with a record collection. It was while rifling through his records I discovered the MC5, The Fugs, Country Joe & The Fish, and most importantly Phil Ochs. What all these artists had in common was a political awareness that they shared through their songs. On my own, I found folk singers of the early to mid-sixties, like Tom Paxton, Buffy Saint Marie, and Joan Baez (later I would discover punk rock).

These artists used their songs to tell stories of the civil 2 winter 2019–2020 bcwriters.ca

rights movement, labour history, capitalism, injustice, rage, and all the while exhibiting a great sensitivity and empathy.

This combination of art and politics educated me about the world. It was fundamental to my choices in life, to what was important, to how I wanted to spend my time on earth. This was an exhilarating realization of the power of art and politics. And of course, without this realization, I would not have created a political punk rock duo with Jean Smith that influenced the founders of a feminist social movement known as Riot Grrrl or illustrated a book on the 1919 Winnipeg General Strike, or currently be writing and illustrating a book on the last year in the life of a radical named Emma Goldman.

The role and power of art to bear witness to our world is essential in a healthy, democratic society.

From the Lower Right-Hand Corner Keith Liggett Craft.

It’s what keeps you afloat and dry when you cross the river.

There’s a Zen story of a master asking a carpenter, “What’s left to do?” The carpenter replies, “Just a few little details.” The master whacks him across the head, “There are no little details.”

At the end of a recent writing conference, the primary presenters sat in a row at a table. To their left, the MC read from a stack of first pages. Each of the presenters had the same stack of first pages in hard copy to read along. The idea, to critique a first page. When they heard enough, they raised their hand and when two raised their hand, the reading stopped. One by one, they commented on the problems (and strengths, if any) of the page. One of the panel members edits for a Simon and Schuster specialty imprint. On the third or fourth sample page, he raised his hand during the first sentence. Another hand came up almost immediately after.

The editor went first. “There is a misplaced comma in that first sentence.”

Oops.

If he’d been reading this piece in his office, he would have stopped at the first sentence for the misplaced comma and gone on to the next manuscript.

A friend (with multiple award-winning books) once asked his New York editor what he looks for in a manuscript.

“I hope it’s bad, so I can quit it and get on to the next one.”

Oops.

A family friend founded a publishing house in Chicago. He would read the first few lines of a query letter and then put it aside if it didn’t connect. His assistant, a bulldog, made him read every letter all the way through. She knew which he’d read and which he’d passed on. One letter started out with, “I always wanted to be a writer.” Boom. In the for later pile. Later, she stuck it and the rest of the for later stack in front of him and said, “Read.” The “writer” then continued. She heard the speeches of the original peoples of North America were beautiful and she wanted to turn them into poetry. He almost stopped there, but struggled on. She continued, “When I read the speeches, they were beautiful as given and I realized there were no collected works of the First Nations speeches. I think that would make a great book.” (I am paraphrasing as I remember the story.)

Instead of making her point clearly at the start, she buried the point of her query in the last paragraph of a two-page letter.

It was a bestseller, but came oh, so close to never seeing the printer’s ink.

Writing is about the craft, not about the publishing. With craft, publishing naturally follows.

In the months ahead, The Federation of BC Writers will be partnering with a number of conferences and on-line workshops to offer our members (at a discount) the opportunity to further develop their craft.

Watch the website. Read WriteOn. And write every day. Rain or snow.

Fog or sun. Write.

What, me pres?

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Rita Wong thanking the Alouette River upon her release from prison on September. 3, 2019.

Rita Wong

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n August 16, 2019, Rita Wong, an award-winning Vancouver poet and an associate professor in Critical and Cultural Studies at Emily Carr University of Art and Design, was sentenced to twentyeight days of incarceration at the Alouette Correctional Centre for Women in Maple Ridge, BC. She had participated in a peaceful protest on behalf of missing and murdered Indigenous women on August 24, 2018, alongside three other women protesters at the Westridge Marine terminal, impeding access to the Trans Mountain pipeline facility in breach of a court-ordered injunction.

In court Rita read a moving statement outlining the reasons for her protest, emphasizing the current climate change emergency and the urgent need to protect the environment, in particular our waterways: “Our ceremony that morning was an act of spiritual commitment, of prayer, of artistic expression, of freedom of expression, an act of desperation in the face of climate crisis, an act of allegiance with the earth’s natural laws, and a heartfelt attempt to prevent mass extinction of the human race.”

She emphasized that “[we] can all learn from natural law and Coast Salish law that we have a reciprocal 4 winter 2019–2020 bcwriters.ca

relationship with the land; and that we all have a responsibility to care for the land’s health, which is ultimately our health too.”

The four other protesters at the same BC Supreme Court hearing received varying sentences: one hundred hours of community service, fines of $1500 and $4000, and fourteen days in prison. As Wong had participated in the last day of organized protests occurring since March 2018, several months prior, her sentence was significantly more severe. Last year, over 200 protesters were arrested and convicted for protesting the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion.

Rita Wong’s most recent book, beholden: a poem as long as the river (Talonbooks, 2018), co-written with former Canadian poet laureate, Fred Wah, was a response to the damming and development of the Columbia River in British Columbia, Washington, and Oregon and to the renegotiation of the Columbia River Treaty. It was a finalist for the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize earlier this year. Her book Forage (blewointment, 2007) won CBC’s Canada Reads Poetry award and the Dorothy Livesay Prize in 2008. Her research and writing focus upon the relationships between contemporary poetics, social justice, ecology, and decolonization.

Reprinted from the PEN Canada online newsletter, August 19, 2019, written by Fiona Tinwei Lam (BC member of PEN Canada) www. fionalam.net. https://pencanada.ca/news/vancouver-poet-ritawong-incarcerated-for-4-weeks-for-peaceful-anti-pipeline-protest/

An Excerpt from Rita Wong’s Public Statement

I’m grateful to be here alive today with all of you on sacred, unceded Coast Salish territories, the homelands of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil Waututh peoples.

On 24 August 2018, while BC was in a state of emergency because of wildfires caused by climate change—breaking records for the second year in a row; putting lives at risk, health at risk, and displacing thousands of people—I sang, prayed, and sat in ceremony for about half an hour in front of the Trans Mountain pipeline project’s Westridge Marine Terminal.

I did this because we’re in a climate emergency, and since the Federal government has abdicated its responsibility to protect us despite full knowledge of the emergency, it became necessary to act. We are in imminent peril if we consider the rate of change we are currently experiencing from a geological perspective—we are losing species at an alarming rate and facing mass extinction due to the climate crisis that humans have caused. This is the irreparable harm I sought to prevent, which the court, the Crown, and corporations also have a responsibility to prevent.

Everyone has the responsibility to respond to this crisis. We are on the global equivalent of the Titanic, and this industrialized ship needs to change direction. We also need to build life boats, healthy places that can support resilience in the future, such as the sacred Salish Sea. I acted with respect for the rule of law which includes the rule of natural law and the rule of Indigenous law and the rule of international law. Under the rule of law:

• I have a responsibility to my ancestors and the

ancestors of this land to protect the lands and waters that give us life with each breath, each bite of food, each sip of water.

• I have a responsibility to reciprocate to the salmon who have given their life to feed mine, to reciprocate to the trees that produce and gift us the fresh air from their leaves through the perpetual song of photosynthesis.

• I have a responsibility to give back to the great Pacific Ocean, the Coast Salish Sea, Stalew (the Fraser River), and the many water bodies on which human life—and other lives—depend.

• I have a responsibility to hold our politicians accountable when they persistently breach their international legal obligations to protect us. They should be reducing greenhouse gas emissions, not increasing them in ways that put the very existence of life at risk.

Thank you, Rita

Read the complete statement at https://talonbooks.com/news/ rita-wong-s-public-sentencing-statement.

Read more at TheTyee: “Lessons from Prison: A Shackled Pipeline Protester Reflects.” https://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2019/09/24/ Lessons-From-Prison-Pipeline-Protester-Reflects/

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Jordan Abel Injun 1) He proved himself clean strain that night, the whitest little Injun on the reservation.

The government line of forts along the Missouri River had the whitest lot of officers that it was ever my good other? Well! That is spirit. He smiled, showing the whitest and evenest teeth. Such extrava“Jerry wants to talk to you. He’s the whitest of the lot, if you can call that—” I suppose, then, you did not observe that his teeth are the whitest, evenest.” “They make them white clouds, and looked from face to face. “You’re the whitest bunch—I’d like to know— way. “He isn’t much just to look at, but he’s the whitest man I ever knew. You wait here Wait till you see Blanco Sol! Bar one, the whitest, biggest, strongest, fastest, grandest white stream from the steel rolls, pure, clean, and sweet, the whitest and finest in the world! America, the saved her, anyway. Monty Price was the whitest man I ever knew. There’s Nels an’ Nick an’ me. Al Auchincloss always was the whitest an’ squarest man in this sheep country.”

