Wild Writers Literary Festival Series – From literary journal to small press success

Here is the third installment of the Wild Writers Literary Festival Series.  Missed the previous ones?  Check them out!  #1 #2.

This panel was moderated by Carrie Snyder and included panelists Nancy Jo Cullen (Canary), Elisabeth de Mariaffi (How to Get Along with Women), Colette Maitland (Keeping the Peace) and Claire Tacon (In the Field).

CS:  I would like to hear you talk about your work process, themes and obsessions for you books.

EdM: The elaboration of my book, How to Get Along with Women, was like a moving camera shooting the same scene over and over until it changed completely.  It was written in two years and tells stories of power.  The relationships are different, but they're always about power.

NJC:  The stories in Canary were written without a thought about their connections.  They are stories about intimate relationships that veer off, about bad decisions and how they affect our lives and also about addictions.  They explore how we hold everything together through disaster.

CM:  Keeping the Peace was written over a long period of time with an arc going through the short stories.  It's as if an older version of me wrote those stories.  I had no idea what the theme was until I presented the book to an editor.  It is about trying to find peace in a family context.

CT:  In the Field circles back to family and family dynamics.  It explores what is the product of chance (the family in which one is born) and intention (decisions we take as we get older).  It explores the different experiences siblings have although they belong to the same family.

CM: The place in the story is important. I like to think of how important it is to the people who live there. I love small details.  I like to look at situations and think of all the details that should be there. If the people in the town I talk about in the book don't like it, they haven't told me. Every time I sit down to write, I reread the entire piece and edit.  I don't always know how it's going to go but details help me move the piece forward.  I don't want to work with a plot; I enjoy working with the characters.  I also like to wait until I can't not write.

NJC: The place is the West in my book, but time is more important.

CT: I grew up grounded.  My parents were refugees from Eastern Europe.  I had a family with a strong narrative about people I had no access to.  We did a lot of travelling, which is probably why my characters move around a lot and never find a home

I'm drawn to the insider vs outsider theme and I like to write about it.  I'm interested in  how the outside defines the inside.

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CS: Could you tell us about your career development?

NJC: There is a big difference between publishing poetry and short fiction.  Poetry launches are smaller and much more private.  When publishing a work of fiction, it<s much more public and there are more event.  I felt very exposed, almost panicked.  I got more stress from all the attention.

EdM:  Being listed for the Giller Prize was positively overwhelming.  It truly was the last thing I would have expected.  I got a lot of attention which sped up the process for my next project.

CM: I have always written.  I got my first typewriter at thirteen and wrote until I got one of my stories rejected when I was in University.  Having kids also prevented me from writing.  Eventually I decided to stay at home and give myself permission to write.  It took me about two years to write this book.  One day I was on the high way and I saw this woman by the side of the road; she was the start of everything.  I needed to write her story.  I gave myself a time frame and started writing, 

I took some class but I write intuitively, it's a very organic process.  I keep on writing what I wand and on sending stuff out.

CT:  I wrote shorter fiction at first.  It was difficult to transition to longer pieces and I learned while writing.  Rejection is an amazing push.  I was first drawn to theater but rejection moved me to fiction. This time, for my second book, I'm doing it with more of a map.

NJC: Rejection happens; you have to be strong.  People will not all love what you write.  You have to believe in your vision and trust it.  You have to learn that you can survive rejection.  You just need to try to understand if there's something you need to change.

EdM: It would have been overwhelming for me to start with a novel.  The order for me is poetry-short story-novel.  You have to work quietly and experience rejection and work on yourself.  To build confidence, you have to know what your obsessions are and write about them.

NJC: Short stories and novel don't have the same structure.  Short stories are easier to navigate.

CS:  How  do you know when a piece is good to go?

CM:  I make it as good as I can and let it go.  You HAVE to send it.  Don't take rejections too personal.  If you're sick of your piece, set it aside and go back to it later.  Work on it, and send it again. 

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Wild Writers Literary Festival Series – The Rock Comes to Waterloo

Last november I had the chance to attend the TNQ's Wild Writers Literary Festival in Waterloo.  This was the second edition of the festival and I think they did an amazing job with the panels, workshop and other activities.  In the upcoming weeks, I will cover the different events I attented.

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The Rock Comes to Waterloo

featuring Wayne Johnston & Donna Morissey

The opening panel for the Festival was a conversation between authors Wayne Johnston (The Colony of Unrequited Dreams, A Wolrd Elsewhere) and Donna Morrissey (Kit's Law, Downhill Chance) who both happen to be from Newfoundland.  The discussion was hosted by Craig Norris, host of the CBC radio program, The Morning Edition. Both authors discussed their latest novels, The Son of a Certain Woman and The Deception of Livvy Higgs, respectively.

