WordWorks 2021 Volume I

WORDWORKS BRITISH COLUMBIA’S MAGAZINE FOR WRITERS BRITISH THE NON-FICTION ISSUE

2021 Volume I Free in Selected Markets

THE FEDERATION OF BRITISH COLUMBIA WRITERS SIXTH ANNUAL

LITERARY WRITES DEADLINE FOR ENTRIES: FEBRUARY 1, 2021 MIDNIGHT PST

The Federation of BC Writers seeks your best unpublished poem that reflects your unique writing style.

First-prize winner will receive $350, publication in WordWorks, and a year’s FBCW membership.

Winners will be notified by email and announced at www.bcwriters.ca on March 15, 2021.

Fee for each entry is $10 for members, $20 for non-members.

Find details at www.bcwriters.ca

JOIN US

May 7th - 9th, 2021

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

Virtual if mandated by health regulations please check the website for details

on the

Lake

Writers’ Festival

Prestige Harbourfront Resort Salmon Arm, BC 2 WORDWORKS ︱ 2021 Volume I

Presenters: Faye Arcand

Richard Kemick

Arianna Dagnino

David A. Poulsen

Sarah de Leeuw

Linda Rogers

kc dyer

Michael Slade

Scott Fitzgerald Gray

Sylvia Taylor

Blu & Kelly Hopkins

Karen Lee White

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

WORDWORKS BRITISH COLUMBIA’S MAGAZINE FOR WRITERS

2021 VOLUME I THE NON-FICTION ISSUE

20 Anuradha Rao: One Earth The Ethical Interview: Lifting People into the Spotlight 22 Sara Graefe: Proud Queer Mom How Telling Stores Can Change Lives

by Mary Ann Moore Ian Cognitō: How to “Read” in Public 4 Ask Barb: Readers Send In Questions 6 8 Apps for Writers: Popular Apps for Editors, 8 Plotters, DIY Designers and Fantasy WorldBuilders

23 Elaine Alec on Memoir Honest Writing is Vivid Writing

by Jacqueline Carmichael 24 Christine Lowther Walking the Dangerous Line through Memoir

Terry Ann Carter, Barbara Pelman, Rob Taylor 10 Writing a history? Conducting an Interview?

Form Is Your Playground

25 Martha Warren on Switching Genres Who Says a Poet Can’t Write a Cookbook?

by Chelsea Comeau

Naomi Beth Wakan and Michael Dylan Welch 12 Curing Poetic Loneliness with Rengay

2 3 3 26 28

Nicholas Read 14 Writing Non-Fiction for Young Children

by Adelia MacWilliam

Members’ Pandemic Corner—Faces A Letter from Brian Mortensen About the Cover In this Issue Launched

Vicki McLeod: Hitting the Sweet Spot in Non-Fiction 16 Making a Career as a Freelance Writer

by Ann Graham Walker Carolyn J. Daley: How to Write a History 18

by Caitlin Hicks

WINNER OF THE 2020 BC & YUKON FLASH Vicki Mcleod “My People Came Down from the Mountains”

2021 Volume I ︱ WORDWORKS 1

Members’ Pandemic Corner

Upper left, clockwise August: kjmunro reading at the Yukon Riverside Arts Festival in Dawson City.

October: Kim Goldberg, Kim Clark, Leanne McIntosh (taking the photo) and Mary Ann Moore at a writers’ meeting in Nanaimo.

November: A NaNoWriMo sprint on Zoom. Ardelle Holden presents her 2020 Winner’s Badge. Below: Ursula Vaira, Pat Buckna, Wendy Burton, greg blee, William Meyer.

Francesca Gesualdi, Winston Le, Ruth Lloyd, Kamal Parmar, Katherine Wagner.

WordWorks is published by THE FEDERATION OF BC WRITERS PO Box 3503 Courtenay, BC V9N 6Z8 970 View Avenue Courtenay V9N 5R2 www.bcwriters.ca | hello@bcwriters.ca wordworks@bcwriters.ca Copyrights remain with original copyright holders.

All other work © 2021 The Federation of BC Writers. All Rights Reserved.

ISSN: 0843-1329 WordWorks is provided free three times a year to FBCW members and to selected markets. It is available on our website and in BC libraries, schools, and historical societies.

FBCW Annual Membership Rates:

ADVISORY COMMITTEE: JJ. Lee, Steven Price, Esi Edugyan, Alan Twigg, Gail Anderson Dargatz, Anne Tenning, Betsy Warland, Darrel McLeod.

WORDWORKS STAFF: Jessica Cole: WordWorks Digital Curator and Ad Sales Manager; Angela Douglas: Social Media and Communications Coordinator; Bryan Mortensen: Executive Director; Ursula Vaira: WordWorks Managing Editor.

EDITORIAL: Chelsea Comeau, Barbara Pelman, Caitlin Hicks, Adelia MacWilliam, Christine Lowther, Clare Appezzato. Cover Design: Chris Hancock Donaldson. Graphic Design and Typesetting: Ursula Vaira. Copy-Editing: Christine Lowther.

UPCOMING THEME 2021 Vol II: Publishing. Pitch article ideas and cover art by February 15, 2021, to wordworks@bcwriters.ca.

Regular: $80 | Senior: $45 | Youth: $25

CONTESTS: The FBCW runs three annual writing contests. Please check the website for details.

FBCW BOARD OF DIRECTORS: Jennifer Ashton, greg blee, Ian Cognitō, Megan Cole, Barb Drozdowich,

ADVERTISING: WordWorks advertises services and products of interest to writers. adsales@bcwriters.ca.

2 WORDWORKS ︱ 2021 Volume I

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 welcome those writers and their stories; we want 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.

The FBCW 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.

Bryan Mortensen We all know that 2020 has been a difficult year. The pandemic and unrest have dominated our news and created anxiety unseen in a generation. With that being said, 2020 has also been a year of tremendous learning, and by the time this note reaches your homes, the new year will be upon us. For that reason, I felt it appropriate to use this space to look forward to this new year and what we hope to accomplish at the Federation of British Columbia Writers.

My biggest takeaway of 2020 has been how quickly our membership has not just accepted but embraced new opportunities to engage our organization, fellow members, and writers worldwide. Through Zoom programming, we have been able to reach more members in their own communities than ever before. For me, the bar has been set. Even after our lives start to return to normal (whenever that may be), the lessons we have learned will not be lost. For that reason, regardless of the pandemic's future, you can expect our online programming to be here to stay.

Looking forward to 2021, I am excited about a slate of regular programming tested and improved by feedback from our members. You can all expect to see some familiar faces running readings, workshops, and webinars throughout the year. You can also expect one heck of a digital Spring Writes Conference. (Watch your newsletters for details.)

Lastly, I am excited to say that we are enhancing the experience of this magazine. Our team works hard to bring quality articles and content to you three times a year in our print and digital release of WordWorks.

In 2021, I am excited to announce we will be boosting our content with more articles and Q&As on our digital platforms to help writers more regularly throughout the year. The same team will be managing this content, so I am certain you can expect some stellar tips, tricks, and guidance in the year to come.

From our team at the Federation of British Columbia Writers, we hope you have a fantastic new year. We hope that your writing, regardless of your genre or format, is fun and rewarding.

All my best, Bryan Mortensen Executive Director, Federation of BC Writers

About the Cover It’s a good time to celebrate BC’s trailblazers. When I watched Kamala Harris give her first speech as Vice-President Elect in that iconic white pantsuit, that white pussy-bow blouse, that uniform which chronicled a whole history, I knew that an image from C.J. Daley’s Vancouver’s Women in Blue: Trailblazers of the Vancouver Police 1904–1975 would be on this issue’s cover. The three women in the photograph are policewomen Ann McKetchen, Jacquie Delmonico and Anetha Nowlin (née DeBoer) at the new revolver range in the basement of 312 Main Street (circa 1950). The image is © Vancouver Police Department; used with permission. Ursula Vaira 2021 Volume I ︱ WORDWORKS 3

Ian Cognitō: How to “Read” in Public Due to the pandemic, more and more authors have been sharing their written work online through a variety of forums that have emerged to help them promote their work.

However, as seasoned as some of these writers are, they may not have had as much practice as reader/presenters. Stretching their stuff before a “live” audience can present new challenges. And this is where I come in; I have a narrow attention span. If you can sustain the interest of someone like me for the duration of your presentation, you’ve done very well indeed.

I have assembled below some principles to help reader/presenters attract and maintain the interest of even the more attention-challenged among us: 1. If you are reading prose (or a longish narrative or prose poem), consider building in more breaks, or pregnant pauses, to arouse a bit of reflection or innovative thinking in the listener. (Nothing engages like personal relevance.)

An oral presenter who continues unrelentingly, without breaks or catch-up pauses, can leave “detour takers” without landing pads for when they touch down again.

Even the very best of listeners may need a few silent patches in which to process what they have just heard.

We are talking seconds here, not awkward minutes.

4 WORDWORKS ︱ 2021 Volume I

2. Better than presenting one long piece, with appropriate pauses, consider reading excerpts. Excerpts can be deliciously short, and breaks tend to be built in with helpful introductions to contextualize passages.

Also, an overall impression of a longer work can be cultivated by strategically selecting representative moments from within the whole.

Subtitles, question headings, and anecdotal entry points can be helpful, too; not only do they provide valuable schemata for the listener, but they also inject natural breaks.

3. Focus on passages or pieces that have a more immediate quality (i.e. less exposition or background). This might mean choosing something that is topical, a description with lots of sensory detail, a particularly lively passage, or a segment with dramatic or comedic appeal. Note: dialogue, as immediate as it is from a presentational perspective, can be confusing for a listener when speakers are not clearly delineated.

4. During your presentation, use a calm, yet energetic, tone and vary your rhythm and speed of delivery.

Be wary of becoming hypnotized by your own voice and your typical rhythm patterns, as you can be certain you will not be the only one to succumb.

Again, remember to pause—dramatically, effectively.

A healthy pause is a moment for a deep breath, and everyone—reader and listeners alike—will need this from time to time.

5. Adjust your vocal tone, pacing, and emphasis to highlight important transitions and any moments you would like to register with the listener. Get to know where these moments land beforehand so you can deliver them effectively.

6. Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse. This will give you more confidence and competence as a presenter. It will also help you uncover colours, contours, and nuances you may not have known were there. Of course, spontaneity is great too, but tapping into that usually requires more schooling before a live audience.

7. You can over-rehearse, as well. You still want to appear genuine and to be responsive to your audience. Nothing, I mean nothing, is more boring than straight recitation, and the whites of your eyes will not inspire a sense of connection with your listeners.

8. Visuals, body language, eye contact—the public speaker’s grab bag—all worthy additions, though these can be over- or under-cooked and come best

with experience and presentational ease. In addition, online platforms with their bust-image framing do not lend themselves to some of these tools.

Nothing engages like personal relevance.

In closing, I must acknowledge that I have not been speaking from a perspective of expertise. I am still very much immersed in the process of implementing, adapting, perfecting, and learning from the techniques I have advocated here. Hopefully, though, some of these tips will help you, the reader/presenter, connect with your cherished listeners through your divine invocations.

Ian Cognitō is a poet and the publisher of Repartee Press: repartee@telus.net www.facebook.com/reparteepress.

