January / February 2011 Freelance

Freelance January/February 2011 Volume 40 Number 1

Welcome Saskatchewan's new Poet Laureate, Don Kerr. Don's term runs until December 2012. To learn more about the SWG's Poet Laureate program, please visit our web site at www.skwriter.com.

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Features Volume 40 Number 1 January/February 2011 SWG STAFF Executive Director: Judith Silverthorne Education and Publications Officer, and Freelance Managing Editor: Beth McLean Finance Officer: Lois Salter Program Officer: Tracy Hamon (Regina) Program Coordinator: Pam Bustin (Saskatoon) Administrative Assistant: Milena Dzordeski Cover: Hans Donmasch

Freelance is published six times per year for members of the Saskatchewan Writers' Guild. Submissions to Freelance are welcome for editorial review. If accepted, articles will be edited for clarity. The basic criteria to meet in submitting materials are readership interest, timeliness, and quality. Viewpoints expressed in contributed articles are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the position of the SWG. Copyright remains with the writer and cannot be reprinted without permission. Services advertised are not necessarily endorsed by the SWG. Payment for reports and articles is $80 per printed page. Deadline for Freelance copy is the 1st of the month prior to the month of publication.

Saskatchewan Writers' Guild membership fees are $75 per year ($55 for full-time students or seniors). Membership (with full voting privileges) is open to writers or other individuals with an interest in writing, reading, or the oral tradition of literature.

President's Report

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Executive Director's Report

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News

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2010 Saskatchewan Book Awards

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Saskatoon Shenanigans: Writing North

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Talking Fresh 9

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Profile: Brenda Niskala

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From Here to Infinity (part 1)

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The Space-Time Continuum

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And Another Thing ...

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The Secrets We Carry

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Books by Members

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Markets

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Freelance ISSN 0705-1379 BOARD OF DIRECTORS Cathy Fenwick, President, Regina Jerry Haigh, Past President, Saskatoon Lisa Wilson, Vice President, Saskatoon George Khng, Treasurer, Saskatoon Martine NoĂŤl-Maw, Secretary, Regina Danica Lorer, Maidstone R. P. MacIntyre, La Ronge Scott Miller, Estevan Marilyn Poitras, Saskatoon Kelly-Anne Riess, Regina Ex-Officio: Judith Silverthorne Mailing Address: Saskatchewan Writers' Guild Box 3986, Regina, SK S4P 3R9

We gratefully acknowledge the support of SaskCulture, Saskatchewan Lotteries Trust Fund and the Saskatchewan Arts Board

Courier or Drop-off Address: 205–2314 11th Avenue Regina, SK S4P 0K1 Phone: (306)757-6310 Toll Free: 1-800-667-6788 Fax: (306)565-8554 Email: info@skwriter.com or education@skwriter.com Web site: www.skwriter.com 2

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President's Report Winter is one of my favourite seasons of the year. It’s a time of solitude and reflection, a time when things slow down after a hectic autumn and before the spring rush. My work as an educator and public speaker takes me away from home and into crowds of people, small and large—this solitary interlude offers time to think, make plans for the coming year and recharge my batteries.

I received many literary gifts for Christmas, including a couple of the books on the Giller Prize shortlist, a bookstore gift card so I may buy more of the books nominated for the Saskatchewan Book Awards this year, and a subscription to The New Yorker.

I’m set for some good reading this winter.

I think about the writers who produce these literary works.

I think about what it must be like for those who make writing their fulltime career—working in solitude, accepting financial insecurity, unsure about how their work will be received. I have been self-employed for the last 18 years and have some understanding of the feelings of financial insecurity and uncertainty.

Being self-employed is similar to being unemployed in that we are constantly looking for work and looking for work is the hardest job there is. To be a fulltime writer means always looking—not so much for work, because the work is endless—but looking to get paid for our work. There are times when self-employed people work hard to drum up paid work; for writers every submission is a new job application. Every new piece of writing is like starting a new job, one that isn’t assured of success. There are times when we take on more work than we can comfortably manage, work that often has deadlines that must be met. I admire writers, not only for their much-appreciated creations, but also for their dedication and fortitude, which is why I feel good about working on your behalf as an SWG board member.

The stress of being a writer can come from feelings of rejection one might suffer as our work is scrutinized and rejected by agents, editors and publishers, as well as the potential for critique from anyone who reads what we’ve written once it’s been accepted and printed. The things that helped me most in coping with the fear of critique when I started speaking in front of large audiences about my philosophy of humour and healing included lots of self-talk: “I believe in this.

I want to do this. This work is important.” When the fear became almost overwhelming, my self-talk went to, “I’ll offer what I have to offer, what people do with it is up to them.” Once I let go of the will to control what other people think of me and my work I was able to comfortably continue. As an introverted and shy person, public speaking was very stressful in the beginning. To help keep things in perspective and alleviate some stress, my self-talk turned to, “When I speak to 2000 people in this audience, they are hearing me as individuals—I will speak as though there is only one person listening to my words.”

When we write, we write for individuals—each reader will have his/her own perspective on our work. Another important thought for me was, “I will find ways to make this more fun.”

I wanted to continue, so I created ways to make the travel and speaking more enjoyable.

Self-talk, though you might call it something else, is most likely the way writers get through the tough times in their career.

In addition to the regular stressors of life, writers must contend with the perceptions other people may have that our work isn’t “really work.” What’s so hard about putting words on paper? Anyone can do that. Real work involves doing something.

Is thinking real work? How stressful could it be to think and write? Miners, firefighters, police officers, air traffic controllers, waiters, secretaries, carpenters, stonemasons—those are real jobs with real stress. I remember a report Bob Calder wrote in Freelance a few years ago, reflecting on how others see his work at times as “not work.” He wrote that he was

First Nations Reading Series Featuring Rosanna Deerchild Author Rosanna Deerchild kicks off the First Nations Readings Series in Regina.

Thursday, March 24, 2011 Time: 11:30 a.m.

Rosanna Deerchild is Cree from South Indian Lake, Manitoba. Her first book of poetry, this is a small northern town, won the 2009 Aqua Books Lansdowne Prize for Poetry/prix Lansdowne de poésie. Rosanna was nominated for the 2009 John Hirsch Award for Most Promising Manitoba Writer.

She has been published in literary magazines such as Prairie Fire, dark leisure, Contemporary Verse 2, and Post-Prairie: Anthology of New Poetry. She is a member of the Aboriginal Writers Collective, which produced two chapbooks, urban kool and Bone Memory, and a spoken word CD, Red City. She lives in Winnipeg where she works in broadcasting.

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lounging in his boat, on the lake in the summer, reading. He was actually working—his work is reading, writing and teaching.

A university professor friend of mine told me about the look of surprise on his neighbour’s face when in reply to his question about how many hours a week he spends in the classroom, he said, “eight hours.” I believe my friend actually works more than 60 hours a week researching, thinking and writing, but the perception is that he has only eight hours of “doing” work in a week. A writer friend said the other day that she feels she’s working all the time, because she’s always thinking about the characters in her stories or what she will write next, or where to market her work, or what else she could do with a certain idea.

It can be difficult to find a life balance in a realm of uncertainty and sometimes overwhelming stress. Dr. Hans Selye, a renowned Canadian physician and author of Stress Without Distress said, “Stress is the spice of life.” He wrote about how we can use stress as a positive force to achieve a creative and rewarding life. While too much distress can stifle creativity, the good stress (Selye calls it "eustress") is motivating and energizing. Eustress is having the right amount and

the right kind of stress to give us the edge we need to do our best work. The secret is to develop healthy rather than unhealthy responses to distress.

My healthy responses to stress include exercise, healthy diet, reading for pleasure, relaxation techniques, getting enough sleep, time with family and friends, rewards for successes, stop-worry techniques that include focussing on the task at hand, getting organized and not procrastinating, self-talk and paying attention to the things that matter most.

I like to read books from many genres and when I need to reduce stress or boost my laughter quotient, I read comedy (David Sedaris, Miriam Toews, Donna Caruso, and Will Ferguson come to mind). I appreciate writers who masterfully incorporate humour into their storytelling.

This past year I read, and thoroughly enjoyed, Pam Bustin’s Mostly Happy. The words of Gustave Peterson, which Pam chose to quote at the beginning of her book, got my attention immediately, "Life’s a tightrope baby. Don’t look down."

Bustin’s character Bean learns It’s well known that too much to cope, recover and hang on to stress for too long can lead to her sense of humour in the most fatigue and illness. Psycholo- stressful of circumstances. gists Dr. Suzanne Kobasa and Dr. Salvadore Maddi in their I say again to our Saskatchewan University of Chicago study writers: what you do matters. surveyed hundreds of people to The SWG staff, membership, discover how those with high financial supporters and board stress lives were able to handle of directors care about what you the stress without becoming do, we are here to support your fatigued or ill. They reported excellent work. Take heart and that people who cope well with keep writing so the rest of the high stress share the following world may continue to enjoy the characteristics: fruits of your labours.

• they feel in control of their lives, I hope to see you at our SWG • they view unexpected events Spring Fling Fundraiser (Funas challenges rather than time Stress Reducer) in Regina threats, on April 9. For more informa• they feel committed to what tion, see the ad on page seven. they’re doing, • and they maintain a good Best regards, sense of humour.

Cathy Fenwick

Executive Director's Report of households across the province, this show began broadcasting on Monday, January 24 at 3:30 p.m.. One episode is shown every week with repeats on Wednesdays and Fridays. Although this 13-part series has entertainment value, it is also to encourage teachers, librarians and parents to read to kids, and most importantly, from our perspective, to promote Saskatchewan authors and the SWG. The full schedule is on our web site (www.skwriter. com). The show is expected to Being televised in approximately go into a second season and 220 communities and thousands we will be putting a call out December rolled by with the open house Christmas parties in both Saskatoon and Regina connected by Skype, and slowly faded away to the holiday season with not much action happening outside the SWG offices, but plenty to keep us all busy within. January started with a jolt into a spate of meetings that have resulted in some positive new and ongoing ventures, including the launching of the new ACCESS7 TV show, Bookworm’s Corner.

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for more picture book authors at that time.

