tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-89760211909930157232024-03-13T14:46:57.227-02:30A Kick at the DarknessA blog by Gerard CollinsGerard Collinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07449880681680454821noreply@blogger.comBlogger108125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8976021190993015723.post-64723141689826526772015-07-12T13:08:00.005-02:302015-07-12T13:20:13.946-02:30Eyes Wide Shut<span style="font-family: Calibri;">After a storm-filled winter and cold, rainy spring, there’s
no misery worse than being stuck inside with the flu on the four sunniest,
hottest days of summer so far. Right?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Er, well, wrong.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">First off, it’s really just a bad cold, but it feels bad
enough to be called a flu, so I’m going with that. I’ll spare you all the
details, but one symptom of this high-level cold is that, for two days now, I
haven’t been able to read, watch TV or movies, or generally look at anything because
of itchy, watering eyes akin to the worst seasonal allergy attack you or I have
ever had. Meanwhile, with my eyes half open for only seconds at a time, I can
see that many of my FB friends are off to the beach, on retreats,
waterskiing, hiking and flying to exotic locales and posting wonderful pictures
designed both to proclaim the beauty of life and. occasionally, I’m sure, to
stir a light envy within the still-beating hearts of those who aren’t there
with them. Most, though, are just sharing, and I appreciate that, in fact. I
don’t live vicariously, but I like to see people enjoying their lives. I
usually welcome proof of life.</span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The first two days, I was doing okay, figuring I’d be better
by Sunday. Yesterday, I was supposed to start my road trip to the U.S. –
something I did for the first time in August of last year and enjoyed it so
much that I feel a need to do it again. But, as you can see, I’ve had to delay
the gratification of several days of driving nowhere in particular and feeding
my soul with the sights of a different country. America is no country for sick
men. (Here, I’m sidestepping the obvious allusion to certain interest groups,
televangelists and Fox news.)</span></div>
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-R8yhQbwkayw/VaKHTUSi0HI/AAAAAAAAAgo/D65poO_GN-M/s1600/garden%2Btomatoes%2B%2528early%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-R8yhQbwkayw/VaKHTUSi0HI/AAAAAAAAAgo/D65poO_GN-M/s200/garden%2Btomatoes%2B%2528early%2529.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The rebounding tomato plants.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I didn’t sleep last night and so, this morning, my eyes
still hurt. I stayed in bed till nearly 9 a.m., then forced myself to go make
coffee and then some toast. I already had my sunglasses on, so I went out to
the backyard, where it’s sunny and warm – something a raw throat, and all the
rest, have kept me from enjoying the past few days. I saw that my strawberry
plant was hanging low – the squirrels and bunnies had eaten a few berries, but,
miraculously, had left a couple of me. So I ate them. Vitamin C in the form of
a fresh, ripe strawberry is pure therapy.</span></div>
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ZyzAwqnnYaw/VaKHRwxV1pI/AAAAAAAAAgM/WPM2Qnl7EDQ/s1600/Garden%2Bpumpkin%2B%2528early%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ZyzAwqnnYaw/VaKHRwxV1pI/AAAAAAAAAgM/WPM2Qnl7EDQ/s200/Garden%2Bpumpkin%2B%2528early%2529.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">That little yellow bud there?<br />
Looks like a great pumpkin's early days.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Then, I took a tour around the garden that I’d started back
in mid-June when the weather was just warming up, but there were still frost
warnings and torrential rains, with lots of high winds. I didn’t know if it
would survive, especially the withered tomato plants and the giant pumpkin. The
tomato plants had looked sick, nearly dead when I finally planted them. The
pumpkin, even as recently as a couple of days ago, didn’t look so great.</span></div>
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-dKd6AeObcZw/VaKHTOoWltI/AAAAAAAAAgk/yAJhi70nZfM/s1600/garden%2Bsunflower.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="192" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-dKd6AeObcZw/VaKHTOoWltI/AAAAAAAAAgk/yAJhi70nZfM/s200/garden%2Bsunflower.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Trying to catch and sing the sun in flight -<br />
the promise of a sunflower.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">But, somehow, they survived. I got out the hose and gave
them all – the peppers, onions, lettuces, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>tomatoes, squashes and flowers – and gave them
a good, long drink. And I even saw that the lone sunflower that I’d planted –
my most favourite of flowers, but which I’d never grown before (but then, I’ve
never grown any plants before that lived) was sturdy and strong, peering up at
me as if to say, “Soon, boss, soon.”</span></div>
<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fOjY4ZXie0E/VaKHSGgQ6XI/AAAAAAAAAgQ/BSaXS34j6uU/s1600/garden%2Bgroup%2Bshot.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fOjY4ZXie0E/VaKHSGgQ6XI/AAAAAAAAAgQ/BSaXS34j6uU/s200/garden%2Bgroup%2Bshot.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From the shade, I see and feel the breeze,<br />
and drink my coffee, sunglasses on.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Then I sat myself down in the shade where I had a good view
of it all – the rippling blue lake, the welcoming tent that makes me think that
I might have run away with the circus after all, the waving flowers, the
burgeoning vegetables, and surrounded by tall, sheltering trees and green grass
all around – and realized that the plants weren’t the only ones that have
survived and were thriving, in spite of nature, and yet because of nature.</span></div>
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-DTM0eGuUN4M/VaKHSKZqr6I/AAAAAAAAAgU/cHZqfLLP86I/s1600/garden%2Bflowers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-DTM0eGuUN4M/VaKHSKZqr6I/AAAAAAAAAgU/cHZqfLLP86I/s200/garden%2Bflowers.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">All the flowers lived.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Self-pity fled from my soul. I thought of friends who are
battling cancer, living with daily illness, have had trauma in their lives, both
physical and emotional, from which they’re still recovering <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and wondered, what has this morning been like
for them? What has this weekend been like for them? This springless spring and
sunless winter? What have they<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>endured
that I couldn’t even begin to fathom?</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Of course, self pity isn’t my style. ‘Twas merely a fleeting
touch of gray to begin with. I know I’ll be fine tomorrow. In fact, I am fine
today. I’ll be well tomorrow or the next day. I’ll take my road trip and other
adventures as soon as I can – if only because I can. I’m always all too aware
of those who wish they could do these things and, for various reasons, truly
cannot. So, in a way, I owe it to life itself, and to myself, to get on with
it, to grow things and enjoy moments, to participate in life in as many ways as
possible for as long as I possibly can.</span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I won’t dare to think anything so pithy as that I’m doing it
for anyone else. But it doesn’t mean I can’t empathize with others. And it’s
not a bad thing to remember that a cold is just a cold, even if it feels like a
flu. And to be unable to see well for a couple of days is hardly the worst
calamity to strike a person, even a writer.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Sitting out there, the wind blowing<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and the sun shining upon my bare chest and
feet, I remembered a time four years ago <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>– in July 2011, at the height of summer, when
I had eye surgery and wore dark glasses inside and outside for nearly two
weeks. It was a self-inflicted surgery, to make my vision stronger (which it
did, I’m happy to say), but I was in the midst of revising a novel called <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Finton Moon</i> at that time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Suddenly, I found myself unable to stand the
glare of the computer screen. What was I to do? Surely, I couldn’t just wait
two weeks of glorious summer (tick-tick, tick-tock, with classes starting up
again in six or seven weeks) before writing again. Back then, I hadn’t
published yet and the thought of wasting two precious weeks was, well,
unthinkable.</span><br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-gCB1z-jg7S8/TX6Gpvq3lsI/AAAAAAAAAD0/CcA2WjIsjl4/s1600/Moonlight%2BSketches%2Bfront%2Bcover.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-gCB1z-jg7S8/TX6Gpvq3lsI/AAAAAAAAAD0/CcA2WjIsjl4/s200/Moonlight%2BSketches%2Bfront%2Bcover.PNG" width="131" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">NL Book Award winner,<br />
completed with blind faith.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">So, I dug out my neverending short story collection and
thought that, if I could just write the three or four stories I knew I had left
to tell (though I had no idea what they would be) then there was no reason for
me not to submit <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Moonlight Sketches</i>
to a publisher by the end of summer. Long story short (or short stories short)
I wrote “The Darkness and Darcy Knight,” “Run, Mother, Run!” “Fish of the
Damned” and “Chosey Bilch,” as well as a couple of others in a prolific period
of about six weeks. The other stories had been revised (some published, some
award-winning already) so often that they didn’t need much revision at all.
And, once I’d written these stories, and my sight came back to normal, I was
able to revise them to my heart’s content. By the end of that summer, I was
able to submit my manuscript to the one publisher I thought could appreciate
those stories more than any other – Creative Publishing. As I’ve said before,
it was the right collection for the right publisher at the right time. And if I
hadn’t had the eye surgery, I might still be writing that collection. As it
was, I signed a contract in mid-December of that same year.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">So, I thought, this morning, I feel inspired to write a blog
entry about all these thoughts. And, later today, I think I’ll try my hand at a
new short story for a new collection I’m working on.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I can always revise these things later when my eyes are wide
open and healthy.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Life, you see, is a lot like that. But when I take that road
trip alter this summer, I think I’d better be able to keep my eye on the road.
Still, I won’t know where I’m going till I get there, and that’s the most exhilarating
part. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Please forgive the typos. No revision today.</span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">But, as you can probably see, I did take some pictures before the moment had passed.</span></div>
Gerard Collinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07449880681680454821noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8976021190993015723.post-56968855980961523082015-07-03T22:51:00.002-02:302015-07-03T23:04:47.889-02:30Authorial In Tent<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-5JpDVXQkGZw/VZcybpHRiKI/AAAAAAAAAf8/ukyQLvmtjXM/s1600/Writing.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="127" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-5JpDVXQkGZw/VZcybpHRiKI/AAAAAAAAAf8/ukyQLvmtjXM/s200/Writing.jpeg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Day 1: It rained. A lot.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
This blog post was originally handwritten in a tent beside a lake. I've typed it onto my iPad and posted it a couple of days later. My intention is to blog, occasionally, from the interior of my tent. Sometimes, I'll write after the fact about the experience and whatever epiphanies have occurred. Other times, I'll just post exactly what my thoughts were while sitting out there at various times of day and night.<br />
<br />
Since I first wrote this one, just three days ago, I've been in the tent every day at various times, including Canada Day, as the orange full moon was floating above the lake - an indelible image that I'll take with me always.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kY8aDpZ5pOQ/VZcyN6nSRcI/AAAAAAAAAfs/alMsbEWFiJY/s1600/Walden%2Bpond%2B1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="111" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kY8aDpZ5pOQ/VZcyN6nSRcI/AAAAAAAAAfs/alMsbEWFiJY/s200/Walden%2Bpond%2B1.JPG" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sitting beside Walden Pond (2014)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Last night, I recalled I'd bought a lovely copy of <i>Walden</i> when I was visiting Concord, MA last summer, and I thought it would be interesting to read a little bit from that book now and then while sitting in my tent, just to relax and be transported, to transcend this techology-driven, information-obsessed world. It did the trick. I was particularly interested in the introduction of this volume which explained that Thoreau was chagrined at breaches in his privacy as he wrote and lived on the shores of Walden Pond for a short while. The train would go past, apparently, and his cabin, that he'd built, was quite visible to the passengers. Every time a large truck zooms down the highway across the lake where I live, I know exactly how he feels. Isolation isn't easy to come by, but alienation, I suppose, is a different story.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_6-Om97dCBs/VZcyVn5cUzI/AAAAAAAAAf0/Z23rR3AubA8/s1600/Walden%2Bpond%2B2.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="111" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_6-Om97dCBs/VZcyVn5cUzI/AAAAAAAAAf0/Z23rR3AubA8/s200/Walden%2Bpond%2B2.jpeg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Walden Pond in modern times (2014)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I take some solace in knowing that Thoreau came to the lake to get away, but found civilization intruding quite often. Furthermore, the author himself often went into Concord for meals and company. I do the same in Sussex and Hampton, and always figured there was something wrong with me for not being able to sit perpetually by the lake and stare at the water while thinking deep philosophical thoughts. I also found that Thoreau had never intended to write about himself or his experience, but he'd found that that's what people were most interested in reading from him. I don't know if that's true in my case, but I do find the world interesting enough to write about it, and to try and figure it out. So, that's what I'm doing here.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-GthVruO8eFA/VZcxh5td7LI/AAAAAAAAAe8/qi5dr_uTLIo/s1600/Whole%2Btent%2Blakeside.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="150" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-GthVruO8eFA/VZcxh5td7LI/AAAAAAAAAe8/qi5dr_uTLIo/s200/Whole%2Btent%2Blakeside.jpeg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Beside the lake, beneath the trees</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
For now, here's my first word-for-word journal entry from my first day in the tent. I'll admit to being vaguely aware of a potential audience, and I'm sure it affects the writing. But I aim for truthfulness - though not necessarily confession - and, as time goes on, I'm sure I'll become more the kind of journalist I hope to be.<br />
<br />
<br />
<i>June 28, 2015 (Sunday afternoon)</i><br />
<i>Beside a lake, Southern New Brunswick</i><br />
<br />
I’ve purchased a tent on sale for $125 at Canadian Tire so I can have a room – or, really, an entire structure - outside of my rented cottage to spend moments or hours, or perhaps entire days and nights, if I can get used to it – of living/being somewhere outside of the usual. I plan to do a lot of writing out here, but I'll also be using it as an area for sitting (or lying) and thinking, eating, napping and playing mind games with myself.<br />
<br />
I am an interior kind of person. Or, at least, that is how I have lived for the past 30 years or more years. Even as a kid, I was an outsider, so to speak. I was known to be a reader – a solitary type of creature who enjoyed spending his days inside with a good book. And books, by their nature, lead you inside of yourself and, simultaneously, lead you outside of yourself and into the broader world.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-wXaqsVRQdjw/VZcxusovVMI/AAAAAAAAAfM/Y86C7QdDRF4/s1600/Canada%2BDay%2Bevening.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-wXaqsVRQdjw/VZcxusovVMI/AAAAAAAAAfM/Y86C7QdDRF4/s200/Canada%2BDay%2Bevening.jpeg" width="200" /></a>But what people didn’t know was that, even though I was most often found inside my own head, and sometimes inside the house, I was most at home when I was not at home – roaming the woods, trekking the shorelines, hiding in the tall grass – or, when possible, hanging out in a tent or treehouse built in the forest near our home – “home,” though, is a word whose meaning eludes me. Honestly, I don’t know what that is, or is supposed to be.<br />
<br />
More on my rootlessness another time, especially as I try to sink roots into the soil of New Brunswick.<br />
<br />
For now, it’s my first afternoon of this grand experiment, and I need to record the sensations for posterity, for my own sake.<br />
<br />
The rain is pelting on all sides and the roof of the tent, like being inside a Jiffy popper, I suppose. the wind keeps tugging at the nylon sides of the tent, and I do wonder how long it will take before the entire thing comes down in a heap.<br />
<br />
I almost used the rain as an excuse not to come out here, but I convinced myself that the tent would leak – or be fine – whether I was inside it or not. So I filled my thermos with hot lemon tea and stuffed a few basic necessities inside my knapsack and ventured out. At that time, it was only pecking rain, not the deluge that’s currently threatening to capsize my tent.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UYJ0-bUayV4/VZcxn1jDB4I/AAAAAAAAAfE/PnUFPdFSCNg/s1600/Bare%2Bnecessities.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UYJ0-bUayV4/VZcxn1jDB4I/AAAAAAAAAfE/PnUFPdFSCNg/s200/Bare%2Bnecessities.jpeg" width="200" /></a></div>
<br />
My necessities include:<br />
A notepad<br />
A good pen<br />
A thermos of tea<br />
A camera<br />
Two flea market pillows and a blanket<br />
A cardboard box (to stabilize my cup of tea and, as it turns out, it makes a handy writing desk)<br />
<br />
Except for the camera, there is no technology. I brought my iPod (without internet turned on) for music, just in case – and it has a voice recorder for times when I’m out here after dark. But I likely won’t be using it.<br />
<br />
(I just tried to get a recording of the rain beating down on the tent, but discovered that the iPod requires a mic. Oh, well.)<br />
<br />
The idea here is simple: to be able to “work” in a space that feels like play. And it does feel that way.<br />
By sneaking out to my tent for several hours a day, I feel as if I’m stepping outside the expected box of sitting at a desk or a laptop somewhere sanctioned and appropriate for such activity. I’m creating my own writing retreat and an enforced wireless zone where internet is forbidden and therefore, I already feel that it’s freeing my mind to both wander where it wants and to focus on whatever it wants to focus on.<br />
<br />
This could be interesting.<br />
<br />
And there are no bugs inside the tent.<br />
<br />
And I’m out in the rain without getting wet. Beside the lake.<br />
<br />
And when the rain stops, I can open the flaps for more light.<br />
<br />
How easily I can imagine what it was like to live without the luxuries of modern life and what a future world – or alternate world - would feel like without those conveniences on which we have become so dependent.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Q7aecObuXC8/VZcx7Sq1tiI/AAAAAAAAAfc/WK11myQTNfQ/s1600/Lamp%2Blight%2Bby%2Bhand.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Q7aecObuXC8/VZcx7Sq1tiI/AAAAAAAAAfc/WK11myQTNfQ/s200/Lamp%2Blight%2Bby%2Bhand.jpeg" width="200" /></a></div>
The stove, the fridge, the toilet, the table, the laptop, the wifi and internet, the big screen TV – they’re all inside, and I can easily go inside and have them back.<br />
<br />
But, as a writer of fiction, it’s crucial to be able to imagine and to empathize. And to be able to leave one’s interior world behind for a new and somewhat jolting, but fun experience. I like to travel, but when I cannot, or am not doing so, it is good to have some place to go that will inspire me and allow my mind to wander.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2G4Y5lptkk4/VZcx0KD4rpI/AAAAAAAAAfU/1nkZXkq2yT8/s1600/Ceiling.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2G4Y5lptkk4/VZcx0KD4rpI/AAAAAAAAAfU/1nkZXkq2yT8/s200/Ceiling.jpeg" width="200" /></a>The odd, and wonderful, thing is that I feel, out here, writing by hand and the natural daylight, with the rain beating down, as if I could keep writing all day, and somehow everything seems to matter a little bit more. It’s the intensity of confinement, I suspect, as much as it is the ability to do something different and playful. When the body is compressed, the mind expands.<br />
<br />
But I won’t keep writing all day. Time to listen, now. And observe.<br />
<br />
GC<br />
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<br />Gerard Collinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07449880681680454821noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8976021190993015723.post-19205607574695891792014-12-31T00:17:00.000-03:302014-12-31T08:25:43.272-03:30“Our most beloved star - may it be a light for you in dark places when all other lights go out.”<span style="font-family: Calibri;">It’s been a good day, today.</span><br />
<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mwJgM4BoXr8/VKNqy2F-dLI/AAAAAAAAAck/Ffx--3HP514/s1600/a%2Blight%2Bfor%2Byou.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mwJgM4BoXr8/VKNqy2F-dLI/AAAAAAAAAck/Ffx--3HP514/s1600/a%2Blight%2Bfor%2Byou.jpg" height="81" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">In the morning, I arose late after another night of not much
sleep. The dreams of vampires and serial killers, that have plagued me in the
past, have returned in force, and a couple of hours sleep, or so, seem to be
all I’m afforded. Those who don’t know me well might think I probably have
those kinds of dreams all the time, given the dark nature of some of my
writing. But, fact is, those nightmares usually leave me alone for many years
at<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>time, and they only come around when
I am at a dark place in my life and, true to the nature of any monster, only
when I am most vulnerable.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">It’s been a difficult year – no point in honeycoating it.