2021 Volume I ︱ WORDWORKS 5

Ask Barb

Get Your Questions Answered Here The ISBN for one of my books is: 978-1-988821-14-6.

Each section of this 13-digit number is divided into five parts separated by hyphens as follows:

What is an ISBN? An ISBN (International Standard Book Number) is a 13-digit number that uniquely identifies each specific edition of a book or book-like product (an example of a book-like product can be an e-book).

In practicalities, what’s an ISBN? It is simply a unique identifying feature. Every ISBN is different and is found on the back of a paperback or hardback version of a book as a barcode. It should also be found on the copyright page of all books (regards of format).

An ISBN is issued for a publication where text stands on its own as a product, whether in print, audio or electronic format. Of the list of items that qualify for ISBNs, the ones that may apply to writers are: • • • • • • •

Audiobooks Books Brochures E-books (digital books) Graphic novels Picture books Story books

1. The EAN (European article number) product code: the first three digits of the EAN barcode number 2. The Group Identifier: a single digit following the EAN product code that specifies the country or language in which the book is published 3. The Publisher Prefix: the next 6 number sequence that identifies a particular publisher within the preceding group 4. The Title Identifier: 2 numbers that identifies a particular title or edition of a title issued by the preceding publisher 5. The Check Digit: a single digit at the end of the ISBN that validates the accuracy of the ISBN. Why should I get an ISBN?

Interestingly, coloring books do not need an ISBN.

To be clear, Canadians don’t pay for ISBNs—they just have to apply for them. Because of this, unlike other countries, cost is not a consideration for Canadian authors.

The quick answer is that you want to be shown as the author/publisher of record. I don’t care if you decide to set up a small publishing umbrella to publish your own books

Let us help you get your story out!

Whether you’re looking at traditional or self-publishing, Cascadia Author Services can help get your book ready for publication. Our expert team members specialize in: • Author coaching • Editing • Design

• Distribution • Marketing & Blogging • Ghostwriting

Contact us at info@cascadiaauthorservices.com for a free consultation.

And be sure to mention this ad to enjoy our FBCW exclusive discount.

cascadiaauthorservices.com 6 WORDWORKS ︱ 2021 Volume I

or if you use your own name as the publisher—if you don’t use your own ISBNs, Amazon, Kobo or an indie-publishing company name likely will show as the publisher of record. YOU want to be on record as the publisher. The average reading public won’t understand. The average reader doesn’t check out who the publisher is before purchasing a book, but bookstores understand.

How do Canadian authors obtain an ISBN? The starting place for application for an ISBN for Canadian authors is Library and Archives Canada.

In order to qualify for an ISBN from Library and Archives Canada you have to be a Canadian Publisher (and remember if you self-publish a book, you are the author as well as the publisher.) The definition of a Canadian publisher is someone who: •

Makes a publication available in Canada

•

Publishes from an official office of business that resides within Canada

•

Has at least 75% of its employees based in Canada

•

Has identified the material as being published within Canada, if the publication location is included

The steps involved in applying for an ISBN: The first step in the process is to create an account, starting at (https://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/services/isbn-canada/ Pages/create-account-isbn-canada.aspx).

It is possible to pick up the phone and create an account with the help of a friendly agent, but I encourage you to do this on your computer. Once you fill out the form and click on submit, there is an approval hurdle that must be passed.

This is a manual process and takes several days usually.

Once your request is approved, you will receive instructions on how to log in and assign your ISBNs. Note - unique ISBNs are assigned for hardcover, softcover and different e-book editions. Different editions of the same book will have different ISBNs.

ISBNs are kept track of in an “ISBN logbook.” Publishers/ Authors can log into their logbook on their computer, assign their ISBNs to publications (books and e-books), and modify information about the publications. For example when assigning an ISBN for a new book, the status is typically set to “Forthcoming.” Once the book is live and available for sale, you can log back into your logbook and change the status to “Active.” Similarly, when a book is no longer available for sale, you can change the status to “Inactive” or “Out of Print.”

Publishers/Authors are responsible for updating their personal information and information about their books.

The Canadian ISBN Agency may also update information as it becomes available.

If you are a French language publisher/author, you will start your ISBN application process at a different point.

Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec 514-873-1101, ext 3785 or 1-800-363-9028, ext 3875 or isbn@banq.qc.ca The ISBNs obtained from this starting point will specifically identify an author or publisher as a French language publisher/author.

What is CIP (Cataloguing in Publication) and Legal Deposit?

Once the ISBN is assigned you can apply for Cataloguing in Publication. This allows for listing before books are published and allows for the prompt distribution of books to booksellers and libraries. You may also be required to send books to Legal Deposit. In the majority of cases, Canadian Publishers are required to provide copies of all publications in all mediums and formats so that they can be added to the nation’s published heritage collection. The Cataloguing in Publication and Legal Deposit services can be accessed through Library and Archives Canada’s Publisher’s Portal. (https://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/services/ isbn-canada/Pages/create-account-isbn-canada.aspx).

Barbara Drozdowich is an author and a technical trainer.

Send your writing, publishing or tech question to askbarb@ bcwriters.ca If she doesn’t know the answer she’ll find it.

2021 Volume I ︱ WORDWORKS 7

8

Apps For Writers

free add-in for Microsoft Word or as a keyboard for your phone. If you want to take your writing and revising to the next level, the paid version suggests edits to tone, formality, and more. ► grammarly.com PROWRITINGAID ProWritingAid is a “grammar checker, style editor, and writing mentor.” You can add a free browser extension to Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge and enjoy verb-strengthening tips along with notifications when you slip into passive voice. Premium features include WordExplorer (a kind of synonym finder) and a Microsoft Word add-in. Not a Word user? The desktop version of ProWritingAid syncs with Scrivener and OpenOffice.

Tools for writers are abundant on the Internet, but how do you know which ones are right for you? Here, we’ll break down some popular apps ► prowritingaid.com for editors, plotters, DIY designers, and fantasy worldbuilders. These FOR OUTLINING are the apps to make your writing practice easier, more interactive, or Pantsers, look away. These apps offer robust outlining tools for the plotters in the house just plain fun. (though you may want to try them, too).

FOR SELF-EDITING

PLOTTR

Do you struggle with comma splices? Do your modifiers dangle? These apps are for you.

Like index cards on a wall, Plottr lets you visualize your beats and move them around as you see fit. You can add scenes, character outlines, A- and B-stories, and notes using Plottr’s templates or your own custom attributes. When you’re finished, Plottr generates an outline based on your efforts and exports it to Word or Scrivener. The app is available as a 30-day free trial and a yearly subscription after that.

GRAMMARLY Billed as an “AI-powered writing assistant,” Grammarly is a free Chrome browser extension that suggests improvements to your spelling, grammar, and punctuation. It works in applications like Gmail, Google Docs, and Twitter, and it’s even available as a 8 WORDWORKS ︱ 2021 Volume I

► getplottr.com

CAMPFIRE Campfire offers two worldbuilding and plotting apps: Blaze and Pro. With Blaze, the web app, not only can you track your world’s unique attributes and create character bios, you can also write your novel in the manuscript editor and access it from anywhere. Pro, Campfire’s desktop version, lets you create whole wikis about your world. You can add maps and create character sheets, too. Both versions offer free and paid features.

flourishes, add images, or insert links into ebook files. Vellum generates ebooks for Kindle, Apple Books, Kobo, and more. The app is available as a free download, though you will need to purchase a licence to generate book files. Available for Mac only. ► vellum.pub

FOR FUN Feeling adventurous? These apps offer unique ways to visualize your stories.

► campfiretechnology.com

INKARNATE

FOR BOOK DESIGN

This one’s for the fantasy authors and detail-obsessed worldbuilders. Inkarnate is a map-making web app that allows you to create beautiful world maps, intricate cities, and Dungeons & Dragons-style interiors. You can add mountainous or forested regions to your maps along with oceans, islands, roads, and more. With both a free and a pro version, Inkarnate is intuitive to learn and a great way to breathe life into fantasy lands.

If you like to DIY, these apps will help you design beautiful books from cover to cover.

CANVA Canva is a browser-based app that lets you design just about anything, including social media posts, business cards, resumes, and book covers. The free version gives you access to a wide array of visual elements and templates while the paid version offers a robust catalogue of features like fonts, stock photos, and the ability to resize your designs. Canva also offers free resources on graphic design, typography, and social media marketing. ► canva.com VELLUM Vellum is an app that lets you design books for e-reader and print. You can apply default styles to create beautiful drop caps and ornamental

► inkarnate.com INKLEWRITER If you have a hard time deciding on the next step in your narrative, or if you just like A/B testing, InkleWriter could be the tool for you. This web app allows you to create stories that branch and intersect based on choices you provide to the reader. Sound like a lot to keep track of? The map helps you visualize your entire plot, and InkleWriter alerts you to any loose ends in the story. Free to use, this is the perfect app for interactive fiction lovers. ► inklewriter.com 2021 Volume I ︱ WORDWORKS 9

Terry Ann Carter: Finding Your Form

by Rob Taylor

Rob Taylor: Haiku in Canada: History, Poetry, Memoir has an unusual structure: part memoir, part history, part poetry anthology, part roll call of Canadian haiku writers. The practice of gathering the biographies of contributing poets into an essay is shared by other haiku anthologies, such as Haiku in English: The First Hundred Years and The Haiku Anthology, but in your case the poets’ poems and your reminiscences are also rolled into the mix. You never know what will come next: a personal anecdote, a poet’s or writing group’s bio, a clutch of poems, an excerpt from an essay on the nature of haiku, etc.

In your foreword, you note that Sei Shōnagon’s The Pillow Book, which itself roams mightily, helped inspire the book’s form. Could you talk a little about how you settled on the book’s final shape?

Terry Ann Carter: This book began as a talk that I was invited to give at the 2011 Haiku North America conference in Seattle. It was perhaps nine pages in length and it was received very well. A second delivery came when I was a keynote speaker at a Haiku Canada conference. For this talk I had prepared some extra notes around the Toronto scene since I was speaking at the University of Toronto. The paper kept growing. My friendship with Mr. Toshi Yonehara increased my interest in the history of haiku, and when I moved to the west coast in 2012, I realized that I was in a great place to do more research. I was new to Victoria and wanted to meet like-minded folks, so I taught 10 WORDWORKS ︱ 2021 Volume I

Japanese literary forms at Royal Roads University. I met many poets who wanted to learn more about haiku; soon the classes turned into social gatherings and Haiku Arbutus was born. I still facilitate this group.

It was through Haiku Arbutus that I met Dr. Susumu Tabata, a 93-yearold survivor of the internment camps of the Slocan Valley in the interior of BC during World War II. It was such an honour and a privilege to meet him, and soon “Sus” was a regular at our meetings. My essay began to take on a new direction as I researched the haiku written in these camps during this dark chapter of Canadian history.

Members of the Victoria Nikkei Cultural Society also helped out. Many gave me resources that I would have probably never found on my own.

Soon I had over a hundred pages and I began to think about a book.

The challenge now, was my writing “styles.” When I was referencing the historical facts, I needed historical accuracy, which created a certain tone.

When I was writing about groups of poets, some who were close personal friends, the tone changed again. I was very uncertain about how to continue.