Please help us in welcoming Lois Salter CA, SWG’s new part-time accountant. Lois brings a wealth of experience with her that will serve the Guild and the SWG Foundation well. We bid Amanda Iles a fond farewell and grateful note of thanks for her expertise in the interim. Amanda, already with several years accounting experience, has recently graduated with a Bachelor of Business Administration and has gone on to full-time employment as an accountant/auditor.

Key additions to the Guild web site are done, most notably the home page with the events calendar and photo slideshow. This is the springboard for further changes and we welcome your input on what else you’d like to see. Please note that the web transformation is still a work in progress and some of the content has not been updated, added, moved, etc., but we anticipate achieving a great deal over the coming months.

We had a very well-attended Poet Laureate reception at Government House on January 10, officially launching Don Kerr's appointment for the next two years.

Writing North was launched at the University of Saskatchewan in January and will be followed by the ninth annual Talking Fresh in Regina on March 4 and 5.

Please see page 13 for more information. Our youth writing workshops through the City of Regina Community grant begin in February and run for two months in conjunction with the Blasting Thru Stereotypes program (http:// www.blastingthrustereotypes. ca).

applications. For those wanting to do some marketing, the SWG has reserved a booth at the 2011 Regina Teachers’ Convention and Trade Show on February 26, which is open to all SWG members.

Another opportunity for our more established members is to serve on the Retreat Committee with the dedicated group that adjudicates participants for several of our annual retreats, currently held at Emma Lake and St. Peter’s Abbey. Meetings are only held two or three times a year, with one in person and the others by teleconference or Internet means suitable to the committee members. Criteria is available on page 21.

Aboriginal writers are welcome to attend the first Aboriginal Writers Retreat to be held March 20 to 27 at the Spring Valley Guest Ranch near Ravenscrag. The cost is only $275 per week for Saskatchewan Writers' Guild members and $350 for non-members, which includes accommodations, meals and a great opportunity to experience the peacefulness of writing in the Cypress Hills area of the province.

Reserve your spot before 4:30 p.m. on Friday, February 25, 2011, by sending in your application at: (http://www.skwriter.co m/?s=retreats&p=2010retreata pplicationform).

founders and advocate of the arts passed away on January 15, at the age of 95. Please see page 7 for more information about Mossie.

Planning for some fun in the future? Cathy Fenwick, Susan Hogarth and I have been meeting to discuss the arrangements for the SWG Spring Fling fundraising dance. Get ready to kick up your heels on April 9 at the Austrian Canadian Edelweiss Club in Regina. The Canadian Drifters, a very popular dance band, will provide the music, and tickets are only $15 each. There will be lunch, draws, and door prizes, all in the name of raising funds for youth writing programs. All SWG members are welcome, along with the general public. Besides a fun event for raising funds, the dance is to further engage the interest of the general public in Guild services and programs.

If anyone is interested in volunteering to help at the dance, we’d love to include you. Hope to see you all there!

Other plans on the horizon are well in the works with plenty of professional development opportunities, readings and events.

Keep checking our new web calendar for details. As always we welcome your suggestions and comments.

Remember to enter Grain’s 23rd Annual Short Grain (with Variations) contest (http://www.grainmagazine.ca/contest.htm and watch for results of the City of Regina Writing Award and Spring All the best, magazine. If you’re interested in In other news, we were saddened Judith Silverthorne editing Spring, or in manuscript to learn that Mossie Hancock, evaluating, please submit your one of the Guild’s esteemed

Welcome New Members Kim Aubrey, Saskatoon Jeff Baker, Saskatoon Sharon Bird, Christopher Lake Ruth Blaser, Regina Kelley Jo Burke, Regina Sarah Coolican, Regina Derek Finnik, Regina Evonne Garnett, Prince Albert Michelle Greysen, Lethbridge Dona Gudjonson, Saskatoon Diane Halvorsen, Regina Christian Hardy, Regina Beach Bonnie Hastings, Delisle Cali Hastings, Delisle

Michael Katzberg, Regina Elizabeth Kuzma, Saskatoon Lisa Lee, Regina Randy Lundy, Pense Jenna Mann, Saskatoon Kamelle MacIntyre, Saskatoon Suzanne McNabb, Estevan John Murray, Saskatoon Crystal Parrish, Regina Michelle Schatz, Regina Jim Stockdale, Air Ronge Lara Stoudt, Vibank Lesley Washington, Saskatoon

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NEWS SWG Founder Mossie Hancock Passes Away We're very sad to report that SWG founder Mossie passed away on January 15.

Mossie Ida (McCrae) Hancock was born September 14, 1915 in Mervin, Saskatchewan near Lloydminster, where she moved as a child and took most of her schooling. As well as a writer, Mossie was an accomplished pianist and enjoyed a significant career as a soloist and duo-pianist with her husband of more than 30 years, Gordon Hancock; their many performances included Mozart's Concerto in E Flat with the Regina Symphony Orchestra. She also taught piano and theory for more than 30 years, including 13 years at the University of Regina Conservatory of Music. Mossie had a long and illustrious association with the Saskatchewan Music Festival Association as a performer and teacher. She was the first adjudicator, and the first woman, to adjudicate at music festivals in all ten provinces. She and Gordon were co-hosts from 1959-1974 for the classic music appreciation programs "As We Like It" and "The Music of Man" on CKCK radio, Regina. Mossie reviewed music, opera, ballet, theatre and literature for 14 years on CBC Radio (Saskatchewan, National, and International services).

She was also an actress on radio, in film, and on stage, receiving a Best Actress award from the Dominion Drama Festival. As a writer, she created comedy sketches for CBC, wrote award-winning stage plays, and documentaries for the Saskatchewan Department of Education, including "Faces and Places of South America," for which she and Gordon also took all the photographs. She also wrote for the Canada Music Book and Musicanada. Her most memorable writing project was the commissioned history of the Saskatchewan Music Festival Association, Music for One: Music for All, published in 1989. Mossie's many honours included an award from the Province of Saskatchewan for her significant contributions to Canada and the world beyond, Honorary Life Memberships from the Canadian Federation of Music Festivals and the Saskatchewan Music Festival Association, and a Founder's Award from the Saskatchewan Writers' Guild.

A celebration of Mossie's life will be held in the spring. An online book of condolences may be signed at www.speersfuneralchapel.com; http://www.speersfuneralchapel.com/.

More information about Mossie is available at: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/saskatchewan/ story/2011/01/19/sk-mossie-hancock-110119.html.

Welcome Lois Salter We are pleased to welcome Lois Salter as the new SWG accountant. Lois is a Chartered Accountant with over 18 years of extensive and diversified experience in accounting, auditing, and advisory services both in public accounting firms and in government. Her most recent employment was as the Director of Financial Services in the Ministry of Municipal Affairs which provided data entry and professional accounting services for up to four ministries. Lois has three daughters, one son-in-law, two dogs, and is quite involved with volunteer activities.

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SWG Spring Fling Fundraising Dance The Spring Fling on April 9 is an opportunity for us to mix and mingle with fellow Guild members, and the general public, cut a rug, raise the roof and ring in the spring season. We'll enjoy great music by The Canadian Drifters, dancing and conversation, while raising funds to help support SWG youth programs.

Spring Fling Dance Fundraiser

Music by “The Canadian Drifters”

The Canadian Drifters band has strong “Old Time” roots, with a nice mix of country, tangos & swing and good old Rock n’ Roll.

The Canadian Drifters are known for their melodic blend of accordion and saxophone and professional vocals. The band has strong “old time” roots, with a nice mix of country, tangos, swing, and good old rock n’ roll.

Tickets to the Spring Fling SWG Fundraiser are only $15 and available at Bach and Beyond, the Austrian Club and the SWG office.

Saturday, April 9, 2011 8-12pm; lunch at 10:30pm

Lieutenant Governor's Reception for Poet Laureate Don Kerr

Austrian Club 320 Maxwell Crescent

On January 10, His Honour, the Honourable Tickets $15/person Tickets are available at Bach & Beyond, Austrian Club and SWG office Dr. Gordon L. Barnhart, S.O.M., Ph.D, LieutenFor more information, please inquire at 791.7740 or info@skwriter.com ant Governor of Saskatchewan announced Don Kerr's appointment as the 2011-2012 Poet Laureate of Saskatchewan. Also in attendance that evening were the former Poet Laureates Robert Currie of Moose Jaw, and Louise Halfe of Saskatoon.

Mark Taylor

Don Kerr is a poet, dramatist, fiction and non-fiction writer living in Saskatoon.

Kerr has published nine books of poetry, with the most recent, The Dust of Just Beginning, being shortlisted in the 2010 Saskatchewan Book Awards for poetry.

His plays have been produced at 25th Street Theatre and at the Greystone. He has had extensive editorial experience on Grain and the boards of Coteau Books and NeWest Press, as press editor for books of poetry and politics, and has been a mentor to emerging writers. He currently lives in Saskatoon.

Bookworm’s Corner A new opportunity was launched in January to encourage literacy and promote the creations of Saskatchewan children’s authors. Preschoolers and early readers, plus their families, in every community in the province that is served by ACCESS Communications Co-operative, and has a local ACCESS7 channel, will be able to watch a brand new halfhour storytelling series, Bookworm’s Corner, which is a joint project of SWG and ACCESS. Each 30-minute program will feature one or two picture books by His Honour, the Honourable Dr. Gordon L. Barnhart, Saskatchewan authors, read either by Lieutenant Governor and students at Wascana School in their creators or by a guest reader.

Regina.

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The readings take place in libraries or schools in a variety of ACCESS communities, and may expand into other locations (including outdoor sites) as the series continues and more books are spotlighted.

Bookworm’s Corner is hosted by SWG member Jean Freeman, who is herself a children’s author. The first program premiered on January 24 at 3:30 p.m. on ACCESS7 and will be shown on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. The line up is available on our web site at www.skwriter.com.

The first Bookworm’s Corner stories were read to children at Valley Manor Elementary School in Martensville, Qu’Appelle Library in Qu’Appelle, Walker School, Morning Star Christian Academy, Wascana School, George Bothwell Library, and St. Michael Community School in Regina.

