Before Suicide: Thoughts on David Gilmour's EXTRAORDINARY

David Gilmour has to be the clearest writer I've read in a long time. In fact, EXTRAORDINARY is so clear, it reads like a film script. And not just any film script.

It reads like the Canadian cousin of the films "Before Sunrise" and "Before Sunset" (since writing this, I've seen the third installment, "Before Midnight," and it's marvelous). A man and woman sit around and talk all night--about their lives, who they are, what is important to each, filling in the gaps. Of course, in the original, the couple falls in love over the course of a 24 hour period after meeting, by chance, on a train; they don't know each other at all.

In Gilmour's version, the couple is anything but strangers: a half-brother and half-sister, separated by a 15 year age gap.


It reads as though Gilmour leapfrogged to the third act of the trilogy, cutting out beginning and middle, opting solely for end.

And instead of being thrown together haphazardly on a train, they are drawn together on this single evening by the sister's need for help in committing suicide. She's a paraplegic who's had enough of living a diminished life, a life she finds harder and harder to manage.

I'm wondering about the title, if it's Sally, the sister, who is supposed to be extraordinary? M, the narrator, certainly seems to find her so, but I guess we all feel that way about those we love, about those whose half-stories we know. Or maybe the circumstances are extraordinary...yes, that seems more like it. It’s funny: the cover illustration is of a glowing firefly, but a moth drawn to a flame might have been just as apt.

I did not want to like this book. In fact, I didn't want to like any of this author's work. If you’ve been wondering why the name David Gilmour rings a bell, it could be because he was a long-time CBC film critic. Or because he already won the Governor General’s Literary Award for A Perfect Night to go to China.

Or you could be like me, mainly acquainted with David Gilmour because of that arguably disastrous Hazlitt interview he gave recently. I say arguably disastrous because perhaps, after all, there really is no such thing as bad publicity.

On principle, I wanted to dismiss this book. In fact, I wanted to ignore Gilmour’s work entirely. But, unlike Gilmour himself, I couldn't write him off without ever having read him. So I am working my way through his books. I won't buy them, though: he's not getting my measly toonies!

Did I enjoy Extraordinary? Yes. Not as much as the book I finished earlier in the day: Louise Erdrich’s The Roundhouse. I read that one for my book club; I’m also working on discovering more great women writers. For this, I may thank David Gilmour.

Was Extraordinary extraordinary? Well, it was good, not great. It filled an evening.

Will I remember it six months from now? Doubtful.

It was extremely clear, eminently readable. Is it such a great book that it deserved to be on the Giller long list? Well, not having read the others or the ones which were overlooked, I really can't say (very much want to read the Davidson and Coady ones).

I read it because my library made a copy available, because I was curious, and because I couldn't not like his writing because of some ideas he has with which I disagree.

I read it, in sum, to prove to myself that I am not as prejudiced as he is.

After months of fulmination and kerfuffle, David Gilmour is back teaching at the University of Toronto.

Some thoughts on The Goldfinch and Donna Tartt's writing

Vanity Fair has a July 2014 article summarizing the critics: "It's Tartt--But is it Art?"

Much of my reading time the past month has been devoted to the oeuvre of Donna Tartt. I was turned on to her work through my book club, which assigned the 2013 Pulitzer-winning The Goldfinch (easily 200 pages too long, making me suspect Tartt never had a darling she was able to kill). I then turned to the other two of her tomes, and read them in sequence: The Secret History (1992), and The Little Friend (2002).

There is no doubt that Ms. Tart is a magnificent talent; as Laura Miller put it in her 2002 review of The Little Friend, Donna Tart definitely has "the hoodoo"...she creates great characters and dynamite atmosphere. BUT...while I read her thinking "Wow, this is a great writer," I finish the books without being able to call them great books. Ayelet Waldman put her finger on the problem with this book, in particular, and all three of Tartt's books, generally: "one day, in the middle of writing the book, she got up, went to work, and suddenly decided to just type the words, 'The End,' at the bottom of the page." The books just aren't satisfactory (The Little Friend being the least satisfactory of the three). The amount of time we invest just isn't rewarded with enough of an epiphany at the end.

And I say this as a reader who would LOVE to love her books, a reader desperate for a new literary immortal, a WOMAN immortal, especially. The main problem, as I see it, is that Ms. Tartt writes atmosphere, character, and dilemma, but she frustrates the reader, sometimes by just going on for unnecessary pages and chapters, but ultimately because she hasn't found themes that resonate deeply enough for me.

May she, one day soon, find her grasp equal to her reach. To make it into Steinbeck, Victor Hugo, Dickens, and Harper Lee territory, she has to write about justice and injustice, plain and simple. A good long--and, especially, an overlong--story simply isn't enough.