Hell-Bent.... An’ Coles swore thet Wade was the whitest man he ever knew. Heart of gold, he can get over my jealousy and be half decent. He’s the whitest man I ever knew. “Now listen, this state of Colorado you’re known as the whitest of the white. Your name’s a byword for all to us with startlin’ truth. Wade was the whitest man I ever knew. He had a queer idee—a

[ PROCESS ] Injun was constructed entirely from a source text comprised of 91 public domain western novels with a total length of just over ten thousand pages. Using CTRL+F, I searched the source text for the word “injun,” a query that returned 509 results. After separating out each of the sentences that contained the word, I ended up with 26 print pages. I then cut up each page into a section of a long poem. Sometimes I would cut up a page into threeto five-word clusters. Sometimes I would cut up a page without looking. Sometimes I would rearrange the pieces until something sounded right. Sometimes I would just write down how the pieces fell together. Injun and the accompanying materials are the result of these methods.

Pages 31 and 83 from Injun © Jordan Abel Reprinted with permission.

Injun was published by Talonbooks.

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“CXXVIII” is the 128th poem of a book project called Sonnet’s Shakespeare, in which I “write over” all 154 of Shakespeare’s sonnets. Within each prose-poem block, the original Shakespearean poem sits. I have displaced and surrounded Shakespeare’s letters with my own, such that the original poem is rendered barely visible, audible only in moments and fragments. I wanted to create a form that spoke to a dynamic of cultural erasure, to show how English sits in racializing relation to my body, and to grapple with the culture that has surrounded me to the point that it speaks through me. The themes of belonging, race, and the legacy of British colonialism in Canada run through many of the poems in the book, but I also write about my family. This poem is addressed to my father, who is a potter and whose attitude toward his art and craft helped shape my attitude toward my own. The first lines of Sonnet 128 are, “How oft when thou, my music, music play’st, / Upon that blessed wood whose motion sounds”—you will perhaps be able to see how this language persists in my erasure. In my poem I don’t react very specifically to the content of Shakespeare’s sonnet. I recount the story of my father’s training in an aesthetic that idealized the solo craftsman working in an idyllic rural setting, and muse on the fact that I seem to have ended up living his dream, in that I found myself solo, on the Island, and able to work at my poetic craft.

Sonnet L’Abbé

This excerpt from the poem is taken from the broadsheet (The Nanaimo Museum and The Blasted Tree Publishing Co).

“CXXVIII” from Sonnet’s Shakespeare reprinted by permission of McClelland & Stewart, a division of Penguin Random House Canada Limited. All rights reserved.

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Susan McCaslin The Han Shan Poetry Initiative

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n discovering that a local rainforest was slated to be sold to developers, I was inspired by Han Shan—the ancient Chinese poet, monk, and forest dweller—to jump into the fray. Han Shan was said to have scrawled poems on rocks and trees at Cold Mountain in the Tang dynasty (9c.). So I sent out an emergency call on poet listserves for poems that celebrate trees. The response was remarkable, yielding over two hundred poems by young and old, beginning and celebrated writers, from not just Canada but as far away as Australia and Turkey. With the help of a local environmental group named WOLF, a group of us suspended poems from the trees during the Christmas season, inviting the community to stroll among them. The poems became the forest’s anthology. The chances of stopping the sale seemed slim, but we figured at least those bearing chainsaws might read poems celebrating trees as they did their deed. After the publicity surrounding this and other arts events spread from local newspapers to the Vancouver Sun, The Globe and Mail, and Global TV, the Township of Langley announced it would preserve 60 percent of the forest. At this point a local family generously stepped in, offering 8 winter 2019–2020 bcwriters.ca

to purchase the entire twenty-five acres and donate them to a local university. The Blaauw Eco Forest is currently a well-maintained nature preserve open to the public, where students undertake important species inventories and nature study.

I see myself as a quietly introverted artist unexpectedly called into a public form of action by the plight and beauty of the forest. The first poem I wrote about the forest began with this line: “I fell in love with a forest and became an activist.” Something deep within called me to challenge W.H. Auden’s line, “Poetry makes nothing happen.” I jumped in without regard for outcomes, simply because I had to try. Being part of this project has deepened my sense of trees as sentient beings, keynote speakers, providers of oxygen, and sustainers of the planet.

Photograph from the Han Shan Poetry Initiative by Erin Perry

It took me two days to recover from my first visit to the squat. My limbs were downed power lines dancing on tin roofs. My pulse surged and scattered like an alien tide. (Is this what it feels like to be tasered?) But which squat was I recovering from? The one across from Thrifty’s, on the edge of the railyard? Or the one within, populated by engorged slabs of my own mortality, passion, shame, fraud – swollen fleshworms nodding aimlessly in their cinnabar chamber, blind as whips. I

Kim Goldberg

did not mean to rip the blanket door off this particular cubicle.

Red Zone did not arise in a preplanned way. I did not set out to create this collage of poems, graphics and diary entries about urban homelessness.

I live in downtown Nanaimo, in a 1930s cottage left over from the town’s coal-mining days. My daily wanderings through alleys, rail yard, abandoned warehouses and weedy waysides became a slow penetration of a world that had previously been invisible to me. Or perhaps it was an opening of my eyes until I could read the hidden narrative of the streets and byways. It was as though the safe world of homes and groceries and thermostats was all a palimpsest, a newer text set atop an earlier script of existence that was increasingly poking through. The City itself54 was a living organism, and graffiti was its language. The secret codes were everywhere and changed nightly. The more I probed this hidden parallel universe, the deeper I dove into uncharted realms of my Self. And it was terrifying. But I couldn’t stop. Red Zone was well received,

widely praised, taught in university literature courses, and it sparked action-oriented discussions about solutions to homelessness wherever I performed it. However, I also received criticism for some of the content in Red Zone because I did not obtain permission to create my art.

But it is not the artist’s role to obtain permission for the creation of art (although this view will not be popular). I was not seeking to tell anyone’s story besides my own— what I witnessed and experienced on this solitary and transformative journey into and through a strange realm.

And that is not a story I need permission to tell.

Pages 54 and 91 of Kim Goldberg’s Red Zone (Pig Squash Press, 2009) used with permission.

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Muriel Marjorie Isabella Mori

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uriel died in November of 2018. At her first memorial in the beautiful oasis of the Listening Post, a text was read about Muriel’s last day. It said that she had expressed that while she was leaving, she was still continuing her journey. The text was accompanied by a picture of the sunrise on the day she died. I was moved by this to do my part in Muriel’s continued journey and decided to donate a poetry prize I had just won to a new poetry prize in Muriel’s honour—Muriel’s Journey Poetry Prize. When I shared this idea at the memorial, the response was enthusiastic. Rudolf Penner ended up being the person who did most of the heavy lifting and travelled alongside me in this new chapter. Later on, Diane Wood, Kevin Spenst, Cecily Nicholson, and Kyle Hawke joined the fray. Kyle then volunteered to produce a chapbook showcasing the poetry of the winners and runners-up with his Three Ocean Press.

Because Muriel had to do everything differently, we did, too. Muriel would have been very much against an entry fee so instead we asked poets to qualify by telling us what they do for their community. (Monetary contributions to the prize and the event were by Monica Dare, Cecily Nicholson and myself.) The poems we were looking for were ones that had that sharp intensity so characteristic of Muriel’s poetry, or had a theme of social justice. Finally, we also drew from the pool of qualifying entries one poem at random—a gesture of inclusivity that we hope Muriel would have enjoyed.

Muriel’s Journey Poetry Prize is open to all persons living in Canada and will happen again in February. Facebook page at https://www. facebook.com/murielsjourney/ or email murielsjourney at gmail.com. The FBCW will make a donation to the contest in Muriel Marjorie’s name.

Screenshot and poem excerpt from the video Rewind: Memory on Film (W2 Youth Media Training Program Bladerunners). Muriel’s Journey Poetry Prize winner, 2019. “Flatland,” from the winning entries chapbook, was published by Three Ocean Press.

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Masked agents sanitized me masked visitors gowned, slippered and hair kept blue and green the protection unit for crying out loud!

Not a peep from me keeping it silent, keeping it together

Flatland by Jenn Ashton today i ate chainsaws for breakfast gritty grinding sounds stuckinmy teeth rattlingmyeyes cracking branches trunks thumping quiet moans and sad sighs wind made wild when big branches fell through it why do they doit dead wood thumps down onto hard ground wood now not tree just memory remaining at th at spot inside of me where the tree used to b e

Sheila Norgate FEM NOIR: Hashtag Enough Already

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turn seventy in a few weeks. This is a piece of information not usually coughed up voluntarily by a lady but then again, I never said I was a lady. I came of age during the heyday of second wave feminism which had mustered quite a heady froth of steam by the time I attended my first consciousness-raising group in Toronto circa 1969.