Books by other Saskatchewan authors will be read in additional communities as the number of ACCESS7 channels grows in the months ahead.

The delightful animated bookworm who lives in Bookworm’s Corner was created by ACCESS7 staffer Adrian Dean. The ACCESS7 Director of the series is Graham Condo, and the coproducers for SWG are Judith Silverthorne and Jean Freeman. It is hoped that Bookworm’s Corner will prove to be both entertaining and informational, providing a popular source of enjoyment for Pre-Kindergarten to Grade 2 kids and their families or caregivers.

Holiday Open Houses

Above left: Vincent Murphy and Kevin MacKenzie share storytelling secrets.

Above right: Melanie Schnell and Jarrett Rusnak exchange ideas at the SWG's Regina open house.

Left: Mari-Lou Rowley, Jennifer Holmes, Pam Bustin and Mike Thompson celebrate at the Saskatoon open house.

Manuscript Evaluation Service The SWG`s Manuscript Evaluation Service assists writers at all levels of development who would like a professional response (not editing) to their unpublished work.

The service is available to all Saskatchewan writers, and uses the talents of Saskatchewan Writers’ Guild (SWG) published members. The SWG offers this service with the generous support of the Saskatchewan Arts Board.

For more information please visit http://www.skwriter.com/?s=programsservices&p= manuscriptevaluationservice; phone (306)791-7743 or email programs@skwriter.com.

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Saskatchewan Book Awards Congratulations to the winners of the 2010 Saskatchewan Book Awards.

The Awards were presented at the Gala on November 27 in Regina.

In Memory of Mary Sutherland. David Carpenter, A Hunter's Confession (Greystone Books)

Sandra Birdsell, Waiting for Joe (Random House Canada)

Honouring Brenda MacDonald Riches. Amy Jo Ehman, Prairie Feast: A Writer's Journey Home for Dinner (Coteau Books)

Arthur Slade, The Dark Deeps: The Hunchback Assignments II (Harper Collins Publishers Ltd.)

Dianne Warren, Cool Water (Harper Collins Publishers Ltd.)

Margaret Kovach, Indigenous Methodologies: Characteristics, Conversations, and Contexts (University of Toronto Press)

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Jo-Ann Episkenew, Taking Back Our Spirits: Indigenous Literature, Public Policy, and Healing (University of Manitoba Press))

Purich Publishing Ltd., The Duty to Consult: New Relationships With Aboriginal Peoples (Dwight G. Newman)

Hagios Press, Fallout (Sandra Ridley)

Purich Publishing Ltd., Indigenous Diplomacy and the Rights of Peoples: Achieving UN Recognition (James Youngblood Henderson)

Martine Noël-Maw, Dans le pli des collines, 2 e éd, (Editions de la Nouvelle plume)

Accepted in absentia were the Non-Fiction and Saskatoon Book Awards for Sophia Tolstoy: A Biography (Free Press) by Alexandra Popoff, and the Poetry Award for Dimensions of an Orchard (Black Moss Press) by Dave Margoshes.

For more information contact Jackie Lay at (306) 569-1585; director@bookawards. sk.ca; www.bookawards.sk.ca

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Saskatoon Shenanigans: Writing North

by Pam Bustin On January 21 and 22, over 100 people trooped through the snow to attend Writing North at the University of Saskatchewan. Here’s a wee taste of what I gleaned from the weekend.

North is blueberries and Muskeg. North is where the Buffalo sits. North is where the elders sit with their white hair.

Ken Brown brought us slam— back to reality. During a recent snow storm in Edmonton, he watched people pushing each other out of drifts, and he heard the clear voice say, “Be alone, here, and you will die.” That is what it means to live north—ish—and maybe to write north—ish, as well.

Things blew wide open beginning with a panel discussion Talk ranged from Patrick’s about “Writing North.” mourning over the loss of the names of things—trees and Patrick Lane, head in hands, shrubs and plants—to Ken’s kept asking, “What is this excitement and fascination concept of writing north? with technological changes.

“We are living in Science ficI can take a bath in a real cold tion—a time of worldwide instream. I can build a structure, stant communication. There’s cover it with skins and make a huge mental change going a steam—hot—and then jump on. It is as though the young into the snow. Jump with a nahave a whole new part of their ked woman at the same time. brains that I don’t have. Just try to imagine where we will These are words about the be in 200 years. Who knows!” north but it isn’t the experience of the north.

Ken spoke of writers, especially playwrights, as pirates.

We are always imagining the Piracy, like playwrighting, is a north. We huddle here at the small business venture. It’s border. It’s warm here. It’s about … freedom. Keep it as close as we can get to the small. Keep it mobile. Find sun.” the story you want to tell and tell it—never mind what the David Carpenter loves writing big theatres are doing. Let “up north” at his cabin. Writthem do whatever they want. ing in a cool sheltered area, Ken sees the playwright’s job so silent that he is always as fighting a rear guard aclistening to the action of the tion—to prove that words are wind. But, he says, “North is still the way to express ideas. never here. My cabin is north He resists the move toward of here. But there is something theatrical spectacles like the north of that. Maybe we can Electric Company's Studies in only ever write toward our viMotion. He saw it. “It was sion of the north.” beautiful—but what the hell are they trying to say” Louise Halfe said, “North in Cree is kiwetinohk. It means, David laid out the lovely story 'going home to that northern of his journey to becoming a place.' It also means, 'a loud writer—from his first glimpse noise coming from a disof Ernest Hemingway in a Joe tance.'"

Palooka comic, selling his first story to Saturday Night, a rewarding career as a teacher, to January/February 2011

the desire and then the decision to lead a wholly creative life and quit his day job.

When asked about the importance of “first sentences” he said, “Listen ... no one wants to read your book. Not even your mother. So that first sentence has to be a real sonofabitch. It has to grab them. The reader needs to think, ‘Why would you say that?’ And that will lead them on to the next sentence. But it can’t be obvious. You are fishing for the most subtle of brown trout.”

Louise asked him about dry spells and how he gets through them. Mostly, he reads. “As I read, ideas draw my imagination. They get more and more persistent … they won’t let me go and sooner or later … I will be forced to sit down. You have to trust that something is going on 'down there' and that, sooner or later, it will erupt. Just keep reading and have faith. Don’t despair the drought—celebrate it and read promiscuously!”

We received other advice from David. On building characters: Pay close attention. Watch people. Listen. Make notes.

Characters will begin to accumulate. On using material from your life: You take it, and you use it, but you have a fine line to negotiate before you send it off for publication. We don’t want to murder our mothers—or our stories. Each of us has to find that line, alone.

On finding a community: Cultivate mean friends. The ones who will tell you if something stinks. Ardent readers with good critical minds. And don’t call them in until you’ve gone as far as you possibly can on your own.

Patrick Lane discussed how we all start in a place and how it lives inside of us and becomes our landscape.

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“Oh,” he laughs. “Fine. I’ve been through some stuff since Erin and I broke up. Some rough stuff. Booze and substance abuse. Went through detox and rehab. I’m doing well now. Going back to university. I feel a lot better about myself now that I’ve realized … that I’m gay.” He laughs Some more shoppers stop by.

I sign and sell several more And then there was a wonder- more. We both do. copies—one for a tourist, one ful patient in Palliative Care at for my ex-banker, one for my St. Paul’s Hospital. Like they “Wow,” I say, not certain how co-worker’s daughter and one say—don’t quit your day job. to reply. for an employee of the store So I haven’t. I still work in (who I think is feeling sorry for support staff at Saint Paul’s “It’s pretty wild going through me, sitting here all alone). But a few days a week. She was that kinda stuff in the middle my mood brightens. Things a very accomplished scholar, of nowhere. Especially at such have been good. More than professor, and author. She a young age.” He peers down once, I’ve been stopped on the was also an avid reader. As I at my book. “Now that is an street by perfect strangers and got to know her, I asked her experience,” he says, “that told I wrote a beautiful story if she would be interested in should be written about.” reading my Dave book.Carpenter, She read itand Ken Brown that couldn't be put down.

Patrick Lane, Louise Halfe, I’ve had support from all parts with great enthusiasm—we “That’s what I wrote about.” about itfinding afterward—and of from readers and therapy, her voice She says, “Every day is a HeCanada, also believes that wesayare talked ing myforms. book rocked their new story and I revel in the withpassed. a pen. It is awe-inspiring “Really?” bornthat with Though he she world, including no longer believesa infew thewelldivi- to me to know that one thing moments of grace when a I answer. to do her last wishing lines from my literary gift comes from the Universe.

Nowchose that she hasinfound her “Really,” sions between poetry, fiction she take my writing. hero, Stuart McLean.

This way towas speak in in this world, she There is something greater, and non-fiction as genres, he hours and handing reminds what really has made a vow that nobody Picking beyond up us.a copy I believe in that still feelsme thatofthere areI forms over to me he asks, “So, are there has her to be some-It it accomplished.

Somehow, and I honour that.” will … ever silence again. … lengths maybe—a poem, aI Still more. There has toand be aa you gonna sign this for me or published quirky story that abouta thing is a promise to herself novella, aa novel—and I did really pro- what?” an eccentric, gay reason And David Carpenter starts promise to this. her A community. certain form isyet as lovable, much a part earth-shattering musician, copies in found And sometimes it stirsreason. things the slow clap. of us as isand ourplaced landscape.

I look around the main Suddenly, I’m on a natural almost every major bookstore Again up. This is good. in I got thoroughfare of the mall. The high.

Nice! I have rich affirmation.

HeCanada. remindedSomehow, us that, “Someat the“Imobility kiosk you are It has all been worth it. folks buyare them She says, want to write timestoyou nottoo. ready for guys frustrated.

The into my and world.

If I just spoke that story and you will fail rushed World I’ve received messages of baristas Cree, toldattheTimothy’s stories that way, that story if you do not wait appear and the praise from coast to coast, Coffee you would not weary, understand me and trust.” are even looking more telling me my words brought shoppers and you might fall asleep minute.

Eventuthem comfort joy. like I didby in the Malaysia once durHe said, “As for and piracy, wellMY … frazzled pleasant-looking words!

I’ve now been intering aa performance.