CN: Is it a characteristic of Newfoundland characters to tell stories, lies or myth?

WJ:  Telling stories is the raison d'être of fiction.  It's also important to understand that myths are not meant to fool people.  Percy, the main character of my latest novel is creating his own mythology because he is bored.  He's simply compensating for the things he doesn't have at home.

CN: Donna, where do your characters come from?

DM: The elders in my life are a source of inspiration. The most inspirating person was in fact a pathological liar.  When a relationship with such a person comes to an end, it's very difficult to say what was true and what was fabricated.  This served to create Grandmother Creed's character.  She believes in her own stories, they're a way to compensate for her dark childhood, redefine who she is.

CN: What is the difference between a myth and a pathological lie?

WJ: Well Percy doesn't really expect to be believed; his stories are for entertainment.  Pathological lying is a form of psychosis.

DM: Myths aren't necessarily things that didn't happen. They don't mean lies.  They come out of human living patterns. 

WJ: It becomes a myth when it doesn't intersect with religion.

DM: Myths are pagan.

CN: Does this type of religious Newfoundland still exist?

WJ: Despite the absence of a system of denomination in education, there is still bullying and repression still exists.  Religion is very exclusive and rejects all other texts.

DM: Where I grew up, there were almost no catholics and very little repression, but maybe it's because there were very few people.  People were together, they interacted because they all needed one another.

CN: What kind of schools were around, growing up?

DM: A one-room school.

WJ: Many different schools, their students selected according to denomination.

CN: Donna, can you tell us a bit more about the technique used in your novel?

DM: As Livvy moves in and out of lucidity, she is framing her identity.  As a kid, she was pull in all directions and as an adult, she supressed whos she was.  As she goes back to the past, she tried to understand what was real and what wasn't  As an adult, her vision differs greatly.

I use Maslow's pyramid to get inside a character's thoughts.  I can determine their needs and it influences how I push the story forward.  Emotions lead me more than plot.

CN: Wayne, can you tell us a bit more about Percy and his relationship with his mother?

WJ: Pecy suffers from a form of Oedipus Complex.  Since he has no hope of having a relationship with a woman, his only option is to sleep with his mother.  While on book tour, some people have walked out on me, saying they knew where I would go when I die and that they didn't think a boy should sleep with his mother.  I'm not saying I recommend it!  What I wanted was a very tormented character faced with the authority of the church.

DM: Livvy is very vulnerable internally.  Her story is a journey of self.  We are fed the sins of our fathers and pass them on.  There can be no understanding until you know what your burden is.  Livvy inherits veryone's lies when her mother dies, which cripples her.  This story is about going back to redefine who we are.  Everyone has a story.  Everyone has wounds.

CN: What is the role of location in your stories?

WJ:  I don't know.  I don't love but I don't think the book could happen anywhere.  This setting of a recluse land and the closed society is important to the story.

DM: I wanted to write about the French part of Newfoundland.  I visited the area, actually, and decided I wanted to write about it.  I wanted to bridge the gap between Newfoundland and the mainland.  Writing is like being an engineer.  It's not all about feelings.

DJ: Many people write about St-John's but Donna is like Faulkner; she own the area she wrote about.  There is no homogenous Newfoundland; just like Canada, it's different everywhere.  The culture, the dialect, nature, it's all different.

DM: It's just a question of giving a voice to people, so they can tell the stories that need to be told.

CN: Is there a common identity for Newfoundland?

DM: Like many places, it's very different.  It's hard to put into words.

CN:  Is there symbolism involved in Percy's deformity?

WJ: I don't know if it's a symbol.  I've written in the past about boys who were put on the fast track for priesthood.  For Percy, that's the only group that will accept him because he can have no sexuality.  I wanted people to identify with Percy.  He's a scapegoat.  His mark is his deformity, just like the scarlet letter.  The church is supposed to accept people based on what they are deep inside.  It's the opposite in my novel.  This is loosely inspired by Ulysse, a novel by Joyce.

CN: Do your characters sometimes evolve differently than you had planned?

DM: In a book inpired by my family's journey, the main character (myself) soon got pushed aside by her brother whose voice became the voice of the story.

WJ: It happened to me, too.  In The Colony of Unrequited Dreams, I had to invented a character to oppose my protagonist when the book was almost finished.  I reread my books when starting a new book and I'm still surprised at my own characters.  It can be difficule to shed the skin of a previous book when starting a new one.

DM: It can be very difficult to slip in and out of writing.  The transitions are bumpy.

WJ:  It's important to feel empathy and sympathy towards my characters.  If I loathe them completely, it can't be good.

DM: You have to get to know all sides of a character.  There's something human in every monster.

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