It’s been a year that saw me leave my home province following the end of the
longest, most stable relationship of my life. That ending came after a couple
of very difficult years for both my wife and I, and leaving was an act of mercy
for us both, that created the possibility, ultimately, for some light to seep
in. But that would be getting ahead of the tale.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UJ94V7d7ewU/VKNsqyL7U_I/AAAAAAAAAcw/nWk5GaLwY6U/s1600/mahone%2Bbay%2Bcoyote.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UJ94V7d7ewU/VKNsqyL7U_I/AAAAAAAAAcw/nWk5GaLwY6U/s1600/mahone%2Bbay%2Bcoyote.jpg" height="200" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I’ll write about that journey some day, I’m sure – it wasn’t
for the faint of heart, especially for a lad who’d never driven very much and
had never before braved the aptly name Wreckhouse winds in the middle of a March
blizzard with the winds steady at 160 km/hr on the thinnest stretch of highway
imaginable.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Somehow, without any compass but blind luck and will, I
ended up in Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia, where I rented a cottage for a few months
and watched spring turn to summer in one of the most beautiful, healing places
on earth. In its own way, Mahone Bay was Rivendell to me, and it will always
have a fond place in my heart. I hated to leave it, but when I felt I was
ready, I reached out to the university community for some means of making a
living and continuing the teaching work I’d been doing for most of my life. I
was fortunate that my seniority at MUN allowed me to teach distance courses via
the Internet, something I hadn’t even considered until it became a reality.
Then, UNB in Saint John offered me a course to teach on campus, and I couldn’t
pass up the opportunity to meet with students face to face on a weekly basis.
So, I moved to Saint John, but found an even better spot at a cottage for rent
in a remote lake area of New Brunswick – so remote that even most New
Brunswickers squint and say, “Where’s that, exactly?” – and this is where I
continue to heal my soul and to seek out new stability and adventures, all at
once.</span></div>
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-tD-MSsirUIg/VKNsrESIzwI/AAAAAAAAAdE/XA-LFVNPuEE/s1600/Mahone%2Bboy%2Bselfie.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-tD-MSsirUIg/VKNsrESIzwI/AAAAAAAAAdE/XA-LFVNPuEE/s1600/Mahone%2Bboy%2Bselfie.jpg" height="200" width="149" /></a><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">It’s been a strange year. Back in January and early
February, for three weeks, I was lucky enough to do a book tour of the
Maritimes – Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and PEI – including readings, signings,
the Fog Lit literary competition as guest reader, media appearances on CBC in
Charlottetown and Saint John, and a school visit at Harbourview High School
where I spoke with two creative writing classes. There was also an appearance
on GlobaI TV, after my nomination for the 2014 Dublin IMPAC award, which,
really, is what made the entire tour possible (well, that and the generous
folks at Fog Lit). I also conducted creative workshops in nearly every city I
visited, including Moncton, Saint John, Charlottetown and Halifax. Only<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fredericton was cancelled because of an
adjunct faculty strike at UNB, as I had no intention of crossing the picket
line, especially of people whom I know work very hard for damn little pay and
virtually no benefits, and are among the most dedicated teachers I know. Yes,
that’s my little rant about the Dickensian attitude of universities towards
their contractual faculty – not so much those who do the hiring (many of whom
are allies), but those who do the paying. More on that some other time, too.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The UNB strike also caused the Saint John reading, sponsored
by the Lorenzo Society Reading Series, to be moved to a café downtown, and the
place was packed with an eager audience that asked brilliant questions. There
were big crowds in other places and smaller groups in other places, but it was
the experience of a lifetime to have been able to do it all – despite (or
because of) the blizzards, the long bus rides, the many nights in hotels and
eating road food night after night.</span></div>
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-BPuBkfZSuMk/VKNwt339m6I/AAAAAAAAAd8/l8BDs5-h5y4/s1600/mahone%2Bbay%2Bmorning.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-BPuBkfZSuMk/VKNwt339m6I/AAAAAAAAAd8/l8BDs5-h5y4/s1600/mahone%2Bbay%2Bmorning.jpg" height="150" width="200" /></a><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The spring was a blur. I spent it in Lunenburg County, a
stranger in a strange land, hidden (or so I thought) among the local folks,
eating good local food and spending many a moment at the picnic table outside
my cottage gazing up at the moon, or a blazing sunrise, a mauve sunset, or a
glorious double rainbow that lit the entire bay after a spectacular lightning
storm. In the mornings, most often, I would arise and go to Lunenburg where
Kate’s Sweet Indulgence café was quiet and welcoming, and there I would sit
with my iPad and keyboard and write.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">It was mostly poetry. Not fiction. God knows, I wasn’t
feeling creative. It was, as I’m sure you can imagine, a very dark time. My
head was in a black fog, as it had been for a couple of years. The last thing
to enter it was a creative thought.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">But the poetry saved me. It gave me something I could do –
something tangible and focused, though focused outward, or so I had thought.
But I’ve looked back on it since and see much of myself in it – my own attempts
to figure out the world when, really, I was trying to figure out myself and
what had led me down this rough path, as alone in the world as anyone has ever
been – or at least that’s how it felt, most of the time. I’m sure, in reality,
many, many people are more alone than that. But, when you’re talking degrees of
aloneness, or of isolation, or detachment, I’m not sure the comparisons really
matter. I’m not saying I was lonely. In fact, human companionship wasn’t
exactly on my to-do list. But alone is alone, and there’s no getting around it.</span></div>
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ubZS2-awD1Q/VKNssqUNTJI/AAAAAAAAAdY/o1zXYBGwhtA/s1600/mahone%2Bboy%2Bboat.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ubZS2-awD1Q/VKNssqUNTJI/AAAAAAAAAdY/o1zXYBGwhtA/s1600/mahone%2Bboy%2Bboat.jpg" height="150" width="200" /></a><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">And, again, it was words that kept me afloat – when all
other lights failed, so to speak, it was the one that shone feebly through the
murk.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">But this is all too serious. And yet, I felt it would be
disingenuous to return to the blog lagoon without some brief explanation about
where I’ve been and why I’d abandoned it. I’ve tried since the very beginning
of keeping this blog to be authentic, to try and speak my truth in whatever
form it took. But I found that my heart wasn’t in it this year. I had the
excitement of the tour, but never wrote about it –and what a strange time it
was. The exploration of Mahone Bay, Lunenburg and other parts of Nova Scotia
was recorded mostly in poetry, meandering thoughts and the occasional FB page,
with only a smattering of selfies recorded either for posterity or, for the
most, as part of a promise I made to some dear friends who extracted a pledge
from me when I was leaving St. John’s to offer the occasional proof of life. I
think, to a great extent, if Helen and Helene hadn’t asked for that occasional
sign, I might well have fallen into a black hole without any communication
through social media at all. It would have been easy to do.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KOyv55zMNnk/VKNssdjyKuI/AAAAAAAAAdQ/GzUDC-3oMRE/s1600/mahone%2Bbay%2Bstephen%2Bking%2Bhouse.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KOyv55zMNnk/VKNssdjyKuI/AAAAAAAAAdQ/GzUDC-3oMRE/s1600/mahone%2Bbay%2Bstephen%2Bking%2Bhouse.jpg" height="199" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But that’s all behind me, now. The summer was hazy –
punctuated by ellipses and commas, with the occasional question or exclamation
mark – as I took a road trip through the northern states, and somehow found
myself sojourning (or soul journeying, as it were) to the houses associated
with Stephen King, Emily Dickinson, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Louisa May Alcott,
and having tea at dusk on Walden Pond where Thoreau one wrote one of my
favourite books on (human) nature. I got lost, and was found. I had great
conversations with strangers, and strange conversations with people I would
rather not know. I met tourists, writers, students and waiters - and a lot more
hotel staff than I thought I would ever have the pleasure of knowing. In a way,
they became my family on the road. The faces would change, night after night,
but it wasn’t hard to find a friendly smile or a kind word from kindred souls
who sometimes were kicking at the dark from their own side of things.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Upon returning from the U.S. in late summer, the fall
semester was hard – teaching all new courses, with all new material, one course
without a textbook at all – and then there was the glorious Piper’s Frith,
about which I’ll have to write another time soon. It was a truly life-changing
experience, and I made some great friends after a week of literary splendour in
the wilds of Newfoundland. My workload only got more impossible after that, but
I got through it – as did my students – and now it’s nearly 2015. It’s amazing
how, in life, you can find yourself getting through some things you never
thought you could get through. Now, somehow, a new year has come and caught me mostly
unawares and unprepared.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-edIrGlDLAmw/VKNuMFCcHGI/AAAAAAAAAdk/sFhY1wTNu4s/s1600/mahone%2Bbay%2Bcassidy%2Blake.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-edIrGlDLAmw/VKNuMFCcHGI/AAAAAAAAAdk/sFhY1wTNu4s/s1600/mahone%2Bbay%2Bcassidy%2Blake.jpg" height="200" width="150" /></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And today, at my cottage, by my newly frozen lake, by the
light of my first solo Christmas tree, I spent six hours, at last, writing.
It’s been a long time coming, but, finally, I’m moving forward again. It wasn’t
fresh writing, mind you. I’ve been painstakingly revising my current novel,
which has been in limbo for far too long. Once again, writing is proving to be
my salvation as I kick at the darkness that, as it turns out, has a nasty bite
of its own.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I’ve gone for walks before supper, as the sun goes down
(unless it’s raining or snowing), nearly every night for the past two weeks,
including Christmas Day, and these walks inspire me. I talk to the creatures that
watch me from the woods. I stop and listen. Sometimes, all I hear is the wind.
Other times, a snort or the soft pad of footsteps – or maybe it’s just in my
mind. But, surely, these woods are full of creatures. And it’s all fodder for
my imagination. Today, quite unexpectedly, I saw two long, black cars as wide
as those gas-guzzling tanks our parents drove in the early Seventies parked
alongside a ramshackle cabin that I’d thought was abandoned. But there were no
lights on inside, and the cars were pulled right in tight to the house as if
their owners didn’t want them to be spotted from the road. There are rarely
cars on that road at all. When I go for my walks, I am the only one walking and
only once in a while do I see another living soul.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">This is an isolated place, which is how I like it. It feeds
my imagination, for now, and I wonder what those strangers, whom I haven’t yet seen, are
up to. I’m a writer, so, of course, my instinct for a story tells me they’re up
to no good.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I’ve started writing again. I’m not sure if that helps
banish the demons or invites more demons in. Either way, I’ll take it and use
it, and answer the calling I feel to destroy, explore and explain to myself, to
put it all into words, to see what comes out and decide, after the fact,
whether it looks, tastes, feels and smells like something worth saying aloud to
anyone else.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">As a result of the walking, the writing, the explaining and
even the wild creatures that surround me in the darkest dark of the darkest nights
– even now, I hear strange sounds out by the lake, but it’s too dark to see,
and so my mind conjures images of various animals, which, I assure you, is the
safest kind of beast to have around – I feel something like optimism creeping
into my soul. It never really left, I suppose. It was merely becoming what it
would become, waiting for the right time to emerge again and make itself known.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Much like myself, I suppose, in my latest incarnation.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Welcome back, for another few kicks at the darkness. If anyone
still cares enough to read my thoughts, I’ll not stay away for so long next
time. But, then, I’ll probably keep writing it anyway because that’s what I do.