Youyoung and I never tell a writer a story and ally, approaches my signing viewed by too-many-to-count can communicate in this basnever take them to a sacred man He is smiley and Writing sincere newspapers andhave radio talk- table. tard dialogue—here. place until you already he me. nonchalantly picks show some- as chose The dream I hadup of writtenhosts, aboutincluding it. one from Canada’s only gay my my book. grandfather, he was teachat write.” the cover he FM station … As ing he mepeers how to “Andradio never, ever, (hmmm tell people who Canada eventhem had keeps mumbling my name how knew to feel.

Just give Funk, Funk,” life: he an radio Her advice onWes the writer’s theexclusively images. Laygay it out andstalet “Wes … are you … tion?).

I’vewith also been pick for Write “Hmmm every day—(OK, mostly them live it anda your si- says.

Currie’s numerous book Pretty Erin every day). uncle?”

Details of this lent question willclubs. hang there— cool ‘Howstuff. do you feel?’ That’s and that, describe the room, “Yes,” I smile. describe that person, whatwhat we aim for.”

Talking about cool, there ever. Just write. Go out to the dated to your niece,” he conwas thetold Saskatchewan theatre, art galleries, watch, Louise us about herBook jour- “I a decade ago.

Awards Gala.

For one night to in tinues. observe“Over and write about it. In ney as an artist.

Learning my life,to I was rock star, as high school.” listen thethe grandmothers Iand went the AwardsintegratGala in Keep a dream journal—sepahertodreamtime, I remember now.

Regina a nominee), rub- “Yes. rate from any otheryou journals. ing her(as scattered/shattered been?” bing shoulders with Mine have it foryou nuggets.

Listen. self with the help of novelists her Elder How homosexuality, so therefore, they hate the book. Hmmm … and they wonder why I never phone them. A niece I once felt very close to made no bones about how strongly she disliked the novel. We are currently barely speaking.

12 38

SWG Freelance SWG Freelance

I’ve read and idolized for years.

It was inspiring to be sitting at a signing table between Connie Gault and Jean Freeman (of Corner Gas fame). And I was misty-eyed, as I saw an image of the cover of my book blown up onto a twenty-foot screen.

January/February 2011 November/December 2010

88941 LUTHER TALKING FRESH PSTR

LUTHER

1/24/11

12:01 PM

COLLEGE

Page 1

AND

THE

SASKATCHEWAN

WRITERS

GUILD

PRESENT

TALKING FRESH 9 Saskatchewan Poetr y Summit a Mid-Winter Festival of Writers & Writing

Dan Tysdal Michael Trussler

Karen So l ie

Brenda Schmidt

Friday, March 4, 2011 2:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.

Panel: “On Saskatchewan Poetry”

8:00 p.m. - 10:00 p.m.

Readings (Reception to follow)

Saturday, March 5, 2011 9:00 a.m. - 10:15 a.m.

Brenda Schmidt: “Lyric Trap-lines: Thoughts on the Northbound Poem” 10:30 a.m. - 11:45 a.m.

Michael Trussler: "The Cosmopolitan Mountain on the Prairie" LUNCH is available at a reasonable cost at the Luther Cafeteria.

1:30 p.m. - 2:45 p.m.

Karen Solie: “This Place Will Kill Me One Day: Writing the Southwest” 3:00 p.m. - 4:15 p.m.

Dan Tysdal: “Sask Poems from the Future and the Future of Saskatchewan Poetry: Uranium Traced, Screamoetry, and the New and Improved School of Disembodied Poetics” 4:30 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.

Launch of new books Girlwood by Jennifer Still and Quiver by Holly Luhning All sessions take place at Luther College, Room 100

everyone welcome

free admission

free parking lot 3

January/February 2011

for more information

www.luthercollege.edu/talkingfresh Gerry Hill 585-5047

Tracy Hamon 791-7743

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Profile: Brenda Niskala

by Jackie Lay With two newly-published books, Regina author Brenda Niskala is transforming the world one page at a time through her writing.

“I think you can create change one person at a time, one reader at a time, if you have enough ability in your words,” said the 55-year-old author discussing why writing is important.

became hooked on writing. Niskala joined her school newspaper and the Young Cooperatives Pages of the Western Producer; she first published her writing under the pen name Ivory Fire.

recognized for her volunteer work with the Volunteer Leadership Award.

At 18, she left the farm to attend the University of Saskatchewan, from where she graduated in 1976 with a degree in sociology. At 22, she went to the Saskatchewan Summer School of the Arts, and was instructed by Lorna Crozier in poetry and Lois Simmie in fiction.

so I could write, and help make changes in the world.”

“I came to realize that even if the same story is being told, it is being told in an original voice and an original setting. Each of us has a voice to offer. That kept me going.”

In 1987 she moved to Saskatoon and worked for Interval House as a counsellor, which also allowed her more time to write.

Volunteering as a student counsellor and with the Crisis Line in Saskatoon, Niskala continued to “It felt really good. It felt like try to make a difference.

I was contributing. Right from the beginning, I had enough After graduating from the Uniego to think that I had a dif- versity of Saskatchewan, Niskaferent vision of the world from la entered the working world, other people. I was always very but it wasn’t enough for her. “I disappointed when I realized realized that I was just picking someone might have already up the pieces, I wasn’t making thought of the same things I any changes, so it occurred had,” she laughed. to me that perhaps law would provide me with enough income

Niskala is celebrating the publishing of two new books: Of All the Ways to Die, her first novella, published by Quattro, and For the Love of Strangers, published by Regina-based Coteau Books, her first book of short fiction. Recently she was nominated for a Saskatchewan Book Award in the Regina Book category and longlisted for a ReLit Award.

Her books tackle serious issues like prostitution, drug addiction, inter-racial relationships and racism. Despite the conflict her writing embraces, the stories find humour in the telling. “It’s that point of fun where people learn the best and remember the best and is also where I think change can happen fluidly and for the better,” she said.

From her childhood Niskala realized she wanted to make the world a better place. Growing up in a Finnish rural farming community near the town of Macrorie, she spent a lot of time reading. “I remember that epiphany of being able to read and from that point on I worked to communicate what I saw, which was often not what other people saw. I was greatly inspired and my imagination was very active because of the solitude I enjoyed growing up,” she said.

Early on Niskala became immersed in the Saskatchewan writing community and joined the Saskatchewan Writers' Guild (SWG), serving on their At the age of ten, her first poem board from 1977-1981, with received positive feedback from her first volunteer position as her grade four teacher. She their secretary. In 2003 she was 14

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January/February 2011

After graduating from law in 1982, Niskala moved to LaRonge and worked as a defense lawyer practicing criminal law. By 1983, she published Ambergris Moon, her first book of poetry.

In 1988, she was hired as the Writer-in-Residence for North Battleford where she organized a reading tour of First Nation and Métis authors which included Alex Wolf, Harvey Knight, Wes Fineday, Maria Campbell, and Marie Annharte Baker, traveling to different re-

serves throughout northwestern world now, from the point of Saskatchewan. view of people who have made desperate decisions. I respect Again volunteering her time, that their work can be dangerBrenda sat on the board for ous, but I am not afraid of these the Canadian Reprography Col- people, I recognize them as lective from 1989 until 1992. people like me. The Survivors There she negotiated copyright opened up a lot of doors and payment for work that had been some of the people may have photocopied on behalf of writ- walked right in that door and ers and publishers. into one of my books,” she said smiling.

Then in 1989, Niskala moved to Regina and began her work She goes on to clarify that the for ACTRA as the Saskatch- character of Shannon in Of All ewan representative. In 1993, the Ways to Die is not based she was hired as the executive on, but inspired by, one of the director of the Saskatchewan original members of the SurPublishers Group where she has vivors. “She is completely her been ever since. Realizing the own person and has different importance of a provincial book influences than anybody in real awards program, she joined life but certainly the inspiration the steering committee which for the character of Shannon started the Saskatchewan Book started out with people I really Awards in 1993. knew,” she said. In both her books, Niskala creates memoIn 1997, she published a suite rable scenes and interesting of poems with four other poets characters like the Fox Man and from across Canada in Open a British bog mummy in Of all 24 Hours, which resulted in a the Ways to Die. But she stays cross-Canada tour. true to her roots, pulling from her past experiences living and It would be her involvement working in Saskatchewan. with the organization Common Weal Community Arts where From the beginning of her books ideas for her most recent books it is evident that she has a would come from and where poetic eye, as in the following some important realizations excerpt from the first page of would arise. Niskala began men- For the Love of Strangers: toring writers, first by teaching a class in collaboration with “You don’t just drive through a the Street Workers Advocacy wall of fire, Kathy thinks, brakProgram, then by leading a writ- ing her green car to a noiseless ers' group called The Survivors, halt at the smoke line. Prairie to help the street workers find fire flickers on both sides of the a voice. highway, the wind just enough to stretch the walls, to dwarf “Many of the people in that the workmen silhouetted on group, especially in the early the edges. years, did not see themselves as writers. It was magic the way How beautiful this flame against people could quite suddenly the glory of the sunset, the livunderstand that they could be- ing orange and scarlet shooting come someone other than who life into the sedate azure and they were, through the simple crimson. Between sun and fire, act of putting words to paper.” the smoky black hole invites The group still meets from time her to drive in, to drive through to time today. Some of the origi- the flames.” nal members still participate, but the group has evolved to Niskala includes Saskatchewan include all members of society. in her writing. “I don't aim to, Niskala learned many things but I find myself writing about from her experiences with the people and places on the praiSurvivors Writers Group. “I un- ries because they're so very derstand so much more of the interesting and so very unique.

January/February 2011

Saskatchewan's mix of ethnicities, cultural values, and political dynamics intrigue me. It's true that from the specific we can best illustrate the general.

The prairies are my specific.”

She continues to be involved in the writing community because of the importance of writing.

“The very future of the way we think is dependent on people’s ability to express themselves in new ways, ways that reflect new realities as we experience them.”

But ultimately she continues to write and mentor people to encourage knowledge. “I think everyone has something important to say, to contribute to the accumulated wisdom of this place, and of the world. Writing is my way of saying what I can, and perhaps improving the place I live in some small way.