I became quite despondent around the whole project and dropped it for about two years. I simply didn’t know how to mesh everything together. It sat deep within my computer.

Then one day, I was reading Shōnagon’s The Pillow Book, which is her observations of Heian court life, including essays, anecdotes, poems, opinions, interesting events at court, and her famous lists, 164 of them.

Her writing was called “zuihitsu” or “assorted writing,” and I knew I had

found a model. I picked up the project and began working again, and by Christmas 2019 I had the manuscript completed.

RT: It’s no coincidence that the other anthologies I noted above were edited by men, nor—I suspect—that your major influence in structuring the book was a woman. In many ways, Haiku in Canada feels like a corrective in a literary tradition that has historically appeared to be dominated by men. In addition to this book, in 2020 you also published the collection of essays Moonflowers: Pioneering Women Haiku Poets in Canada (catkin press, 2020). How did writing Moonflowers influence how you approached writing Haiku in Canada?

TAC: Completing the research for Moonflowers gave me a “deep dive” into the lives of our pioneering women poets. I wanted to bring that knowledge and energy to Haiku in Canada, although (because of space) in much shorter allotments. I think that the work for Moonflowers gave me a stronger appreciation for these women. That appreciation flowed into Haiku in Canada and helped me shape it in ways that wouldn’t have been possible before the research.

This is an excerpt from “The Shadow Element,” published October 2020 in Event. Rob Taylor’s website is at roblucastaylor.com.

There’s further reading in Mary Ann Moore’s blog post: www.maryannmoore. ca/haiku-in-canada

In the Garden with Terry Ann Carter: A Haibun Series

by Barbara Pelman book maker first I fold the mountain then the valley We sit down at the pine table, beside French doors leading to the garden. Outside it is deciding to rain, but there is still sun and lemon ginger tea in my grandmother’s teacups. On the table, Terry Ann’s beautiful books: First I Fold the Mountain, both the chapbook and the art catalogue from her show two years ago at the Gage Gallery; her two books of haibun, On the Road to Naropa, and Tokaido, and her new history Haiku in Canada. She brings me others, an offering: A Crazy Man Thinks He’s Ernest in Paris; Day Moon Rising; Blue Moon—I spread them out on the table. The care in each page. The beauty of the paper, the cover, the choice of font. The poems themselves—the skill, the wisdom, the heart. We look out the window at the red maple leaves, the lichen on the rocks. “Haiku is about witnessing,” she says. “It notices life in everything—stone, leaf, ladybug.” end of summer the Great Blue Heron stretches into its shadow “This is what is called shasei,” Terry Ann explains. “It is the first level of writing haiku, a sketch, setting down what is, what you see and experience. Mostly it is the experience of being in nature, but it doesn’t have to be.” I think of one of her more urban haiku: Alone in Tokyo/even the chopsticks/ in pairs. We talk more about levels of haiku, the deeper one which connects human nature and Mother Nature, the psychological link that is like a small epiphany. That aha moment of understanding. “ A poem is an offering”, she says. Like in the Ashrei, the Hebrew prayer. Potayach et yodecha, it says, open your hand to what is offered you. She makes small delicate poem bowls out of paper: an open hand to hold a gift. early dusk swallows swerve through the sound of temple bells So much I want to ask her, about her work with the Tabitha Foundation in Cambodia—building houses, her years of teaching high school English, her move out west from years in Ottawa and before that, Boston. Her many many

accomplishments. But we don’t have space. Instead, we talk about her new work, a blend of poetry and book making.

“It’s called First I Fold the Mountain, a poetic love letter to books: chapters on the art of the handmade book, the Borgesean concept of the ‘unwritten book’, a ‘husband and wife dosados book’, five hanging books inspired by Dada artist Kurt Schwitters, and a scroll book of tanka composed in the voice of Ono No Komachi.” So beautiful.

Like a ripple that flows out to the shore my love follows the rim of his robe morning light through the window And how do you like your new life on the West Coast? I ask her. How do you like your new tribe of poets? “At first I missed my friends terribly,” she said. “But now? I’d never go back. I’m here, in the wind and the rain. I take walks around Thetis Lake. My bones smell of seaweed.” clouds roll in the closed wings of a totem raven Your astonishing hand-made books, I marvel. How do they come about? Do you first write the poem then make a “little house” for them? Or the other way around—make the house, find an inhabitant? “No, the poem always comes first,” Terry Ann says. “I think about how I want to display it, what it wishes to inhabit. I look for the right paper, the right inks, the right shapes.”

Full moon up all night with the joy of it That’s what it’s like.

Note: All haiku and the tanka are from Terry Ann Carter’s previously published collections. terryanncarter.com. Barbara Pelman is a poet living in Victoria.

2021 Volume I ︱ WORDWORKS 11

Naomi Beth Wakan and Michael Dylan Welch Curing Poetic Loneliness with Rengay

12 WORDWORKS ︱ 2021 Volume I

clouds move across the skylight I drift along too

Naomi

lazy day in the La-Z-Boy my list of things to do as my bookmark

Michael

Naomi

writer at work stretched out in his hammock

Michael

even when supper calls my unmoving husband beach weather . . . our frisbee still on top of the cooler

Naomi

Michael

ELI WAKAN PHOTO

Learn more about rengay at http://www.graceguts. com/rengay-essays and see numerous examples at http://www.graceguts.com/rengay.

In Praise of Idleness

DEAN DAVIS PHOTO

Sherman Alexie once said, “Writing is a lonely business.”

Poetry too. We wander lonely as clouds in rooms of our own, the muse seeming to visit only if we lock ourselves up in our isolated garrisons. This approach may often be effective, but another choice, at least occasionally, is to write in collaboration. One way to do that, in poetry, is with rengay. Garry Gay invented this responsive poetry form in 1992 and named rengay by adding his name to the end of the word “renga.” Renga is a Japanese collaborative poetry game with a thousand years of history. Some renga had 36 verses by two or more poets, but others had 100, 1000, or even 10,000 verses. Haiku poetry grew out of extracting the starting verses from these renga as independent poems. Garry’s update shortened this collaboration to just six haiku or haiku-like verses focusing on a theme, which renga usually avoided as it sought to “taste all of life.” Garry and I wrote the first rengay together in 1992, and now rengay is published in haiku journals around the world.

The rengay pattern for two writers is A3, B2, A3, B3, A2, B3, (letters represent the poets and numbers indicate the number of lines in each verse). For three writers, the pattern is A3, B2, C3, A2, B3, C2. A theme, such as baseball, times of day, or varieties of flowers, could be set at the start, or one poet might offer a haiku he or she has written recently and the other poet could pick an aspect of that poem to develop thematically. The latter is what happened with “In Praise of Idleness,” presented here. Naomi sent me her poem at the end of an email message. I liked its lazy subject and responded with a two-liner of my own on that theme, inviting her to write a rengay together. This was a rewarding way to focus a bit of our correspondence.

Many haiku poets also write rengay together in person, as a social act that hopefully has literary possibilities. Sharing verses and perhaps discussing technique and voice can also help to hone your craft with immediate feedback—and help you get to know the person you’re writing with. For me, rengay is a social sort of poetry that makes writing a much less lonely business.

Vicki McLeod

Lance Anderson Photo: Unsplash

My People Came Down from the Mountains

My people came down from the mountains, brittle ghosts armed with blades and hacksaws. They were big eared, small-footed and had red-knuckled hands. They carried no expectations. The men were tough and canny, ready with violence, religiously upright, but secret drunks. The women bore the men, bruised and joking.

They were hard and selfish people, except perhaps one great-grandfather. Imagine a small man, balding, ears akimbo, wearing a clean white shirt. He has an accordion strapped to his chest and his small feet count measures as his fingers fly on the keyboard, the bellows wheezing.

He had three daughters and he taught them all to dance.

When he finished teaching the girls, he taught the rest of the town to dance as well. He taught the loggers, and the fishers, and the women who served the coffee and made waffles from scratch at the pancake house. Dancing his way to respectability, the town eventually named an avenue after him.

You can still travel to this northern town, back up over the mountains, and down again to the valley floor. His town is on the Skeena River, where the Canadian National Railway meets the Yellowhead Highway. Following the strains of that ancestral squeezebox, you can find the street named for him, in gratitude for his gambol and sway. Standing beneath the street sign you will see the road goes nowhere.

His daughters--three sisters-- chose different lives. One stayed put, dutiful. Two left town, travelling up over the mountains to new small towns in remote valleys where highways meet rivers. Of these, one found a husband, settled down, and did the normal things. She kept a clean house, raised good children and had a way with African violets.

The third sister was lost. She was the broken one. A nurse called Fanny, she loved to work, was forced to marry, and could not stay away from the bottle. Why? Not necessarily a useful question. Perhaps as a child, she was made to dance against her will.

Eventually she drowned in her sorrow. There are not enough words to fill the emptiness she left behind. Like her father, she played the accordion, and while she lived, she tried to pass the love of this peculiar instrument on to her grandson. This, like so many other things, failed. Her progenies are hopelessly unmusical.

I am of the granddaughters and grandsons, descendants scattered like streams and creeks moving away from the fault lines in the mountains to some greater waterway. Living by my wits on the shore of a mighty sea, I make poems and fill my pockets with round stones gathered at the water’s edge.

I awaken when the moon is full; listen for ghosts, check for saw and blade. At times, I am seized by the uncontrollable urge to dance. Always, I am careful with my feet. ### “My People Came Down from the Mountains” was the winning story in the BC & Yukon Flash 2020 contest.

2021 Volume I ︱ WORDWORKS 13

Nicholas Read Writing Non-Fiction for Young Children

by Adelia MacWilliam “The state of the planet is broken,” UN Secretary-General Guterres said recently in a speech at Columbia University. “Humanity is waging war on nature.”

While it may seem like a stretch to go from Guterres’ proclamation to an interview with a writer of children’s books, not so. Nicholas Read’s books are part of what will heal the divide. Read’s most recent book, A Bear’s Life, is one of a series of several books done in concert with Ian McAllister, a world-renowned nature photographer and filmmaker. McAllister was at the forefront of the activism that helped preserve the Great Bear Rainforest, a swathe of temperate rainforests that stretch across 6.4 million hectares of the remote British Columbia coastline 14 WORDWORKS ︱ 2021 Volume I

and Haida Gwaii. After a visit there, poet Patrick Lane wrote: “I walked in the hollowed paw prints a grizzly bear left / ten thousand years ago this morning.”

As Read tells it, “Ian and I got to be friendly when I was working at the paper (the Vancouver Sun) and we wanted to do something together, which is how we ended up going to see the publishers at Orca. And they did something that publishers rarely do, they saw how exceptional the photographs were and decided right then and there that they should have books with these photos.”

What followed were a series of books for middle school readers: Salmon Bears, The Sea Wolves,

and The Great Bear Sea. Then the publishers decided that there should be a series for younger readers, Kindergarten to Grade 3, which became The Seal Garden, A Whale’s World, Wolf Island, and the most recent publication, A Bear’s Life, pairing McAllister’s beautiful photos with Read’s playful storyline.