It’s not like have any real control over it.</span></div>
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<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYzUvfAqkuc">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYzUvfAqkuc</a></span></o:p></div>
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Gerard Collinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07449880681680454821noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8976021190993015723.post-49175822004392453962013-11-19T18:52:00.002-03:302013-11-19T18:52:21.326-03:30An Evening of Celebration at Chapters<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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All are welcome!</div>
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<span style="color: red;">Hosted by Dr. Nancy Earle</span></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-rk3sKtIRqis/UovkX6KlC6I/AAAAAAAAAcI/OjIWopMCKyQ/s1600/Evening+With+Gerard.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-rk3sKtIRqis/UovkX6KlC6I/AAAAAAAAAcI/OjIWopMCKyQ/s1600/Evening+With+Gerard.jpg" /></a></div>
Gerard Collinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07449880681680454821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8976021190993015723.post-40390184300581431922013-11-11T17:00:00.002-03:302013-11-11T17:04:38.088-03:30Dublin Calling!<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6I7tkWHwC2Q/UoE-X0w5YUI/AAAAAAAAAb4/BzVxkUHnJfo/s1600/dublin+impac.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6I7tkWHwC2Q/UoE-X0w5YUI/AAAAAAAAAb4/BzVxkUHnJfo/s320/dublin+impac.jpg" width="320" /></a>So, Finton Moon continues his run around the world. Next stop: Dublin, Ireland - the city where he, or really his story that's told in my novel of the same name, has been longlisted for the <a href="http://www.impacdublinaward.ie/" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">International Impac Dublin Literary Award</span></a>, a prize that nominates authors all over the world for the chance at winning 100,000 pounds. If bigger is better, then this competition is easily the best for sheer scope and depth.<br />
<br />
I'm tempted to play the "Aw, shucks" card again, but it's probably time I just said, "Thanks" and left it at that. If you've followed this blog (or me) for a while now, you know the story. This little novel didn't gain traction in national media when it first came out, but now it's gotten unanimously positive - often glowing, stellar - reviews, been nominated for a national award the <a href="http://www.sunburstaward.org/2013-sunburst-shortlists" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">Sunburst Award for Excellence in Canadian Literature of the Fantastic</span></a>) and now nominated for what might well be the most prestigious literary prize in the world. I know that's an arguable point, but, for now, I'm going with it.<br />
<br />
Some of my favourite authors are on that list - John Irving, Toni Morrison, Colm Toibin, Ian McEwan, Joyce Carol Oates, and many, many more. It's 152 novels from around the world - only a sampling of all those published in 2012 - and, as I said to one friend earlier today, I'd much rather be on that list with all those great authors than to not be on that list with them.<br />
<br />
So, I'm not worried about my chances of winning, nor of being shortlisted. I don't even think about that. I just think, I'm pretty damn lucky. Again.<br />
<br />
Thanks to the Dublin city council's library service, the judges and libraries all over - who have been extremely kind to me locally, across Canada and around the world. I've always had a great fondness for libraries, and they have always been good to me, long before I was writing and ever since I became a reader at the great, grand age of two years old (or so I'm told - I don't recall). I was often told when I was a lad that reading would never get me anywhere. Well, maybe not. But my book sure has gone some interesting places.<br />
<br />
More to come on this award as time goes on. But for now, for those of you who don't follow me on FB, or who do but are busy doing other important things today, I just wanted to ring the bell and let you know that <em>Finton Moon</em> once again finds itself in prestigious company, which, I admit is quite humbling and makes me wanna go "Aw, shucks." Can't help it.<br />
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Thanks for the support, those of you have shown it. And you have been legion.Gerard Collinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07449880681680454821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8976021190993015723.post-62492439341257563922013-09-15T16:49:00.004-02:302013-09-18T18:47:58.409-02:30Spotlight on Sunburst: The Sun, The Moon and Me<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-lhfgZ_n4DXg/T9z-5gghZpI/AAAAAAAAALs/2bm7vkWxEHI/s1600/Moon+landing.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-lhfgZ_n4DXg/T9z-5gghZpI/AAAAAAAAALs/2bm7vkWxEHI/s320/Moon+landing.JPG" width="238" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">First time seeing <em>Finton Moon</em></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
I've had a grand time getting to know my fellow short-listed authors for the Sunburst Awards. I'm not sure exactly when the winner will be announced, but I expect it to be quite soon. Good luck to Derryl, Emily, Martine and Rio - all very fine writers who deserve awards, nominations and plenty of <br />
readers. Oh, and if you haven't read them yet, please scroll down the page to read the features I've posted on each of these authors. My hope all along has been that by getting to know them a little and being introduced to the kind of work they do, that at least some of my own readers and friends will give these other authors a try.<br />
<br />
"Speculative fiction" is a category in which I never realized my writing belonged. In fact, I generally am not fond of labels or limitations of any sort, but sometimes it's necessary in order to define oneself by what one is, rather than by what one is not.<br />
<br />
That said, as I've seen for myself in this year's nominees, the category of "literature of the fantastic" can encompass all kinds of writing - and quite often, prose of the very highest calibre.<br />
<br />
The fact that <em>Finton Moon</em> is getting some critical attention on a national scale is a lovely feeling. When it first came out, it got much attention here at home because my previous book, <em>Moonlight Sketches</em>, had won the NL Book Award, only weeks earlier. But, for whatever reason (most likely timing - the book came out in late June, which is too late for summer "best of" lists and even too late for the fall lists, which didn't include it because, technically it was a summer book) <em>Finton Moon</em> was ignored by certain national reviewers, thus reducing its chances for national attention. In a Giller-centric world, in fact, even though the Sunburst Awards is a truly national award with some international ramifications - and the news of the short-list announcement made waves of various sizes on websites, blogs and in media all over the world - most book reviewers have paid little attention to the list, even though the panel of judges is a stellar one that rivals any such jury this country can produce. I would also argue that the list of short-listed books is more diverse than your average national literary award, and the writing is as good as any.<br />
<br />
I've personally seen many more sales, some very nice mentions in local media (thanks especially to <em>The Telegram</em>, <em>The Charter</em> and Transcontinental media across the province), and, of course, as I said, a great shout of publicity internationally that will hopefully pave the way for other things - and already has, since this award is partly responsible for me being able to begin a regional tour in support of <em>Finton Moon</em> this coming January (2014).<br />
<br />
The most satisfying part of it all for me, besides getting to know these four other authors, has been that <em>Finton Moon</em> was nominated at all. Think on it: with no national exposure, published by a small press on the far end of the country (thank you, Creative Publishers!), no big blurbs from well-known authors on the front cover, and no real sense of who this "Gerard Collins" guy from the east coast of Canada even was, these five jurors read somewhere in the neighborhood of 200-plus books and plucked this rather large and somewhat strange novel from obscurity to give it not only the proverbial time of day, but to shine a spotlight on it and essentially say to the literary world in Canada: "Hey, lookit! Here's one that you guys missed."<br />
<br />
Local media and book bloggers, I should point out, have been very kind, and reviews have been incredible. In fact there's much more to come from <em>Finton Moon</em>, as will be revealed in time, but to the Sunburst jury (Rebecca Bradley, Tony Burgess, Shari Lapena, Barbara Roden and Leon Rooke, whose work was phenomenally difficult, I've no doubt, considering how many books and the large number of truly good books there were to read), I sincerely want to thank you - no matter who wins. It takes courage, as a literary competition judge, to select from a veritable slush pile of published books a novel that hardly anyone else seems to know about and to like it well enough to promote it as one of your favourites, knowing how much the nomination would mean to any one of those other authors, many of whom are much better known and more decorated than I am. I'm not exactly sure how, or even why <em>Finton Moon</em> was deserving of the honour more than many other novels, but I'll take it and run with it, and try to prove you right in the years to come.<br />
<br />
So, here's what they said about my book:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-7wEO2hLxWaY/T9IVpdVV-JI/AAAAAAAAALM/QWXNdYHZGaE/s1600/Finton+Moon_front.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-7wEO2hLxWaY/T9IVpdVV-JI/AAAAAAAAALM/QWXNdYHZGaE/s320/Finton+Moon_front.jpg" width="207" /></a><span style="color: red;">Growing up in the 1970s in the outport town of Darwin, Newfoundland—a place connected to, but remote from, the rest of the province—Finton Moon realizes from an early age that he is different. He seems to have the ability to heal the wounds of himself, and others; an ability which sets him even further apart from his community, and the people around him, even as he desperately wants to belong.</span><br />
<span style="color: red;"></span><br />
<span style="color: red;">The author grounds <cite>Finton Moon</cite> in warts-and-all reality, his lyrical storytelling creating a vivid and realistic world full of all-too-human characters, where poverty and violence exist alongside friendship and love, and where Finton must learn to find his way. It is a magical and compelling novel, like a long-form version of a Maritime ballad.</span><br />
<span style="color: red;"></span><br />
<span style="color: black;">I'd do an interview with myself, but I think I've just said everything I wanted to say. And, face it, if you read my blog regularly, you already know who I am and that I'm not only genuinely thrilled and humbled about this short-listing but that I sincerely wish all the best to each of the other four authors - not only with the Sunburst Award for Excellence in Canadian Literature of the Fantastic - but in their lives and careers, henceforth. It's not an easy road, or an easy life, and we've somehow each found our way to this point. Some of you have received other distinctions; for others, this is new, higher air. Either way, I expect each of you will be breathing this air again and again, and for many years to come.</span><br />
<br />
This is my last word on the Sunburst Awards until the winner is announced. Thanks for reading these entries every week or so, and I hope you've found some new favourites to read.<br />
<br />
GCGerard Collinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07449880681680454821noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8976021190993015723.post-55089837342794314672013-09-13T14:12:00.001-02:302013-09-13T14:12:16.067-02:30Spotlight on Sunburst: Martine Desjardins<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); margin: 0cm 0cm 12pt;">
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;"><em><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: red; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The Sunburst Award for Excellence in Canadian Literature of the Fantastic</span></b></em><em><span lang="EN-US" style="color: red; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> is a juried award to recognize stellar writing in two categories: adult and young adult. The awards are presented annually to Canadian writers with a speculative fiction novel or book-length collection of speculative fiction published any time during the previous calendar year. Past winners include Guy Gavriel Kay. Cory Doctorow, Geoff Ryman, Nalo Hopkinson and Margaret Sweatman.</span></em></span></span><br />
<em></em><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><o:p></o:p></span><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></div>
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0nlUvCN9jIo/UjEBLQuN8TI/AAAAAAAAAbI/P64IuwQrVs4/s1600/Martine+Desjardins+(author+photo).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0nlUvCN9jIo/UjEBLQuN8TI/AAAAAAAAAbI/P64IuwQrVs4/s1600/Martine+Desjardins+(author+photo).jpg" /></a><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: large; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><em>I asked each of my fellow short-listed authors for the 2013 Sunburst Award if they would be kind enough to write a piece for my blog. Here’s this week’s piece, an interview with <strong>Martine Desjardins</strong>.</em></span><br />
<em><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;"></span></em><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;"><em>(Please note that Martine, regrettably, had to decline to be interviewed right now because of private, personal matters that are taking all her attention. However, I'm <u>reposting</u> an interview <span style="color: red;">Molly Mikolowski</span></em><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span><em> conducted with her <u>some time ago</u>, which I found on the<span style="color: red;"> </span><a href="http://molly%20mikolowski/" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">Talonbooks</span></a> website.)</em></span><br />
<em><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;"></span></em><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Martine Desjardins was born in the Town of Mount Royal, Quebec, in 1957. The second child of six, she started writing short stories when she was seventeen.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">After receiving a bachelor’s degree in Russian and Italian studies at the University of Montreal, she went on to complete a master’s degree in comparative literature, exploring humour in Dostoevsky’s <em>The Devils</em>.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">She worked as an assistant editor-in-chief at <em><span class="caps">ELLE</span> Québec</em> magazine for four years before leaving to devote herself to writing. Presently she works as a freelance rewriter, translator and journalist for <em>L’actualité</em>, an award-winning French-language current affairs magazine in Canada.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Her first novel, <em>Le cercle de Clara</em>, was published by Leméac in 1997, and was nominated for both the Prix littéraires du Québec and the Grand prix des lectrices de <span class="caps">ELLE</span> Québec in 1998. Desjardins currently lives in the Town of Mount Royal with her husband. In her free time, she paints miniature models of ruins overgrown with vegetation.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Martine's author page at Talon Books lists the following awards and nominations:</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<ul>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Winner of the Prix Jacques Brossard </span></li>
</ul>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<ul>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Finalist for the 2010 Governor General’s Literary Award (French Fiction)</span></li>
</ul>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<ul>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Finalist for the Prix des libraires du Québec</span></li>
</ul>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<ul>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Finalist for the Prix des cinq continents de la Francophonie</span></li>
</ul>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<ul>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Finalist for the Prix France–Québec</span></li>
</ul>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Contact Martine Desjardins' publisher: <a href="mailto:info@talonbooks.com">info@talonbooks.com</a></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LiOeTzlaP-g/UjEBOppikQI/AAAAAAAAAbQ/2dyelrl4N1A/s1600/1393.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LiOeTzlaP-g/UjEBOppikQI/AAAAAAAAAbQ/2dyelrl4N1A/s1600/1393.jpg" /></a><strong><span style="color: black;">The
Sunburst Award jury says: "</span></strong><span style="color: black; font-size: 9.5pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">Rumour and speculation have it that there is hidden, somewhere in
the archives of the Archdiocese of Montreal, a book so dangerous that the
Church denies its existence. A copy has been found amongst papers of the
author’s family, however, and its interlocking stories—originally told under
the seal of confession—are here presented. Gorgeous and multilayered, <cite>Maleficium</cite>
is a complex, devious, and vivid novel, in which all the senses, and most of
the deadly sins, are invoked to exquisite and diabolical effect. Situated where
Maria Monk meets the <cite>Arabian Nights</cite>, it weaves together elements
at a thousand knots per square inch, its darkness of frame and intricacy of
structure combining to subvert the pattern by the final chapter."<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
</span><span style="font-size: small;">
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<strong><span style="font-size: large;"><u>Interview with Martine Desjardins</u>:</span></strong><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">(Reposted from <a href="http://molly%20mikolowski/" target="_blank">Talon Books</a> website)</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">
<em><strong><span style="font-size: large;">Recently, Molly Mikolowski conducted an
interview with </span></strong></em><a href="http://talonbooks.com/authors/martine-desjardins"><span style="color: blue; font-size: large;"><em><strong>Martine
Desjardins</strong></em></span></a><em><strong><span style="font-size: large;"> about her novel </span></strong></em><a href="http://talonbooks.com/books/maleficium"><span style="color: blue; font-size: large;"><em><strong>Maleficium</strong></em></span></a><span style="font-size: large;"><em><strong>,
translated by Fred A. Reed and David Homel.</strong></em></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><em><strong><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" /></strong></em>
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[endif]--><strong>Q: In Latin, “maleficium” refers to “an evil deed, injury, sorcery,”
and you’ve said that that the title of the book was inspired by the </strong><em><b>Maleus
Maleficarum</b></em><strong>, which was the Inquisition’s infamous treatise on
witches. It is a strange title, but like many exotic words in the book, it
hints at a number of potential meanings . . . why did you choose it?</strong></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">
<span style="font-size: large;">A: My stylistic choice to use ornate language,
as well as rare and precious words, was meant to disorient the readers, as if
they were hearing a foreign language, so that they might feel as if they were
in a foreign country. This language is also meant to convey an incantation, to
make the readers feel caught in the spinning of the tales, which act here as
evil spells—thus the title <em>Maleficium</em>.</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<strong><span style="font-size: large;">Q: How do you balance the lyricism of your writing with the
precision of your historical research to create what so many reviewers have
referred to as a “feast for the senses?”</span></strong><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">A: I am first and foremost a writer of prose. I do not write verse, I never
read poetry. In fact I’ve never understood why poets feel the need to
constantly start new lines. This means that, unfortunately, I can be quite
prosaic when I write. I am totally incapable of creating a metaphor. Clever
analogical substitutions rarely pop through my head. I never see a bird when
I’m looking at a handkerchief—or vice versa, for that matter. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">As I can’t write poetical descriptions of reality, I try to compensate by
twisting reality itself, in order to make it more lyrical. Thus, I pack my
novels with unconventional and slightly skewered characters, ones that have as
many physical as moral flaws, and a whole lot of idiosyncrasies. A young bride
who strives to keep her virginity intact, a lady who talks to trees, a nurse
who does embroidery on her own skin, a soldier who forages through the trenches
of World War I in the hope of finding the Knights Templars’ treasure, a
spinster who will eat only salty things at the risk of becoming a salt statue
like Lot’s wife. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">I set these characters in strange environments: an isolated house full of
drying mushrooms, an igloo where light is refracted into a thousand prisms, a
sunken crypt with a floor covered with enigmatical carvings, a fantastical
funerary monument carved out of salt in an abandoned mine. And I equip them
with unusual objects: glass made from boiled cadavers, an antique tapestry
where the weaved birds form a rebus, salt cellars in the shape of famous ships.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">
<span style="font-size: large;">In <em>Maleficium</em>, the male characters are
all tempted by rare and curious objects: a strong-flavored variety of saffron,
an insect unknown to science, a vertigo-inducing kind of incense, golden
tortoiseshell, the purest of soaps, a Persian carpet made of human hair.</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><strong>Q: In what ways does </strong><em><b>Maleficium</b></em><strong>
differ from your earlier novels?</strong></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">A: My three first novels, however unusual they might be, always remained in
the grey zone between the real and the unreal—a zone that could be best
described as the “highly unlikely, but still possible” or, to paraphrase
Sherlock Holmes, the “however improbable.”</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><em>Maleficium</em> is a shift for me, because I have left that realm to
venture a little more toward the unreal. Thus the main female character has
physical attributes that make her appear foreign, almost monstrous and alien.
She has a harelip, but is also described as having a long tail, vulvar stamens,
perfumed earwax, thorns growing from her scalp; she is seen carrying a larva in
her navel, shedding tortoiseshell tears, extracting iridescent oil from her
skin. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">This was prompted by my intent to explore the demonization of women through
malicious gossip, now that they can no longer be accused of witchcraft. It is
also a comment on the way we often demonize foreigners in an increasingly
globalized world.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">
<span style="font-size: large;">While I was writing this book, my niece became
quite famous as a singer, here in Quebec and in France. Malicious gossip about
her started appearing on the Internet, and it made me very much aware of the
cyber bullying phenomenon. This experience informed the last chapter of the
book, which is why <em>Maleficium</em> is dedicated in part to my niece. </span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><strong>Q: To research this novel, you studied many nineteenth-century
texts, but were you able to visit any of the locations you describe in </strong><em><b>Maleficium</b></em><strong>?</strong>
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">
<span style="font-size: large;">A: Although I have traveled quite easily in the
past, I have been, for the past ten years, struck by paralyzing panic attacks
every time I leave Montreal. Being incapable to go anywhere is a source of
great frustration for me, since I dream of visiting exotic lands like India,
Zanzibar, Yemen or Oman. Writing <em>Maleficium</em> was a way for me to travel
to these lands, albeit in my mind, to visit interesting sites and to discover
new cultures. </span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<strong><span style="font-size: large;">Q: Do you envision an ideal reader?</span></strong><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">A: My ideal reader is not squirmish and hasn’t lost his sense of wonderment
at all the strangeness this world has to offer.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;">For more information on the Sunburst Awards: </span><a href="http://www.sunburstaward.org/2013-sunburst-shortlists"><span style="color: red;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;">http://www.sunburstaward.org/2013-sunburst-shortlists</span></span></a><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
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Gerard Collinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07449880681680454821noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8976021190993015723.post-91867912431834094212013-09-05T20:20:00.003-02:302013-09-11T21:21:05.442-02:30Spotlight on Sunburst: Emily Schultz<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); margin: 0cm 0cm 12pt;">
<span style="color: blue;"><em><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: red; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The Sunburst Award for Excellence in Canadian Literature of the
Fantastic</span></b></em><em><span lang="EN-US" style="color: red; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> is a juried award to recognize stellar
writing in two categories: adult and young adult. The awards are presented
annually to Canadian writers with a speculative fiction novel or book-length
collection of speculative fiction published any time during the previous
calendar year. Past winners include Guy Gavriel Kay. Cory Doctorow, Geoff
Ryman, Nalo Hopkinson and Margaret Sweatman.</span></em></span><br />
<em></em><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><o:p></o:p></span> </div>
<em><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">I asked each of my fellow short-listed authors
for the 2013 Sunburst Award if they would be kind enough to write a piece for
my blog. Here’s this week’s piece, an interview with <strong>Emily Schultz</strong>.</span></em><br />
<em><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"></span></em><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-rHL34osOZmg/UikKIvAPY7I/AAAAAAAAAaw/WgXAFFhuen4/s1600/Emily+Schultz+pic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-rHL34osOZmg/UikKIvAPY7I/AAAAAAAAAaw/WgXAFFhuen4/s200/Emily+Schultz+pic.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Sunburst nominee Emily Schultz</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><strong><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Emily Schultz</span></strong><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> is
the co-founder of the literary journal </span><a href="http://joylandmagazine.com/"><span style="color: #c1780a; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10pt; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Joyland</span></a><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> and
the host of the podcast <span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"><em>Truth
& Fiction</em></span>. Her novel, <span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"><em>Heaven Is Small</em></span>, released from </span><a href="http://www.anansi.ca/"><span style="color: #c1780a; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10pt; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">House of Anansi Press</span></a><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> in May
2009 in Canada, and in the U.S. in October 2010. <span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"><em>Heaven Is Small</em></span> was named a finalist for the