I am told we are now awash in fifth-wave feminism although what happened to three and four, I don’t know; and just who is in wave number five? No other human rights movement has ever been parsed out this way. Yet when you think about it, waves might just be the perfect metaphoric delivery truck for feminism. Waves have a built-in obsolescence. They completely break up when they hit the shore. They lose all their momentum and become foam. If patriarchy provides the inhospitable coastline, and feminism comes at it in waves, you can see how all this works.

FEM NOIR, my latest one-woman offering, is a performance piece infused with that uncommon pairing of full-on feminism and convincing humour. The show title riffs off Film Noir, a genre of post WWII cinema marked by a mood of entrapping darkness, fatalism, and menace—especially when it comes to women. Rather like today only with hats and gloves.

FEM NOIR exposes the 2,500-year career path of sexism all the way back to Hippocrates. Too bad he didn’t

read his own oath, especially the part about doing no harm. Because if he had, he might not have been so keen to promote the notion of the womb as a separate animal wandering around in a woman’s body like an itinerant hobo. His unhinged ideas spawned the entire Histeria (sic) industry thereby cranking open the wide maw of contempt into which women all throughout antiquity have been swept.

But FEM NOIR is more than a history lesson, it’s a class in current affairs. It might have turned out differently if the dead sexist white male philosophers, theologians, and educators had stayed dead. But they didn’t, and the slippery conviction that women are innately inferior to men lives on in the virulent practice of misogyny. Despite over forty years of strenuous effort by the United Nations, the World Health Organization, and the World Medical Association, male violence against women continues unabated. In November 2018, UN Secretary-General António Guterres called male violence against women a “global pandemic.”

Narrow the aperture to Canadian soil, and the banal matter-of-factness of male predation becomes frighteningly clear.

Every six days, a woman in Canada is killed by her male intimate partner. One in four Canadian women will experience intimate partner violence or sexual violence in her lifetime. On any given night in Canada, over 6,000 women and children sleep in women’s shelters to escape abuse. At least one in five women attending Canadian colleges or universities will be sexually assaulted by the time they graduate.

Oh Canada.

With FEM NOIR I wanted to offer a cumulative perspective on the situation to contrast the “divide and conquer” style which typically distributes bad news piecemeal so that we never get the whole story. Just like Feminism itself, the evidence is broken up into bite-sized morsels making it easier for us to swallow. Before you know it, we are bloated with unease … not even sure how we got there.

Yet even with all of this, I remain inexplicably hopeful.

After all, the ocean will not give up sending its waves to the shore any more than women and men will stop working towards equality. bcwriters.ca winter 2019–2020 11

Yvonne Blomer Writing Poetry as Activism

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hat do you think? Do you think writing is a form of activism? How about your choice of toilet paper? Riding a bicycle? Refusing a plastic spoon in a café, or asking for a ceramic cup?

Writing is an act of communication and how and what we communicate relates directly to what we believe.

According to Wikipedia.org, “Activism consists of efforts to promote, impede, direct, or intervene in social, political, economic, or environmental reform with the desire to make changes in society … ” There are three ways that writing works as activism (this does not exclude all the other things it also does).

For this article, I am going to focus on poetry and the environment, but there are many forms of activism and many issues where writing can effect a change.

Writing can: raise awareness about issues, historical events, or places; give voice to the unvoiced, give a perspective not often heard; marry varying perspectives; create responses and conversations that lead to deeper

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understanding and (hopefully) change.

I’ve recently finished editing the second of three poetry anthologies on water. The first was Refugium: Poems for the Pacific where I contemplated how a book of poems could serve as a refugium, a refuge, for dying species and a dying ecosystem. The second is Sweet Water: Poems for the Watersheds and looks at fresh water and the many ways we come from, live in, and depend on water. The third book will focus on the Atlantic Ocean.

Look at these few lines from “Slick” by Brian Campbell from Refugium: Poems for the Pacific: “Little slithery ink ball, / wings stuck. // Bleats from a bird throat.” For me the power of these lines exemplifies the power of poetry— despite its reputation, it is accessible and condensed, it can give you an image and a metaphor where a thousand words might struggle to. It can place an image in a reader’s mind, and from that image a conversation may begin, or a shift in how things are seen. Perhaps even a shift from driving to taking the bus or from disposable water bottles to tap water.

If we can agree that poetry can be a form of activism, I wonder then what to do with the knowledge that is brought about by poetry. Will it create action or change in behaviour? Will it enable us to grieve for the truth of our responsibility and guilt for how we’ve altered the planet?

I think poetry can do these things; it can help us engage and imagine both beauty and loss in the world. If, through metaphor, poetry causes us to stop and look again, or look more closely, can it then change how we see and act upon the world around us? Can we see our mother in a whale, our children in the trees? Can we see the relationship between violence to women and violence to the environment? Can we stop creating separations between living things and begin to move toward non-hierarchical ways of being?

I would say being engaged in a political act is activism.

So then how, as writers, do we dig into the activist and ecological trenches and speak to humans’ responsibility for altering the natural world without becoming polemic?

The second part of the Wikipedia.org quote on activism

says this, “Historically, activists have used literature […] to disseminate or propagate their messages and attempt to persuade their readers of the justice of their cause.” This is the part of activism that poets are wary of, they don’t want their poems to be used as a specific tool for propaganda.

Yet, we kind of do want to give voice, to be heard; we do want to change how people think or see.

The trick with poems that are written with a target in mind is how to write the best poem that also carries your core beliefs. How does a writer, who feels passionate about a subject, convey that passion without falling into an overwhelmed and wishy-washy poem? How do we write our best work without ranting? Without stating a list of shoulds or becoming over-sentimental?

As an editor, I can now pinpoint why I choose one poem over another. That decision has more to do with the poems than with any preconceived vision I have for the anthology. I don’t want to fall into the trap of editing a whole book that is a rant or slogan for something—I must

be careful to avoid this tendency as an editor too. In an anthology where the entire book is based on a vast though singular subject, such as the Pacific Ocean, the poems that focus on specific life forms, for example, are likely to rise to the surface over the poems that feel overwhelmed by the subject. Such poems often use grand, abstract language and over-large ideas. Going back to Brian Campbell’s poem above, he’s focused on one tiny, oilslicked creature. That creature can carry the vastness of the Pacific and the damage we are doing to it. Put another way, as Patrick Lane once said to me, “We find the universal in the specific.”

I’ll end on an example from Sweet Water: Poems for the Watersheds which is due out with Caitlin Press in February of 2020. Here are the first few lines of Cynthia Woodman Kerkham’s poem “With No Sweet Water”: “What would the ancient poets say of poisoned Xinkai River? / Wang Wei and Li Bai exiled on state business, / wine-drunk and swapping lines beside a green stream. // We know poison, they might say …”

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Christine Lowther Activist Writing … because sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul.

—Edward Abbey … Maybe it was a hundred years of work for my name to arrive here, where I can name my pain so well that people are afraid of the consequences and power. —Terese Marie Mailhot

A

ctivist writing is more relevant than ever. Reading and listening to it can be incredibly affirming, informative, inspiring, and motivating. Where would we be without Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring? As Alaska writer Marybeth Holleman recently put it in her article “Writer as Activist, Activist as Writer” in The Goose, “In the end, they’re the same—writing is action.”

Victoria poet Anne Hopkinson’s poem “Once” reveals not only that glass sponge reefs exist but also that we care about them and will act on their behalf. Plus, that democracy is more than voting: You sign that petition, send that letter, stand at the legislature, not once—once is not enough— but again and again until the law is strong, until it is enforced.

In 1991 I heard Bellingham singer-songwriter Dana Lyons’ lyrics for the first time, in a packed van en route to a Walbran Valley blockade. From “A Drop of Water”: 14 winter 2019–2020 bcwriters.ca

And in the heat of passion we begin to understand that we are of this land that we are part of Earth and when it’s threatened we will fight for all we’re worth we watch the dam the dam come crashing down …

I finally read Edward Abbey’s The Monkey Wrench Gang this summer. Published in 1975, it’s got sexism and racism tucked in, and besides, activist writing doesn’t necessarily mean writing about activism.

Descriptions of the truth might never be labelled activist writing yet can inspire lifelong conviction for a cause.

From Bruce Cockburn’s classic song “If a Tree Falls”: Busy monster eats dark holes in the spirit world where wild things have to go to disappear forever Nanaimo poet Sonnet L’Abbé used erasure poetry to overwrite all 154 of Shakespeare’s sonnets. This act alone illustrates a reclaiming-activism—taking back from the most famous dead white male poet of all.

Then there are succinct NF lines with impact, like this one from Global Warming and the Sweetness of Life: A Tar Sands Tale (2018 by Hern, Johal and Sacco): “All land has been subject to logics of domination, and thus all relationships with land are immediately forced to confront colonialism.” Or Gwen Benaway’s “Nature poetry is always colonial.” Writing like this must lead us to examine and act.