Read explains, “Ian doesn’t like writing, whereas I love it. I use the information he gives me as well as drawing from other sources. Ian reads what I write and corrects any errors. It’s very much a collaboration.” He went to say, “Ian has spent years of his life there (the Great Bear Rain Forest) and he knows it as well as anyone could.

He’s as much a part of it as the bears and the bees. However, I’m much more of a city boy.”

While Read’s text is an integral part of these books, he prefers to shine the light on McAllister. “If we were a stage act, Ian would be front and centre and I would be the accompanist, off to the side.”

Read went on to say, “Unlike most people, Ian has a cause. He has a mission. He has a purpose. I do what I can to help him.”

Read’s background in journalism has been helpful. As Read explains, it’s a journalist’s job to make to make things simple for people to understand. Most newspapers are written to a Grade 6 level, so it wasn’t a stretch for Read to write for middle school students. Writing

for K-to-3 proved to be a little more challenging, because he had to get the point across very simply using fewer words. Luckily Orca had a very helpful editor.

When it comes to interviewing people, you have to get off on the right foot. Read says the best way to do that is to be genuinely interested in what your subject has to say.

“When you do this, people are more than happy to share. It’s also important not to be embarrassed about not understanding something. Don’t be afraid to say, ‘I don’t understand what you’re talking about, could you start from the beginning?’ Most people are happy to be asked again. Ninety-nine percent of them!”

Read has no problem being enthusiastic about his topic.

“Writing about animals and nature is a pleasure for me because I care about them, so that’s my drive, that’s my motivator.”

However, Read admits that writing about nature well enough for kids to be interested takes a lot of revision. He says to assume the kids have some information but not a lot, and to present the information as part of a story. That way the writer will reach a lot more readers. “Beginning, middles, and ends,” says Read. “And it’s best not to use numbers over a thousand, just one or two. Try to zero in on one bear spending its afternoon on the beach. And write as if you were speaking to kids. You want to sound warm, friendly and genuine.

This may mean breaking a few grammar rules in order to sound natural.”

He also notes that the thing we respond to most (in life or literature) is emotion. But what about

emotions in the animal world? Read says, “It used to be verboten to talk about animal emotions twenty-five years ago. Biologists would never stoop so low as to talk about animal feelings, but now they recognize that animals have feelings that they show, but also feelings that we don’t recognize.”

As Read writes in A Bear’s Life, “Cubs learn lessons all the time, but sometimes all they want to do is play and let off steam. Just like you.”

Read hopes that the books he’s done with McAllister will help raise awareness of wild animals and nature in general. “Many of the books I write end up in schools, so kids are forced to confront these issues, at least while they’re in school. Zoos wouldn’t be there except that parents love to take their children to see the animals. Most children are interested in animals.”

Before our conversation ends, I ask Read to tell me about his first encounter with the Great Bear Rainforest. He tells me that he landed near Bella Bella with Chris Darimont, an associate of McAllister’s who now teaches geography at the University of Victoria. They took a speedboat and headed toward the mainland. There was

no dock to land at, no trail. They tied the boat to some rocks and went in. Read’s “WOW!” when he saw the forest was so loud it must have echoed. Darimont still tells the story to other visitors he takes there.

Read goes on to say, “If a hunter shoots a bear, that bear is gone.

If people come and see the bear, that means a lot of people passing through and spending their money and helping the local economy.

Preserving nature is good for the economy and now there are facts and figures to back it up.”

For readers who would like a glimpse of Ian McAllister’s photography and want to learn more about his team’s accomplishments, go to Pacific Wild at https://pacificwild. org/. For the books that Nicholas Read has done with Ian McAllister go to Orca Book Publishers at https://www.orcabook.com/.

Illustration: a textbox from page 29, A Bear’s Life, by Ian McAllister and Nicholas Read (Orca Books, 2020).

Book Cover: Photo by Ian McAllister.

Used with permission.

Adelia MacWilliam is a poet and co-founder of Cascadia Poetics Lab, www.cascadiapoeticslab.ca

2021 Volume I ︱ WORDWORKS 15

Vicki McLeod: Hitting the Sweet Spot in Non-Fiction

by Ann Graham Walker What if you got paid so well to write, you could actually make a good living from your writing?

Author Vicki McLeod has achieved that by combining her writing skills and her entrepreneurial smarts. After working in various capacities as a communications specialist she set up her own company, Main Street Communications Ltd, twenty-five years ago. It became a thriving business springboard.

I Zoom chatted with Vicki one morning back in November.

She was in her studio in Nanaimo—wearing jeans, I think, not pajamas, but if you read the “About” section of her vickimcleod.com website you will see that was just chance. Vicki writes about “connecting with the joys of ordinary life,” and, for her, being able to work in her pajamas is one of the delights of working for herself.

“I am a writer-author-coach-consultant these days, in that order,” she told me. The writer-author part is currently first because she has published four non-fiction books in the past four years. Her niche: humanizing technology, in friendly, accessible language that speaks to people who need help finding their way.

What you’re probably wondering is, how much money can a writer expect to make, writing non-fiction books and articles on marketable topics? And what does a “newbie” need to know to break into this market?

Starting out, Vicki says, you can expect to do some projects for free, to build profile and a portfolio. But 16 WORDWORKS ︱ 2021 Volume I

once you’ve established a professional reputation and a client base? About $65–$95 an hour, is what a communications company like Vicki’s pays as a subcontract fee. Writing articles can fetch seventy-five cents to a dollar (or more) a word. Or you might be paid a flat rate of around $75 for an article. (Well-experienced writers can always negotiate upwards).

Is that tempting?

As we talked about the potential of becoming a successful non-fiction writer, Vicki wanted to be sure people understood the importance of nailing a marketable focus, to get the right starting point. She stressed the “R” word: research, research, research.

Clearly and thoroughly researching the idea you plan to pursue helps to ensure you are writing about something people care about. You need to be sure it has not already been done to death. You need to know exactly how you will approach the subject differently.

(In her area, writing about humanizing technology, what is unique about Vicki’s books is that they speak in plain language to people who don’t have a comfort level with technology and need a dose of normalcy and kindness).

But there’s something even more important to consider in choosing what kind of professional non-fiction writer you will be. “It’s really important that you choose topics you care about,” Vicki stressed.

She got into humanizing technology because she realized how important it was in her work with her communications clients.

“As clients learn to use digital tools and technology, and how to create content for multiple purposes, it can be overwhelming. I want it to be a mindful experience that feels integrated with their life, not something that takes life out of them.”

Getting on to the question of whether she had tips for writers starting out, Vicki had so many practical suggestions, we decided it would be a great idea for her to teach a couple of workshops in the early Spring.

“Whether you are going to pitch your project to a publisher, or are planning to publish it yourself,

research is one of the most valued marketing skills and a publisher expects you to have done this work,” Vicki stressed again.

There are a range of research and marketing tools you can use to get the answers you need—some, like Survey Monkey, may be already familiar to most writers.

“Once you have done your research thoroughly, if you are approaching a publisher you need to write a proposal. Your contract and letter of agreement—if you are successful—will be based on that proposal.”

If you think you might want to participate in her workshops, you can email Vicki for more details at vmcleod@mainstreetcommunications.ca.

Are you thinking that someone who writes four non-fiction books, runs a communications company and coaches clients (including writers) probably doesn’t have time for other writing? Nope. That wouldn’t be Vicki.

When she is not working for pay, she is a Creative Writing student at Simon Fraser University, studying poetry with Rob Taylor. She has also studied memoir with J.J. Lee and Aislinn Hunter at the SFU Writers’ Studio, and is tinkering with a manuscript.

“Writing has taken me everywhere I wanted to go, including enabling me to build a business that gave me freedom and a good living—but my idea of bliss is still

If you are approaching a publisher you need to write a proposal. Your contract and letter of agreement—if you are successful—will be based on that proposal.

to simply curl up in my pajamas with my journal, a cup of hot tea and work on a poem.”

Vicki’s books, #Untrending, Digital Legacy Plan, Effective Communication at Work and You and the Internet of Things are available on her website, vickimcleod.com/books/. You and the Internet of Things—one of the most recent—is a guide to integrating smart devices into everyday life.

Ann Graham Walker is a poet living on Vancouver Island.

2021 Volume I ︱ WORDWORKS 17

Carolyn J. Daley: Writing History—a Q&A

by Caitlin Hicks Carolyn Daley is a retired police officer with twenty-eight years of service, the first woman to earn the title of Deputy Chief Constable for the Vancouver Police Department.

She researched and wrote Vancouver’s Women In Blue: Trailblazers of the Vancouver Police Department 1904–1975 (Ruddy Duck Press, 2020), chronicling the changing realities of women in policing as the roles of women were re-defined within society. The book is a historical reference of depth and scope. It is also a resource for anyone wanting to know about women’s evolving role in public life, and a solid reference for writers who are attempting historical fiction in Canada between the years of 1904 and 1975.

WHAT WAS YOUR PASSION IN WRITING THIS BOOK? It began as a result of a Diversity Advisory Committee discussion over concerns that the Police Officers Physical Abilities Test could be too difficult for female recruits.

The test was designed to recruit and hire individuals capable of meeting the physical demands of the job.

During my explanation of the dangers of gender-based double standards, I spoke about the evolution of women’s role in policing since the early days.

Someone asked me if that history had ever been written. Thus began an eighteen-year project.

I learned more about the women and how the role of women evolved from matrons to operational police constables. I also began to better understand the push-back from the men as the women’s roles became closer to their own.

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WHAT WERE YOUR SOURCES? My own experience (as a recruit in 1975 and throughout my career). Of the thirty-seven women I connected with, several had personal collections of newspaper clippings and photos they shared with me. They all trusted me with their stories and reputations and were content with my vision of how the book would unfold. I wanted them to remember their career and service with pride.

My research took me not only to the Vancouver Police HR, but also to the BC Archives, the provincial museum, the City of Vancouver Archives, and the UBC Rare Books and Special Collections Library. In the mid eighties when everyone went to computers, physical records were boxed and stored; I spent hundreds of hours going through old documents (sorted and unsorted) and miles of microfiche.

This research carried on throughout the eighteen years. Information from early years allowed me to check and cross-check the accuracy of records—there were many errors (spelling, dates, etc.). Some details popped up at the last minute: A few months before printing, we discovered a photo of the first woman ever hired by the VPD, Matta Raymond, in a photo of a wedding party in 1915!

HOW DID YOU DO THE RESEARCH? The most activity took place at the beginning; hours and hours going through old cardboard boxes, studying ledgers, meetings, newspaper articles and following their leads.

Over the years, I was able to personally connect with thirty-seven

women still living. Pulling the data together and turning it into a chronological story took time and often had to be re-organized as new information came to light over the years. I had no idea how many years would fly by as I searched through mountains of paper, checking and rechecking the thousands of numbers and tidbits of data that needed to be verified.

On many occasions, entire sections needed to be re-written when new information surfaced. Even greater challenges surrounded the issue of “permission.” Not only did I need to acquire written permission from every person I represented with information above and beyond the bare basics already in the public arena, I also had to seek out and nail down formal permissions from the legal owners of each photograph, article, and longer quotes I wished to reproduce. Even the extended span of time created challenges as some newspapers and magazines no longer existed, and others had been purchased by new owners and larger corporations. As well, I had not appreciated the cost some “owners” would assign to those permissions, and formatting and editing was a whole new world. All that being said, these challenges and others melted into the past as the manuscript crept between her covers and became a book and a permanent record of a story worth telling.