2010 Trillium Book Award alongside books by Margaret Atwood and Alice Munro.
Schultz’s newest novel, <span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"><em>The
Blondes,</em></span> was released from </span><a href="http://www.randomhouse.ca/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780385671057"><span style="color: #c1780a; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10pt; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Doubleday Canada</span></a><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> in August 2012 and
became a national bestseller. It is forthcoming in the U.S. for spring 2014
from </span><a href="http://us.macmillan.com/ThomasDunne.aspx"><span style="color: #c1780a; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10pt; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">St. Martin’s/Thomas Dunne</span></a><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">.</span><br />
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia","serif";"></span><br />
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia","serif";"></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Her writing has appeared in the <span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"><em>Globe and Mail</em></span>, <span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"><em>Elle, Today’s Parent, Eye Weekly</em></span>,
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"><em>the Walrus</em></span>, the <span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"><em>Black Warrior Review, Prism, Geist,
Event, Descant, New Quarterly, CellStories, </em></span>the <span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"><em>Fanzine, At Length</em></span>, and
several anthologies. She has worked as an editor and as a creative writing
instructor.</span><br />
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia","serif";"></span><br />
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia","serif";"></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Emily lives in Brooklyn with her
husband </span><a href="http://brianjosephdavis.com/"><span style="color: #c1780a; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10pt; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Brian Joseph Davis</span></a><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">. Together, they write
scripts.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span><br />
</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Click here to reach Emily Schultz's
agent: Shaun Bradley at the </span><a href="http://transatlanticagency.com/"><span style="color: #c1780a; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10pt; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Transatlantic Literary Agency</span></a><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia","serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-CA; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">Contact: </span><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-CA; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><a href="mailto:emilyannschultz@gmail.com"><span style="color: #c1780a; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">emilyannschultz@gmail.com</span></a></span></span><br />
<br />
Follow Emily Schultz on Twitter: @<span class="screen-name">manualofstyle</span><br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="line-height: 19.7pt;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-pxMkvf91L5s/UikKo1UA9eI/AAAAAAAAAa4/q02fGRM10pg/s1600/blondescov.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-pxMkvf91L5s/UikKo1UA9eI/AAAAAAAAAa4/q02fGRM10pg/s1600/blondescov.jpg" /></a><strong><span style="color: black;">The
Sunburst Award jury says: "</span></strong><span style="color: black;">Alone in New York, Hazel Hayes is desperately trying to get her
life together. Her thesis isn’t going well, she’s running low on cash, and
she’s just discovered she’s pregnant after an affair with her married tutor. To
complicate matters even further, random acts of violence and savagery are
breaking out everywhere, acts perpetrated exclusively by light-haired women,
and no one can explain why—or knows how to stop it. At once a gripping
page-turner and a wryly satirical takedown of the omnipresent apocalypse-meme, <cite>The
Blondes</cite> is a perceptive look at a world where certain women are to be
feared and controlled—with brutality, if necessary—and where beauty is not only
skin deep, but can kill you."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 19.7pt;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: large;"><strong><u><em></em></u></strong></span></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: large;"><strong><u><em>Interview with Emily Schultz</em></u></strong>:</span></span></div>
<span style="color: black; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<div style="line-height: 19.7pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: large;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: black;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;">1<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">. How
do most people react when you tell them you're a writer? How long did it take
for you to lay claim to that title of "writer”? Was there a defining
moment when you knew you actually were a writer?</i></b></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><o:p></o:p></i></b></span></span></span> </div>
<span style="color: black; font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 9.5pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;">ES:
I always wanted to write, so I think I’ve never had any qualms about thinking
of myself as a writer. I also began publishing quite young—I was 28 when my
first book, a collection of stories, came out, and by the age of 35 I’d
published a book of poetry and two novels. This is my third novel, and definitely
my favourite. In that regard, I’d say it’s a defining moment: I feel like I’m
just beginning to become the kind of writer I want to be.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-size: 9.5pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span> </div>
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</span></span><br />
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</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 9.5pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;">2. Most people think of New York City as a busy place - how does
that busyness figure into your writing, or does it? What are your favourite
spots for writing?</span></span></i></b></span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-size: 9.5pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></i></b></span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-size: 9.5pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></i></b> </span></div>
<span style="color: black; font-size: 9.5pt;">
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</span></span><br />
<div style="line-height: 19.7pt;">
</div>
<span style="color: black; font-size: 9.5pt;">
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</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 9.5pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;">ES:
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Blondes</i> is set in both New York
and rural Ontario. It’s always head-spinning for me to go from my little
hideaway hometown of 10,000 to this metropolis of over 8 million. In this book,
the plague hits when the character, Hazel, is in Manhattan, so there is
definitely a sense of chaos and busyness as she tries to flee the city and make
it back to what she views as the safety of Canada.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-size: 9.5pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></span> </span></div>
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</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: large; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">As
to favourite spots for writing, I seldom write outside my apartment. I carry a
notebook and get a lot of ideas while on the subway or at the Laundromat, but I
want to be in private to do something as intense as sketching out scenes. While
I was writing <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Blondes</i>, I did rent
a cabin in the Mohave Desert not far from Joshua Tree. That was a wonderful
place to write because it was so quiet. With the exception of the sound of the
military doing drills on a base several miles away, there were no distractions.
I had to drive 35 miles if I wanted to have an internet connection. I did about
half of the first draft there in a short period—it was a bit surprising to me
how much I was able to write out there.</span></span></div>
<span style="color: black;">
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</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 9.5pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="color: black; font-size: 9.5pt;">
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</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 9.5pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: xx-small; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="color: black; font-size: 9.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span></span><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 9.5pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;">3. What's been the highlight of your writing career so far?</span></span></i></b></span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-size: 9.5pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></i></b> </span></div>
<span style="color: black; font-size: 9.5pt;">
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</span><div style="line-height: 19.7pt;">
</div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div style="line-height: 19.7pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;">Probably
being onstage last year at the Vancouver Writers Festival with Margaret Atwood.
<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /><span style="font-size: large;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">4.
What does this particular nomination mean to you, the Sunburst Awards being for
"excellence in Canadian literature of the fantastic"?</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><!--[endif]--></i></b></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div style="line-height: 19.7pt;">
</div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div style="line-height: 19.7pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;">It’s
very exciting! An amazing panel of judges and “Literature of the fantastic” is
such a great phrase. I feel very fortunate to be placed in such company.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div style="line-height: 19.7pt;">
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /><span style="font-size: large;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">5. <span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">The Blondes</span> is a fantasy of
sorts - do you mind when people read metaphors into your work, or is that
metaphorical quality quite intentional on your part? Do you think metaphor
first, or story and/or character first? This is essentially a genesis question:
where does the story begin, for you? And how does it evolve?<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]-->
</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></i></b></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div style="line-height: 19.7pt;">
</div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;">Everything
comes at once for me, in what seems at the time a huge mess. For the first half
I’m always wracked with self-doubt, asking myself if it’s a satire, a comedy, a
horror story, a suspense, a drama? It’s only after I’m a good way into it that
I realize it isn’t messy at all, and all of those elements are falling into
place. It’s funny that Tony Burgess was one of the judges for this award,
because <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pontypool </i>was definitely an
inspiration.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div style="line-height: 19.7pt;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: 19.7pt;">
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<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /><span style="font-size: large;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">6.
I assume you visit schools or university classes now and then to discuss your
work. What have you learned from such moments?</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><o:p></o:p></i></b></span> </span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div style="line-height: 19.7pt;">
</div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;">I
used to teach short story writing at George Brown College, but I was more of an
editor or mentor in that environment. I haven’t actually done a lot of class
visits as an author. One visit I did do was to some eighth graders at the
grammar school I attended growing up. Even though my work is not meant for
young people they asked me some of the most interesting questions I’ve ever
gotten and really made me think. It was a good reminder to me to never to
pre-judge an audience.</span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></span> </div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /><span style="font-size: large;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">7.
What's the next writing project for you?</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><o:p></o:p></i></b></span> </span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div style="line-height: 19.7pt;">
</div>
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</span><div style="line-height: 19.7pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: large;">My
husband and I have been working on scripts lately, one for a TV pilot, one for
a feature film. It’s teaching me a lot about plot and form, and how I approach
projects. I can definitely feel it informing my fiction writing.</span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">For more information on the Sunburst Awards: </span><a href="http://www.sunburstaward.org/2013-sunburst-shortlists"><span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: large;">http://www.sunburstaward.org/2013-sunburst-shortlists</span></span></a></span></div>
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<span style="color: red;"></span><br />Gerard Collinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07449880681680454821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8976021190993015723.post-51415474242398280272013-08-29T14:23:00.001-02:302013-08-29T14:46:10.139-02:30Spotlight on Sunburst: Rio Youers<em><strong><span style="color: red;">The Sunburst Award for Excellence in Canadian Literature of the Fantastic</span></strong><span lang="EN-US" style="color: red; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: red;"> is a</span> <span style="color: red;">juried award to recognize stellar writing in two categories: adult and young adult. The awards are presented annually to Canadian writers with a speculative fiction novel or book-length collection of speculative fiction published any time during the previous calendar year. Past winners include Guy Gavriel Kay and Cory Doctorow.</span></span></em><br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-h4y8iPfZCtI/Uh9wbfMSL1I/AAAAAAAAAaM/VLL3ijEXFxM/s1600/Rio+Youers+photo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-h4y8iPfZCtI/Uh9wbfMSL1I/AAAAAAAAAaM/VLL3ijEXFxM/s200/Rio+Youers+photo.jpg" width="200" /></a><em>I asked each of my fellow short-listed authors for the 2013 Sunburst Award if they would write a piece for my blog. Here’s this week’s feature, an interview with <strong>Rio Youers</strong></em>.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 9pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;"> RioYouers is the author of two novellas, </span><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 9pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;">Mama Fish</span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 9pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;"> (Shroud Publishing) and </span><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 9pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;">Old Man Scratch</span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 9pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;"> (PS Publishing)—the latter earning him a British Fantasy Award nomination in 2010. His novelette, </span><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 9pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;">This is the Summer of Love</span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 9pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;">, was the title story of PS Publishing’s first new-look </span><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 9pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;">Postscripts</span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 9pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;"> anthology, a publication in which Rio has appeared three times. His short fiction has also been published by IDW Publishing, Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy, and Shroud Magazine.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span><br />
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<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 9pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;">Rio’s debut novel, </span><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 9pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;">End Times</span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 9pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;">, was rereleased by PS Publishing in the autumn of 2010. His first short story collection, </span><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 9pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;">Dark Dreams, Pale Horses</span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 9pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;">, will follow in 2011, with a short novel, </span><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 9pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;">Westlake Soul</span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 9pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;"> (ChiZine Publications), slated for release in the spring of 2012.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 9pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;"></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 9pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;">Rio was born in Amersham, England, but has been living in Ontario, Canada since 2001.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><u>The Sunburst Jury says</u>:</span></span><br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HsQDTzoyQPM/Uh906NsR1rI/AAAAAAAAAaY/bG_9E7wm4cc/s1600/westlakesoul.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HsQDTzoyQPM/Uh906NsR1rI/AAAAAAAAAaY/bG_9E7wm4cc/s1600/westlakesoul.jpg" /></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: red; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">"</span><span style="color: red; font-family: Times New Roman;">In the midst of life, Westlake Soul is as good as dead. A surfing accident has left him trapped in a vegetative state inside his now useless body, but as compensation he has been given extraordinary mental powers, as well as a bitter enemy: Dr. Quietus, an embodiment of death itself. Westlake copes with his tragedy and the grief of his loved ones through soaring acts of imagination—but are they really all in his head? <strong>Youers</strong>’ masterful storytelling leaves us wondering just what Westlake is capable of doing, once he sets his formidable brain to work on the problem. <em>Westlake Soul </em>is poignant, funny, and extraordinarily moving as we share Westlake's thoughts, hopes, and dreams, and watch as he - and those around him - struggle to cope with the changed reality of their lives."</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><u></u></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><u>Interview with Rio Youers</u></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">1. I read on your blog that Westlake Soul has
been optioned for movie by some very capable people – congrats. In what ways do
you think WS would make a good movie, or why do you think they chose it for
possible development?<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">First
and foremost, it’s an incredibly visual story. Westlake is a superhero, of
sorts, who can astral project—from his vegetative state—anywhere he wants. So
we have the ocean and the moon and everything in between. We also have raging
battles in the psyche where Westlake continually fights death, and these are
given an almost ironic, comic book emphasis. I had a lot of fun writing these
visual scenes, and I think they could translate to the big screen to
spectacular effect. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">Moreover,
there’s a very human aspect to Westlake Soul: his determination to recover and
live a normal life, and how his condition affects the people he loves—the
heartbreaking decisions they have to make. This is the core of the story,
obviously. It’s tragic and relatable, in book or on film, and I think it
becomes something quite unique when juxtaposed with the fantasy.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">Essentially,
Hollywood loves movies about superheroes and underdogs. With Westlake Soul, you
get both. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">2. What was the genesis of Westlake Soul
for you? When did you know you had a solid idea for a novel, and how did the
story take shape as time went on?<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">My ideas
come out of nowhere, and they always take me by surprise. I may hear a snatch
of conversation, or see something either random or utterly normal … and then my
mind is running and before long I have a partial idea. And that’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">all </i>I have when I sit down to write the
story. I never plot or plan, and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">never </i>know
how the book is going to end. I figure I’ll find out when I get there. So yeah,
I just go for it—seat of the pants—and let the story fill in the blanks. It’s
the way I have always worked, and it seems to work for me.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">Westlake
Soul was different, though. The idea came to me in that nebulous, half-state between
being asleep and awake, where you’re still dreaming but are aware of what’s
going on around you. That’s where I first met Westlake, and he brought most of
the story with him. I leapt out of bed and wrote the idea down (I still have
that sheet of paper), knowing I had something that would work. It wouldn’t be
easy, but it was solid. It was a few years before I started writing the novel
... and it never deviated from that original concept. There were blanks, of
course, but I filled them in along the way, just like I always do.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">3. What does it mean to you to be a
writer?<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">That’s a
tough question to answer. Maybe even impossible, because I’ve always been a
writer—even <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">before </i>I was a writer, if
that makes any sense. I suppose I should be grateful that I have an outlet for
all of the weird and sometimes disturbing detritus in my mind. If I wasn’t a
writer, I’d need a damn good job to pay for all the therapy.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">4. What’s your favourite part of being a
writer?<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></span></div>
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</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">When you
get an idea so outlandish, and difficult, that you don’t think it can be done.
But you challenge yourself and go for it ... and you <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">do </i>it; you knock it out of the park. That’s so rewarding.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">5. What’s your least favourite part of
being a writer?<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">Having
to ask publishers for the money they owe you. It happens less now that I’m
working with better editors and bigger publishers, but I still have to drop an
awkward e-mail from time to time. It’s never fun.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">There
are other disappointments along the way, but they’re all part of the job. I was
recently asked to pitch for a major comic book series. I gave it everything I
had and came up with a concept that I believed worked on every level ... and it
seemed for a while that the gig was mine. Then the publisher/studio decided to
go with another writer. I was crestfallen—still am. I’m usually good at
handling rejection, but that one burned.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">6. What does the Sunburst nomination mean
for you, at this point in your career?<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">It’s an
incredible accolade and I’m immensely proud to be nominated. Standing alongside
so many worthy authors makes it all the more rewarding … not to mention the
fact that it’s a juried award; you are nominated purely on merit, and not
because you have a lot of friends/recommendations within your society or
association. It makes all the hard work worth it.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">Establishing
a name for yourself in this competitive industry is difficult. Juried awards
like the Sunburst go a long way toward helping you achieve that.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">7. What’s next for Rio Youers? Anything you
can tell us about that you’re working on? Oh, and are you one of those authors
who doesn’t like telling anyone about his new work-in-progress, or one of those
who doesn’t mind talking about it, to some extent?<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">Yeah ...