Working with other people to do the same is part of this sharing of accumulated wisdom. I'm so glad we live in a place where the thoughts, observations and opinions of all people, regardless of their birth or education, is valued and respected.

Besides, writing is great fun!

And writers are really wonderful folks to hang around with!”

Freelance Advertising Rates Freelance accepts classified and display ads at the following rates: Display ads: Full page: $150; 1/2 Page: $100; 1/4 page: $50; business card: $35 (add GST to above rates; SWG members pay 75 per cent of above rates) Classified ads: Classified ads cost 20 cents per word (plus GST).

Ads run in three consecutive issues unless cancelled. (SWG members may place one 25word ad free of charge each year).

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From Here to Infinity (or so) The 2010 Caroline Heather Memorial Lecture by Don McKay This lecture has been delivered at Victoria Island University during Don McKay's tenure as the 2010 Ralph Gustafson Chair of Poetry, and will be published in spring 2011 by the Institute for Coastal Research at Vancouver Island University, in cooperation with the Ralph Gustafson Poetry Trust. http:// www.mala.ca/icr/publications/ gustafson.asp The great Spike Milligan, author of Puckoon and member of the comedy troop known as The Goons, wrote a memoir of his war years, which he spent mostly in military bands, and mostly far from the action. His memoir’s title, perhaps my alltime favourite, is Adolf Hitler: My Part in His Downfall. My own title for this talk aims for precisely that ironical register; my skirmishes with infinity have been as close and intimate as Spike Milligan’s with Hitler. I trust that this has been obvious from the “or so” that’s attached, and that the audience is not composed entirely of annoyed mathematicians expecting a fresh turn on set theory, or distressed theologians hoping for an update on how God, or the idea of divinity, is weathering the latest assaults by militant atheists.

One might well choose to avoid any exposure to the idea of infinity, given its popular reputation. There is a widespread belief, or superstition, that excessive exposure can drive you mad, as supposedly occurred to the brilliant mathematicians Georg Cantor and Kurt Gödel, in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries respectively. It’s not difficult for most of us, unafflicted as we are by mathematical talent, to avoid pursuing it conceptually.

Consequently, we are unlikely 16

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to come down with the malady I’m calling infinitosis because we willfully risked overexposure the way Marie Curie risked overexposure to radiation. But it is equally unlikely that any of us could avoid it altogether and, in fact, it seems that a mild, or homeopathic, dose of the infinite is the crucial element in the aesthetic experience known as the sublime, an experience prized by such diverse movements as Romantic poetry and tourism. In such cases—contemplating the night sky, standing on a summit, or even thinking about the grains of sand on a beach —we can feel our sense of reality shift and refocus, or try to.

Our location in place alters, as though our familiar road map had been ripped from our hands and replaced by a chart of the cosmos. Our temporal location also shifts, from the reliable orientation of a clock and calendar to the wooziness of deep time.

Generally in such instances you’ve gone looking for an infinity hit by, for example, climbing the mountain, but it’s not unusual for the hit to find you.

Recently, while consulting the St. John’s arts and entertain-

ment magazine, The Scope, for the time of a reading at The Ship Pub, or it may have been a movie or a concert, I got blind-sided by one of those columns that lists the "numbers of" various phenomena, like the estimated number of cats in St. John’s or the total number of minutes spent by City Council during the last decade debating whether to introduce recycling or postpone it yet again. In the middle of it, this: “Number of estimated galaxies in the universe, according to results collected from the Hubble Space Telescope: 125 billion.” (That’s billion, with a “b,” and, as I will argue a bit later on, the difference between figures of this magnitude and infinity, as experienced by the mind of a lay person idly leafing through The Scope, is negligible.) When you get ambushed by infinity-or-so like this, you can try to slough off the blow by acting nonchalant (“Yeah, quite a few, even more than the number of cats in St. John’s”) or give up and collapse into a reverie in which your life grows tinier and tinier, and its details—like the time of that reading or movie—grow less and less consequential.

That will fix you for treating

Spring Editors Needed The SWG is accepting applications for the editorial positions of managing editor, poetry, fiction, and nonfiction editors for Spring Volume VII. The managing editor will take on one of the genre editing positions.

Please send your literary resume and cover letter to Beth McLean at the SWG, P.O. Box 3986, Regina SK S4P 3R9 or courier/drop off to 205-2314 11th Avenue, Regina S4P 0K1.

Applications must be received by 4:30 p.m. on Friday, February 25, 2011.

Applicants must be residents of Saskatchewan.

The publication will be launched in the fall of 2011 in conjunction with the SWG's fall conference and AGM in Regina.

Please call Beth at (306)791-7746 or email education@skwriter.com if you have any questions.

January/February 2011

a lively arts and entertainment forum like a mere schedule of local places and events.

The other loaded term in my title is “here,” and my experience with it, unlike my brushes with infinity, is extensive though not conclusive. Like almost all Canadians, I have an obsession with “hereness,” generally construed as a sense of place, and religiously pursued through essays, theses, conferences, kitchen parties, panels, exam questions, pub debates, and strange hybrid talks like this one. What is here, how is here, Where Is Here (Northrop Frye’s title), why is here and, of course, who is, and was, here: these questions have, for good reasons, reverberated through our intellectual history, forming and reforming themselves as they are picked up by writers and thinkers like Susanna Moodie, Harold Innis, George Grant, E.J. Pratt, Louis Riel, Northrop Frye, Margaret Atwood, George Erasmus, Robert Kroetsch, John Raulston Saul, Stan Rowe, Tim Lilburn, Tom King, Robert Bringhurst, Ursula Franklin, Daphne Marlatt, Dennis Lee, Thomson Highway, David Carpenter, Lorna Crozier, Justice Berger, Dionne Brand, Louise Halfe, David Suzuki, Jeanette Armstrong, and so on. Once a list of Canadian thinkers for whom place is a fundamental issue is begun, there seems no end to it, and the list would expand exponentially if we included visual artists. (Number of Canadian thinkers obsessed with place: infinite, or so.) Place is our shibboleth because it’s an unresolved issue for the descendants of colonial Canadians and aboriginal Canadians alike. If you are Innu, living in Labrador, for example, your sense of place has been violated, reduced from a vast territory, which you inhabit as nomadic hunting families, to a static resettlement where you are expected to live communally and according to alien regulations. If you are, as I am, a descendant of white settlers, you

Loss Creek Leech River Fault, Victoria BC may be struck by the apparent anomaly of living on land that has been thoroughly colonized, exploited, and mapped, but not yet truly perceived by our forebears or ourselves. The perceptual lenses have been those of colonialism, Romanticism, technology, and tourism, all of them distortions. The question concerning hereness, or place, remains a live issue. We live in a country we have barely begun to perceive.

As you can see from my title, I’m trying to bring these two phenomena—the infinite and place or hereness—into relation to one another. That might seem a large conceptual undertaking but, in fact, it is grounded in personal, pedestrian experience —literally pedestrian, since I’m talking about research done on foot. The place in question is a landform rather than a cultural entity, a long fault on southern Vancouver Island known as the Loss Creek-Leech River Fault. After I moved to British Columbia in 1996, I decided to take this on as a project, to apprentice myself to the fault by walking its length, taking note of its features, and trying to learn about what it presented to me. Then I would, if possible, approach it poetically. I took on such things as the geology of the place and January/February 2011

geology in general, beginning with such basic things as rock identification, what a fault is, and how this one fits into the rest of BC and plate tectonics overall; the logging practices in this severely clear-cut canyon where the injunction to leave a riparian band has been ignored, and how this relates to the history of logging on southern Vancouver Island; and the history of the place as the site of a small gold rush, registered in the present by the flecks of gold still to be found in some quartz lenses between layers of schist. I read up on the flora and fauna, based on observations of Swainson’s thrushes, wild columbine, and the alders growing in place of the original fir and cedar. I took a special interest in cougar behaviour once I noticed tracks preserved in ice, and in bear behaviour after I encountered black bears eating flowers. Unfortunately, I came away with only a generalized sense of the place’s place in native cultures, and did not learn quickly enough how to drive bush roads without wrecking your suspension. The project quickly extended from the long arc of the fault, which extends from Sombrio Beach in the west to Metchosin in the east, into the archives and library. You could say that Loss Creek assigned meditational SWG Freelance

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exercises; you could say it gave me homework: both would be true, and I did not bother distinguishing between them. One of the benefits of the project was to bring perceptual, intellectual, and creative faculties into contact as co-operating members of a team, as opposed to the standard cultural and institutional model, in which they are competing for recognition, air-time, and—not infrequently—funding.

Since what I wanted from the project was an experience of here that was bottom up, rather than top down, I was motivated by some of the same urges that compelled Thoreau, Aldo Leopold, and John Steffler in their wilderness apprenticeships, although mine was relatively shallow and short-lived.

But the particular effect I want to focus on is the relation of hereness to deep time and the infinite. This is quite vivid at Loss Creek because the fault lies in a steep-sided canyon for much of its length, and so is readily apparent on the surface and not something which has to be inferred under yards of overburden, as in much midcontinental geology. Only at its eastern end, in the area of Victoria known at Metchosin, is the fault buried under glacial sediment. For most of its length, you have the layered sedimentary beds of the Pacific Rim Terrace, on one side and, on the other, a fist of igneous basalt like Iceland, called the Crescent Terrace. What happened fortyfive million years ago is that this igneous fist, having been carried north-eastward on the Pacific Plate, slowly crashed into its predecessor. In the crash, the beds of the Pacific Rim Terrace were tilted upward and partly metamorphosed into schists and argyllites. If you stand by the creek today, or walk up it, you encounter rocks from both sides, round basaltic boulders and flat schists, that have been encouraged to mingle by the more recent glaciers of the ice age.

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One of the poems that eventually emerged from this project was “Loss Creek,” a poem which, for me at least, brings together some of its ingredients —the industrial degradation of the place, the beauty which nevertheless persists, and the disorientation of an encounter with deep time.

LOSS CREEK

this, the planet is continuously gnashing its plates against one another, forcing ocean plates to dive under continental plates like slow suicidal dolphins, whose splash is earthquakes and volcanoes.”

When I got hooked on the Loss Creek project, I thought I would be improving my sense

He went there to have it exact. The broken prose of the bush roads.