WHEN DID YOU FEEL YOU HAD A SENSE OF NARRATIVE? The research and writing ran parallel to each other. First I established the original framework: the years 1904–1975 and the 125 women hired between those

years. In 1975, men and women were hired, trained and deployed as equals.

So those events were the bookends. I realized I wanted to tell how the role of the women in the VPD evolved through time.

ANY MEMORABLE MOMENTS IN FINDING SOME TREASURE? Finally identifying a photo of Evelyn Daisy Le Sueur was exciting. She was hired in 1919 and fired in 1921 for basically having the audacity to belong to a women’s rights group! The only photo of her had been misidentified as someone else. Another discovery was Ada Tonkin; her name had been totally missed on previous rosters. She was hired in 1929 and three years later was required to resign as a result of a policy that stated married women whose husbands were employed could not themselves earn a salary.

I had no idea how many years would fly by as I searched through mountains of paper, checking and rechecking the thousands of numbers and tidbits of data that needed to be verified.

WHO DID YOU WRITE THIS BOOK FOR? For the women themselves. It may have started as a promise to a committee, but as I learned more about the early women and the women of the sixties and seventies I became absolutely convinced the story of their role in policing, and the fact of their service, needed to be told—and told in a respectful and celebratory manner. In so doing, the evolution of women in municipal policing unfolded. As I continued to write, I came to realize I was also writing for others. The men and women currently serving had not had the opportunity to understand this part of the past, and I am a firm believer that by understanding where we come from,

we can better understand where we are and where we’re going. I was also writing for young women and men who might be considering a future in law enforcement and for the friends and families of the women who have already served, are serving, and who will serve in the future. That being said, this book is dedicated to the women who served and are currently serving in the Vancouver Police Department.

This is their story. It has now been told.

CJ Daley is online at www.cjdaley.ca.

Caitlin Hicks is at www.caitlinhicks.com.

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 2021 Volume I ︱ WORDWORKS 19

Anuradha Rao: One Earth The Ethical Interview: Lifting People into the Spotlight Anuradha Rao is the author of the amazing One Earth: People of Color Protecting Our Planet, a collection of twenty biographies of people of all ages from all over Earth. Anuradha is a scientist, a conservation biologist.

Her dream of this book arose from her wish that more people of colour were recognized for their work in the conservation and environmental communities. To provide a mirror for youth.

“Until recently, at work,” she says, in her introduction to the book, “I had usually been the only one with a brown face.”

WordWorks: Tell me more about your mission for the book.

Anuradha Rao: I wanted to focus this project to make it a celebration of diversity and its contribution to environmental success, rather than to get in depth on why the movement isn’t more diverse, or get into the negative side of things. I wanted it to be uplifting and hopeful.

The imagery in the book is part

of the reason I did it, because in the environmental movement, and in books in general, people need to see themselves and the actual world reflected in the media. Even for a young kid who can’t read yet, the images alone can contribute to their self-esteem and to their broader understanding of the world: who is important in it and whose voices and actions are important.

WW: The photographs are beautiful.

Orca seems to have designed the book in a loving way.

AR: We wanted the book to be very visual, and I think we achieved that.

One of the editors gave me great advice on photo captions. There is a tendency for people to flip through the images, captions, and pull-out quotes before they read the text, so we used captions to tell more than just what the photos were showing: to bring out something that wasn’t mentioned in the text, or to highlight a piece of the story.

WW: That’s great advice for writers.

Did writing for young people come naturally to you? I loved reading it and I imagine a lot of other adults will as well.

AR: Well, it’s funny. It’s officially intended for ages 12+. But of all the talks that I’ve done, I’ve only had a couple to the lower end of that age range. Everything else has either been for younger children or undergraduate students or the general public, which included adults. And I sold books in my own network to mostly adults, so I think it’s just a readable book.

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I didn’t know if my writing would be suitable for the age range, but through working with the editors I realized how much faith Orca has in young audiences to understand mature subject matter. I didn’t have to simplify it very much. I could basically write as I would write, but just not be overly technical about it. Speak normally about a mature subject, explain things that needed to be explained, and then have faith that the readers could look up information or could understand topics that were maybe not as prevalent when I was a kid.

WW: Orca sounds amazing.

AR: It was important for me to be able to review the edits and the layout as it was being produced and to have input. Orca was supportive of that. I also got their agreement that I would be able to send drafts to the contributors, and have them be able to review them. Basically every step of the way the contributors got to see what was being proposed and suggest any changes or identify errors. And so I feel really good about that whole process and how the book definitely is true to the people who are featured in it.

WW: Do you have any advice for writers who are learning to interview people? How did you put people at ease and build rapport with people so far away from you?

AR: I started with my friend Nitya, one of the people in the book. I know her very well and she agreed to be my guinea pig through the process.

My interviewing techniques and

my story-writing techniques progressed through working with her, then with a mentor, and then with the publisher, and that all got refined. I went back to her over and over to keep working things through. From that experience I landed on ten questions that I realized would be enough to give me an initial outline of what the story would be.

The other thing was that I had a very clear picture of what I was doing, who I was, what the project was, what the outcome would be, and what my relationship with the individual would be, so that I would be legitimate and transparent all through it.

Then I gave them the elevator pitch version of that up front so that they could see if it was something of interest to them and if they felt like they identified with it, because they had to self-identify with the project.

From there I gave them all the details, sent them the questions in advance if they wanted them, which some did and some didn’t.

I also told them just because I’m

interviewing you does necessarily mean that your story is going to appear in the book, that there might have to be a publication decision to cut.

I gave them all the information up front, so that there weren’t any surprises.

Everybody saw their own words, their own stories, from the initial Word documents to the laid-out drafts—where their photos would be and the captions and the pull out quotes, to where their draft fit into the bigger work.

And I think that that helped me to feel comfortable that I was doing the right thing, and I’d like to think that it made them comfortable.

I did the first interview with them using those ten standard questions; then I would go away and write up their story incorporating the uniqueness of each individual. I had kind of a set way, which was starting all the stories from their childhood to their turning points to their successes.

I would then go back to each person and fill in holes by asking them more questions. It was very time-consuming, but it was all within the time frame and the deadlines that I had been given to work.

WW: I really, really love the way you told me about your process! I noticed you gave each person in the book a chance to tell readers what they could do to help protect our world. May I challenge you to tell the same to writers?

AR: As writers we have the power to affect people’s emotions. And so we have to balance the we’re in a climate crisis, we’re in a diversity crisis, we’re in an everything right now crisis, with the we can do this or that and to show those roads.

Writers can do their homework on issues and find out things like whose traditional territory they live and work on, and what those Nations’ environmental and cultural priorities are, and try to align themselves with those priorities and be an ally in that work, and not speak for other people but research, understand and write in parallel and support of the things that people are pushing for.

Anuradha Rao is a is a Registered Professional Biologist, writer and facilitator with a focus on coastal and marine ecosystems. www.ekalogical.com

“I was one of the few people of colour at the 2016 Surrey International Writers conference among hundreds of people. It was very obvious and very lonely. And so I think it’s as important to be lifting diverse voices in the writing community as well. Writers need to be looking at uplifting Black, Indigenous and people of colour. If you have a platform, step aside and offer it to help somebody else whose voice doesn’t usually get heard.”

2021 Volume I ︱ WORDWORKS 21

Sara Graefe: Proud Queer Mom

by Mary Ann Moore Sara Graefe has been forging new ground through her own writing and with the non-fiction books she edits. “We’re giving room to other voices that haven’t been heard, including queer voices,” she says of the work that helps LGBTQ2 families feel less alone. Telling our stories is a powerful way to bring about change. “On a bunch of levels, it’s healing as we write them, and can be validating or illuminating for the audience.”

Sara began chronicling her experiences as a queer mom on her blog in 2010. Gay Girls Make Great Moms is at queermommy.wordpress.com. While the blog is dormant now, it served its purpose when her son, now thirteen, was younger, she said. As our children get older, I agreed, they get to have a say in what gets told about them. She now vets the articles she writes about him.

The blog meant writing short prose, helping Sara feel “I’m still a writer” while her son was still a toddler. The email and comments she received were “really affirming,” and she realized the content was valuable to people.

A panel on LGBTQ+ pregnancy and birth experiences she attended made it clear to Sara “that she ought to tell her stories.” Rachel Rose, former Vancouver poet laureate (2014–2017) gifted Sara a copy of Between Interruptions: 20 Women Tell the Truth About Motherhood by Cori Howard.

“Rachel’s is the only queer story in the book,” Sara said.

When Sara joined Howard’s writing workshops for writer moms, she was the only queer mom in the group. She realized she had something unique to say.

Swelling With Pride: Queer Conception and Adoption Stories (Caitlin Press/Dagger Editions, 2018), of which Sara is the editor and a contributor, “grew from that trajectory.”

She had been laying the groundwork for a book she’s really proud of. “Swelling with Pride is the book I wish had been out there when my wife Amanda and I had our first conversations about making a baby.”

In her own essay in the book, “Best Laid Plans,” Sara describes having to go through three cycles of intrauterine insemination and various stumbling blocks before the eventual pregnancy that led to the birth of her son.

She wrote about trying for a second child in her blog: “Even though I’ve written intimately about our experiences as a queer family, my grief around my infertility is incredibly private.”

“I’ve never tried so hard to create something, and came away with nothing,” she said of her secondary infertility.

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Telling our stories is a powerful way to bring about change.

While very much appreciating the joy of raising her son, there’s still a twinge of that grief and loss all these years later.

Sara found the curating of the collection of essays in Swelling with Pride to be healing work. It was a privilege to work with queer women, trans and genderqueer folk who shared intimate stories and experiences that were life-altering. Those intimate moments she was allowed into reminded her of the joyful aspects of conception and birth during her own ongoing healing.

As a dramatic writer foremost (she’s an award-winning playwright and screenwriter), Sara says she is now exploring creative nonfiction forms which can help to focus when the possibility of being caught up with emotions is very real. She has taken online courses with Nicole Breit, one of the contributors to Swelling with Pride, who teaches CNF outlier forms in her online “Spark Your Story” workshops.

In the late eighties when Sara came out as a lesbian in Kingston, Ontario, she didn’t even think she’d be able to have a baby. Now she has a wife and a son and is inspiring others through the LGBTQ2 stories she is helping to be told.

Further Reading: Small Courage: A Queer Memoir of Finding Love and Conceiving Family by Jane Byers (Caitlin Press/ Dagger Editions, 2020).

Sara Graefe’s work is at queermommy.wordpress. com and saragraefe.com.

Mary Ann Moore is online at www.maryannmoore.ca.

Elaine Alec on Memoir: Honest Writing is Vivid Writing

by Jacqueline Carmichael Elaine Alec’s past was fodder for a stunning memoir.

But the only thing standing between Alec and a hit book was what she told herself about her own past.

When she first started to write her story over a decade ago, Alec couldn’t get past the first seventy-five pages.

Dusting off the project, she was stunned to find she’d made herself both hero and victim in her own story—a telling where her woes were all everyone else’s fault.