I really don’t like talking about my current project. Partly out of
superstition, but mostly because—being a seat-of-the-pants writer—the story has
a tendency to change lanes and take wild turns. So I prefer not to divulge too
much until I fully know what it’s about, and where it’s going ... which is
usually at the end.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">I <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">can </i>tell you that I’m pretty deep into a
new novel, and that—so far—I’m delighted with the way it’s shaping up. That
could all change in a hurry, of course. But for now, it’s looking good.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">As for
what’s next ... I have a lot of short stories in the pipeline, having worked
with great editors like Stephen Jones, Christopher Golden, and Jon Oliver. I
also have a novella and a collection forthcoming from Cemetery Dance. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">8. What does “literary success” mean for
you?</span></span></b></span><br />
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Making a living writing impactful, well-received fiction, without compromise.</div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Find Rio on Twitter: </span><span class="screen-name4"><span style="color: #bbbbbb;">@</span>Rio_Youers</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Buy <em><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Westlake Soul</span></em> at Kobo: </span></span><a href="http://store.kobobooks.com/en-ca/books/Westlake-Soul/6YixK0jteEad4ZIQe2X6Wg"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: red; font-family: Calibri;">http://store.kobobooks.com/en-ca/books/Westlake-Soul/6YixK0jteEad4ZIQe2X6Wg</span></span></a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">For more information on the Sunburst Awards: <a href="http://www.sunburstaward.org/2013-sunburst-shortlists"><span style="color: red;">http://www.sunburstaward.org/2013-sunburst-shortlists</span></a></span></div>
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Gerard Collinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07449880681680454821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8976021190993015723.post-48138486470992687402013-08-14T15:26:00.001-02:302013-08-14T19:45:44.176-02:30Spotlight on Sunburst: author Derryl Murphy<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="color: red;"><em><b><span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 200%;">The Sunburst Award for Excellence in Canadian
Literature of the Fantastic</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 200%;"> is a juried award to recognize stellar writing in two
categories: adult and young adult. The awards are presented annually to
Canadian writers with a speculative fiction novel or book-length collection of
speculative fiction published any time during the previous calendar year. Past
winners include Guy Gavriel Kay. Cory Doctorow, Geoff Ryman, Nalo Hopkinson and
Margaret Sweatman.</span></em><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; line-height: 200%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; line-height: 200%;"><em>I asked each of my
fellow short-listed authors for the 2013 Sunburst Award if they would be kind
enough to write a piece for my blog. Here’s this week’s piece by <strong>Derryl Murphy</strong>.</em></span><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 200%;"> </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt;"><u>Bio</u>:</span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt;"></span><br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yO7ZRucaehc/UgvBpaDyTSI/AAAAAAAAAZo/EuVfMEJ0hy0/s1600/Derryl+Murphy+photo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yO7ZRucaehc/UgvBpaDyTSI/AAAAAAAAAZo/EuVfMEJ0hy0/s200/Derryl+Murphy+photo.jpg" width="150" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Derryl Murphy</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span lang="EN-US">Derryl Murphy was born in Nova Scotia, raised in Edmonton, Alberta, and has lived in Logan, Utah and Prince George, BC. He now lives in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan with his wife and two sons. A</span><span lang="EN-US"> self-described
“soccer fanatic” Derryl is “a soccer dad, coach, player, fan, and once upon a time
even a ref.”</span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"></span><span lang="EN-US">His novel <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Napier's Bones</i>,
which he describes as “a peripatetic math-as-magic urban fantasy/hard science
fiction story,” was nominated last year for the Aurora Award for Best Novel. The short story collection Over the Darkened Landscape (Fairwood Press) is Derryl's fourth book and is nominated for a 2013 Sunburst Award.</span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"></span><br />
<span style="color: red;"><strong>The
Sunburst Award jury says: </strong>"In this wonderful collection, <strong>Derryl Murphy</strong>
ranges over the whole territory of speculative fiction, from hard SF to magical
realism and back again. He is particularly adept at mining history in stories
that twist and tweak reality, turning it into the thought-provoking “what if?”
of great speculative fiction. Whether he is writing of a society where
government cutbacks have created an interesting way for private citizens to
make money, a legendary artist’s battle with an equally legendary creature of
myth, a town where growing old is the exception rather than the rule, or a
poignant phone call between a husband and wife separated by a distance that can
never be crossed, <strong>Murphy</strong>’s stories mix fantasy and horror, the
extraordinary and the everyday, to stunning effect."<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7Bfk6dFqodU/Ugu9hQ9hx8I/AAAAAAAAAZY/1f5XZJrAr5o/s1600/Derryl+Murphy+cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7Bfk6dFqodU/Ugu9hQ9hx8I/AAAAAAAAAZY/1f5XZJrAr5o/s320/Derryl+Murphy+cover.jpg" width="208" /></a><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;">Find Derryl on Twitter: @<span class="screen-name">derrylm</span></span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;">Buy <em>Over the Darkened Landscape</em> at Kobo: <a href="http://store.kobobooks.com/en-CA/ebook/over-the-darkened-landscape"><span style="color: blue;">http://store.kobobooks.com/en-CA/ebook/over-the-darkened-landscape</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><em><strong>To
Make a Long Story Short</strong></em></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><em><strong>by Derryl Murphy</strong></em></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>It’s an odd feeling to have a book of short stories on the
same Sunburst Award short list as four novels. It’s not like they’re apples and
oranges, of course, but there are plenty of people out there - my wife among
them - who feel that short fiction generally doesn’t do the trick for them,
that it doesn’t tell a complete enough story. (Although let me note as an aside
that my wife does read my short fiction, and sometimes she even gets it. “Last
Call” made her cry, as it did its original editor and the artist who supplied
the illustration for the magazine in which it appeared.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Like it or not, though, short fiction is by its very design
not set to do the same thing a novel does. The character development is, by
necessity, presented in a different fashion, for one thing. It’s no less
effective if done right, of course, but there is a shorthand readers and
writers of short fiction come to recognize.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Now, not all short fiction is created equal. The shortest
story in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Over the Darkened Landscape</i>
is fewer than a thousand words, and the longest is over eleven thousand. The
snippet that is “Clink Clank” obviously doesn’t give me the room to stretch
that the novella of “More Painful Than the Dreams of Other Boys” does. But
that’s part of the fun for me. I don’t write much short fiction anymore, but I
do still find it enjoyable, and an interesting challenge.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"></span> </div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;">2</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>While I don’t do it with all my short fiction, I do
sometimes try to break my stories into little chapters, to give the reader a
sense of the novelistic. And, yes, as a cheat so I can move freely between
scenes without having to worry about writing that bridge. We all have our
crosses to bear.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>But mostly it’s because I like to imagine that these little
snippets - or longer snips, to coin a term - have a life beyond what you read.
And that is precisely what drives my wife so crazy. It’s not so easy, nor so
important, to wrap up the narrative of a short story so that it finishes in one
neat and tidy package. Questions often remain, and I for one am fond of those
questions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Yes, sometimes you can make everything neat and tidy. I
won’t give much away, but to refer again to “Last Call,” I think by the end
there is no doubt that this is the same happy place to end the story no matter
if it’s 2400 or 120,000 words long.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I also find it’s easier to be relentlessly depressing in
shorter bites. In my previous collection, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Wasps
at the Speed of Sound</i> (11 stories of ecological SF - if you squint just
right - that is about to be reprinted by Five Rivers here in Canada), I was
accused of being just a little down. To quote from one review: “The effect of
such savagely pessimistic stories in one concentrated dose is depressing as all
hell, and by half way through a reader might be excused for wondering: if
that's Murphy's view of the future, why does he have kids? Why isn't he hanging
from a rafter some place?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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3</div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>But wait! There’s good news! The stuff I write isn’t always
so down and depressing, and there are indeed stories in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Over the Darkened Landscape</i> that may even make you feel good about
yourself. Not always, of course, as I do have a reputation to keep, but they
are there. Some laughs along the way, even.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Unlike <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Wasps</i>,
this new collection is not thematic in any way. It’s a mixture of science
fiction and fantasy and (kinda) horror and what I suppose you could call
slipstream, or weird fiction. I’ll readily admit that the state of the world
has me feeling somewhat cynical about things, which when one is writing science
fiction stories with an eco/enviro bent can make it easy to misplace the
rose-coloured glasses. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>But the stories of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Over
the Darkened Landscape</i> often came from someplace different; the world can’t
always be on the verge of ending in my fiction, and while, as has been noted by
one of my editors in the past, loss seems to play a large role in my stories, I
don’t think that makes me much different than a whole passel of other authors.
Loss is a factor in every life, it’s a conflict, internal or external, that can
give a story meaning, give it play, give it emotion.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>So can joy or love, of course. But I don’t play as well
with those.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"></span> </div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;">4</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>But Derryl! I hear you cry. You’re babbling on and on and
telling us practically nothing about the stories in the book.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Yes, well, sorry about that. I do tend to wander off on
tangents. Exploratory conversation can be great fun if you’re willing to go
along for the ride, or it can be brain-blisteringly numbing. I can only hope
you’re with me, not agin me.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>So here, as a favour to you, are elevator pitches for each
and every story, guaranteed to be as spoiler-free as possible (the last four,
incidentally, all involve real or possibly apocryphal moments in Canadian
history, or with historical personages. With a minor sprinkling of the
fantastic of some sort. So there is that to consider. I call them my “Magic
Canada” stories). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Body Solar: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;">Rich European<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Goes on a tour out in space<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Problems occur<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Canadaland: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;">Satirical look<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>At the culture of our land<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Yes, some things have changed<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Frail Orbits:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Tired old astronauts<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Landlocked and suffering<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Given a last chance<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Voyage to the Moon:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;">Climbing the beanstalk<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>A fairytale astronaut<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Giant on the Moon<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Last Call:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>A final call home<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>What do you say at the end<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>When they’re your last words?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The Cats of Bethlem:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>A true story of<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>HG Wells and Louis Wain<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Antiques Roadshow told me so<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>More Painful Than the Dreams of Other Boys:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;">A former child cop<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>An adult now, feeling lost<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Back to solve a crime<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The Day Michael Visited Happy Lake:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In rummage sale books<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>A boy finds old memories<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Not his, come to life<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Clink Clank:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>A child hears noises<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Mom and Dad need some money<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Hey kid. Come down here.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Northwest Passage:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Based on true events<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>When my grandpa was up north<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Ghosts might be made up<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Cold Ground:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>If Louis Riel<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Had some magical powers<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Some things might have changed<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Over the Darkened Landscape:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>A Prime Minister<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In our time but not in his<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Solves crimes with his dog<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Ancients of the Earth:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Cave men and mammoths<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Amidst the Yukon Gold Rush<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>That was some meal<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Spoiler-free <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">and</i>
full of mediocre doggerel! How lucky can a person be?<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Truth be told, I think you’ll find the stories in the book
more entertaining, more thoughtful, more full of adventure and whimsy and
despair and joy than you do my feeble and flailing attempts at haiku. I feel
very privileged that the judges thought so, not only so much that they were
willing to honour this book alongside four other fine books, but that they even
used the pejoratives “wonderful” and “stunning.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Which, if it had been a collection of poetry, I think you
can guess how that would have turned out. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="color: red;"></span></span> </div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="color: red;">For more information on
The Sunburst Awards: http://www.sunburstaward.org/2013-sunburst-shortlists</span></span><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: #0400; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: #0400;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Gerard Collinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07449880681680454821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8976021190993015723.post-80267461357003458392013-08-11T19:57:00.003-02:302013-08-11T20:00:34.766-02:30The Fantastic Four: Spotlight on Sunburst<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-RiNZITV81CM/Ue2w9NPm7DI/AAAAAAAAAZM/mnN3_mEXV-k/s1600/sunburst_award_2013.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-RiNZITV81CM/Ue2w9NPm7DI/AAAAAAAAAZM/mnN3_mEXV-k/s200/sunburst_award_2013.jpg" width="191" /></a><br />
First, I felt weird writing that headline as <span style="color: red;">"The Fantastic Five"</span> because, really, who besides Donald Trump does that, calling himself "fantastic"? Rhetorical question - moving right along. And yet it feels slightly disingenuous to say it's only "five" since I'm nominated, too. Fact, is I'm planning to shine a light on the other four nominees only, and they're all fantastic, writing "literature of the fantastic," per se, and so, there ya go. I can do that - it's my blog, after all.<br />
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So who gets nominated for a Sunburst Award for Excellence in Canadian Literature of the Fantastic? Turns out, not just anybody. I'm on the list of 5 authors with books short-listed for the 2013 award in the adult category. Named after the first novel by <span style="color: blue;">Phyllis Gotlieb </span><a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/deaths/canadian-sci-fi-novelist-braved-un%20know%20n-in-american-market/article1225445/">(1926–2009)</a>, one of the first published authors of contemporary Canadian science fiction, the awards consist of a cash award of $1,000 and a beautifully crafted medallion which incorporates a specially designed "Sunburst" logo.<br />
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The award winner will be announced in Toronto in September. Meanwhile, I thought it would fun and useful to pay homage to the other four authors nominated, some of which might be unknown to many of my own readers, just as some of them are relatively new to me. This year's field includes the following:<br />
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- <em><span style="color: red;">Maleficium</span> </em>by <span style="color: red;">Martine Desjardins</span> (translated by Fred A. Reed and David Homel), which was also nominated for the Governor General's Award (French fiction) last year<br />
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- <em><span style="color: red;">Over the Darkened Landscape</span> </em>by <span style="color: red;">Derryl Murphy</span><span style="color: black;">, a Best Novel finalist at the Prix Aurora Awards.</span><br />
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- <em><span style="color: red;">The Blondes</span></em> by <span style="color: red;">Emily Schultz</span><span style="color: black;">, who was has been long-listed for the Giller Prize and been a finalist for the Trillium Prize.</span><br />
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- <em><span style="color: red;">Westlake Soul</span> </em>by <span style="color: red;">Rio Youers</span><span style="color: black;">, who has previously been nominated for the British Fantasy Prize.</span><br />
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I'm proud to be included among this talented group with my first novel <span style="color: red;"><em>Finton Moon</em><span style="color: black;">, thanks to a stellar group of judges that includes accomplished authors <span style="color: blue;">Leon Rooke</span>, <span style="color: blue;">Rebecca Bradley</span>, <span style="color: blue;">Tony Burgess</span>, <span style="color: blue;">Shari Lapeña</span> and <span style="color: blue;">Barbara Roden</span>.</span></span><br />
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It would be easy to just bask in the glory of this nomination while, at the same time calculating my relatively slim chances of actually winning the award, considering the company I'm keeping. The reality, however, is that only one of these five authors will win the award, while the other four of us really can only feel honoured to have been chosen among the top 5 books of literature of the fantastic in the entire country - and, really, beyond, as winners don't always reside in Canada - out of a list of more than a couple of hundred books. The idea of awards, however, isn't just to honour one author (or maybe I'm the only one who thinks that) - but to say to each nominated individual, "Hey, nice job - you stood out this year. Keep it up. Hope this short-listing brings you some attention in a very crowded field."<br />
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So, I thought the best thing would be to <span style="color: red;">highlight each author</span> individually, give them their due and hopefully expose them to some new readers. I've asked each of the other four nominees in the adult category to consider submitting something for my blog that would tell my blog readers who they are, leaving it up to them what to write about - the other option being a short interview. We'll see how that goes. <span style="color: red;">But over the next few weeks, I'll be posting a piece about a different nominee</span>.<br />