Activist writing is in kids’ books, too. Vancouver author Norma Charles wrote Tree Musketeers (Ronsdale, 2018) about school children who decorate a beloved tree and send a petition to the developer whose plans are to cut it down. Young Adult novels are taking up causes, like Standing Strong by Gary Robinson (7th Generation, 2019),

Further reading/listening: which tells the story of a Blackfeet teenager who survives a suicide attempt and joins the Standing Rock blockades.

Activist writing can appear anywhere. In Briony Penn’s The Real Thing : The Natural History of Ian McTaggart Cowan (Rocky Mountain Books, 2015), she describes the impacts of the WAC Bennett dam as told by the Indigenous peoples who were living on their trapline when the waters started to rise without warning. Coffins floated above the flooded burial grounds. The caribou’s migration route was under water and their bloated corpses were everywhere. The people were scattered; many ended up destitute in the cities. The act of reading this section motivated me to write letters against Site C and to believe in the necessity of alternative energy.

Where would we be without activist writing? How would we be? Passive puppet consumers on a doomed planet.

Anne Hopkinson: “Once,” published in Refugium: Poems for the Pacific, Yvonne Blomer, ed. (Caitlin Press, 2017) Bruce Cockburn: “If A Tree Falls,” from the album Big Circumstance (True North Productions, 1988) Dana Lyons: “A Drop of Water,” from the album Cows With Guns: The Cow Pie Nation Cowpilation (Universal Music Canada, 2003) Edward Abbey: The Monkey Wrench Gang (Harper Collins, 1975) Gwen Benaway: “Place” (League of Canadian Poets, NPM:19) Hern, Johal and Sacco, Global Warming and the Sweetness of Life: A Tar Sands Tale (The MIT Press 2018) The Goose, A Journal of Arts, Environment, and Culture in Canada, https://scholars.wlu.ca/thegoose/vol17/iss2/2 Sonnet L’Abbé: Sonnet’s Shakespeare (McClelland & Stewart, 2019) Terese Marie Mailhot: Heart Berries: A Memoir (Counterpoint, 2018)

West Coast School of Writing A Place for Enlightened Being

Year-round courses and workshops for writers, poets, and deep thinkers dedicated to personal and creative improvement through observation, introspection, and analysis. We combine informative lectures and readings with writing practice and editing in a supportive community atmosphere for writers and individuals of all experience levels.

Located on beautiful Vancouver Island in the historic waterfront District of Oak Bay For upcoming classes go to www.joeleneheathcote.com To register: 250.516.6903 | joelene@joeleneheathcote.com bcwriters.ca winter 2019–2020 15

FBCW Faces Fed members out and about in the lit world, performing, writing, reading, teaching, celebrating.

Betsy Warland presenting a workshop in Gibsons. (Photo by Sherryl Latimer).

Lorraine Gordon, Grand Forks Writers Guild, Grand Forks & District Public Library

KT Wagner teaching a workshop on Short Story Writing to Golden Ears Writers at The ACT Maple Ridge. (Ronda Payne photo.)

Send photos to editor@bcwriters.ca

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Fern G. Z. Carr poetry reading at the Rotary Centre for the Arts Mary Irwin Theatre in Kelowna for Culture Days.

Jane Silcott teaching "Shaping your Memoir" workshop at the Sechelt library October, 2019. (Sherryl Latimer photo.)

Jesse Holth, reading with others at Bolen Books in Victoria, BC, from antilang., a magazine of literary brevity.

Martha Warren reading from “Berengaria” on the Revue Stage at the Vancouver Writers Fest October, 2019.

LINE & LENS Photopoetry Exhibition Opening, SFU Harbour Centre Nov. 2019. Poems by the Writer’s Studio 2019 Poetry Students mentored

by Joanne Arnott, with photographs by Nathan Choo and Phaelen Kuehne. Left to right: Catherine Lewis, Deborah Vieyra, Elizabeth Armerding, Nathan Choo, Zofia Rose Musiej, Steffi Tad-y, Martha Warren, Jacqui Willcocks, Phaelen Kuehne.

bcwriters.ca winter 2019–2020 17

Kelsey Goodwin photo

We congratulate Karen Rivers, winner of the 2019 Six Sparks Flash Fiction Contest

(Cre)mate

N

ot caring has turned you into velvet: the nap of you vulnerable only to those you let close, which is no one, yet you’re naked in a man’s room. He is sleeping, mouth slightly open, flakes of dry skin on his nose. His breath is milk left for days on the counter. Last night, he spoke in paragraphs that you couldn’t be bothered to decipher. Everything was so loud and you were hungry.

Now you want to set him on fire, a yearning that tingles in your fingertips. He would catch like tissue paper, edges curling rapidly inward, and then, suddenly, a satisfying whoomp of devouring flame. When he became dust, you could leave, finally free. Outside, a crow won’t stop screaming. You’ve never used a gun, but you want to shoot that crow. You make a finger gun. Bang. Your dad once said, I should go put my head in a garbage can and … he gestured. It took you ages to figure out he meant to kill himself. He’d said it so casually. When you used to go out, he’d say, Off to get your oil changed? It was a joke. Now your only jeans are on this stranger’s floor. Getting dressed seems unappealing, like trying to pull clothes up over damp skin in the swimming pool’s changing room, the fabric sticky and slow. You want to throw the jeans at the crow. You want to want nothing. Wanting nothing might release you from the constant ambush of status updates from people you’ve forgotten knowing in high school: all their new cars, new clothes, new houses, new babies. You wait. The sky is all watery light, the sun making an only intermittent effort to fulfill its potential. You have one job! you hiss, which wakes him. Oh, he says, you. He smiles. The smells woven from sweat and orgasms and disappointments and the half-dead fig tree in the corner meld and call to mind volcanoes. The idea of becoming ash is problematically seductive: to be so light and delicate, yet still gritty. Breakfast? he says. You shake your head. You eat one meal per day: a poached egg on avocado toast served on a fine bone china plate you bought at Value Village for a dollar. Royal Doulton. Mum’s plate, you tell people, but it wasn’t. She was cremated in February. You miss every cell of her.

The stranger stretches, all pecs and abs. Fuck you, you say. He raises an eyebrow.

I can cobble together a smoothie, he offers, flexing muscles carved by lifting and lowering the constant weight of his own insecurities. How boring he is, you think, pityingly, and cup your sharp hipbone under the sheet for reassurance. His skin shines with sweat. The sun is over-performing through the glass now, burning hotter and brighter. You think of the word incinerate. Try harder, you think, as the man lowers his beautiful body to yours and you rise up eagerly to meet him.

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The Family Poetry Challenge

Derek

R. Paul Brady

I

was recently pondering with my cousin Marilyn what we could do to encourage people who don’t write poetry to try. She suggested it would be fun to challenge her and her family members to write and share a new poem every day for a week.

In the challenge, we specified that poems should follow the basic haiku format: seventeen syllables, 5-7-5 per line. We made it easier by relaxing all the other conventions of haiku.

Most people have heard that a haiku is a poem. The length of the poem makes it appear less time consuming to participate.

Fifteen family members spanning two generations took up the challenge. Sixty poems were shared during that first week’s daily challenge. Many agreed to continue for the next two months with a poem a week, and we added the option of using a limerick format. We received forty more poems.

We were astounded by the bounty of enthusiasm. Some had read poetry, few had tried to write it. We had thought some might participate just because it was framed as a challenge.

A handful of poems came back the first day. Once others saw the content, realized that they could do the same thing, and saw their siblings or parents having fun, they joined in.

There’s something about composing a poem that requires us to reflect and share ourselves from within. And the haiku format’s brevity forces us to get to the essence of what we want to say. We all found the poems gave us new insights into family members who are spread across the country.

Initially, poems were about daily life, often light and humorous.

Having lived so far apart from these family members for so long, we found that the poems gave us a clear view into important things in each person’s day, and a glimpse into their personalities. These effects were especially fresh from the younger generation.

We know them less well than their parents, our contemporaries.

As the time progressed, the focus of the poems shifted to expressing more about inner life and feelings.

These are not often shared at family gatherings.

The family gained more confidence writing poetry and sharing with the circle. Poems went further into the thoughts and feelings about the mysteries in their lives. Many new insights were from people we’ve known all our lives.

The enthusiasm and willingness to embrace writing poetry was inspiring to us. The most important unexpected bonus of the poetry challenge was making meaningful connections with family near and far.

And, we all had fun! we are like oysters building pearls from grains of grit layer on layer

boss in diaper says, “I now control your lives” lucky he is cute Jim excited children hot hands holding fishing rods terrified bait worms Paul M. weekend on the lake followed by a great party now I have a wife Rosemary I stand by the stone a life marked from start to end heartfelt memories Mike beneath this cool rock there lies, unseen another cool rock Jim music is a locomotive music is a crying doll a beating heart, a work of art music is an eagle’s call Mike I turn off the lights close the door and walk away can I let it go?