The piles of half-burnt slash. Stumps high on the valley wall like sconces on a medieval ruin. To have it tangible.

To carry it as load rather than as mood or mist. To heft it—earth measure, rock measure and feel its raw drag without phrase for the voice or handle for the hand.

He went there to hear the rapids curl around the big basaltic boulders saying husserl husserl, saying I’ll do the crying for you, licking the schists into flat skippable discs. That uninhabited laughter sluicing the methodically shorn valley.

He went there to finger the strike/slip fissure between rock and stone between Vivaldi’s waterfall and the wavering note a Varied thrush sets on a shelf of air. Recognizing the sweet perils rushing in the creek crawling through the rock.

He knew he should not trust such pauseless syntax.

That he should just say no.

But he went there just the same.

Now here I am, blithely relating these wonders in the level tone of one for whom these facts are, well, facts, rather than trap doors in hereness opening directly into infinity.

We tend to think of facts as hard entities, dense indivisible nuggets, in much the same way we used to think of atoms. It is one of the tasks of nature poetry to re-open facts to their resonance, to recover their lung space, opening their alveoli so that they can breathe again, rather than lying inert in consciousness like the accumulated landfill upon which theories are constructed. Instead of that level tone, I should be clapping my hand to my head and uttering expressions like “holy jumpin' schmoley,” and “forty-five friggin' million years,” and “can you believe January/February 2011

of the place. But I found that my sense of place was itself destabilized by the addition of deep time and plate tectonics.

It was enriched, certainly, but enriched in such a way that it threatened the idea of place itself. Such is the effect of infinitosis, that perilous and necessary disorder and, of course, I could have encountered it anywhere on the planet by picking up an “ordinary” pebble and enquiring of its origins: “So, where are you from?” and “How long have you been here?” and “Are you any relation to the Proterozoic Tuffs out by Conception Bay?” But I’m not alone, I’m guessing, in requiring gross stimuli like a beautiful, forlorn fault to dislodge me from my comfortable assumptions about place and time. To be continued ...

The Space-Time Continuum

by Edward Willett Ever heard of Sturgeon’s Law? It does not, as you might think at first glance, regulate the caviar industry in Russia; rather, it is a general description of the world around us. Formulated by the late science fiction writer Theodore Sturgeon, it is usually paraphrased as, “Of course 90 percent of science fiction is crap. Ninety percent of everything is crap!”

This poses a challenge to anyone who wishes to seek out the best of anything, whether movies, music ... or science fiction. And if you’re just thinking of taking the plunge into the speculative fiction genres, the deluge of titles on display in bookstores, online or off, can be intimidating.

That’s where awards can be useful. Beyond making authors feel good when they win one (not that there’s anything wrong with that), they help bring worthwhile books to the attention of readers everywhere.

In science fiction and fantasy, as in literary, historical and other genres, there are a plethora of awards, but they are not all created equal: some are more respected and valued than others.

The granddaddy of all the science fiction awards, and the most coveted by writers, is the Hugo, presented continuously since 1955. It gets its name from Hugo Gernsback, considered the father of science fiction (although he called it “scientifiction”) because he founded the first magazine devoted to the genre, Amazing Stories, in 1926. In movieaward terms, the Hugos are the People’s Choice Awards of the field: books are nominated for, and voted on, by members of the annual World Science Fiction Convention.

Categories include various short forms, dramatic presentation and fan writing, but the biggy is the award for best novel, and last year’s winner of the iconic rocket-ship trophy, presented in Melbourne, Australia, was The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman, a YA fantasy about a boy raised by ghosts. Unusually, three of the five finalists were YA books: Little Brother by Canada’s own Cory Doctorow and Zoe’s Tale

by John Scalzi were also on the list. Rounding out the finalists were Anathem by Neal Stephenson (which I thought should have won) and Saturn’s Children by Charles Stross.

The second-most prestigious awards are the Nebulas. To continue the movie analogy, they’re like the Academy Awards, nominated for and voted on by members of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.

Sometimes there’s quite a bit of overlap between Hugos and Nebulas, but not last year, when the Nebula for best novel went to The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi. Other nominees included The Love We Share Without Knowing by Christopher Barzak, Flesh and Fire by Laura Anne Gilman, The City & The City by China Miéville, Boneshaker by Cherie Priest, and Finch by Jeff VanderMeer.

One way to find good books is to look for those that appear on more than one award ballot, and the finalists for the World Fantasy Award, a juried award presented at the World Fantasy Convention every October, included a couple of Nebula nominees, one of which was the winner, The City & The City by China Miéville; the other was Jeff Vandermeer’s Finch. Other finalists were Blood of Ambrose

by James Enge, The Red Tree by Caitlín R. Kiernan, and In Great Waters by Kit Whitfield.

The Sunburst Award is a juried award named after the 1964 novel by the late, great Canadian SF author Phyllis Gotlieb.

I had the honour of serving on the Sunburst jury last year.

In the adult category, we chose Indigo Springs, by A.M. Dellamonica; in the young adult category, our choice was Half World, by Hiromi Goto. Other finalists in the adult category were The Mystery of Grace

by Charles de Lint, Makers by Cory Doctorow, The Sunless Countries by Karl Schroeder and Julian Comstock by Robert Charles Wilson. The YA finalists included one name very familiar to Saskatchewan readers: Arthur Slade, for The Hunchback Assignments. Other finalists were Give Up the Ghost

by Megan Crewe, Amy By Any Other Name by Maureen Garvie and Wondrous Strange by Lesley Livingston.

Finally, there are the Prix Aurora Awards. Any Canadian resident or citizen can nominate for them, and they’re voted on by members of CanVention, the Canadian national SF convention. Last year’s English-language best novel winner was Wake, by Robert J. Sawyer.

The other finalists were The Amulet of Amon-Ra, a YA book

by Leslie Carmichael; Druids by Barbara Galler-Smith and Josh Langston; Steel Whispers by Hayden Trenholm, and Terra Insegura, by some guy named Edward Willett.

If you’re looking for a place to start reading science fiction and fantasy, the award nominees I’ve listed offer everything from young adult fantasy-adventure to psychological adult horror, from alternative history to far-future space opera to nearfuture technological prognostication.

But perhaps, as a patriotic Ca- With these books, at least, nadian, you are more interested Sturgeon’s Law does not apply. in works by your fellow citizens.

Well, Canada, too, has its science fiction and fantasy awards.

January/February 2011

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And Another Thing ...

by Robert Calder Sitting in some of the sessions at the Festival of Words this summer, I was reminded again by something that has always struck me: the great majority of members of the audience are women. And, although there are some devoted male volunteers at the Festival, by far the greater numbers are female. Similarly, membership in reading groups, the biggest development among booklovers in North America in the past two decades, overwhelmingly comprises women, as do literary blogs and audiences for book launches, readings and book award ceremonies.

A quick, and admittedly unscientific, look at the membership list of the Saskatchewan Writers’ Guild reveals that females outnumber males about two to one, a number reflected in the membership of the SWG Board in recent years. Even so, the proportion of males in the Guild may be higher than male readers in the general public since the SWG is primarily a writers’ organization rather than a readers’ one.

The most influential book club in the world is, of course, Oprah Winfrey’s, which has a huge, and almost exclusive, following among women. When he published his highly acclaimed novel The Corrections in 2001, Jonathan Franzen famously declined to appear on Winfrey’s television program to promote it, saying that “so much of the reading is sustained in this country, I think, by the fact that women read while men are off golfing or watching football on TV or playing with their flight simulator or whatever. . . . I had some hope actually of reaching a male audience.”

by a publisher, he had numerous extras and decided to give them away to lunchtime office crowds picnicking on the lawns in the park. “In less than five minutes,” he reported, “we gave away 30 novels. Every young woman we approached . . . was eager and grateful to take a book. Some riffled through the pile murmuring, ‘read that, read that, read that . . .’ before making a choice. Others asked for two, or even three. The guys were a different proposition.

They frowned in suspicion, or distaste. When they were assured that they would not have to part with their money, they could still not be persuaded.

Franzen was afraid that The ‘Nah, nah. Not for me. Thanks Corrections would be relegated mate, but no.’ Only one sensito being considered chick lit. tive male was tempted.”

Such a fate does not seem to concern him nine years later, As McEwan points out, the however: he has agreed to let predominant female readership Oprah make his new novel, for fiction may have existed for Freedom, which she declared as long as novels have been “a masterpiece” after he sent published. Ian Watt’s definitive her a copy, one of her book history of the origins of the club selections. Apparently, roy- English novel, The Rise of the alty statements are greatly en- Novel, demonstrates that the hanced by the feminine touch. readers of the earliest novels, Five years ago the English novel- those of Daniel Defoe, Samuel ist Ian McEwan discovered the Richardson, Henry Fielding and difference between male and others, were almost entirely female reading tastes when he women. Inventions of the indusand his son went out on the trial revolution gave middle- and street outside his central Lon- even lower-class women more don home. Having been sent a leisure time than they had ever complete set of classic novels had, and, denied many of the

Playwrights Reading Series The 2010/2011 Playwrights Reading Series hosted by the Department of Theatre, University of Regina in partnership with the SWG, presents the following readings, open to the public and free of charge.

March 9: Bruce Barton, Education Building, Room 114 March 14: Colleen Murphy, Shu-Box Theatre, Riddell Centre March 21: Daniel MacDonald, Shu-Box Theatre, Riddell Centre For more information please contact the Theatre Department at 585-5562.

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activities open to men—politics, business, hunting, and drinking—they turned to omnivorous reading. According to the eighteenth-century commentator Joseph Addison, this female increase in reading occurred at a time when male interest in literature was declining. “There is another reason,” he said, “why those especially who are women of quality should apply themselves to letters, namely, because their husbands are generally strangers to them.” These men do not sound much different from Franzen’s contemporary golfing, football-watching, flight-simulator-playing males.

This gender gap in the readership of fiction, apparently begun in the eighteenth century, has continued to the present.

Surveys conducted in Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom, reveal that men make up only twenty per cent of the readers of novels and short stories. “We see it every time in our store,” says an owner of a bookstore in Washington, D.C. “Women head straight for the fiction section and men head for non-fiction.”