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This week, starting on <span style="color: blue;">Wednesday</span>, I'll be featuring <span style="color: blue;">Derryl Murphy</span>. This weekly feature requires some setup, as you've seen, and I thought it would be unfair to Derryl to have him follow such an enormous information dump. So, over the next four <strong><u>Wednesdays</u></strong>, expect to see a short piece about and/or by each short-listed author for the <a href="http://www.sunburstaward.org/" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">2013 Sunburst Award</span></a>.<br />
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If there is time before the awards are announced, I'll also do a short piece one week encompassing the 5 finalists in the young adult category, which also features high quality writers: <span style="color: purple;">Corey Doctorow</span>, <span style="color: purple;">Rachel Hartman</span>,<span style="color: purple;"> Susan Juby</span>, <span style="color: purple;">Moira Young</span> and <span style="color: purple;">Michel Bedard</span>.<br />
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It's my sincere hope that, like me, you'll take this opportunity to discover some new writing from some very fine writers of Canadian literature that strays from the straight and narrow path and crosses into a variety of genres. I think you'll find it an entertaining venture.<br />
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GC<br />
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P.S. There were a LOT of other books considered this year and a LOT of very fine writers and books. There could only be five short-listed books, but there are many more worth your consideration. Here's the full list of books considered for the 2013 Sunburst Awards: <a href="http://www.sunburstaward.org/2012-Novels-And-Collections"><span style="color: red;">http://www.sunburstaward.org/2012-Novels-And-Collections</span></a>.<br />
<br />Gerard Collinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07449880681680454821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8976021190993015723.post-9364359727479143022013-07-22T20:06:00.001-02:302013-07-22T20:24:20.115-02:30<em>Finton Moon</em> has been nominated for The 2013 Sunburst Award in the adult category for "excellence in Canadian Literature of the Fantastic." Needless to say, I'm ecstatic, as this is turning out to be quite a summer and this shortlisting is a hugely unexpected honour. With <em>Moonlight Sketches</em> <br />
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RiNZITV81CM/Ue2w9NPm7DI/AAAAAAAAAZI/WaMWryCCb2c/s1600/sunburst_award_2013.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RiNZITV81CM/Ue2w9NPm7DI/AAAAAAAAAZI/WaMWryCCb2c/s1600/sunburst_award_2013.jpg" /></a>winning the NL Book Award (sponsored by Ches Crosbie Barristers) in 2012, it's gratifying to receive national recognition with my follow-up novel.<br />
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It's particulary thrilling to be in the company of such excellent authors and books.<br />
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Besides <em>Finton Moon</em>, the other 4 nominees are:<br />
<ul>
<li><em>Maleficium</em>, Martine Desjardins; Fred A. Reed and David Homel, trans. (Talonbooks)</li>
<li><em>Over the Darkened Landscape</em>, Derryl Murphy (Fairwood Press)</li>
<li><em>The Blondes</em>, Emily Schultz (Doubleday Canada)</li>
<li><em>Westlake Soul</em>, Rio Youers (ChiZine Publications)</li>
</ul>
I know we all can't win, so good luck to us all. Here's hoping all of you enjoy the nod to your work as much as I do. I plan to read each of the other books and I'm sure I'll enjoy them - I hope some of you do the same. And regardless of who wins, this has already been a rare and rewarding experience.<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-7wEO2hLxWaY/T9IVpdVV-JI/AAAAAAAAALM/QWXNdYHZGaE/s1600/Finton+Moon_front.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-7wEO2hLxWaY/T9IVpdVV-JI/AAAAAAAAALM/QWXNdYHZGaE/s200/Finton+Moon_front.jpg" style="cursor: move;" unselectable="on" width="129" /></a>If you want to know more about the Sunburst awards and the stellar list of judges (Rebecca Bradley, Tony Burgess, Shari Lapeña, Barbara Roden and Leon Rooke), click on the link: <a href="http://www.sunburstaward.org/2013-sunburst-shortlists"><span style="color: red;">http://www.sunburstaward.org/2013-sunburst-shortlists</span></a>. The judges had to read over 230 books (at my count) to arrive at their two shortlists - an extremely arduous task. Results will be announced in the fall.<br />
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I will point out the significance of the fact that <em>Finton Moon</em> is the only book nominated in the Atlantic provinces this year, and I have to give credit to my publisher at <span style="color: red;">Killick Press</span> (an imprint of Creative Publishers). <span style="color: red;">Donna Francis</span>, in particular, snatched up this novel immediately after the success of my short story collection, <em>Moonlight Sketches</em>, an act of faith that means a lot to me, particularly since for many years I was unable to get my books of fiction published at all. So it's nice to have her belief in my work rewarded for us both - and also a great feeling to know that I made the right decision in continuing to write and in choosing a publisher for whom both the first and second book were well fitted. Also, thanks, <span style="color: red;">Pam Dooley</span>, for working tirelessly on behalf of all the authors, including me. And the incredibly talented and big-hearted <span style="color: red;">Russell Wangersky</span>, overseeing manager of Creative Books, for his encouragement, advice and belief.<br />
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If you want to details on how to buy either<em> <span style="color: blue;">Finton Moon</span></em>, <em><span style="color: blue;">Moonlight Sketches</span></em> or my Fierce Short story, "<span style="color: blue;">The Long Last Year</span>," you can visit my website: <a href="http://www.gerardcollins.ca/"><span style="color: red;">http://www.gerardcollins.ca/</span></a><br />
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Also, feel free to join me on <strong><span style="color: blue;">Facebook</span></strong>, either my <a href="https://www.facebook.com/gerard.collins.754" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">personal page</span></a> or my <a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/Gerard-Collins-Author/176696569065790" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">author page</span></a>. I'd love to see you there.<br />
<br />
Finally, thank you to all the readers who have supported my career so far by reading my books, getting the word out through FB, Twitter, Goodreads and good old coffee shop chatter, or by reviewing in whatever format you have available to you. Not only for me, but for every author, it makes a difference and means a lot.<br />
<br />
GCGerard Collinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07449880681680454821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8976021190993015723.post-76208725784860150872013-04-25T14:33:00.001-02:302013-04-25T14:41:36.013-02:30Hollywood Endings<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-vSSAekyk_Jg/UXljZmyEUQI/AAAAAAAAAYs/8c-kryx3xII/s1600/casablanca.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="155" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-vSSAekyk_Jg/UXljZmyEUQI/AAAAAAAAAYs/8c-kryx3xII/s320/casablanca.jpg" width="320" /></a>Okay, so it's poetry time again. I wrote this one a dozen years or so ago and have ne<br />
ver workshopped it, though I'm sure it would benefit from some rethinking and revision. But I've been reading this one to my classes for a few years now as the last class of the semester, as a sort of farewell, so it stands as it is - a working, breathing piece of poetry that's been performed in public more often than anything else I've ever written.<br />
<br />
The inspiration came after seeing three pretty decent movies with pretty terrible endings, all within the space of a couple of weeks. It got me to thinking how difficult endings can be for writers and in relationships of all kinds.<br />
<br />
Here she be:<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoTitle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt;"><strong><u>Hollywood Endings<o:p></o:p></u></strong></span></div>
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt;"></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt;">Casablanca ends in
flight.</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt;">There is a leaving
and a staying.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt;">They would always
have Paris.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt;">Which is a dirty
lie, to tell the truth.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>He didn’t have Paris.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>She didn’t have Paris.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>And they didn’t have each other.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I’ll tell you who had Paris:<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>France and Adolf Hitler.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt;">World War II ends
in flight.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt;">They saved Private
Ryan,<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt;">But killed a lot
of Germans and Jews, Americans, and batteries<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt;">In search of their
Hollywood ending.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt;">Wars always end in
flight,<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt;">And every landing
is a good landing, maybe,<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt;">Unless the plane
is empty,<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt;">And the crew
bailed out at 10,000 feet, <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt;">And the plane just
fell from the sky<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt;">With Bruce Willis
about to yell, “Yippee-kayay!” to his mother’s lover<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt;">And lighting a
cigarette on the tarmac.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt;">Cut.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s a wrap.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Last one in, put out the fires and bury the
dead.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt;">Endings are
difficult.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt;">Someone always
gets hurt.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt;">The budget gets
blown.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt;">The acting turns
bad.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt;">The words keep on
spinning like the wheels of a crashed car flipped</span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt;">sunnyside up.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt;">Even directors and
writers find it hard to say goodbye.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt;">But there’s always
the train or the self-sacrificing Terminator, the tearful hug, the clicking of
the ruby red shoes and an awkward re-entry into your Auntie Em’s bedroom,<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt;">Trying to explain
why you’re late for supper and wondering if the Scarecrow ever got, never had,
a small brain after all.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt;">Sometimes, I
think, if you want to leave, you should just go.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt;">Forget Paris, to
hell with tomorrow and yesterday—<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt;">Just one big
kiss-off, then jump from the plane and go with the wind.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt;">Sayonara,
sweetheart.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yippee-kayay!<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt;">Exit, stage
left.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fade to Black.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt;">That’s all
folks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Right?<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt;">I mean, if you’re
looking for me, go back to the start.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Casablanca ends in flight in search of a Hollywood ending.<o:p></o:p></span>Gerard Collinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07449880681680454821noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8976021190993015723.post-45397608936826625092013-04-16T19:10:00.005-02:302013-04-16T19:18:12.391-02:30Don't "shush" me!<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-eSlwg55sCsk/UJxFDwWYAVI/AAAAAAAAATg/KX0tfYKFo24/s1600/reading+at+woodstock.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-eSlwg55sCsk/UJxFDwWYAVI/AAAAAAAAATg/KX0tfYKFo24/s320/reading+at+woodstock.jpg" width="240" /></a><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">I’ll be
speaking at the <a href="http://www.nlpl.ca/cus_scripts/event_view.php?eid=2909" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">A.C. Hunter library</span></a> tomorrow night, which for some reason makes
me want to “shush” myself.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">The posters
and media say I’ll be reading from my latest book, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://www.kobobooks.com/search/search.html?q=%22Gerard+Colliins%22&t=none&f=author&p=1&s=none&g=both" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">Finton Moon</span></a></i>. And that’s true. But a reading at the library is much
more than just a reading. I’ll probably start by talking about myself a little because
I’m like that. Then I’ll read a short passage, then pause thoughtfully before I
talk about the passage in context of both the novel and the world outside it. Read
another short passage, rinse, repeat.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">There’ll be
questions, most likely, such as “Why in the name of God did you say it like
that?” or “What were you thinking when you wrote about that deranged girl?” Or “Is
any of that true?” Of course, it’s all true; that’s why we have to call it
fiction. Some people will have read the whole book, or part of it, and will
have a question about certain parts, or the significance of the ending or the
beginning or the scene in Morgan’s bedroom. Hopefully, we can get through
without too many spoilers though, just enough to whet the appetite for those of
you who haven’t read it yet.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">The
questions from the audience are my favourite part of the whole experience. Last
time I read at the library, in September 2011, shortly after the publication of
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://www.kobobooks.com/ebook/Moonlight-Sketches/book-PLZWwJkENUaOtP2gIoCWCw/page1.html?s=buVwuBp_O0mok_4nci6ISg&r=2" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">Moonlight Sketches</span></a></i>, the atmosphere
was cozy like a kitchen party, with people asking weird and wonderful questions
(whether they’d read the book, just parts of it, or not at all) and me happily
responding to it all, going off on mad tangents, which is probably what I do
best.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-bu25_7BEpuo/UW3EJdJgeKI/AAAAAAAAAYc/NFMp85CElTI/s1600/library+photo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-bu25_7BEpuo/UW3EJdJgeKI/AAAAAAAAAYc/NFMp85CElTI/s1600/library+photo.jpg" /></a><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">Tomorrow
night (Wednesday) I won’t just be reading and talking about the book(s). If you’re
interested in talking about the <span style="color: blue;">creative process</span> (where ideas come from and how
they get written and why), the <span style="color: blue;">road to publishing</span> (many a dragon there, certainly),
and <span style="color: blue;">what it’s like</span> to be published, how it <span style="color: blue;">changes life</span>, and what comes next,
then we’ll do all that as well. The discussion is open and lively, and if the
audience has few questions, I have plenty of topics of my own related to the
writing and publication of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://www.kobobooks.com/ebook/Finton-Moon/book-j9-Da_eb2UKZlZvzfHcq2A/page1.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">Finton Moon</span></a></i>,
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://www.kobobooks.com/ebook/Moonlight-Sketches/book-PLZWwJkENUaOtP2gIoCWCw/page1.html?s=buVwuBp_O0mok_4nci6ISg&r=2" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">Moonlight Sketches</span></a></i><span style="color: red;"> </span>or even my recent
e-book story, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/293554" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">The Long Last Year</span></a></i>.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">If there’s
time, I might read a couple of pages from my new work in progress, a novel
called <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">My Sister’s Walls</i>. We’ll see
how the evening goes.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">Hope to see
you there. It’s wide open to the public and starts at 7 p.m. It’s only for an
hour, so you’ll be home again or downtown, or able to attend a late movie
afterwards, whatever your choice.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">Oh, and the
<a href="http://www.nlpl.ca/cus_scripts/event_view.php?eid=2909" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">A.C. Hunter library</span></a> is adjoined to the Arts and Culture Centre. </span></span></span><br />
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span></span><br />
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">Don't worry if you haven't read the book. </span></span></span><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">Just come out and talk about writin' 'n stuff.</span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span>Gerard Collinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07449880681680454821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8976021190993015723.post-27697250316232436602013-04-16T11:34:00.002-02:302013-04-16T11:34:48.215-02:30One For the Money, Two For the Show(Reposted from May 27, 2008 - in honour of LC's unexpected return engagement to St. John's next weekend.)<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-outline-level: 3;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Gil-gLt7Qss/UW1ZaSrZTPI/AAAAAAAAAYI/lwhZGTm1w_0/s1600/Leonard+Cohen+photo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="194" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Gil-gLt7Qss/UW1ZaSrZTPI/AAAAAAAAAYI/lwhZGTm1w_0/s320/Leonard+Cohen+photo.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;"><span style="font-size: large;">Well, here it is the morning after
the biggest concert weekend St. John’s has ever seen, and it feels like it was
all a dream. Two full-length shows by two contrasting giants of the music
world—in fact, it was two nights of Bob Dylan, followed by three nights of
Leonard Cohen. I enjoyed the Dylan show, but I’ve got to say that the Cohen
show was the best concert I’ve ever seen.<br />
<br />
It occurs to me that some so-called performers could take a lesson from LC. It
was a rare treat to see Bob Dylan in concert and I was thrilled just to be in
the audience. In fact, I felt privileged that he would come back here not only
for the second time, but also on his birthday, which was the night I saw him.
When he and his band took the stage, all wearing dark hats and suits, it took
me a couple of minutes to figure out which one was him. We had fantastic seats,
but Dylan didn’t do anything to distinguish himself. He stood at his keyboard
the entire night, with his back turned to half the stadium, including us. He
sang a couple of songs that most people knew (bluesy versions of “Shelter From
the Storm” and “Blowin’ in the Wind”), a few more lesser knowns that I
recognized, but the rest were relatively obscure. That’s all fine and good, but
I couldn’t really tell if he was enjoying himself or not. I did sense a
restlessness from the crowd, though, and that speaks volumes for Dylan’s
performance skills, which are pretty much nil.<br />
<br />
Don’t get me wrong. He’s a pretty good musician, with a unique voice, and a
gift for lyrics. He can write strong melodies too, but he didn’t showcase many
of those when I saw him. The audience was extremely appreciative of his meager
efforts and coaxed him into an encore, though I sensed (much like Ron Hynes
whom I saw a couple of weeks ago) that he just wasn’t all that interested in
audience reaction or staying any longer than he had to. That’s his prerogative
and, again, I enjoyed just being there. I mean, it’s freakin’ Bob Dylan
deigning to come to St. John’s, Newfoundland. We should be grateful. And we were.
Problem is, he acted as if we should be grateful too.<br />
<br />
I understand all about Dylan’s reputation as an artist. And just like “Manny
being Manny” in baseball, when Dylan hides under a hat and refuses to play
guitar, sing popular hits, or acknowledge the audience in any way, that’s just
Dylan being Dylan. We love him for it, but almost in spite of his behaviour.
His greatness as a songwriter and pop culture icon is beyond dispute. I just
don’t feel like I really SAW Bob Dylan. Or maybe what I saw really was Bob
Dylan, who’s a bit of a ghost at the best of times. Either way, I’m glad I
went, glad he came, but his show didn’t even compare to Leonard Cohen’s.<br />
<br />
Leonard was warm, entertaining, intelligent, witty, self-effacing and
appreciative of an audience who adored his every word, lyric, or tip of the cap
on stage. From the opening song, “Dance Me to the End of Time” to the 11 or
12-song encore (there were several encores), he was fully engaged with the
people who’d paid 80 bucks a ticket to sit in his presence. There were a few
songs I would have liked to have heard, but he sang so many of his best tunes
that it’s impossible to fault him. “I’m Your Man.” “Take This Waltz.” “Tower of
Song.” “Democracy”.” “The Future.” “Suzanne.” And my personal favorite “Hallelujah”.
There were so many great songs, and he executed them to perfection, sounding
far better than his recordings. Leonard’s voice has just gotten better, deeper,
and more resonant as he’s aged. He’s 74 and makes a few jokes at his own
expense, but on stage he dances and moves more gracefully than most
grandfathers, I assure you.<br />
<br />
The audience just hung on his every word. The air was electric, a standing
ovation occurring at the end of at least half (if not two-thirds) of the songs.
The backup band was absolutely amazing, with everything from a harp and
harmonica to a saxophone, keyboards, drums, various stringed instruments that I
didn’t even recognize—each played expertly. Leonard kept making sure his band
and backup singers were well-recognized, and they were. I could go on for half
an hour just about how good Sharon Robinson and the Webb sisters were, but
suffice to say they added strength and substance to an already magnificent
show. In all, he played for three hours and ten minutes, including a short
break, and I’m sure the audience would have stayed for two more hours at least.