Marilyn what can I learn here trapped and screaming behind this thick wall of silence?

Derek it stops me in awe to think how much you loved this child, five years ago bcwriters.ca winter 2019–2020 19

Writer Talk with Keith Liggett Danielle E. Gibson The Federation of BC Writers’ new president talks writing philosophy and outlook on life while sipping wine with a friend.

I

first met Keith Liggett through our friend Adam MacDonald. Adam approached me and asked if I liked to write? Writing? I hadn’t considered it before as being more than a hobby, a thing we all do to pass the time.

Would I be interested in joining a writers’ workshop run by his buddy Keith? I pondered this, not believing I was a writer, or could ever be a serious one. My lack of certainty may have been what put me over the edge. I’d read somewhere that real writers never feel confident. Perhaps I had potential.

This was over a decade ago. Since then, Keith has become a mentor and friend. We’ve shared many bottles of wine and even more tears from heartache to solidarity to pure joy. He’s an excellent teacher and I truly believe he’s changed the face of writing in the Kootenays.

Without Keith and his (somewhat) aggressive pushing of me with my work, I wouldn’t be venturing to consider myself a writer today.

Keith is a self-proclaimed ski bum who has written for over a hundred newspapers. He’s a poet (like socks in the dryer), a cookbook author (Island Lake Lodge: The Cookbook), and a lover of all things Fernie (The Fernie Originals, with Henry Georgi). He continues to live in Fernie today and is a driving force for the Tamarack Writers’ Conferences and the Fernie Writers’ Conference.

Now he’s the president of the BC Federation of Writers. http://keithliggett.ca.

Today, I sat down with Keith in my living room and asked him questions as we drank wine next to the wood-burning stove. A cliché to be certain, and a peace of mind as two friends sit and chat about who he is.

Danielle Gibson: I’m just going to jump right in. What do you like to do when you’re not writing?

Keith Liggett: Depends on the season. I mountain bike, fly fish and in the winter I ski. I try to do something physical every day.

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DG: What book is currently on your bedside table? Your coffee table? Your bag?

KL: Oh man, uhmm. The Plover by Brian Doyle, who nobody has heard of. Mink River is one of my favourite novels. He wrote that. Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson.

Vietnam apocalypse book. I just started John Keeble’s new novel The Appointment: The Tale of Adaline Carson.

DG: How many bookshelves are in your house? What’s on them?

KL: My books are packed up right now. I only have one small bookshelf 4x3. It’s full. But, normally, I have twenty feet of bookshelves floor to ceiling. Mostly fiction. Couple shelves of spiritual books. Some really old translations of Zen Flesh, Zen Bones. A long shelf of literary journals and two shelves of poetry.

DG: What’s your favourite under-appreciated novel?

Why? KL: Mink River by Brian Doyle. Without a doubt. One of the reviews said he breaks every rule in writing a novel and makes everything work. It’s brilliant.

DG: How long have you been writing?

KL: Forever. I started writing in grade school. My first major published piece was when I was sixteen. It was two poems in Northwestern University literary magazine.

DG: When did you first consider yourself a writer?

KL: Hahah! Uhmm. Good question. I left Colorado to work on my writing and got into advertising … and, I guess sometime after that, when I started getting big projects accepted. Then I started accepting myself as a writer, but first as an advertising copywriter.

DG: What is the most difficult part about writing for you?

Has it ever happened?

KL: Uhmm, putting it out there and wondering if it’s going to be accepted, or if I’m totally off base. Oh yeah, it’s happened. Yup. DG: If you could tell your younger writing self anything, what would it be? Like if you could talk to sixteen-yearold Keith Liggett, what would you say?

KL: Don’t doubt. Keep at it and it’ll work out.

Keith takes a drink of wine and smiles.

DG: Don’t worry, just enjoy the wine!

KL: Hmmm, hmmm.

DG: What, in your opinion, are the most important elements of good writing?

KL: Every good writer has a distinctive voice. And that voice is what compels their narrative, their story, and the ending to their story.

DG: I think I know your answer to this one. What are common traps for aspiring writers?

KL: Imitating other writers and trying to get published.

You should always try to write for yourself first and foremost. That’ll bring out your voice.

DG: All right, what is the first book that made you cry?

Or, which book continues to make you cry?

KL: The poetry of Billy Collins.

KL: Oh man. Uhmm. I’ve always sought community in writing. John Keeble is one of my oldest friends. He’s an authentic critic. Brian Schott at the Whitefish Review.

He gives me perspective. Angie Abdou, a close personal friend here in Fernie. She connects me with the writing community in Canada in a way that no one else has. Sid Marty too. He’s a good beer drinkin’ buddy and we talk great literature. And a loose group of writers that I get together with here in Fernie too, you included.

DG: What does literary success look like to you?

KL: That’s a hard one. I had more short stories, fiction, and poetry published in the eighties then I have in the last fifteen years. But I’m working on longer pieces that I think are far better now, but they haven’t sold. So, I don’t really have an answer to that.

DG: How many hours a day do you write?

KL: Two to four. Every day.

DG: If you didn’t write, what would you do?

KL: Shoot myself. Quote from Annie Dillard.

DG: What are your favourite literary journals?

KL: Whitefish Review. The Sun. Granta. And, uhmm, anything I pick up on a whim.

DG: Where do you draw inspiration from?

KL: Yup. Yeah. I think he and Jim Harrison create tremendous depth out of simple situations. They make me jealous.

KL: Oh … another nasty question. You can write that down. I draw inspiration from two places. One is my far past that I’ve thought about and maybe resolved. And the other is my current emotional state and what I’m feeling at the time.

DG: Do you think someone can be a writer if they don’t feel emotions strongly? Why?

DG: If you had to describe yourself in three words, what would they be?

KL: No. Uhmm. Good writing is emotional. It’s authentic and it’s not manipulative. And, you can manipulate in books like Bridges of Madison County, but they aren’t authentic. Books like Jim Harrison’s Dalva and Legends of the Fall both have an authenticity and depth that you can’t find in other works.

KL: Ski bum writer.

DG: All of it? Do you want to elaborate?

DG: What other authors are you friends with, and how do they help you become a better writer?

DG: What advice would you give a new writer, someone just starting out?

KL: Don’t give up. Write every day. Don’t worry about how good it is. Revise like crazy. Show it to people. Don’t believe them when they say it isn’t any good and keep writing. bcwriters.ca winter 2019–2020 21

Make Friends With Track Changes Nowick Gray

D

o you dread receiving markup from an editor or critique partner who uses Word’s Track Changes?

Do you find it intrusive, or obscure? Afraid you might miss seeing that tiny change of a comma to a period?

Have no fear, Track Changes can be painless. Learn the basics and you’ll save time and money if you’re paying an editor.

Consider the alternatives: hard copy marked up by strange symbols from a red pen; a mishmash of colour highlights, underlines and strikethroughs (one client of mine insisted on her own system, and it changed daily); or the bad old days of Word(im)Perfect.

Since Microsoft® Word is here to stay, here are some tips to make it work for you. All the options start from the Review menu tab, in the Tracking and Changes sections.

Keep deletions out of the way, on the right-hand margin. Choose Show Markup > Balloons > Show Revisions in Balloons. (Note: Balloons appear in Print Layout view, not Draft or Outline view.) Insertions will remain inline, with the main text.

Use blue for insertions (and red for deletions, if using Draft or Outline view). On the Track Changes icon, click the little down arrow. Select Change Tracking Options > Markup, to specify colours and other options.

Next under Change Tracking Options there is a setting for Changed Lines. Choose Outside Border, and a vertical black line will appear in the margin to alert you to every change, however tiny.

Deselect the viewing of format changes to reduce clutter and focus on content. Choose Show Markup > (uncheck) Formatting. Toggle back on as needed.

Accept or Reject changes efficiently. Click the arrow under the Accept button to Accept All Changes in Document. Or, for any portion of text, select that portion and click the main Accept button. (Ditto for Reject.) The rest of the document will be unaffected.

Bonus tip: To compare two versions of a document, open a new (blank) document in Word and use the Compare feature to load them together. Select the earlier version first, then the later version, and the differences will show as … Tracked Changes!

After a little practice using these tips, your revisions will become more pleasant, efficient, and professional.

Screenshots from Microsoft® Word for Mac version 15.33

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Present Your Manuscript in a Professional Way Lorraine Gane

A

fter you’ve spent months and perhaps years working on your manuscript to ensure the shape is cohesive and the content is clear and concise, it’s time to submit the work to an editor or publisher. Yet you may not know all the steps to do this. The following blueprint will guide you through this next phase so the process is easy and enjoyable. You will also save an editor hours of work (and save your money) by submitting a clean, well-ordered manuscript that adheres to submission guidelines. Set aside a couple hours for this stage so your work is unhurried. As the poet Rumi said, “Patience with small details makes perfect a large work, like the universe.”