Seeing her own story, with all its flaws, was the real start of a book so truthful and gripping it’s hard to put down.

Honest writing is vivid writing, Alec said in an October interview. “The number one thing I had to do was to become self-aware … One of the things I stick to is that you cannot change or heal things you do not acknowledge. If we don’t bring it up or talk about it, there’s no way we can address it or change it,” she said.

Elaine Alec doesn’t see the truth as brutal, though. She learned—the hard way—to be compassionate with herself, as she would be compassionate with others.

With heritage from the Syilx and Secwepemc First Nations, she hails from the Penticton Indian Band. She is the direct descendant of hereditary chiefs Pelkamulaxw and Soorimpt; her Indigenous name, telxnitkw, translates into “Standing by Water.”

She outlines four necessary conditions to cultivating safe spaces for people: understanding yourself, working from a love-based place, patience, and discipline.

“The more honest you are, the more vulnerable you are, the more you give other people permission. We all go through things, and we have to be gentle with ourselves,” Alec said.

Knowing she would bring an editor on board to help finesse the work, Alec started back at square one—an abbreviated timeline.

“I thought about those big moments in my life I remember all the time, those pivotal moments in my life … what was that time about? What was the theme of that part of my life?”

I thought about pivotal moments in my life … what was that time about? What was the theme of that part of my life?

Starting points: Love. Alcoholism. The legacy of the residential school experience.

“I didn’t write from beginning to end. I wrote whatever I was feeling at the time,” she said.

And when Alec had what she called an “Aha! moment,” she wrote about that.

“I talk about a time before I understood what it was to be a woman,” she said, recalling years before she understood her role as a woman, when she dropped out of school in Grade 9 to get into business, being mentored by older white men, becoming part of holding up the “old boys’ club.” Before she understood the parts played in society by matriarchy, patriarchy. Misogyny.

“I was the ‘good Indian woman’. I never said anything, I never challenged anything, I kept quiet … I just did the work,” she said.

Eventually, Alec became a political advisor.

Polished. Direct. Empowered. She became an expert in Indigenous community planning, health advocacy and creating safe spaces utilizing Indigenous approaches and ceremony.

But it wasn’t until she experienced really being a victim—when she was sexually assaulted at 36—that she truly understood her own back story, her PTSD, and that of so many others.

She saw a trauma therapist.

“I had to do a lot of work through that to take care of myself,” she said.

The resulting book, Calling My Spirit Back, “links an extremely personal examination of lived experience to a much broader overview of serious national sociological concerns, accompanied by tangible steps to approach them.” Her website is www.elainealec.com.

Jacqueline Carmichael is online at https://www.facebook.com/ jacquelinellarson 2021 Volume I ︱ WORDWORKS 23

Christine Lowther Walking the Dangerous Line Through Memoir.

When my first book of poems came out in 1999, some family members reacted angrily. In New Power I contemplated painful subjects silenced for decades, like my mother’s corpse and the delayed scattering of her ashes. My sister Kathy’s words on the phone shocked me: “You didn’t even like Mum.” She was talking about the seven-year-old I had been at the time of the murder.

When poems about childhood trauma crept into my second collection, a member of my writers’ group said, “I do hope you won’t be reprising this material in another ten years.” I have had to disappoint her!

With every new manuscript comes the fear that this truth-seeking will estrange me from my family forever.

I am not out to cause unnecessary anguish. I seek justice, understanding, and to learn from history. Indeed I continue to remain silent on some subjects, incidents or abuses. But when I obtained my government files through the Freedom of Information Act, another dangerous project began.

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Those files came from what was then the Ministry of Human Resources, now the Ministry of Children and Family Development. The years my sister Beth and I spent “in care” were detailed. A child psychiatrist’s letters fascinated and angered me; some social workers’ reports enraged me.

While reading those records, news media kept reporting about today’s foster kids living alone in hotel rooms and suiciding. Perhaps I could help modern kids with the documents held in my hands. Better attention for them—and validation for Beth and me. Other goals? An elbow in the ribs of today’s social workers, maybe. An exposé of the BC foster care system through the telling of my own story. A challenge to the pop-culture injustice of murderers being remembered while their victims are not—and children rarely even considered.

My work on this endeavour continues four years later. Hard to ignore are the whispering voices in both ears telling me to leave it alone, shame on you, get over it. No! I will bring to light religious fanatics forcing ritual upon us; a group home run by a woman with a drug-dealing boyfriend; teachers and counsellors sending our school assignments to our father in prison behind our backs; social workers who didn’t believe children can form their own opinions. Social workers who didn’t believe children’s reports of inappropriate treatment.

Workers who clearly disliked and judged us. And a final worker I loved and trusted, who came through for us. Revenge? Not a priority. I am not seeking litigation, like British author Lemn Sissay, who included some of his scanned government files in his memoir My Name is Why.

For many “in care” years, our maternal grandmother was also our foster parent. To our family, Gram was the beloved matriarch who could do no wrong. The more I wrote, the worse she sounded, as recounted from my damaged and teenaged viewpoint.

What should a non-fiction writer do?

I chose new names for workers, cops, lawyers, the killer, shrinks, teachers, counsellors, relatives. I decided to call Gram Mrs. Backbone. She had been a strong witness in court during the trial. Someone said she possessed a backbone of steel. I decided to remove descriptions of our conflict, and keep her strength.

Everything we writers write can hurt someone. It helps to keep in mind that my recollection of an event might not match another family member’s. As Clifton Crais wrote in History Lessons, “The crystalline, lucid image of a traumatic experience is not perfectly accurate, though it feels that way.” I am tempted by uncensored freedom, but I have chosen to soften my memories, though fairly certain no one in my family reads my work, except my cousin’s wife’s mother! And if they did read it, they might not consider it softened.

With every new manuscript comes the fear that this truth-seeking will estrange me from my family forever.

Further reading: Interview in The Malahat Review: http://www.malahatreview.ca/interviews/lowther_interview.html Born out of This (Caitlin Press, 2014) https://www.facebook.com/ ChristineLowtherAuthor

Chelsea Comeau talks with Martha Warren Switching Genres: who says a poet can’t write a cookbook?

Martha Warren, an alumnus of the SFU Writer’s Studio, says that her cookbook, Grill Queen, was written “out of practical necessity.” After she and her boyfriend parted ways, Warren remembers standing outside, wondering what she was supposed to do with a barbecue only her ex had known how to use. The prospect of handling propane and gas made her nervous—something Warren would soon learn was not uncommon amongst inexperienced grillers—but she quickly recognized the need for self-reliance and for finding a use for the spices and liquid smoke her ex left behind! While processing her post-breakup emotions, Warren found it difficult to complete the writing projects she’d already been working on, “but [realized she] could do something more empirical: barbecue and write up recipes.” It was time for her to learn something new!

The process of writing Grill Queen was based heavily on research and revisions. Warren learned that the best way to ensure a recipe’s success was to test the final product and adjust as needed. She engaged in thorough

exploration, attending the San Miguel Writers’ Conference where she familiarized herself with a food historian named Francine Segan. She also signed up at amazingribs.com where she “met novice and experienced grillers, all with a shared devotion to barbecue,” and praises resources such as Living High Off the Hog, a book

by Michael Olson that divulges pork cooking techniques.

Although Grill Queen opens with the phrase “perhaps revenge is a dish best served grilled,” Warren explains that, in fact, the true message of the cookbook is that one “can take on anything.” Indeed, 2020 seems to be the perfect year to pick up new skills, expand upon our abilities in the kitchen, and become more familiar with the nuances of preparing hearty meals. The “home-and-hearth centred” nature of the barbecue makes broadening one’s grilling repertoire an ideal “pandemic project,” as many turn to developing different hobbies that can easily be executed from home. And, as Warren explains, it isn’t necessary “to be a cordon bleu chef ” to prepare delicious dishes.

She “wanted to avoid the smoky, pit-master type of barbecuing,” and opted for “minimalist recipes; light, healthy, fun [and] with s’mores-level simplicity.” Warren carefully “triple-tested each and every recipe” and made sure to take part in a thorough quest for knowledge while writing.

The final product is something she says is suitable for referring to “in the grocery aisle on your phone for an ingredients list, or on a tablet standing at the barbecue, with a glass of something in your hand.” Grill Queen also steers away from the present trend of packing published recipes with

Grill Queen opens with the phrase “perhaps revenge is a dish best served grilled” … the true message of the cookbook is that one “can take on anything.” a great deal of personal anecdotes, while still providing context and connecting with readers on a personal level via the universal experiences of heartbreak and the love of nourishment. Warren explains that it was not only the humour she integrated into her writing that she found healing, but also the experience of gathering around the table with loved ones to feed them.

Warren wants other prospective cookbook writers to know that “it’s important to listen to advice… [but] it’s also important to do your own thing.” It was suggested to her that she would require culinary qualifications before creating and publishing Grill Queen, which, of course, was entirely counterintuitive to the purpose of the book. Although the creation of Warren’s cookbook was not, as she says, “an Eat-Pray-Love type of recovery,” there are few outcomes more empowering than being able to stand on one’s own to do something they were never able to do before.

See Martha Warren’s work at www.carnationpublishers.com Chelsea Comeau is a freelance writer and editor.

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In this Issue Elaine Alec is from the Syilx (Okanagan) Nation and Secwepemc (Shuswap) Nation. A member of the Penticton Indian Band, she started her first business when she was twenty-one years old. Elaine has spent over twenty years in over a hundred communities across Canada to promote healing and wellness with Indigenous knowledge. She recently completed her first book, Calling My Spirit Back.

Jacqueline Larson Carmichael is the author of Heard Amid the Guns: True Stories from the Western Front, 1914– 1918 (Heritage House, 11/03/2020). She is a journalist and editor whose work has appeared in the Edmonton Sun, the Dallas Morning News and Entrepreneur Magazine.

Terry Ann Carter is the author of six collections of long form poetry, two haiku guidebooks, and five haiku chapbooks; and editor of four haiku anthologies. Haiku in Canada: History, Poetry, Memoir (Ekstasis Editions) and Moonflowers: Pioneering Women Haiku Poets in Canada (catkin press) were both published in 2020.

Coming out soon from Jack Pine Press, Blue Moon: The Ono no Komachi Poems. www.terryanncarter.com.

Ian Cognitō is a Van Isle poet who has worked as a language teacher, public speaking instructor, and child and youth care worker. Other incarnations have included theatrical clown, mask maker, contact dancer, and gadfly. Ian’s most recent poetic excursions include Animusings, Much Adieu about Nothing (w.

Pat Smekal), and an anthology featuring 27 Canadian poets entitled Old Bones & Battered Book Ends. repartee@telus.net www.facebook.com/reparteepress.

Jessica Cole is a graduate of The Writer’s Studio at Simon Fraser University.

She writes fiction for adults and teens on Wattpad under the pen name Jess Wesley, where her romantic comedy, Girl Under Construction, is available for purchase.

She lives in Smithers, BC. jesswesley.com.

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Chelsea Comeau is a freelance writer and editor whose work has appeared in Freefall, CV2, Room, subTerrain, and other Canadian literary magazines.

Born and raised in Vancouver, BC, Carolyn Daley served with the Vancouver Police Department for twenty-eight years. During her career she rose through the ranks to deputy chief constable and holds the distinction of being the first woman to do so. She is the author of Vancouver’s Women in Blue (Ruddy Duck Press, 2020). www.cjdaley.ca.