I, for one, just didn’t want to leave.<br />
<br />
So what’s the difference? I think there’s an arrogance that accumulates in the
soul of certain performers after they’ve had a measure of success. I mean,
Cohen has just as much reason to be full of himself and “artistic” as Dylan,
but I’ve always gotten the feeling that Dylan disdains his audience, despises
“having” to perform in order to be heard or to make a living. He’d probably be
much happier just writing songs and singing them for himself, but it’s hard to
sell CDs that way. So he puts up with us and takes our hard-earned money away
with it. I don’t mind that I am grateful for having seen him in concert, but I
mind that he takes me and you for granted.<br />
<br />
Leonard Cohen has always struck me as a man of passion—a spiritual, sensual
soul who genuinely loves life and everything it has to offer. He can be
sarcastic and funny, of course, quite cutting in fact. But it’s different from
Dylan’s hard-edged dislike for the world (or so it seems). I came away from the
Dylan show just glad to have seen a legend, but wondering if maybe he could
have done more to win me over. That’s what a performer is. I came away from the
Cohen show with a huge smile on my face, my wife and I chattering happily about
how it was the best show we’ve ever seen. This morning, there’s almost a sense
of loss. I wish I could see him again tonight, but alas, the show is all sold
out long ago.<br />
<br />
It’s like St. John’s made a friend last night that we’ll never see again. Bob
Dylan is a passing acquaintance whose like is rarely seen in these parts, while
Leonard Cohen leaves you with a song in your heart and a glimpse into the soul
of a man who’s always had an aura of mystery around him, much as Dylan has. And
it’s not just because Leonard sang songs that most of his audience knew; even
the ones I didn’t know (there were at least a couple) were sung with the intent
of an offering, a piece of the songwriter going out to a carefully listening
audience. We were being sung to and not merely being sung at.<br />
<br />
Not to be too harsh, but while Dylan might appropriately claim “I’m Not There,”
Cohen winningly suggests, “I’m Your Man.” Dylan’s not the first performer I’ve
seen with that kind of arrogance, merely the best. At least he’s earned the
right, sort of. But Leonard Cohen’s earned it too, but chooses instead to
include us in the celebration of his talent and success, as well as of life and
good music. It just doesn’t get any better.<br />
<br />
I have had a religious experience that I won’t be forgetting any time soon.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span>Gerard Collinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07449880681680454821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8976021190993015723.post-64084398653805657792013-04-03T14:10:00.004-02:302013-04-03T14:33:54.497-02:30Win a free copy of "The Long Last Year"<strong><span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span></strong><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-VO7gvcdtZaI/UT5WCPhVd4I/AAAAAAAAAXk/WiwijEJ3liE/s1600/The+Long+Last+Year+cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-VO7gvcdtZaI/UT5WCPhVd4I/AAAAAAAAAXk/WiwijEJ3liE/s320/The+Long+Last+Year+cover.jpg" width="212" /></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">My publisher
is giving away a free copy of my Fierce Short story, “The Long Last Year.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">To
enter the draw, just go to my “<a href="https://www.facebook.com/gerard.collins.754/posts/10151854501127785?ref=notif&notif_t=like#!/pages/Gerard-Collins-Author/176696569065790" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">Gerard Collins – Author</span></a>” page </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">
and click “like” on the post announcing this contest.</span></span></div>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Please note that you can enter the
drawing only if you’ve liked my <u><a href="https://www.facebook.com/gerard.collins.754/posts/10151854501127785?ref=notif&notif_t=like#!/pages/Gerard-Collins-Author/176696569065790" target="_blank">author page</a></u>. (Membership should have some privileges.)</span></span></b><br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Contest closes Friday (April 5) at
5:00 p.m. Eastern time.</span></span></b></div>
You can also purchase "The Long Last Year" or see more details about the story by going to <a href="https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/293554" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">Smashwords</span></a> or <a href="http://amazon.ca/"><span style="color: red;">Amazon.ca</span></a>.<br />
<br />
(Note that a portion of proceeds for the sales of this story are gong to<a href="http://www.ftlol.org/" target="_blank"> <span style="color: red;">For the Love of Learning</span></a>.)<br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></b><br />Gerard Collinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07449880681680454821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8976021190993015723.post-83974622605718303322013-03-28T15:59:00.002-02:302013-03-29T15:32:42.997-02:30<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.amazon.ca/gp/bestsellers/digital-text/5784889011/ref=pd_zg_hrsr_kinc_1_6_last" target="_blank"><img border="0" height="181" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gQqNfNsuvUk/UVSKvAldU5I/AAAAAAAAAX0/RZAFfnl6xys/s320/Amazon+%231+(First+time+ever).png" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
My short creative memoir, "The Long Last Year" hit #1 in two nonfiction categories yesterday on Amazon.ca! And it's doing very well on the overall bestseller list as well. That's a bit of a dream come true.<br />
<br />
It's a strange feeling to have something you wrote about yourself, without those layers of fictionalization, being read by so many people. It's very flattering, but an out of body experience of sorts. I think most writers, at some point, dream of winning an award or being at the top of a bestseller list. But this story is special to me because, while it is a "creative" memoir, it really does provide an accurate view of who I was at the age of seventeen and the choices and challenges I faced that year. The very idea that people would care to read that story not only means a lot to me but makes me shake my head in disbelief and gratitude.<br />
<br />
Thanks for support and interest, each and every one of you. A handsome portion of the proceeds for "TLLY" are going to For the Love of Learning, thanks to the generosity of my publisher, Fierce Ink Press, owned and operated by the dynamic duo of Kimberly Walsh and Colleen McKie.<br />
<br />
Also, my heartfelt thanks to media, bloggers and social media peeps who've been so great at getting the word out for a good cause.<br />
<br />
GCGerard Collinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07449880681680454821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8976021190993015723.post-31666278819789978452013-03-12T15:21:00.002-02:302013-03-12T15:24:57.300-02:30Putting myself forwardFresh off winning the NL Book Award in May of last year, I was contacted by<span style="color: red;"> Fierce Ink Press</span> and asked to if I'd be interested in writing for their brand new series of "<a href="http://fierceinkpress.com/submissions/fierce-shorts/" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">Fierce Shorts</span></a>." Over the past several months, they've published a series of creative nonfiction stories -- written by authors like <span style="color: black;">Chad Pelley, Corey Redekop, Patti Larsen and Jamie Fitzpatrick</span> (upcoming) and others -- focused on their own experiences as teenagers.<br />
<br />
My contribution released on March 12 and is called "<a href="http://fierceinkpress.com/author-gerard-collins-relives-a-difficult-final-year-of-high-school-in-a-creative-non-fiction-short-in-support-of-charity/" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">The Long Last Year</span></a>" because it's all about my last, torturous year in high school. I wrote a story from the perspective of a teenager with a "normal" life, which, as anyone knows, isn't all that easy. I think, more than anything, a teenager (or any person) is looking to see where he or she fits in the world. The problem arises when one doesn't feel that they are a good fit, that they are different from everyone else. Of course, for me, the big fear was actually being the same as everyone else. I wanted to make my mark on the world -- or, really, to have it make its mark on me. But first, it meant somehow surviving the "long last year" without much a plan or a sense of where I was going in life -- tough enough in itself, until tragedy strikes.<br />
<br />
You might be interested in this story if you're a young adult, but also a parent or teacher. Or you might simply be interested in some "nonfiction" for a change from me, since most of what I write and publish is fictional.<br />
<br />
For more information, to read a sample, or to purchase this story ($3.99) for download, click on the <u>text</u> below.<br />
<br />
<div style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://www.facebook.com/FierceInkPress?sk=app_184367687735&app_data=%2Fproducts%2F3657440-the-long-last-year-by-gerard-collins-kindle-edition" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: large;">'The Long Last Year'</span></a></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VO7gvcdtZaI/UT5WCPhVd4I/AAAAAAAAAXg/AZjX405wfEM/s1600/The+Long+Last+Year+cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VO7gvcdtZaI/UT5WCPhVd4I/AAAAAAAAAXg/AZjX405wfEM/s320/The+Long+Last+Year+cover.jpg" width="212" /></a></div>
Gerard Collinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07449880681680454821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8976021190993015723.post-30097410425225074042013-01-28T15:57:00.000-03:302013-02-03T13:57:36.397-03:30Poetry<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-D1EIbszE7iw/UQbQfKWfNoI/AAAAAAAAAXE/cPTJnG5CYXY/s1600/004.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><br />
I don't consider myself a poet and I've never played one on TV. I've never even tried to publish any of my poetry. But now and then I like to share one that I've written. So, if you're interested, here you go. I wrote this one in the Bat Cave one evening when I was feeling introspective and angsty.<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-D1EIbszE7iw/UQbQfKWfNoI/AAAAAAAAAXE/cPTJnG5CYXY/s1600/004.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-D1EIbszE7iw/UQbQfKWfNoI/AAAAAAAAAXE/cPTJnG5CYXY/s200/004.JPG" width="200" /></a></div>
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<div align="left" class="MsoTitle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left;">
<u>Without</u></div>
<br />
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<span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span><span lang="EN-US">Once we ran </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">In pliant skins and resilient bones, </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Spending laughter and breath,</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Having plenty in store:</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">Talk spilled free from our willing lips</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">upon Formica and down our legs.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">We nearly drowned in</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">our confessional wading pool</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">that was never so deep</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">as we thought till we stood.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">For all of it:</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">our deceptive youth, </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">decadent decay,</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">choices of killers, lovers,</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">prey for our souls,</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">for whatever we became:</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">at summer’s cruel close</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">I miss you tonight.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">While shifting clouds violet the twilight
sky, </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">the world draws shut.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">And we are left without.</span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-US"></span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">(Gerard Collins)</span></div>
Gerard Collinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07449880681680454821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8976021190993015723.post-13455750159646395732012-12-16T16:39:00.001-03:302012-12-16T17:54:47.097-03:3012-21-12: The End is NighFirst, let's just get this out of the way: I don't believe the world will end on December 21. I don't know what the Mayans supposedly predicted or why. Furthermore, I don't really care. Believing in the end of the world is a lot like believing in God, or unicorns, or the infallibility of the pope, or that Jesus raised the dead, that the NHL strike will end by Christmas, or that a friend of mine is sleeping with her best friend's husband. Perhaps, in good time, I will know the answer to all these burning issues. <br />
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Xl8QoF9y3wg/UM4r-wQ94VI/AAAAAAAAAWk/yC1aSy1_XvM/s1600/Jumping.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Xl8QoF9y3wg/UM4r-wQ94VI/AAAAAAAAAWk/yC1aSy1_XvM/s200/Jumping.jpg" width="200" /></a><br />
But right now--and this might shock you--I freely admit that I JUST DON'T KNOW!<br />
<br />
There, I said it.<br />
<br />
Now, I'm not so arrogant as to think we're indestructible. And by "we" I mean you. I might well be indestructible. I just don't know. See the quandary I'm in?<br />
<br />
You, however, I'm willing to leave dangling for experimental purposes. Since your indestructibility has not been proven to me--and yet, I admit, since you're still alive, neither has your destructibility (ten points for Gryffindor!)--I am going to assume, for the sake of rhetoric, that you are expendable and soluble.<br />
<br />
But here's my point: The world might not end on Dec. 21, 2012. Or it might. You don't get to choose.<br />
<br />
You can choose which to believe, or not to believe, or what have you. But you don't actually get to decide what happens on that day.<br />
<br />
I think the world as we know it will end some day. I don't know if the earth is indestructible. It might be, but I doubt it. There's always some bigger planet with which it might collide, or some asteroid that might bump into us in a few billion years or less and send us careening off our axis, flinging us into the sun and screaming for our lives.<br />
<br />
Most likely, the earth will remain intact. We, on the other hand (by which I mean you), might well be shrugged off the planet's back like nothing but the ticks and lice we so often resemble in our behaviour.<br />
<br />
Odd thing is, despite the sarcastic tone of this post thus far, I mean it in exactly the opposite way. I would give my life for this planet because, let's face it, without this planet I am nothing.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, we are here now and surely that counts for something.<br />
<br />
A friend of mine said the other day that her child came home from school asking if he had to go to school on the day of the supposed apocalypse because, really, if the world ended, he didn't want to spend it in school.<br />
<br />
What a wise lad.<br />
<br />
My response was that we should all take that day off, use it as a day to celebrate life and the miracle that is our existence on this planet. Far better than spending the day in mourning, no matter how it turns out.<br />
<br />
December 21 (or Dec. 20, whichever) should be an unofficial holiday. I mean, what's the worst that can happen? You wake up that morning, you throw caution to the chilly breeze and say, "I'm not going to work/school/basket weaving/license plate making or pottery class today. I'm spending the next 24 hours doing everything I want to do--not stuff I have to do." So maybe you call a few people and tell them you love them. It could even be people you know.<br />
<br />
Personally, I wouldn't do that. I hate telephones. I might email a few people I've been meaning to respond to for a while now--but only if I seriously care about whether they hear from me. I mean, I'm not going to waste my time talking to people who don't mean that much to me. I'd have to check my Facebook page, though, and maybe scan Twitter for Cecil Haire's Road Report (if there were zombies on the highway, Cecil would be the first to know because he's always in Long Harbour before breakfast and on his way back into town by the time the sun comes up).<br />
<br />
The thing is to act like it was your last day on earth. You could get drunk. But I don't see the point in that unless it's getting drunk/stoned with friends with whom you love spending time with, maybe singing some songs like "The Night Pat Murphy Died" or "Molly Bawn." I'm not sure what people sing when all they listen to is rap. I guess you could spend the last few minutes of your life trying to remember the words to "Love in this Club, Part II" or "Nothin' But a 'G' Thing." Not that there's anything wrong with that. I'm sure there are more appropriate tunes, but I don't know any.<br />
<br />
If it was my last day on earth, I would probably want to spend two solid hours sitting at the seashore, feeling the wind on my face. Or perhaps just an hour there and another hour in the woods. Really, just feeling. I mean, that's always been the thing with me. Whatever I do, I try to feel it. Sometimes I manage; sometimes I don't. Nothing worse than doing something when your heart's not in it.<br />
<br />
I'd go home then and spend an hour reading a few poems from my favourite poets. Maybe something from Dylan Thomas or Walt Whitman, and definitely some Yeats, maybe a chapter from a favourite novel. Not even sure what that would be. But it would have to be something appropriate, maybe from <em>Alas, Babylon</em> or <em>The Road</em>.<em> </em>Or maybe something from the first novel I ever read, <em>Little Women</em>, for the sake of nostalgia. I wouldn't read from <em>Revelations</em> at that point, though, because that would just piss me off.<br />
<br />
Mind you, I'd probably be drinking the occasional bit too--but not so much that I couldn't feel. That would be stupid. I've often said that if the end of the world were to come, I'd want to be here to see it because, I mean, if it's only going to happen once, why would I want to miss that? Sure, it would be horrible. The carnage would be unimaginable. The stock markets would plummet. The "Hot Topics" on The View would be too emotional to take. CNN would be just rolling clips of people running around the Wal-mart with shopping carts full of water, batteries and hygiene products, with a wild look in their eyes like we were getting a major snowstorm or it was Black Friday. I'm not sure my heart could take it really. But I'm no coward. Well, not when it comes to apocalypses. Apocalypsi. Whichever. But every time we have one, I plan to be there. It's a testament to my masculinity, a test of courage.<br />
<br />
Seriously, though, I'm not planning for the end of the world. I mean, what kind of stupid arse does that? If it comes, it comes and there's nothing you can do about it. You just kind of go with it. If the end of days comes, I don't think I'd be too content with a few jugs of water, a cupboard full of potato chips, and a shotgun. If that's what you've got standing between you and the cannibalistic hordes beating on your door, I'd say your pretty much done for anyways. Might as well do all your living right now.<br />
<br />
Oh, back to the list of things. Okay, so there's the time on the beach and in the woods. Check. Good reading. Check. Some good beer. But no drugs because they dull the senses.<br />
<br />
I'd actually like to have lunch with all the people I like in the world. But that's not likely because they don't necessarily all like me enough to spend even a part of their last day on earth with me. I get it. No biggie. Maybe I should've answered that last email. But I'd have a small gathering in my home, a few songs, as I said, tell them all how lucky they are to have me in their lives. No, wait, I mean, tell them how lucky I am to be in their lives, how I wish we could spend the rest of our lives together.<br />
<br />
Then wait for the eerie silence, followed by nervous laughter and a sense of relief before the music breaks out (assuming the eerie silence wasn't followed by a loud bang, or someone breathing heavy and having sex in another room. That would just be awkward).<br />
<br />
As evening comes on, I want my wife and I to say goodbye to our guests and shut the door on the world.<br />
<br />
Fade to black. You don't need to know what we do after we shut the door.<br />
<br />
Okay, then, fade to light and colour again. We'd sit together and talk. Maybe light a few candles. Hold hands. Reminisce. Talk about how good it was to see everyone that day, even the one who kept bawling into his beer and making inappropriate comments to the women, telling them all how much he wished he'd slept with each of them ('cause that would totally happen). We'd try not to mention how, even at pre-apocalypse gatherings, family can drive you nuts sometimes. And secretly you wish for an apocalypse so you don't have to do it all over again over Christmas.But mostly, my wife and I would just watch each other's faces in the glow of the candle light, bask in the shadows and say "I love you" a few times, then wait for the evening to end.<br />
<br />
Then I'd put "Love You Till the End" by the Pogues on repeat on my iPod, just loud enough to hear it, then fade off to sleep.<br />
<br />
That would be a good day.<br />
<br />
I think I'll do that, or something akin to it.<br />
<br />
Peace and love, everybody.<br />
<br />
Gerard<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Gerard Collinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07449880681680454821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8976021190993015723.post-39613463103546944762012-12-14T19:03:00.001-03:302012-12-16T17:00:37.431-03:30Kicking and screaming at the darknessForgive me while I rant and roar.<br />
<br />
We're all sick of the shooting, the killing, the cruelty.<br />
<br />
I don't know why some people feel the need to kill other people. Sitting in a mall food court. Going to a summer movie. Starting a kindergarten class for the day.<br />
<br />
Even writing that last one makes me want to give in to the urge to curse and cry and hit and scream that there are some people who should not be allowed to live with the rest of us.<br />
<br />
I feel no forgiveness for these people who do these things. They are monsters. I don't care how "sick" they are, if they're off their meds, if someone bullied someone, if someone's mother is a bad parent. I don't know the situation, don't know the reasons and don't really want to know.<br />
<br />
I've seen it said on Facebook in the last few hours that people should not leap to conclusions. That we should seek answers instead of shouting at the devil.<br />
<br />
Fine. Let's seek answers. But if someone is insane, I feel sympathy for them only up until they start shooting people. Then I hate them. Show me the switch and I'll pull it. If you kill a child who has done nothing to deserve such abominable treatment, you deserve to have horrible things happen to you.<br />
<br />
Nonsense being spewed about how so many people die of starvation or get killed in far-off wars, or executed or persecuted at the callused hands of despotism. Hundreds and thousands, every day. And yet we don't care about them? So why should we care about these twenty children and six adults? I don't care about the shooter. He can rot in a hell of his own creation. I'm done with him.<br />
<br />
It's a cynical age, and it's circular rationalizing like this that confuses and hardens us more and more. Don't try to deprive anyone of their right to mourn, to feel something. We live in times when it's almost a miracle to get people to care about anyone else at all, so when something so tragic happens, there's always someone saying, "Yeah, well, you didn't cry over the ones who died doing such-and-such last week, did you? So what gives you the right to cry now?"<br />
<br />
Fair enough logic. But logic has nothing to do with it. It's not hypocritical to feel and to express that feeling. It's human and natural. We are not just thinking beings. We also have feelings.<br />
<br />
I would like to feel something for people in faroff lands. And I actually do. But they don't touch me quite the same. See, now I'm being forced to qualify and quantify my varying levels of mourning and emotions. I won't do it. I'm not saying it all on Facebook. In fact, I turned my profile photo black today because I lacked the words to express the level of frustration and anger I feel. See, it's not just grief. It's not just that I feel bad for those kids, their parents and grandparents and other family members. I feel angry.<br />
<br />
I always feel betrayed when one of our own species gives in to the darkness, feeds the darkness and becomes one with it.<br />
<br />
There is good in the world. Much, much good in the world that often borders on greatness.<br />
<br />