1. The first step is to open your Word document so you can set the font type (often Times Roman), font size (12 point), line spacing (usually double-spaced), and margins (generally one inch) according to the publisher’s guidelines, which can often be found online. Set language to English: Canadian (from the Tools menu. Make sure you have not checked the box beside “Do not check spelling or grammar”). Unless you are proficient at formatting, keep it simple so a designer won’t have to undo your efforts.

Remember to insert page numbers.

2. After this you can run your manuscript through a checklist to ensure consistency throughout. You can use Control F for this or go to the icons (Find, Replace, and Select) on the right side of the top menu. Items on this list can include: • The use of hyphenated compounds (i.e., “a ten-

year-old boy,” “low- and medium-income families”).

• The correct use of quotation marks: punctuation • • • • •

within, not outside quotes; single quotation marks within a quotation.

Serial commas: (“red, white, and blue”).

Ellipses: three periods to indicate omitted material; use four periods at the end of a sentence.

Dashes: en (–) dashes for ranges in dates; em dashes (—) for all else (don’t use hyphens).

Spaces after periods: make sure there is one instead of two.

Spaces between paragraphs and at the end of sections and chapters.

• Capitalization of titles and subtitles.

• Block quotes for quotations of more than eight lines.

• Whole numbers: spell out from one to 100 and

before hundred, thousand, million. Use numerals for other numbers.

• Italics for titles of books, films, long musical compositions, newspapers, magazines. Quotation marks for titles of stories, articles, poems.

• Errors you tend to make, such as “your” rather than “you’re”; “over” rather than “more than”; “further” rather than “farther”; “its” rather than “it’s”; “affect” rather than “effect.”

3. Once you’ve completed this you can spell check the entire document.

It’s wise to provide the editor or publisher with a style sheet stating the dictionary you used, plus the spelling of proper names, including geographical locations and difficult spellings so they don’t have to check them.

Look your document over one last time for anything you may have missed.

To help with the preparation of your manuscript, a good reference guide is invaluable. I recommend The Canadian Writer’s Handbook (Messenger and de Bruyn, Prentice Hall), The Chicago Manual of Style (The University of Chicago Press), or one I’ve used for more than twenty-five years, The Writer’s Hotline Handbook (Michael Montgomery and John Stratton).

From my experience with my own writing and working on the manuscripts of others, this stage of completion can bring immense rewards, among them the satisfaction of a job well done. And by presenting your manuscript to others in a professional way, you honour your writing and the result is often beneficial in small and large ways. bcwriters.ca winter 2019–2020 23

Developing a Marketing Plan: For Writers Bill Arnott

Here’s a timeless and effective outline every writer and entrepreneur should know.

Four Components of a Marketing Plan: 1. Situation Analysis—identify your SWOT—Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. Be specific to your personal situation, as a writer and a business entity. Know your market, your competition, and your customers. Here’s where knowing your creative voice is imperative. Don’t let others pull you off task to pursue the latest trend—if you’re chasing, you’re already too late.

2. Marketing Strategy—have a Mission and/or a Vision Statement—Strategic (big picture) and Tactical (shorter term). Plan dreamily, implement specifically. Know what’s driving your writing, where you stand (or sit) in this wonderful, weird, supportive, competitive community.

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3. Sales Forecasts—utilize SMART goals—targets must be Specific, Measurable, Attainable (with stretch), Relevant and Time-Bounded. If you can’t articulate each of these facets of your goals, your goals aren’t real.

4. Expense Budget—know your numbers; know your costs—don’t forget some of the less obvious expenses, such as shipping, buy-backs, potential product removal, getting to and from all those readings and workshops, courses, software and hardware updates, and keeping yourself in coffee, tea, A4 paper, and ink.

Think of these components as essentials, minimal requirements to ensure you’re running a thriving business as a writer. Even with a publishing team—editor, publicist, distributor—know what needs doing and how to do it.

It’s up to you. Marketing success is yours for the making.

APRIL 24-26 • 2020 GIBSONS ON THE SUNSHINE COAST

FRIDAY Opening Reception SATURDAY & SUNDAY Workshops, presentations, readings, editorial connections and discussions.

NEW THIS YEAR Workshop Intensives: two-morning workshops limited to eight writers.

AGM Saturday 5pm, dinner following.

PRESENTERS INCLUDE: Keith Liggett, Betsy Warland, Darrel McLeod, Bill Arnott, Barb Drozodowich, Adam Olson, and more.

Attendees may pick and choose events a la carte or buy a Gold Pass* Full details coming in WriteOn and on the Fed Web page. www.bcwriters.ca *Gold Pass includes one Workshop Intensive, dinner, an editorial meeting and free entry into all other events.

bcwriters.ca winter 2019–2020 25

Meet the Regional Reps and Area Reps volunteering for the FBCW to bring community, support, collaboration, events, and celebration to writers all over the province.

Cynthia Sharp, Regional Rep: Greater Vancouver. I’m especially grateful for the culture of generosity, solidarity, outreach, and community building among writing organizations to cross-pollinate groups across the arts and create vibrant, meaningful events together like our annual Earth Day Celebration.

Ruth Lloyd, Regional Rep: North.

Being a rep in the north is challenging, given the massive geographic area.

While there is no way for me to even begin to cover the area physically, I appreciate connections writers make with me via email or social media.

Jackie Carmichael: Port Alberni. I find inspiration organizing writing events for area writers, and using social media to promote other writers. I’m the author of Tweets from the Trenches and I coordinate feature readers for Alberni Valley Words on Fire.

Barbara Botham: Parksville. After two Meet & Greets, we formed the Oceanside Writers Group. A second group will come together in 2020.

Corinne Tessier: Nakusp.

The number of writers learning and mixing with other writers in our remote area has grown in the last two years. Eight creative writing workshops and an active local writing group have facilitated this growth.

Chris Hancock Donaldson, Regional Rep: Islands. Love being a part of the Fed and watching it grow stronger!

Katrin Horowitz: Victoria. The things I like best about Victoria are (1) the blackberry-scented air, (2) local food, fine cheeses and excellent theatre, and (3) the community of wonderfully creative writers I get to talk with at Meet & Greets.

Joanna Streetly: Tofino. This lively writing community is bursting with talent, and despite the difficulty of bringing in visiting writers and teachers, the west coast is never short of inspiration.

Heather Kellerhals: Quadra.

Living since the seventies on Quadra Island I have appreciated the many ways in which the BC Federation of Writers has reached out to more remote areas of the province.

Lorraine Gane: Salt Spring Island.

I enjoy our local meetings and helping writers with all aspects of their craft.

Suzanne Anderson: Duncan. I love helping other writers to reach their potential.

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Keith Liggett, President of the FBCW and Regional Rep for Southeast Region and President of the FBCW. Southeastern BC is mostly big mountains with little towns scattered up and down the valleys.

Each town has a core group of writers.

I want to see more writing exchange between the pockets of writers.

Katherine (KT) Wagner: Maple Ridge.

Golden Ears Writers in Maple Ridge have lots of great writing workshops (third Tuesday of each month), a Writer and Reader Festival (January 18th), and the annual retreat at Loon Lake (November) planned for 2020.

Meaghan Hackinen: Kelowna. I hope to bring Interior area writers together to support creative projects, big and small.

Carine de Kock: Sunshine Coast. I enjoy serving this vibrant community by connecting authors through workshops, readings and socials.

Leslie Howard: Penticton.

As a writer, I am always trying to learn more about my craft, and the FBCW is a perfect place to be exposed to new ideas and to learn from other writers.

Barb Drozdowich, Regional Rep: Southwest. I am a technical trainer and the author of 27 books designed to help authors and bloggers with the technical aspects of writing and selling books.

Donna Barker: Sea-to-Sky. I would love to see a thriving community of writers in the Sea to Sky. If you’re interested in meeting other writers—no matter what you write or how long you’ve been working on it—drop me a note. We can start with two people meeting for coffee to write together and grow from there!

Nicolle M. Browne: Surrey. I write psychological suspense, am the creator and host of Behind The Keyboard (a free, online, monthly author interview and workshop series), and love supporting and bringing writers together to enrich their community and craft.

Jocelyn Reekie: Campbell River. The Fed provides solid support for all our great writers. It’s good to be part of this community.

Would you like to be an area rep? We are looking for volunteers for Kamloops, Prince George, Dawson Creek, Fort St. John, Fort Nelson, Dease Lake, Whitehorse, Atlin, Terrace, Hazelton, Prince Rupert, Bella Bella, Fraser Lake, Fort St. James, Vanderhoof, Burns Lake, McBride, Williams Lake, Valemount, 100 Mile House, Hudson’s Hope, Chetwynd, Stewart, Bella Coola, Haida Gwaii, Smithers, Kitimat, Lax Kw’alaams, and any community where there are a few writers wanting support.