In the more democratic and more gender equitable twentyfirst century, however, greater female leisure time and restricted activities can no longer explain this difference in reading habits. One theory is that, as cognitive psychologists have discovered, women are generally more empathetic, having what McEwan calls “a finer mesh of emotional understanding” than men and they possess a greater emotional range, traits that make fiction more attractive to them. As Watt points out, the novel “has interested itself much more than any other literary form in the development of its characters in the course of time.” Women, claims Louann Brizendine, in The Female Brain, naturally respond better to this form of writing: “Reading requires incredible patience, and the ability to ‘feel into’ the characters. That is something women are both more

Saskatchewan Writers/Artists Retreat Committee Positions Available The Saskatchewan Writers/Artists Retreat Committee is seeking one Saskatchewan writer and one artist who would like to be involved with adjudicating applications for the SWG Retreat Program. The committee works with a part-time Retreat Coordinator, who acts as a liaison with the Executive Director of the SWG. The committee is made up of four writers and two artists.

Requirements of Retreat Committee writer members are attendance at one or more Saskatchewan retreats in the past five years and a substantial publication history, with at least one book published or accepted for publication.

Requirements of Retreat Committee artist members are attendance at one or more Saskatchewan retreats in the past five years and a substantial exhibition history.

Committee members are not eligible to attend a retreat during their term. Primary responsibility is adjudication of applications to retreats. There are approximately three meetings per year, two of which are by telephone, and intermittent email consultations. Committee members are asked to commit to a three-year term.

To apply for a position on the Retreat Committee, please write a letter stating your qualifications and your interest in the work of the committee and send it to Judith Silverthorne, Executive Director, SWG, Box 3986, Regina, S4P 3R9 or email to: edswg@skwriter.com.

Questions may be directed to the Retreat Coordinator, Anne Pennylegion, at: skretreats@skwriter.com. Letters of interest must be received at the SWG office or at the above email address by 4:30 p.m. on Monday, March 7, 2011.

interested in and also better at than men.” Moreover, says Brizendine, girls find reading and written work easier than do boys, and this carries over into their adult lives, where women talk more in social settings and use more words than men. For McEwan, the lesson in this is clear: “reading groups, readings, breakdowns of book sales all tell the same story: when women stop reading, the novel will be dead.”

that the average woman reads nine books a year compared to only five for men, and only in the categories of biography and history do men read more than women. This means, as someone has pointed out, that most literature now being read can be called “chick lit.” And this is not necessarily to be lamented: maybe women with their sensitivity, good taste, and aesthetic sense will be the ones to save the book as artistic object from being swept away by It may be, though, that the fu- the bleak electronic landscape ture of more than fiction rests of the Kindle and iPad. with female readers. A recent Associated Press poll found January/February 2011

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The Secrets We Carry

by Lynda Monahan

Join Us on Facebook & Twitter

I grew up in a family where children were to be “seen and Let’s 'book and tweet together! Join the Saskatchnot heard”. My brother and ewan Writers’ Guild Facebook group and follow us sister and I weren’t allowed on Twitter. to express our emotions. We were just supposed to do as we were told, to be good and be quiet. We were never allowed to be angry or disaphttp://www.facebook.com/update_security_info. pointed or afraid. So when I php?wizard=1#!/group.php?gid=5067566475 was a child, silence froze me.

When our mother died, we

weren’t allowed to grieve. We

http://twitter.com were just supposed to keep on going to school, acting like nothing had happened. We weren’t allowed to question why our mother died, or to be frightened for our future surface of things. What do said “Don’t be afraid to say you feel and care about? what it is you want most to or to cry.

What matters greatly in your say.”

But I had to have somewhere life? What is it that you can’t I could go with all that I was get out of your thoughts, that If you are courageous in your feeling. And so, I started to obsesses you? Write about writing, if you will write with write. I had always loved writ- what has most challenged simple honesty and integrity ing, right from the time I was you, what has made you into about what matters deeply old enough to learn how, but who you are. Dig deep to get to you, your work will touch when my mother died I started to the heart of your stories. your readers. If you care Tell those heart truths. Not just about what you are writing keeping a journal. the facts, necessarily, but the that much, if you present I believe writing can save your heart truths. Your own truth your experience honestly life, it has that kind of power. and no-one else’s. There is and with careful attention I know writing saved my life. so much raw material inside to detail, your reader will My brother committed sui- each one of us, just waiting for care too. The best writing IS cide when he was thirty-five. us to write about. As Nowlan close to the bone. Don’t write My sister ended up spending some time in the psychiatric hhhh eadings rom centre in Prince Albert. I always felt it was because I had hallenged orks my writing to turn to, a place where I could say “this is who Join the SWG and the Saskatoon Public Library in afI am, this is how I feel,” that firming Saskatoon’s commitment to intellectual freedom I survived. during Freedom to Read Week. Local authors Mari-Lou Rowley, George Khng and library staff will read from, My favourite writer was the and discuss, a variety of challenged works. Pam Bustin Canadian poet and fiction will host the program. writer, Alden Nowlan. It was Alden Nowlan who said “we Saturday, February 26 at 2:00 p.m. write what we feel deepest Frances Morrison Library and hardest.” And I try to (311–23rd Street E, Saskatoon) always remember that advice in my own writing. To write about what I feel deepest and hardest.

“The dirtiest book of all is the expurgated book.”

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– Walt Whitman

January/February 2011

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Upcoming Deadlines Mark Thursday, June 30, 2011 on your calendars!

The following awards and grants share this deadline: John V. Hicks Award: This year, non-fiction! http://www.skwriter. com/?s=programsservices&p=hicks_awards Short MS Awards: Thursday, June 30, 2011 http://www.skwriter.com/?s=programsservices&p=short_ms_awards Writers Group Funding: Thursday, June 30, 2011 http://www.skwriter.com/?s=programsservices&p=grants

only what you know is safe to write. Take some risks in your writing. Write about what you want to—not what you think you are supposed to or should be writing. Writing is coming face to face with yourself.

And your topics don’t have to be grand or worldly. They can be about the smallest, most intimate details of life. Raymond Carver said you could tell everything there was to tell about a woman by writing about her earrings.

It is no easy thing, to be brave in your writing. I felt shame and fear about having had an eating disorder when I was younger. Writing about it brings up all those feelings again. "It’s scary. I can’t write about that!" we tell ourselves.

But that is just exactly what we should be writing about.

Here is a hard piece of writing advice—you cannot write with your mother looking over your shoulder. When my first book came out, my father wanted a copy. I was surprised, because my father never read anything.

And I worried, because there were a couple of poems in that book I thought might hurt my father’s feelings. My dad might have had his failings, but he was my dad, I loved him and I didn’t want to hurt him.

Stop worrying, my sister said.

He only wants a copy to keep on the end table by his chair,

so he can show people you wrote a book. He isn’t going to read it. But I worried. So I had my husband exacto knife out two pages of the book, close to the spine, and I gave it to him. My sister must have been right, because he never said a thing about the poems or about the missing pages! It’s hard to put yourself out there that way. It’s a risk you take.

anything we want to, so long as we do it with integrity. We don’t try to make somebody believe we are smarter than we are. We don’t have to prove anything to anyone. We don’t need to know much about our audience but we do need to know ourselves. And, in the process of writing we discover much about ourselves, too.

We are so often unable to talk about those events that most When the writer William Croy- deeply affect our lives. I think en was being interviewed, he it’s our work as writers to tell was asked, “What starts your those truths. writing?” His answer was, "It starts with trouble. You don’t Good writing comes from the think it starts with peace do heart, not the head. We have you?” If you are avoiding trou- to have courage to speak from ble in your writing, you are our gut. Our words ought to avoiding your best material. be extensions of ourselves.

We write with our bodies, not As writers we must be willing with our minds. Forget about to feel our feelings—our sad- sounding super intelligent or ness, our joy, our anger, our using perfect grammar. Good fear. Feeling our feelings, as writing is about truth. writers, truly isn’t a luxury, it’s a necessity. Who was it who We need to listen to ourselves. said no laughter in the writer, When we listen we hear the no laughter in the reader, no secrets we carry. tears in the writer, no tears in the reader? No genuine piece As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, of writing occurs without the “What lies behind us and what author’s complete emotional lies before us are tiny matters involvement. It takes real cour- compared to what lies within age to be creative because us.” We only have to reach we are putting who we really within ourselves. are out there for the world to see. We need to look at what is inside of us without running away from it. And we can write about absolutely January/February 2011

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BOOKS BY MEMBERS The Books by Members feature is a promotional service for individual Guild members.

To let others know about your latest book, send a copy and a description along with a brief biographical note about yourself. The book will also be displayed in the SWG library.

Reviews and comments obtained from various sources.

Waiting for No One

by Beverley Brenna Red Deer Press

Les fantômes de Spiritwood (The Ghosts of Spiritwood)

by Martine Noël-Maw Editions de la Nouvelle plume)

Waiting No One

Waiting for No One

Waiting for No One

for

Beverley Brenna’s fifth novel for young people, Waiting for No One, is a gem of a book … From the moment readers meet Taylor as she makes a glorious hash of her first job interview, they are her friends for life. Taylor is a funny, honest, smart, endearing girl with Asperger’s syndrome. Little things others take for granted often confuse her. She longs to escape from those who, for her own good, keep her dependent. She tells the sometimes comic, always moving story of her fight for freedom in a voice all her own.

and related anti-platelet (blood thinner) medications indicated for secondary (recurrent) stroke prevention but not recommended for primary (first) stroke avoidance because of the high risk of the dangerous bleeding side effect

BEVERLEY BRENNA

“One of the most important characters in the story is Taylor’s gerbil Harold Pinter. Like Toby, Christopher Boone’s rat in The Curious Incident of the Dog In the Night-Time, Harold Pinter does not notice the syndrome but simply loves the person … So will you when you read this book.” – Jean Little Beverley Brenna is an assistant professor of education at the University of Saskatchewan and a former special education consultant, as well as the author of numerous books for young people, including The Moon Children. Waiting for No One is the standalone sequel to Wild Orchid, also published

by Red Deer Press.