I spent the morning downtown today, talking to people who were enjoying the sunshine, glad to be in somewhere out of the cold, chattering happily to one another and smiling. What a great, shining moment it was, and I came home feeling that the world is good. People are wonderful.<br />
<br />
And then I turn on the computer and find... <em>this</em>. This hideous thing. This monkey in an Ikea shop. This monster with a gun (several, in fact) shows what awful things we are capable of. He wasn't strong enough, so he tried to prove how strong he was. Wasn't important enough, so he tried to grab power.<br />
<br />
But he's not important. If I could, I would erase his existence from the history books, from school records and church records, and I would burn his body and send his ashes flying to the wind without a single witness. I would train his parents and friends to never utter his name again.<br />
<br />
But I can't do that. And I know it would be wrong. Because history, both micro and macro, is filled with atrocities whose name must be spoken so that they are not repeated. The Holocaust. Pearl Harbour. Hiroshima. 9-11. And many, many before those and since, both newsmaking and unknown.<br />
<br />
But here's the kicker: such darkness will be repeated, time and time again, over and over again.<br />
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See, the rest of us get the message. There are hundreds of millions of us. Good people who just want to go about our lives, striving to be happy, working our jobs, making our way through a world that is, many times, inhospitable to us. But there are always a few idiots with guns who want to take away our peace of mind--and they do. They are terrorists of a sort, keeping us on edge, fearful of sending our children to school, afraid of walking the street alone at night, looking over our shoulders when we would rather be care-free.<br />
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It's not an either-or kind of issue : Get rid of as many guns as is reasonably possible. Without them, fewer people would die. You can't save everyone, so let's save as many as possible. The argument will arise, as it did last summer when that maniac bolted into a movie theatre and killed all those people: if someone in there had possessed a gun, he wouldn't have gotten away with it. But I stand by my own argument at the time: <span style="color: red;">the problem wasn't that there weren't enough guns in the room but that there were too many.</span><br />
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Yes, we need to take more precautions to prevent and treat mental illness. No question about it.<br />
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We also need to pay more attention to each other.<br />
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And one final thing: while, until this moment, I haven't been splattering Facebook and Twitter with my dark thoughts, I wish people would stop trying to take a strip out of those who do. We live in an age where people take immediately to FB and its lesser cousin to let people know what they're feeling. It's a way of making your thoughts count, or simply working your stuff out in a way so that you don't feel quite so alone. You like to know there are like-minded souls out there. The beauty of Facebook is that it connects us. So when tragedy occurs, let's not verbally abuse people who want to feel connected at a time when it seems the very fabric of our world is ripping apart at the seams.<br />
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Melodramatic? Not really. I know the world will go on just the same after this, once the days start to pass and the healing begins. The world will keep on spinning, and lives will continue just the same. But there is something about this gunman--about every whack job with a loaded weapon who decides to take some lives--that reminds us of how fragile it all is.<br />
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And we all react according to who we are, who we've always been.<br />
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There is good in the world. Hang on to that as if it were your god. Because there are days like this when you are going to need it, no matter what your religion, no matter your level of empathy or cynicism, no matter what.<br />
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There are days when, for one terrible moment, you don't even feel like kicking at the darkness anymore. Because the darkness is strong and threatens to overwhelm you.<br />
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But that's when you need to take time and reflect. Get it all out. Scream at the walls. Hug your child. Shed your tears.<br />
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Or, if it's your wont, give a helpless shrug.<br />
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Either way, you've got to rise up and take back the world, or continue to create something that you never had but always wanted. The world has always been dark because of a proverbial handful of (mostly) men who hold the rest of us for ransom, stealing, raping and plundering their way to some sort of dark reward.<br />
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But I don't think the answer is to start shooting back. The answer is to take away their ability to shoot.<br />
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You will never take away their reasons for shooting since, as someone quoted someone earlier today on FB, insanity doesn't have a reason.<br />
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There are some people who are affronted by kindness, by happiness, and even by innocence.<br />
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Some people are just that way--either born that way or made that way.<br />
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And, while I'm tempted to leave my diatribe on that negative note, I can't--simply because kicking at the darkness is not just a stolen line from a Bruce Cockburn song.<br />
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It's what we do, what we have to do. Because the alternative is just too awful to bear.<br />
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Hug your children. Be kind to one another. Light a candle or sit by a warm fire with your best friend beside you. Say the words that make everything feel good.<br />
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Pray, if it makes you feel better. But pray without expectations for others.<br />
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And most of all, tomorrow, pay a little more attention--not just to those who harm, but to those who could simply use a little more care.<br />
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GCGerard Collinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07449880681680454821noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8976021190993015723.post-49671692625155002242012-12-01T17:48:00.000-03:302012-12-01T17:48:20.456-03:30Drawing for Moonlight SketchesI'm drawing for a free copy of Moonlight Sketches in 15 minutes from now.<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-61UWbvLCoiI/ULpz4nCYiDI/AAAAAAAAAWI/vjJSk_pVO4Y/s1600/FRONT+COVER+(JPEG).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-61UWbvLCoiI/ULpz4nCYiDI/AAAAAAAAAWI/vjJSk_pVO4Y/s320/FRONT+COVER+(JPEG).JPG" width="210" /></a></div>
Hop on over to : <a href="http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Gerard-Collins-Author/176696569065790">http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Gerard-Collins-Author/176696569065790</a> to enter.<br />
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Drawing takes place at 6 p.m. Newfoundland time Saturday evening, December 1.<br />
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GerardGerard Collinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07449880681680454821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8976021190993015723.post-39984438630727559072012-11-24T19:54:00.000-03:302012-11-24T20:34:08.451-03:30Last chance book signing<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-nZY6IB6XVbI/ULFWRBW5iQI/AAAAAAAAAVg/EiA6vPTb_QQ/s1600/001.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="277" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-nZY6IB6XVbI/ULFWRBW5iQI/AAAAAAAAAVg/EiA6vPTb_QQ/s320/001.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Me in my natural habitat.</td></tr>
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I'll be doing my last book signing tomorrow before the apocalypse tomorrow (<span style="color: red;">Sunday</span>) at <span style="color: red;">Coles </span>bookstore, Avalon Mall in St. John's (<span style="color: red;">12:30 to 2:30 p.m</span>.)<br />
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If the world is going to end on Dec. 21 (debate amongst yourselves) you might need something to read. Pessimists will buy the short story collection, <em><span style="color: red;">Moonlight Sketches</span></em>, while optimists will likely go for the novel, <em><span style="color: red;">Finton Moon</span></em>.<br />
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The sweetly oblivious will possibly buy both.<br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-43pgS_GukFk/ULFa7YKdxNI/AAAAAAAAAV0/UDWrd75XEf4/s1600/Me+on+the+big+screen.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-43pgS_GukFk/ULFa7YKdxNI/AAAAAAAAAV0/UDWrd75XEf4/s320/Me+on+the+big+screen.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
Both books have gotten excellent reviews, and both have won major literary awards. So it's a can't miss proposition. I mean, if you read it and don't like it, it's not like it's the end of the world.<br />
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Oh, and if by chance the world doesn't come crashing down on Dec. 21, I'll likely do another signing sometime in 2013.Gerard Collinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07449880681680454821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8976021190993015723.post-7097591390494617662012-11-15T19:10:00.001-03:302012-11-15T19:10:24.551-03:30Drawing for signed 'Finton Moon'<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-8DqyEWscn1c/UKVu4hKVwxI/AAAAAAAAAUU/xLPBOpVItFU/s1600/Finton+Moon_full+cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="228" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-8DqyEWscn1c/UKVu4hKVwxI/AAAAAAAAAUU/xLPBOpVItFU/s320/Finton+Moon_full+cover.jpg" width="320" /></a><span class="userContent">On Friday, November 16 (tomorrow night!) I'm drawing a name from my hemp fedora to see who will win a free, signed copy of <em>Finton Moon.</em> <span style="color: blue;">If you want your name put into the hat, just go to my </span><a href="http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Gerard-Collins-Author/176696569065790" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">FaceBook author page</span></a><span style="color: blue;"> and click "like" on the contest announcement.</span></span><br />
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<span class="userContent"><span style="color: red;">Feel free to "like" the page</span>, if you like. That's where all the announcements about public appearances, book signings, give-aways and book-related news happens. It's also a good way to stay in touch if you'd rather not take on the commitment and responsiblity of being an actual FB friend.</span><br />
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<span class="userContent">So, drawing tomorrow night.</span><br />
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<span class="userContent">Sign up if you want in.</span><br />
<span class="userContent"><br />GC</span>Gerard Collinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07449880681680454821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8976021190993015723.post-11738711662899087852012-11-08T20:24:00.002-03:302012-11-09T14:28:34.334-03:30Words Fall, Spirits SoarJust under three weeks ago I found myself in Woodstock, New Brunswick as guest reader and panelist for WordsFall, the semi-annual literary festival of the Writers' Federation of New Brunswick.<br />
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I should have written about it before now, but, honestly, by the time I got back I was pretty knackered and launched myself into the teaching work that had begun to pile up. Even now it sort of feels like one of the best dreams I've ever had.<br />
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It wasn't just the readings, but the readings were great. Joan Clark was the other invited author, and she was eloquent, elegant and entrancing all at once. She read the beginnings of three of her novels, prefacing each one with a brief tale about the origins of each. After she spoke, I didn't have much chance to speak with her, but she approached me and graciously said she wanted to buy one of my books, but, to her chagrin and mine, they were all sold out. I mean, I don't mind selling every book, but I would have liked to have given one to Joan Clark, to sign it "Dear Joan--you are a national literary treasure. From a fellow creative soul, Gerard." That would have been a pretty cool honour, to have signed a book for Joan Clark. I mean, she's won numerous national awards for her writing and has received the prestigious Order of Canada. The very idea that she would even want my book in her home means a lot to me. Then again, the idea that <em>anyone</em> would want one of my books on their bookshelf means a lot to me. But she was so kind and approachable. She doesn't have to be. She just is, and was.<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-eSlwg55sCsk/UJxFDwWYAVI/AAAAAAAAATg/KX0tfYKFo24/s1600/reading+at+woodstock.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-eSlwg55sCsk/UJxFDwWYAVI/AAAAAAAAATg/KX0tfYKFo24/s320/reading+at+woodstock.jpg" width="240" /></a>When my turn came (I actually went before Joan), I read two short excerpts from <em>Finton Moon.</em> Funny, if you had asked me a couple of years ago how I would feel about travelling to another province as an invited guest to read in front of a roomful of interested strangers, most of whom seemed to be writers themselves, I would have said I'd be pretty nervous. But after doing this kind of thing a few times, I can say I was totally calm, except for the good kind of nerves, the type that comes from adrenaline and doesn't debilitate, but kicks the brain and body into a whole new gear that you barely know resides within you most of time.<br />
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I really needed it that day, too. The day before the event, after not sleeping the night before, I left campus around 1 p.m. and was at the airport less than a couple of hours later. Just before 8 p.m. Lee Thompson of the WFNB picked me up at the airport in Fredericton and whisked me into Woodstock under cover of night. I glanced at his speedometer once and realized that we were travelling just under the speed of light. I wouldn't have been at all surprised if, when we finally stopped in front of the Best Western hotel, if he'd told me we'd gone back to the future. We chatted the whole way with nary a pause in the conversation as if we were old friends, catching up on each other's lives. Lee is a musician, and a very good one at that, with a new CD called "Till Light". He's also a very good writer, with a book called <em>S., A Novel In [XXX]Dreams.</em><br />
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Turns out I was in capable hands and riding into an experience unlike anything I've ever known. I should have known when Janie Gillies dashed from the lounge, towards the registration desk and greeted me like a longlost friend, that I was very welcome in Woodstock that weekend. It took but a few minutes to throw my knapsack (aka The Black Hole of Calcutta) onto my bed, glance into the bathroom mirror at my airplane hair and head back downstairs where a whole crowd was waiting, already talking excitedly among themselves. But I made sure to talk to each one of them, if only briefly because they were all there for the same reason I was: to be among kinfolk: writers and creative types. The reason I felt I was among friends, quite simply, is because I really was. In our own way, I guess we were all a little nervous, although perhaps I shouldn't assume that. I won't mention everyone by name, but there was one chap named Roger Moore who kept us entralled with stories of Wales and poetry from his newest collection. And I've got to say that a beer never tasted so fine as that which I drank that evening and all weekend long.<br />
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A bunch of us ended up back in my room playing songs, reading poetry, drinking beer, and telling tales until four in the morning. It was my kind of crowd. See, I don't do it very often, but I live for these kinds of things--I could happily spend the rest of my life with a people who do nothing but write, sing songs, and drink good beer. It was like spending the weekend with Hobbits at The Prancing Pony.<br />
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Okay, maybe not. But if it did, that would make Cynthia Good a wizard, for she kept us enthralled the next day with a two-hour presentation on social media. I was amazed at her stamina, as well as how much she knew. Cynthia's a total professional and a font of useful information and suggestions about how to navigate the cyberway with ease.<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ERet3ly564w/UJxFcbiuVJI/AAAAAAAAATw/ec6PEcu2ptU/s1600/002.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ERet3ly564w/UJxFcbiuVJI/AAAAAAAAATw/ec6PEcu2ptU/s320/002.JPG" width="320" /></a>Getting ahead of myself there, though. The next morning... okay that SAME morning... after not sleeping more than an hour and a half, I lay awake for a couple of hours before convincing myself I would not be getting any reasonable amount of shut-eye. The clincher was a huge bang out side my window (or perhaps inside my room). See, I never did figure it out. Janie had enthusiastically informed me at the bar the previous night, within minutes of my arrival, that most murders in hotels happen in the rooms closest to the stairwell. Well, guess where my room was? And that hallway had a certain "Red Rum" sort of feel to it, if you know what I mean. It was a long, long walk down there, and I had joked to the crowd about feeling as if I would make better time on a little red tricycle (a la Danny Torrance in <em>The Shining</em>). Janie seemed only slightly sorry for having told me about those "statistics" that, for all I knew, she made up just to frighten the shit out of the only CFA in the group. I mean, we all had hotel rooms of our own, but I was the only one dumb enough to accept the one by the stairs. I even considered changing rooms, but drunk with excitement and only a couple of beers, I decided, "What the hell? If a murderer breaks into my room, I'll have a story to tell, and isn't that what life is all about?"<br />
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Maybe that's why I didn't sleep much. Either way, the next day (Saturday) I had to get up, shower, make my way down to the dining room--a nice little one too, with a lovely breakfast laid out, of which I had toast and coffee. My intention had been to get out and see the town, maybe dine at some little local establishment, but I took three steps outside and realize that the pouring rain would have me drenched and shivering in the same clothes I was supposed to be wearing all day. So breakfast at the hotel it was.<br />
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I sat and wrote some notes in my sleepless stupor, listening to the chatter all around me, suddenly realizing I was going to be talking to people, addressing a crowded room, and even singing later that night--all on less than two hours sleep--not even counting the sleeplessness of the night before.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-exnY9efYG8Y/UJxFo8lXaLI/AAAAAAAAAUA/w3-OWto7b0Q/s1600/013.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-exnY9efYG8Y/UJxFo8lXaLI/AAAAAAAAAUA/w3-OWto7b0Q/s320/013.JPG" width="320" /></a>Anyway, it all went well. I have images from that day that, for whatever reason, have stayed with me. Me wandering around the kitchen of the civic centre (where the event was held) looking to fill a tiny glass with water to solve my parched throat. Cynthia Good answering question-after-question from a very appreciative crowd. My mad driver, Janie, having to pull over several times on a two-mile stretch of straight road to check her map for where the civic centre was, finally asking a kindly old couple, who pointed to an innocuous-looking building at the top of a hill. "There ya go," the kindly old feller said. There it was, within twenty seconds' drive. Other lingering images I really shouldn't mention in public, but there are many, I assure you.<br />
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Joan Clark and I took part in a panel discussion, moderated by Cynthia and that, to me, was the blurriest part of the day. I answered some questions, too tired, really, to try to sound wise and that was perhaps for the best. I was relaxed. I spoke my truth. I came out okay. They were an extaordinarily appreciative crowd, most of whom I spoke with indiviually afterwards and many of whom bought books of mine to have signed.<br />
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There were also many readings and a few book launches following the invited guests, but too many for me to mention--although I was particularly fortunate to hear Corey Redekop read from his new zombie novel, <em>Husk</em>. It was a great performance that whet my appetite for the book.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-OTPH-3Xyjfc/UJxFYN8SwfI/AAAAAAAAATo/g3GQRScHcgM/s1600/021.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="243" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-OTPH-3Xyjfc/UJxFYN8SwfI/AAAAAAAAATo/g3GQRScHcgM/s320/021.JPG" width="320" /></a>At night, the musicians came out and, man, were they plentiful and talented. One singer or band after another left me amazed and, really, I felt privileged to be there. The highlights, of course, were Lee Thompson singing his original songs and the incredible Babette Hayward, who is bound for great things on the national scene, I'm sure. She just had us all enthralled with her voice and words, including a great rendition of a Dylan song.<br />
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That undertaking of Dylan gave me the inspiration and courage to sing one of my own. I mean, as I said that night, "If you're gonna play Woodstock, you's got to play some Dylan." So, playing on stage for the first time in over fifteen years, I belted out 'The Times They Are a-Changing,' along with "Richard Corey" and my own original song, "Just Get Away." Nobody seemed to mind too much that I missed a few chords and probably a few notes. I didn't feel like I embarrassed myself, although it's highly likely that I was simply too high on life at that moment to pay much notice to what anyone thought. The moment of grace, for me, however, came when Janie brought her immense singing talents to the stage and sang "Caledonia," a song I admit I'd never heard before but managed to strum along with. An indelible moment among many indelible moments.<br />
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Do I even need to mention that a crowd of us went back to the room after that and sang songs and chattered like monkeys in a chinaberry tree till well into the morning hours? Didn't think so. I believe I slept for three hours or so that night. Good times are sleepless times.<br />
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Next day, after a heartwarming breakfast, a few more introductions and a lot more goodbyes, my patient and generous driver made sure I caught my flight, and just like that--as if not a single moment had passed--I was back on that little plane, gazing out at the suddenly sunny New Brunswick autumn landscape, with calls of "Come back soon" still ringing in my ears.<br />
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And those calls still ring. I'm not sure how, but I will go back.<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-K74W2jGojPg/UJxFlNPQCGI/AAAAAAAAAT4/_5A9MyQbh4k/s1600/031.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-K74W2jGojPg/UJxFlNPQCGI/AAAAAAAAAT4/_5A9MyQbh4k/s320/031.JPG" width="240" /></a>Where I come from--a province rich in creative talent--we often like to say we have the best "scene" in Atlantic Canada, perhaps even in the country. But after that weekend in Woodstock, I have to say, there's more to Atlantic Canada than our little neck of the woods. As one fellow said at breakfast, "I've been to a lot of these things, and this one was the best." Aye, and that's how I felt too. But it's not about comparisons and superlatives. Suffice to say that New Brunswick has riches of its own, and I can't wait to tell the people in my world all about it.<br />
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The day after my return, I wandered up the corridor towards my class on campus, and a colleague, appraising my sluggish demeanour with an apt grin, asked, "So how was New Brunswick?"<br />
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I looked at her and grinned. "I think I'm still there."<br />
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"That says it all," she said with a laugh.<br />
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"Yep," I said. "That says it all."Gerard Collinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07449880681680454821noreply@blogger.com8