Join us at membership@bcwriters.ca. bcwriters.ca winter 2019–2020 27

Contributors Jordan Abel is a Nisga’a writer from Vancouver. He is the author of The Place of Scraps (winner of the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize), Un/inhabited, and Injun (winner of the Griffin Poetry Prize). Abel’s latest project NISHGA (forthcoming from McClelland & Stewart in 2020) is a deeply personal and autobiographical book that attempts to address the complications of contemporary Indigenous existence and the often invisible intergenerational impact of residential schools.

Danielle E. Gibson is a permanent instructor for the Youth Workshop for the Fernie Writers Conferences. Her love of the outdoors helps her write her young adult fiction series based in the Rocky Mountains. Danielle’s current project is a world where B’gwas (Bigfoot) and humans make up a world full of magic, passion, and pain. Her piece “Through Skewed Lenses” is in the Winter/Spring 2020 edition of the Whitefish Review. www.daniellegibson.ca

Bill Arnott is the bestselling author of Gone Viking: A Travel Saga and Dromomania. His work is published in Canada, US, UK, Europe and Asia. Bill is a poetry award recipient and finalist for Whistler Independent Book Awards with Gone Viking: A Travel Saga. When not trekking the globe with a weatherproof journal and outdated camera phone, Bill can be found on Canada’s west coast, making friends and misbehaving. https://www.amazon.com/author/billarnott_aps

Kim Goldberg is the author of eight books of poetry and nonfiction. Her latest work is Devolution—poems and fables of the ecotastrophe. Her Red Zone collection of poems on urban homelessness has been taught in university literature courses. Before turning to poetry, Kim was a freelance journalist covering social justice and environmental issues. She lives on unceded Snuneymuxw territory (Nanaimo, BC).

Jenn Ashton is an award-winning author and visual artist living in North Vancouver, BC. She is currently completing a book about the history of her First Nations family in Vancouver and is a teaching assistant in The Writer’s Studio at Simon Fraser University, where she is helping others learn how to tell their stories. JenniferAshton.ca Yvonne Blomer is the past Poet Laureate of Victoria, having served from 2015-2018, and the editor of Sweet Water: Poems for the Watersheds due out with Caitlin Press in 2020 and Refugium: Poems for the Pacific (Caitlin Press, 2017).

Her most recent book is Sugar Ride: Cycling from Hanoi to Kuala Lumpur. She is focused on water, the environment and women’s issues.

R. Paul Brady, as a young man, had dreamed of becoming a fiction writer after reading works by Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Gabriel García Márquez. A business career and raising a family intervened, and he took up the dream after retirement. He now composes poetry and writes stories. Paul plays the ukulele for fun and lives in British Columbia’s Lower Mainland.

Lorraine Gane is a poet, writer, teacher, mentor, and editor of manuscripts ranging from poetry and fiction to memoir and other nonfiction books. She also mentors writers through workshops, online courses, and coaching. Lorraine is the author of three poetry collections, among them The Blue Halo (Leaf Press, 2014) and The Way the Light Enters (Black Moss Press, 2014). She is completing a fourth poetry collection, as well as a book on writing. lorrainegane.com.

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Nowick Gray is an editor and writer living on Salt Spring Island. He founded HyperLife Editing Services (http:// hyperedits.com) in 2000, offering proofreading, copy-editing, and formatting for publication. Nowick has published nine books of fiction and creative nonfiction (http:// NowickGray.com), including the latest release (November 2019), My Generation: A Memoir of the Baby Boom.

Sonnet L’Abbé is a poet, songwriter and public speaker, winner of the Bronwen Wallace Award and the bp Nichol Chapbook Award. Their first two poetry collections are A Strange Relief and Killarnoe, and in their most recent book, Sonnet’s Shakespeare, they overwrite all 154 of Shakespeare’s sonnets. Quill and Quire called Sonnet’s Shakespeare “one of the most audacious volumes of poetry to appear in this country.” Dr. L’Abbé currently teaches creative writing and English at Vancouver Island University.

Fiona Tinwei Lam’s most recent poetry collection, Odes & Laments (Caitlin Press) bears witness to both the beauty and the desecration of our ecosystems. Her prose and poetry appear in over thirty anthologies, including The Best of the Best Canadian Poetry in English, Anniversary Edition (2017).

Her poetry videos have screened at festivals locally and internationally. She teaches at SFU Continuing Studies. fionalam.net David Lester is guitarist in the underground rock duo Mecca Normal. He is also the illustrator of 1919: A Graphic History of the Winnipeg General Strike and the graphic novel The Listener. He is currently drawing a graphic biography of Benjamin Lay, a radical anti-slavery Quaker, and writing and

drawing a graphic biography of feminist revolutionary Emma Goldman. https://davidlesterartmusicdesign.wordpress.com/ Christine Lowther is the author of four books (memoir, nature, and poetry) and co-editor of two anthologies. She won the inaugural Rainy Coast Arts Award for Significant Accomplishment from the Pacific Rim Arts Society. Her work has appeared in literary presses and is included in three forthcoming anthologies: Rising Tides, Sweet Water, and Locations of Grief. Chris lives in Tla-o-qui-aht unceded territory.

Muriel Marjorie was a social justice activist, poet, and spoken-word artist from the Gitxsan Nation’s Owl Clan who spent a lot of time in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. A vivacious, generous woman, what she had to say would often literally wake you up. A large presence in a small body, she had a lively, almost fizzy energy about her that gave vitality to everyone around her and encouraged creative people of all stripes to continue on their path of creativity and social justice. Among other things, she was part of the Thursday Writing Collective, was an important presence in the annual Downtown Eastside Heart Of City Festival (e.g. http://www. heartofthecityfestival.com/festival-opening/), and tutored at the Carnegie Centre. She died in 2018.

Susan McCaslin is a BC poet who has published fifteen volumes of poetry, including her most recent, Into the Open: Poems New and Selected (Inanna, 2017). She has recently published a volume of poetry and creative non-fiction, Superabundantly Alive: Thomas Merton’s Dance with the Feminine (Wood Lake, 2018). Susan often wanders in the Blaauw Eco Forest in Glen Valley with her dog Rosie.

Isabella Mori lives in Vancouver and writes poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. Her latest book with and about poetry is a bagful of haiku—87 imperfections. She is currently working on a project that combines poetry/fiction with interviews and research on mental health and addiction.

Sheila Norgate was born in 1950 and raised south of Bloor Street in the heart of downtown Toronto. After a doomed career in banking which included a near-death health crisis, she began to dabble in watercolours, thereby changing the trajectory of her life. Today she makes her living as a painter, writer, performer, and general feminist rabble-rouser from her home on Gabriola Island, BC. Karen Rivers is the author of twenty-four novels, ranging from adult literary fiction to middle grade and YA. Her creative non-fiction has been published in two anthologies, as well as The Globe and Mail. When she’s not writing, reading, or teaching at UVic, she can be found hiking in the woods behind her home in Victoria, where she lives with her two kids, two dogs, and a flock of budgies.

Rita Wong lives and works on unceded Coast Salish territories, also known as Vancouver. Dedicated to questions of water justice, decolonization, and ecology, she is the author of monkeypuzzle (Press Gang, 1998), forage (Nightwood Editions, 2007), sybil unrest (Line Books, 2008, with Larissa Lai), undercurrent (Nightwood Editions, 2015), and perpetual (Nightwood Editions, 2015, with Cindy Mochizuki), as well as the co-editor of downstream: reimagining water (Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2016, with Dorothy Christian).

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Launched!

New titles by FBCW members

Sweet Home Nanaimo

Greg Skala | Pacific Qi Consulting, 2019 | ISBN: 978-1-9993886-1-4 “Poetry is intoxicating. Please enjoy my poems responsibly!” That quotation from the introduction to this book of poems and commentary honouring the author’s adopted home city sets the tone for the history, geography, humour, and human interest that follow. Nanaimo, situated on beautiful Vancouver Island along the coast of the Salish Sea, is a gem set within the larger contexts of British Columbia, Canada, and the bioregion known as Cascadia. It is a city well-deserving of the labour of love this book represents. Please e-mail the author (gskala@ shaw.ca) for purchase information.

Website Tips & Tricks

Barb Drozdowich | 2019 | ISBN: 1988821258 | $3.99/$10.99 You’ve finally figured out how to create a website to promote your book—great! But once you set it up, how will people find you? What are readers looking for anyway? How do you fix it if something looks off? The answers are easier than you think. In Website Tips & Tricks, you’ll gain access to a ton of useful skills to build upon the foundation you already have and maintain your site throughout the years. It’s designed for authors who have very little technical knowledge, and you can implement what you learn right away.