I look forward to learning what you think about Donna Tartt's writing...

PS Coincidentally (?), the word "Goldfinch" appears on p. 365 of The Little Friend.

PPS Other reviewers have taken the name Harriet to refer to Harriet the Spy. Why not Harriet for Harry Potter, I'd like to know, especially given the nickname Boris gives Theo in The Goldfinch (Potter)?

Downton Abbey: from "jumping the shark" to sharknado (hook's still in deep, though)

At long last, possums, we're back in Downtontown, and I couldn't be happier! It's a show millions love, yours truly included, though this love can't blind me to the show's faults.

And so, in honour of Downton Abbey's season 4 launch last night on PBS, I'm reposting last January's  rueful commentary on Downton's lunge over the top (below). But first, a few nits picked from last night's episode, and the shape of the season to come:

--A few too many info dump scenes, or overly short scenes, for example, the one where Lady Mary finally breaks down to Carson (Carson, and not her own father! How pathetic is that?), and the other between Carson and his old friend Grigg. These scenes reminded me of that West Wing axiom: no meeting ever lasts much more than 30 seconds. Would that real life was this way! Yes, yes, I know: short scenes keep the story clipping along (as does all that rushing around), but lesser writers are forever cautioned to make each scene exist on its own merits and not simply to set up a future plot point.

--I'm sorry, but even Lord Crawley couldn't be that big a ninny (the Dowager's repeated references to fetching the Nanny to care for him were downright ridiculous). 

--Speaking of Nanny, there's another laughable pseudoconflict generated at breakneck speed. It gives me no pleasure to say it (by which I mean it gives me HEAPS of pleasure), but Downton Abbey's becoming a caricature of itself. From "jumping the shark" to sharknado.

--Despite Cora Levinson Crawley's supposed shiksadom (see below), last night's episode leaves little doubt Lady Edith being set up for a "peril in Germany" story line, lifted right from Herman Wouk's The Winds of War (a much worthier miniseries, IMHO).

From Renee Ghert-Zand's "Sorry fans, no Yiddishkeit at 'Downton Abbey'"

The reason neither Martha Levinson nor Lady Cora (played by Elizabeth McGovern) are Jewish, it turns out, is very simple: They’re Episcopalian.  

We know this because the definitive guide to Season 3, Jessica Fellowes and Matthew Sturgis’ “The Chronicles of Downton Abbey,” tells us so. (They should know: She’s the niece of Julian Fellowes, the show’s creator.)...

--Finally, still in the Jewish content vein, could somebody PLEASE tell us why Fellowes' is allergic to actually casting Jews as Jews? Shirley MacLaine and Paul Giamatti?? SERIOUSLY? (Okay, I know Martha Levinson isn't supposed to be Jewish but simply a brassy nouveau riche New Yorker...but isn't that kinda the same thing?) I suppose he'd feel comfortable casting Whites in Blackface to play Blacks, too? (PS This last is a joke...sort of)

---------------

Downton Abbey jumps the shark (January 9, 2013)

Downton Abbey's season 3 premiere: Lord Grantham (Hugh Bonneville, foreground) continues to do dopey things, his mother-in-law, Martha Levinson (Shirley MacLaine) is fizzle and a gasbag, and viewers are reminded of familiar Downton truisms: “Downton’s in peril. Wills are complicated. Servants are sickly. Canadians are trouble.”

Photograph by: Carnival Film & Television Limited 2012 for Masterpiece-PBS

Spoiler alert! Contains Downton plot twists: If you haven’t yet seen the opening episode of Season 3 (or, for that matter, Seasons 1 or 2) and plan to, you might want to hold off on reading this article. It contains some of the notable developments in the plots of the series.
***************


I’d been psyched for months by the promise of the newest season of Downton Abbey, which the New York Times’s Alessandra Stanley recently called the Fifty Shades of Grey of its ilk: “soft-core pornography, but fixated on breeding and heritage rather than kinky sex.”

But I was hugely disappointed by the two-hour series opener the other night, which drew the Crawley family — and voyeurs like us along for the ride — to new depths of fatuousness.

In the interregnum prior to the start of Season 3, hubby and I took the opportunity to rescreen Seasons 1 and 2. I’d been struck by writer Julian Fellowes’s apparent initial intention to make Lord Grantham, Robert Crawley (played by Hugh Bonneville), the heart of the series. The opening credits have him striding majestically through the grounds, golden lab at his side. But it wasn’t long before daughter Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery), whose young Turkish lover shockingly expires in her bedchamber (in most morality plays, death is what happens to the girl seduced, not the rake) and the Dowager Countess (Maggie Smith, who makes the most of the immortal line “No Englishman would dream of dying in someone else’s house — especially somebody they didn’t even know”) began to steal the show from him, and run with it. Lord Grantham becomes sadly befuddled — for example, imagining that he will see active duty in France during the First World War.