Barb Drozdowich is an author and a technical trainer. She takes her decades of teaching experience and focuses it on the needs of authors and the rapidly evolving publishing world. Barb is the author of 30 books, many YouTube videos, several online courses and she blogs at Bakerview Consulting. She lives in the mountains of British Columbia with her family.

Sara Graefe’s CNF has appeared in Literary Mama, Walk Myself Home, Boobs, and A Family By Any Other Name. She is editor of Swelling with Pride: Queer Conception and Adoption Stories (Caitlin Press/Dagger Editions). Sara teaches in the Creative Writing Program at UBC. Her blog Gay Girls Make Great Moms can be found at https://queermommy.wordpress.com. (saragraefe.com).

Caitlin Hicks is an author, international playwright, and acclaimed performer in BC. Her work has been published on radio and in many periodicals. Her debut novel A Theory of Expanded Love (published in the US in 2015), won numerous awards including iBooks Best New Fiction. Just before the pandemic, she released a podcast called Some Kinda Woman! Stories of Us. www. caitlinhicks.com/wordpress/podcast.

Christine Lowther is the author of Born Out of This, shortlisted for a BC Book Prize. Her poetry books are Half-Blood Poems, My Nature, and New Power. Chris gratefully received the inaugural Rainy Coast Arts Award

for Significant Accomplishment in 2014. Currently she is serving as Poet Laureate of Tofino. https://www.facebook. com/ChristineLowtherAuthor and https://www.facebook. com/tofinopoetlaureate.

Adelia MacWilliam is co-founder of Cascadia Poetics Lab, www.cascadiapoeticslab.ca, which pre-Covid19 produced annual poetry events in Cumberland and the monthly Red Tree reading series and may again some day! She has poems published in Reckoning 3 and 4, Sweet Water: Poems for the Watershed and more recently, Drift, an anthology of poets of the Comox Valley.

Vicki McLeod is a writer, coach and award-winning entrepreneur. Her four non-fiction books explore being fully human in a technical world. Her short story “Georgie” was longlisted for the 2020 CBC nonfiction prize; “My People Came Down from the Mountains” won the BC-Yukon 2020 Flash Fiction prize. A graduate of the SFU Writers Studio, she leads workshops, writes poetry and personal essays and bakes bread. vickimcleod.com.

Mary Ann Moore encourages others to write their stories through Writing Life, a women’s writing circle; poetry circles; and various writing resources. One of them is Writing to Map Your Spiritual Journey. Her personal essays and poetry have been published in several anthologies. Fishing for Mermaids is Mary Ann’s book of poetry (Leaf Press). www. maryannmoore.ca.

Barbara Pelman is a retired high school English teacher, and poet. She often conducts poetry workshops in her home, and is a frequent participant and assistant at Planet Earth Poetry. She has three published books of poetry, and four chapbooks. In 2018 her glosa, “Nevertheless” won the Malahat Open Season Poetry Contest. Her poems can be found in anthologies as well as in various literary journals.

Anuradha Rao is a Registered Professional Biologist, writer and facilitator with a focus on coastal and marine ecosystems. She has worked on research, conservation, mapping, planning, policy, restoration and stewardship projects across Canada and in 12 other countries. She is the author of the book One Earth: People of Color Protecting Our Planet (Orca, 2020) and more than two dozen other publications in academic and popular media.

Nicholas Read has published two YA novels and eight works of non-fiction, all of them about animals. Many were done in partnership with his photographer friend, Ian McAllister,

executive director of Pacific Wild. A Home Away From Home is coming from Heritage House in November. It’s about sanctuaries for exotic animals. And he’s now working on a book about Critter Care, a wildlife refuge in Langley, also for Heritage House. https://shop.pacificwild.org.

Rob Taylor is the author of four poetry collections, including the forthcoming Strangers (Biblioasis, 2021). He is also the editor of What the Poets Are Doing: Canadian Poets in Conversation and the guest editor of Best Canadian Poetry 2019. He lives in Port Moody, BC, with his wife and children.

Naomi Beth Wakan has written over fifty books including her recent trilogy, The Way of Haiku, The Way of Tanka and Poetry that Heals (Shanti Arts). She is the Inaugural Poet Laureate of Nanaimo and the Inaugural Honorary Ambassador for the BCFW. Her recent book, On the Arts, was published in spring 2020, and is also from Shanti Arts. http:// www.shantiarts.co/uploads/files/vwxyz/WAKAN_ARTS. html www.naomiwakan.com.

Ann Graham Walker studied with Canadian Master poet Patrick Lane and had poems published in the chapbooks Lane edited, as well as in the Rocksalt Anthology of Contemporary BC Poetry and Poems from Planet Earth. The Puzzle at the End of Love was published

by Leaf Press. Ann worked for many years as a CBC radio and print journalist. She has an MFA in Creative Writing from Goddard College.

Martha Warren’s diverse writing projects have ranged from fairy stories, to cooking, to aspects of law. A graduate of SFU’s Writer’s Studio, her work has appeared in The LCP’s Poetry Pause and Fresh Voices, Headline Press, the Red Alder Review, and others. She reviews poetry for The Poetry Question and is working on her first novel. @m_warren_writer www.carnationpublishing.com.

Michael Dylan Welch is a Canadian living near Seattle, where he served two terms as Poet Laureate of Redmond, Washington. He cofounded the Haiku North America conference in 1991 and the American Haiku Archives in 1996, founded the Tanka Society of America in 2000, the Seabeck Haiku Getaway in 2008, and National Haiku Writing Month (www.nahaiwrimo.com) in 2010. www.graceguts.com.

2021 Volume I ︱ WORDWORKS 27

Launched!

New titles from FBCW members Midnight Thoughts: A Fusion Of Poetry And Visual Arts Annick Lemay | Rutherford Press, 2020 | ISBN: 978-1-988739-41-0 | $44.95 Poetry from a person in love with life’s vivid colours. Paintings that describe scenes in a thousand words. Photographs that reach through the eyes to the mind of a sensitive observer. Midnight thoughts come with eyes dreamily closed and minds wide open. “Easy to read, the kind of poetry that gives you ease and comfort. A gorgeous art book to be kept close by and to be read one poem a day or one poem in need. Like a friend, this poetry comforts, guides and reassures. Written with honesty and a clear sense of love for life!” Thierry Amezcua, New York. Available through Chapters and from the publisher, Rutherford Press https://rutherfordpress.ca.

Loose Ends Brian d’Eon | Wipf and Stock, 2020 | ISBN: 978-1-725271-43-2 | $18.00 USD How did Lazarus cope after being raised from the dead? Did he simply return to his normal routines? During Jesus’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem, what was the donkey thinking? If a stone had the gift of sentience, what witness would it have given to the woman caught in the act of adultery? These are but a few of the questions posed by the author in his collection of short stories, Loose Ends. Inspired by countless generations of midrash writers, d’Eon looks for ways to join piety and imagination together, searching for new meaning in stories whose long familiarity may have blunted their original impact.

Vancouver’s Women in Blue - Trailblazers of the Vancouver Police Department 1904–1975 Carolyn J. Daley | Ruddy Duck Press | ISBN: 978-1-999279-20-2 | $20.00 Vancouver’s Women in Blue is the groundbreaking account of the first 125 women who served with the VPD. Theirs is the story of women who first served as matrons and the slow, twisting path their role travelled as it evolved into assignments as fully operational police constables. Foreword by Bev Busson, RCMP Commissioner (retired) and endorsed by the Honourable Wally Oppal, QC.

Finding Heartstone: A Taste of Wilderness Cathy Sosnowsky | Caitlin Press, 2020 | ISBN: 978-1-773860-34-3 Finding Heartstone tells of a house in the wilderness and its builders, a family marked by abandonment, grief, separation. With well-chosen and often poetic detail, Cathy Sosnowsky shows how, over decades, the art of construction enriches all their lives. (Review by Cynthia Flood, author of The English Stories.)

Dispatches from Ray’s Planet: A Journey through Autism Claire Finlayson | Caitlin Press, 2020 | ISBN: 978-1-773860-30-5 | $24.95 Finlayson’s debut memoir is based on her relationship with a brother who didn’t know he was autistic until he was fifty. “On my planet,” he always insisted, “telling little white lies would be a capital offense.” His anxiety in social situations only increases his propensity toward verbal gaffes. But in writing—where he has time and space to formulate a response—he has no communication deficits whatsoever. Ray patiently explains how the mechanism of empathy works in him, and how eye contact is difficult, not because he doesn’t care about people, but because he sees too much. Together, these siblings from different “planets” study the complexities of autism spectrum disorder, and learn to appreciate, if not quite understand, each other.

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Cosmic Bowling Cornelia Hoogland and Ted Goodden | Guernica Editions, 2020 | ISBN: 978-1-771835-37-4 Cosmic Bowling is a pause button, a tiny meditation room a reader can slip into between twitter storms. Based on the I Ching, here are sixty-four human situations that can illuminate a reader’s present moment, provide perspective. The collaboration with Ted Goodden, visual artist, is composed of six-line poems and figurative sculptures.

Created with haiku-like brevity, they are “windows, open to the stars.” Cosmic Bowling is a book for the briefcase, the backpack, and the Vancouver Transit System. One of eight books chosen by WORD VANCOUVER to travel the buses for the next year! This is Hoogland’s seventh book of poetry. Previous books such as Trailer Park Elegy and Woods Wolf Girl have been short listed for national prizes. www.corneliahoogland.com.

A Manual for Perfect People D.B. Sertaine | Monsoon Thundercloud Books (Indie) | ISBN: 979-8615038-61-7 | $6.61 A little satire for troubled times. Putative author Dr. Randolph Pandolphian provides guidance for perfect people.

Less than perfect editor D.B. Sertaine received the manuscript’s first draft late at night near an ATM machine. The manual is Sertaine’s eighth book.

Dominion of Mercy Danial Neil | NeWest Press, 2021 | ISBN: 978-1-774390-20-7 | $20.95 Edinburgh, 1917: Headstrong Highland lass Mary Stewart is a vibrant woman forced into the world’s oldest profession in order to provide for her ailing father and younger sister in the city’s Old Town. When her uncle, a well-to-do solicitor with political aspirations, thinks that her presence might impede his lofty ambitions he gives her a way out with dignity: a one-way ticket to the frontier town of Anyox, British Columbia. She must survive by her quick intelligence, but that is a quality that few women were allowed to reveal. Danial Neil’s historical epic combines the gritty feel and attention to detail of HBO’s Deadwood with the Canadian sensibility of Guy Vanderhaeghe’s frontier trilogy.

Magda’s Odyssey Deanna Barnhardt Kawatski | 2020 | ISBN: 978-1-777085-80-3 | $21.95 “Brimming with adventures and heart, Magda’s Odyssey takes its reader by the hand and won’t let go. Magda and her twin sister, Mariel, are determined to reunite. In this beautifully written story they cross continents and oceans in order to do so. Never daunted, they are helped on their journeys by beloved animals and the kindness of unexpected friends. You’ll learn how to survive in the wild, and to fight for your dreams. Full of magical landscapes and a wise and deep love of the natural world, Magda’s Odyssey is a treasure.” Marjorie Simmins, award-winning author.