South Away: The Pacific Coast on Two Wheels

Meaghan Marie Hackinen | NeWest Press, 2019 | ISBN: 978-1-988732-63-3 | $20.95 South Away follows Meaghan Marie Hackinen and her sister in the adventure of a lifetime: bicycling from Terrace, BC, down the West Coast to (almost) the tip of the Baja Peninsula.

Along the way Hackinen battles with the elements in Vancouver Island’s dense northern forests and frigid Mexican deserts; encounters strange men, suicidal highways, and monster trucks; and makes some emergency repairs as tires and spokes succumb to the ravages of the journey.

Luckily, the pair meet some good people along the way and glean some insight about the kindness of strangers. South Away tells an engaging and personable tale, with imaginative and memorable depictions of land and sea along the ever-winding coast.

Only Children

Pat Buckna | 2019 | ISBN: 978-1-9992002-0-6 Only Children is a provocative and candid memoir of a life filled with unexpected twists resulting from chance encounters. The author recounts how at four years of age he and his mother travelled by train to attend a family funeral. When they returned home, a new boy comes to stay, but soon leaves, and the two don’t see one another for nearly forty years. Only Children will be of interest to anyone who grew up in the fifties and sixties, people whose parents withheld information about siblings or family. Pat Buckna’s insights into relationships, coming-of-age, family, and his own actions make for a fascinating exploration of an unique and event-filled life. www. onlychildren.ca (Paper, Amazon, Kobo).

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The Lady from New York

Betty Annand | FriesenPress, 2019 | ISBN: 978-1-5255-4198-8 | 307 pages | $20.00 The Lady from New York is Betty’s third historical novel in the trilogy about Gladys Tunner, born in 1829 in Old Nichol, one of the most deplorable slum districts in London. In 1861, when Gladys arrives in America, her past continues to haunt her—murder, fraud and adultery.

Set primarily in New York and London, this is a wonderful story about a woman who uses her good fortune to help the poor. Fans of Betty’s previous two novels, The Girl from Old Nichol, and The Woman from Dover, won’t be disappointed.

All That Belongs

Dora Dueck | Turnstone Press, 2019 | ISBN: 978-0-888016812 Catherine, an archivist, has spent decades conserving the pasts of others, only to find her own resurfacing on the eve of retirement. As she mines memories of her difficult uncle and troubled brother, she discovers something even darker at play. All That Belongs is an elegant and moving portrayal of ephemeral histories and the startling consequences of familial ties, silences, and shame.

The Emerald

Jerena Tobiasen| 2019 | ISBN: 978-1-77374-035-5 | $7.49 The Emerald is Book II in The Prophecy saga. As the story unfolds, a Roma family finds themselves in jeopardy in 1939. To avoid Hitler’s round-up of undesirables, they must flee Germany.

In Amsterdam, tragedy awaits. The youngest ekes out an unusual life in the Red Light District, where she fights to keep her family safe and to preserve her beliefs and ancient traditions. The Crest, Book I of The Prophecy saga, and The Emerald are both available on Amazon, in print and e-book format. For more information about Jerena and her writing, visit her website: www. jerenatobiasen.ca.

Around the World in a Dugout Canoe

John M. MacFarlane & Lynn J. Salmon | Harbour Publishing, 2019 | ISBN: 9781550178791 The first independent account of the remarkable voyage of the Tilikum. Anticipating fame and wealth, Captain John Voss set out from Victoria, BC, in 1901, seeking to claim the world record for the smallest vessel ever to circumnavigate the globe. For the journey, he procured an authentic dugout cedar canoe from an Indigenous village on the east coast of Vancouver Island.

For three years Voss and the Tilikum, aided by a rotating cast of characters, visited Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Brazil, and finally England, weathering heavy gales at sea and attracting large crowds of spectators on shore.

Labyrinth of Green—Poems and Photographs

Diana Hayes | Rubicon/Plumleaf Press, 2019 | ISBN: 978-1-4869-3270-2 Island Forests. The theft of innocence. Mapping genetics. The bearing wall of loss. Art as witness to life. From an inner journey unfolded in a most labyrinthine way to the interior space that allows time and breathing room to move, this stunning collection of poems and photographs will remind you of the special places in the world that speak directly to your soul and nourish you with their mystery and their silence. Organized into five thematic sections— nature, youth, ancestry, loss, and reawakening—this book not only offers wisdom, peace, and reflections to readers, but also reminds us of how pleasurable and freeing it can be to escape and lose ourselves in a labyrinth of powerful words and images. www.dianahayes.ca bcwriters.ca winter 2019–2020 31

Scrappy Rough Draft

Donna Barker | 2019 | ISBN: 978-1-926691-88-6 Often, the main difference between a work in progress and a finished manuscript is the tenacity of the writer. With practical and proven exercises, author and coach Donna Barker connects behavioural science to the habits and mindsets that successful authors use to finish their first, second, and final drafts. Whether you’re writing your first book or your fiftieth, Scrappy Rough Draft: Use science to strategically motivate yourself & finish writing your book has the tools you need to build self-confidence, develop a writing habit that works for you, and identify the kinds of people you need to help you get your story out of your head and onto the page. This is the first book in the Creative Academy Guides for Writers series.

Odes & Laments

Fiona Tinwei Lam | Caitlin Press, 2019 | ISBN: 978-1-7738-6015-2 / 1773860151 | $18.00 Through poems that celebrate the overlooked beauty in the everyday or that mourn human incursions upon the natural world, Fiona Tinwei Lam weaves polythematic threads into a shimmering tapestry. Inspired by Pablo Neruda’s Odes to Common Things, this wide-ranging and diverse collection contains poems that range from the lyric to the concrete/visual in their exploration of the yin and yang of everyday existence while confronting the pressing environmental issues of our time. Ardent, despairing, playful or political, Lam brings a tender eloquence to her depictions of our flawed but glorious world.

Catalyst

Ian Kent | Tellwell Talent, 2019 | ISBN: 978-0-2288-1015-5 | $20.00 Ian Kent’s novel Catalyst, the first of his “Jake Prescott” trilogy, was released early this year. It received an Indie Reader Approval of 4.5 out of 5. Part mystery, part crime, Catalyst is a fastpaced action-packed story with focused storytelling that will enthral thriller fans and general readers alike.

Crimson Ink—A Novel of Modern Iran (1955–2011)

Gail Madjzoub | 2019 | ISBN: 978-1-7053-3365-5 | $6.56 and $17.18 Against the background of a village massacre that haunts and shapes two families for decades, Fereshteh, a woman physician, struggles to help victims of domestic violence, the regime’s worsening human rights violations, and its merciless subjugation of women. Then in 2009, the discovery of an appalling truth behind both the village massacre and her sister’s arrest converges with the brutal aftermath of the post-presidential election crackdown. Fereshteh’s decisions put her on a collision course with three powerful men, themselves forged in the fire of events beyond their control. This novel demonstrates “constructive resilience” in the face of adversity, and the hope, faith, and determination to persevere.

Shades of Persephone

Reed Stirling | BWL Publishing, 2019 | ISBN: 978-0-2286-0836-3 | $16.99 Shades Of Persephone presents a story of love and sensuality, deception and war, spiritual quest and creative endeavour. Crete in 1980–81, more specifically the old Venetian harbour of Chania, provides the background against which expat Canadian Steven Spire labours in pursuit of David Montgomery, his enigmatic and elusive mentor, who stands accused in absentia of treachery and betrayal. Like Hamlet, who must deal with his own character in following the injunctions of his ghostly father, Steven Spire discovers much about the city to which he has returned, but much more about himself and his capacity for love. This literary mystery will entertain those who delight in exotic settings, foreign intrigue, and the unmasking of mysterious characters.

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THE FEDERATION OF BRITISH COLUMBIA WRITERS’ FIFTH ANNUAL

LITERARY WRITES SUBMISSION DEADLINE: FEBRUARY 1, 2020 @ MIDNIGHT PST

The FBCW seeks your best unpublished poem that reflects your unique writing style. Contest judge is Canadian poet, vocalist, spoken word performer and mentor Jude Neale. First prize winner will receive a cash prize of $350 and a year’s FBCW membership.

Winners will be notified by email and announced at bcwriters.ca on March 15, 2020. Entry fee for each submission is $10 for FBCW members members, $20 for non-FBCW members.

www.bcwriters.ca/literarywrites

JOIN US

May 8th - 10th, 2020

on the

Lake

Writers’ Festival

Prestige Harbourfront Resort Salmon Arm, BC

Whatever level of writer you may be, you’ll want to be part of this inspiring weekend on the shores of spectacular Shuswap Lake Presenters: Faye Arcand

Linda Rogers

Sarah de Leeuw

Michael Slade

kc dyer

Sylvia Taylor

Scott Fitzgerald Gray

Karen Lee White

Blu & Kelly Hopkins David A. Poulsen

Check website for updates

Expect to be encouraged, informed and thoroughly entertained.

Find out what these published authors and industry professionals can do for you.

Register at: www.wordonthelakewritersfestival.com

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