$12.95

BEVERLEY BRENNA

On a stormy night, Ethan and four other teenagers find refuge in an abandoned school near Spiritwood, Saskatchewan. What better way to kill time than to share scary stories, including the northern lights' legend? According to this legend, the luminous phenomena are caused by the dead who want to communicate with the living. To establish contact, one only needs to whistle.

Of course, everybody knows that legends aren't true. Yet, Ethan and his friends will learn that it doesn't take much to become the instruments of the spirits.

Born and raised in Québec, Martine Noël-Maw has made Saskatchewan her home since 1993. A French literature graduate from Université de Montréal, she worked in communications and human resources before acting on her passion and plunging headfirst into writing for youth and adults.

She is the recipient of two Saskatchewan Book Awards (Amélia et les papillons (2006) and Dans le pli des collines (2010).

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Beverley Brenna’s new young adult, a sequel to Wild Orchid, follows Taylor Jane back to Saskatoon, where she enters university and the world of work.

Taylor Jane Simon is an eighteen-year-old girl with a striking perspective on the people she encounters and the life she wants to have. Young adult readers will identify with Taylor's struggle for independence and self-control, and empathize as she outlines the ways—both positive and negative—that Asperger's Syndrome affects her daily life.

Beverley Brenna is an assistant professor at the University of Saskatchewan where her research interests include literacy, children’s literature, and special education.

Further information about her writing can be found at www.beverleybrenna.com.

Stroke Prevention Naturally

by Felix Veloso, M.D. Stroke is the number one source of permanent disability and the second highest cause of mortality, next only to heart attack.

There are currently just aspirin January/February 2011

of the blood thinners. There is therefore understandably a general disillusionment with medications, and patients are justifiably increasingly interested in natural remedies. This book provides recognized natural healthy lifestyle strategies that can prevent up to 90% of strokes and a large proportion of its twin scourge of dementia.

Dr. Felix Veloso is a clinical Professor of Medicine (Neurology) at the University of Saskatchewan. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada and of the American Academy of Neurology.

He is also a founding co-director of the Stoke Clinic of the Regina Qu`Appelle Health Region where he has been providing neurologic care for the people of Saskatchewan for over forty years. He is also a medals-winning marathoner.

Inclusion in the Markets & Competitions listing is not an endorsement of any contest, market, event or otherwise. This is only an informational resource.

We encourage all readers to thoroughly investigate all contests or markets before submitting their work.

Markets & Competitions Deadline: March 15 Descant’s two upcoming themes are: Renovations and Bosnia, Between Loss and Recovery. Details can be found at: http://www.descant.ca/ Deadline: March 28 The New Quarterly’s Edna Staebler Personal Essay Contest: details can be found at: http://www.tnq.ca/contests/.

Deadline: March 31 The Puritan is accepting submissions of fiction, poetry, interviews and book reviews for their online Spring issue.

For details, visit: http:// www.puritan-magazine.com/ submissions.php.

Deadline: April 15 Saskatoon Public Library Seniors’ Writing Challenge. For every piece of writing you submit, they will put your name in a draw for one of three $100 McNally Robinson gift certificates. The community will celebrate all the writing at a public reading on Thursday, June 9, 2011, in Room 3 of the Frances Morrison Library. Professional storytellers from the Library will perform a sampling from many pieces of the writing, and there will be the prize draw, camaraderie and refreshments. You can enter poetry, short stories, reminiscences or skits For more information, call Outreach Services at 9757606. Submission details will be available in March from any branch of the Saskatoon Public Library.

Deadline: April 1 Grain magazine announces its 23rd Annual Short Grain (with Variations) contest with $4,500 in prizes to be won!

3 prizes will be awarded in each category:1st Prize: $1,000; 2nd Prize: $750; 3RD Prize: $500 Poetry of any style including prose poem up to 100 lines.

Short fiction in any form including post card story to a maximum of 2500 words.

For submission guidelines visit: http://www.grainmagazine.ca/contest.html .

Deadline: April 1 The Blue Pencil Online is accepting work by young writers (12-18) from around the world. Details can be found at: http://www.thebluepencil. net/.

Deadline: May 15 Still Point Arts Quarterly is interested in printing provocative and original essays, short articles, fiction and poetry that is about art, the idea of art, the making of art, being an artist, creativity, inspiration, the artist’s subject, the artist’s relation to his or her medium. Details can be found at: http://www. stillpointartgallery.com.

Deadline: June 1 Call for submissions for an anthology about lifestyle choice: If you are or have been involved (or you know anyone who is or has been involved) in an intimate, committed relationship in which you have lived long-term in separate domiciles, the ediJanuary/February 2011

tors seek thoughtful, narrative non-fiction accounts of that experience. The writing should explore the challenges and benefits of such an arrangement. Submissions should be approximately 4-14 pages, in standard manuscript format (doublespaced, 12 pt Times New Roman font) with full contact information on the first page.

Submit by mail to Linda Breault, 918 Murdoch Street, Creston, BC, V0B 1G4; Visit http://femministas.blogspot. com/2010/11/call-for-submissions-living-together.html.

Please include your e-mail address or a SASE. Deadline: June 15 The Broken City: send your poetry, fiction essays, comics, illustrations, photography, music/book reviews that explore the idea of dreams, hallucinations, bizarro worlds and the unexplainable. For more information, visit: http:// www.thebrokencitymag.com/ submissions.html.

Deadline: June 30 Guernica Editions is accepting poems by Canadian poets about or inspired by other poets (living or dead, Canadian or nonCanadian), accompanied by short prose pieces that tell the back story behind the poems. For more details visit: http:// news.guernicaeditions. com/2011/01/10/poet-topoet-anthology/.

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CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS Deadline: March 15, 2011 Windscript has been publishing the best of writing by Saskatchewan students in grades nine to twelve since 1983 We welcome students to submit creative writing in any and all forms— poetry, prose, and creative non-fiction—for Volume 27 of Windscript. **NEW** In 2011, Windscript will return to its original printed format and will also be available on the Saskatchewan Writers’ Guild’s web site at www.skwriter.com.

For complete submission guidelines please see: http://www.skwriter.com/ docs/10_windscript/windscript_2011_Vol_28_Call.pdf For more information please contact: Beth McLean, Education and Publications Officer; (306)791-7746; education@skwriter.com

I'd Like to Make a Donation Yes, I would like to help by donating to: □ SWG Programs Make cheque or money order payable to: Saskatchewan Writers' Guild, Box 3986, Regina SK S4P 3R9.

□ Writers' Assistance Fund □ Grain Magazine □ Writers/Artist Retreats □ Gary Hyland Endowment Fund □ Pat Armstrong Fund □ SWG Foundation □ Endowment Fund □ Facilitated Retreats □ Judy McCrosky Bursury □ Pat Armstrong Fund

You can also donate via Paypal at: http://www.skwriter. com/?s=payments_and_ donations&p=guild

Thank you for your donation. A tax receipt will be issued.

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The Backbone CONTRIBUTORS (to $50) Allan, Sandra Archibald-Barber, Jesse Biasotto, Linda Bircham, Doris Edlund, Merill Episkenew, Jo-Ann Fahlman, Jean Givner, Joan Goertzen, Glenda Gossner, Carol Grandel, Loaine Guymer, Myrna Hamilton, Sharon Husband, Carol & John Leech, Robert MacFarlane, Sharon McRae, Bronwen Meadows, Sally Miller, Dianne Morrell, Kathleen Muirhead, Laurie Olesen, Joyce Ramshaw, Betty Rice, Bruce Roussin, Thomas St George, Marie Elyse Traquair, Morgan Unrau, John Wagner, Bernadette Wardill, William Wood, Janice Zacharias, Marlace Tesar, Erica FRIENDS ($50-$99) Bouvier, Rita Calder, Marie Carpenter, David Charrett, Doug Cunningham, Donna Dey, Myrna Dorton, Anne Epp, Joanne Guymer, Myrna Halsband, Ilonka Kostash, Myrna Lorer, Danica Martin, Miriam McLuhan, Jean Monahan, Lynda Parley, Kathleen Patton, Anne Rice, Bruce

Richards, David Robertson, Deanna Vail, Deborah Ward, Donald Willow, Rose Witham, Janice SUPPORTERS ($100-$199) Bannatyne-Cugnet, Jo Bidulka, Anthony Birnie, Howard Brassard, Francois Conacher, Myrtle Dahlem, Madeleine Epp, George Duke, Scott Durant, Margaret Haigh, Jerry Halsband, Ilonka Hertes, David Hogarth, Susan Jordan, Terry Lauber, Alyson Lay, Jackie Lohans, Alison MacKenzie, Jean Malcolm, David McArthur, Wenda Merle, Charles Monahan, Lynda Moore, Jacqueline Mulholland, Valerie Nilson, John & Linda Noel-Maw, Martine Schmon, Karen Silverthorne, Judith Terschuur, Betty Toews, Terry Ulrich, Maureen Walter, Murray Wilson, Garrett Sorestad, Glen Stoicheff, Peter Warwaruk, Larry Young, Dianne

WAF MacIntyre, Rod Mikolayenko, Linda RETREATS Banks, Shelley Bower, Annette Campbell, Sandra Carpenter, David Clark, Hilary Deeley, Anne Galbraith, William Kostash, Myrna LeBox, Annette McCaig, Joann Robson, Verley Sarsfield, Pete Semotuk, Lydia Sorensen, Susan Westmoreland, Cherie GRAIN Kloppenburg, Cheryl FOUNDATION Adam, Sharon Glaze, David Noel-Maw, Martine JUDY MCCROSKY BURSARY Allan, Sandra Buhr, Nola McCrosky, Judy Romanow, James

BENEFACTORS ($200-$499) Boerma, Gloria Byers, Shirley Currie, Robert Goldman, Lyn Lorer, Danica Schmidt, Brenda PATRON (over $500) Balogh, Mary Calder, Robert

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Freelance January/February 2011 Volume 40 Number 1

Publication Mail Agreement #40063014 Return Undeliverable Canadian Addresses to: Administration Centre Printing Services 111–2001 Cornwall Street Regina, SK S4P 3X9 Email: adminprint@sasktel.net

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