Leah’s Gift Destanne Norris | Balboa Press, 2020 | ISBN: 978-1-982250-58-4 | $20.95 USD How do you live with the unanswerable questions that surface when someone you love dies? This question and others lie beneath visual artist Destanne Norris’s voyage through the mysteries that shroud life and death. In this story, Norris journeys through the loss of her daughter as she illuminates her artworks—some of which were created before her daughter was born—that were mounted in an exhibition entitled “Leah’s Gift.” Through her narrative and paintings, she reveals how she navigated grief and learned to reframe her questions to find new purpose and meaning in life.

Stillwaters Runs Deep, Book Three: The Awakening Frank Talaber | 2020 | ISBN: 978-1-777092-85-6 | $17.95 How angry would a mythical god be if he found himself awakening inside a mortal? After a strange and inexplicable death inside a jail, an intriguing and extraordinary shaman detects great unrest in the world, and breaks his way into the jail to investigate. He enlists Detective Carol Ainsworth to assist as an undercover prison officer who, rather strangely, also finds herself tasked with bringing to justice the murderer of a gentle forest being’s mother.

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Permanent Tourists Genni Gunn | Signature Editions, 2020 | ISBN: 978-1773240-80-0 and 978-1773240-81-7 Permanent Tourists is a collection of linked short stories. From Canada, the USA, Thailand, Cambodia, Mexico, and Italy, the characters are less thrill-seeking tourists on vacation than they are P.K. Page’s “terrible tourists with their empty eyes longing to be filled with monuments.” What they’re looking for cannot be found in any postcard destination. Within the unfamiliar, these characters’ problems resurface to be confronted and re-examined.

Permanent Tourists presents physical, emotional and psychological tourists, all striving to delve more deeply into themselves, their friendships, their families, their love relationships, and ultimately, to spur themselves to action.

Harking George Mercer | 2020 | ISBN: 978-0-987975-48-5 | $19.99 After her parents’ divorce and the discovery of a series of cryptic notes left behind after her father is killed in an avalanche, Harking Thompson struggles to come to her own understanding of love, loss and what really matters.

Caught up in a battle to save a mother grizzly bear and her cubs, Harking’s fight to protect the wildlife and wild places she loves teaches her a brutal truth: sometimes saving a life might mean losing another you love even more.

Skookum Raven Heather Haley | Ekstasis Editions, 2020 | ISBN: 978-1-771713-90-0 | $23.95 There are some rough and wild birds around Howe Sound—West Coast avians like the sharp-shinned hawk, the northern harrier, and the whiskey-jack. Heather Haley, an accomplished mapper of human migration, pair-bonding and predation, takes these feathered frenemies as her starting point in this assured third collection, Skookum Raven. Like her foremothers and contemporaries Gwendolyn MacEwen, Susan Musgrave and Karen Solie, Haley writes sophisticated free lyrics of a witchy feminist kind—but adds some proletarian ferocity with her bus-station grandpas and sketches of iffy guys like Ed the Fence. These are astute, austere poems which sometimes take flight into optimistic beauty—this book is “pockmarked with luck.”

The President’s Great & Unmatched Wisdom for Children & Their Parents Jack Nealon | 2020 | ISBN: 978-0-968360-34-7 | Donald Trump teaches parents twenty-six lessons on what their children must learn so they can grow up to be just like him. Humorous political satire written in The President’s voice and cuts to the bone. A deadly accurate fiction that will keep you laughing and appal you in equal measure. This is the Trump tell-all book as told by Trump himself. It is an accurate account of lessons the 45th president of the United States is relentlessly, insidiously teaching Americans, including their children—lessons that affect all of us wherever we live in the world. I believe the stark pairing of young kids with this self-obsessed man offers up a revealing shift in perspective from the usual discourse on Trump.

Small Courage: A Queer Memoir of Finding Love and Conceiving Family Jane Byers | Caitlin Press, Dagger Editions, 2020 | ISBN: 978-1-773860-40-4 Rarely do we know what life will hold. When starting the adoption process, Jane Byers and her wife could not have predicted the illuminating and challenging experience of living for two weeks with the Evangelical Christian foster parents of their soon-to-be-adopted twins. Parenthood becomes even more daunting when homophobia threatens their beginnings as a family. A moving and poetic memoir, this is an examination of love, queerness and what it means to be a family.

Still Waters Kamal Parmar | Silver Bow Publishing, 2020 | ISBN: 978-1-774031-24-7 In a slender and tender volume, poet Kamal Parmar brings to twilight life a mother/daughter struggle with encroaching memory loss. Still Waters is sensitive, touching, honest, even gritty, a compelling read that asks the question: Who am I? “Am I a young girl in ponytails with stars in her eyes? Or am I an old decrepit woman ? A thought-provoking book, that highlights the pathos and helplessness of humans facing this problem.

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I will be corrupted Joseph Dandurand | Guernica Editions, 2020 | ISBN: 978-1-771835-06-0 | $20.00 I will be corrupted are poems about a man who suffers from serious depression but is able to appear normal and live somewhat of a normal life. And yet what he sees and experiences in his every day become poems and an insight into the mind of a kind and gentle person who wants to understand why he is here.

The Next Casebook of Doctor Sababa Lawrence Winkler | 2020 | ISBN: 1988429560 | $24.99 Six original stories of survival, suspense, and satire from the Sage of the Salish Sea. Sharpen your pencils. Put on your thinking caps. Like the Good Doctor, you will have six minutes to see each patient. Don’t be alarmed. Think of it as an intellectual challenge. With lives in the balance.

The Little Breadwinner: War and Survival in the Salvadoran Heartland Lucia Mann | Operion Books, Agoura Hills, CA, 2020 | ISBN: 978-0-985603-93-9 “There is no crown more worthy than a child breadwinner.”

Float House Family Favourites.

Myrtle Siebert | 2020 | ISBN: 978-0-988070-93-6 | $22.00 This book was written for young people and new cooks who may need a few dependable recipes and methods to help them prepare tasty and healthy meals for themselves, their housemates, and their family members. These are recipes that I and my family members have depended on since I graduated university and began teaching, and feeding my own family.

Luyten’s Star Nasreen Pejvack | 2020 | ISBN: 978-1-775322-38-2 Nasreen Pejvack’s debut novel Amity was published by Inanna Publications in October of 2015 and was a finalist for a BC Book Prize. Her Paradise of the Downcasts, a collection of short tales and essays inspired by her experiences of life in Canada, and Waiting, a collection of poems, were published 2018. In Pejvack’s stories, her characters give expression to her life’s learning and experiences in order to relate narratives relevant to the concerns of our time. Luyten’s Star is her newest publication, a sci-fi novel which further speaks to the environmental and economic issues facing us all, while also taking us on a journey to the stars.

Serious Court: Confessions of a Prison Judge Nelson M. Tsui, Q.C. | W & Y Cultural Products Co., 2020 | ISBN: 978-1-896672-43-4 | $22.00 This is a book about Canadian federal prison inmates and the disciplinary court (officially known as the Serious Court) from the perspective of a prison judge. It contains real stories of prison inmates—many are hilarious, most are heartbreaking, and all of them are unique due to the unusual environment from which these stories arise.

Behind these stories is an overarching theme which the writer, a former prison judge, returns to throughout: an emphasis that prison authorities should observe the rule of law when disciplining inmates, and that all parties— the staff members, the Indigenous counsellors, and even the inmates—should take Serious Court seriously, pun intended.

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Painted Fences Sara Cassidy | Heritage House, 2020 | ISBN: 978-1-772033-51-9 | $19.95 A charming and evocative story within a story, exploring themes of wartime resourcefulness, local history, friendship, and the reverberations of the past in the present day. On a beautiful spring day in Victoria’s James Bay neighbourhood, eight-year-old Esther takes a walk with her great-grandfather on his birthday.

On the same street and the same date, but seventy-five years earlier, two enterprising young boys go door to door offering to give people’s fences a fresh coat of paint so that they can earn a few extra cents in an era of wartime austerity. When her great-grandfather shows Esther a chip in a fence that reveals every colour it has ever been painted, Esther learns just how close the past is.

Haven Hold Shelley Penner | RCN Media, 2020 | ISBN: 978-1-989898-02-4 In a future where mutants are considered “devil’s spawn,” fit only for slavery, Daniel’s mutant eyes mark him.

Betrayed, hunted and driven into the northern wilderness, he lives alone, until one day he risks his life to save two normal holders and wins the chance to find true friendship at last, if he can only bring himself to trust again.

Nothing You Can Carry Susan Alexander | Thistledown Press, 2020 | ISBN: 978-1-771871-98-3 | $20.00 Nothing You Can Carry is rooted in a keen, even holy, sense of place within the natural world. These poems take an honest, sometimes ironic and sometimes broken-hearted look at how the self and society are implicated in our climate crisis and the systemic complexities surrounding it. Yet life goes on. The collection moves through environmental fears and spills into all the areas that absorb the self—memory, story, family, love. These poems are vivid and vulnerable, humorous and emotional. They summon the deeper mysteries of being human in a world that is increasingly separate from the sacred.

Miss Harriet’s Wedding Valerie Fletcher Adolph | 2020 | ISBN: 978662913493 Someone plans to prevent Miss Harriet’s wedding. Can Alice and Trudy outwit his sinister plans? England, 1947, Princess Elizabeth marries Phillip Mountbatten. Also the elderly, shy Miss Harriet is venturing to marry John Prentiss. But problems arise including a plan to abduct the bride. The abductor has not reckoned with the Avalon hotel guests—including the always military Colonel Starr, frequent fainter Fay, name-dropper Mrs. Shand, the politically incorrect Calvin and cousin Mike, Gluedog and the friendly detective Kenneth Wilson. This is light reading for our time, the second in the Alice and Trudy historical mysteries, about which one reader said: “Really enjoyed this gem. Would definitely read more from this author.”

Old Bones & Battered Book Ends Ian Cognitō, Pat Smekal, Eds. | Repartee Press, 2020 | ISBN: 978-1-775133-94-0 | $15.00 In this poetry anthology, twenty-seven poets from BC and beyond explore the topic of ageing—its impacts and its implications. The poems in this collection explore this topic with humour and compassion as the authors tap into both the universal and the personal. “We stand with stiffening spines, and we lean on others, here, between the battered book ends of our lives. We are neither failing to be young at heart nor succeeding at ageing gracefully but carrying on with an appetite for living.” (From the foreword by Anne Marie Carson.) Contact: repartee@telus.net.

Shades of Loss Jule Briese | 2020 | ISBN: 978-0-995080-53-9 | $25.00 Shades of Loss is a collaborative memoir in photography, poetry and prose creating an opportunity for photography to capture the essence of the written text. The focus is on how shades of loss have shaped my life. I believe reconciled losses stimulate inner growth and move life forward in ways totally unexpected. The nature photographs in this book were taken on Vancouver Island by my niece Kashmir Lesnick-Petrovicz currently enrolled in the Fine Arts Program, minoring in Global Studies, at VIU, Nanaimo, BC. The book can be ordered through tranquilshorescreative@gmail.com. A fund-raiser for Kashmir’s education account.

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