But this year’s offering is a contraption so creaky with ersatz conflict that it reminds me of Oz the Great and Terrible at the moment Dorothy discovers that behind the curtain is an ordinary little man.

Opening with the revelation of Lord Grantham’s utter and advised-against squandering of the family’s fortune in Canada — as June Thomas says on Slate, “they sure do return to the same themes over and over: Downton’s in peril. Wills are complicated. Servants are sickly. Canadians are trouble” — the episode continues at breakneck pace to the wedding of Mary and Matthew — though skipping completely what true Fifty Shades fans would prefer to have seen: the honeymoon. But first — oh, irony — it picks up their latest complication: the father of the late Lavinia, Matthew’s one-time fiancée, has died and Matthew is third in line to inherit his huge fortune.

While the issue of whether the two men before him as inheritors are alive or dead is needlessly spun out, Matthew — looking a tad overfed and unctuous, proving himself a fitting heir to the doltish current lord — announces his resolution to give away the money should it come his way, because taking it would constitute a form of theft. He arrives at this weird notion through tortured guilty logic: Lord Reginald Swire could only have intended the money to come to Matthew because he was the great love of Lavinia’s life, but Matthew betrayed that love, sending Lavinia to an early, broken-hearted death by way of the Spanish flu.

It makes Harlequin romances appear deep.

Lady Mary castigates Matthew with the deadliest of accusations. In refusing Swire’s bequest, in his willingness to allow, dare one say it, Downton to be lost, Matthew is, she charges, betraying that he is “not on our side.”

Seriously? This is the complication on which Fellowes seeks to hang the season?

It was the moment that Downton Abbey, despite its high production values and effervescent cast, finally jumped the shark.

And it was only downhill from there.

Shirley MacLaine as Martha Levinson in Downton Abbey.

Photograph by: Image courtesy , Nick Briggs

Shirley MacLaine, looking like she might have had a tad too much plastic surgery, was a total fizzle, her Martha Levinson (mother of the U.S.-born Cora, Lady Grantham) little more than a gasbag of accented clichés.

I'd heard rumours Dan Stevens (Matthew) would be gone from Downton, and this flop of a premiere was just the impetus I needed to root around the Internet to discover what happens to his character, while imagining all the time I might regain Sunday evenings by not having to watch the rest of the series.

As if.

Like Fifty Shades of Grey, Downton Abbey has become, most assuredly, one more in a long line of life’s guilty pleasures.

      

My Encounter with Canada Writes: Close Encounters with Science

I just finished up a rewarding stint as a reader with CBC's Canada Writes, science edition. The latest theme was "Close Encounters with Science." It was a moving and humbling experience.

The challenge:

"Send us a true personal story of a close encounter you had with science and technology. We were looking for personal stories that gave us an insight into human nature and how changes in our understanding of the world have made a lasting effect on who we are."

Along with Scott Fotheringham, I read through the 600+ submissions and sent in my choices (I was limited to 15...) Here's the longlist, 29 stories that are worth your time. 

Twenty-nine: makes me think Scott and I only agreed on one, lol. But the truth is, it was incredibly hard to choose. I could have selected 50, or more, that were worthwhile!

(Scott, by the way, is a novelist and PhD from Cornell who no longer works in science, either. I think we probably should talk...:)

 Enjoy this trailer for his well-reviewed speculative novel, The Rest is Silence; I look forward to reading it very soon.

 ~~~~

 Here is an excerpt of the interview I did with Canada Writes my experience reading for the contest:

Can you describe a couple of the stories from the challenge that struck you as standouts?

There were so many wonderful stories, it was hard to choose. But some were just stellar. “Firsts,” about a technician working overnight at the hospital, analyzing blood sent from the ER. Who thinks about the lab tech? We get these machine readouts from our blood tests…we don’t really think about the person at the other end of the pipette. The writer had me right there with him (or her), feeling the weight of the world on his shoulders when called upon to diagnose leukemia in a child. That really touched me. There were many, many stories about electrification, and television. About all kinds of things: Skype and texting, the moon walk. Many were about children learning from their parents; “The New Age” is a quiet story of a kid going outside with Dad and brother to watch Sputnik pass overhead one night in October 1957. “Better Living Through Chemistry,” about what getting the meds right has meant to a person with schizophrenia. A woman who waited six months for an MRI and was so distressed by its claustrophobic nature, she stopped the test. How she was able to depend “on the kindness of strangers.” One about a teacher who knew how to talk physics so that young guys would listen. The experiment a six-year-old designed to identify the tooth fairy…I could go on and on. It was the way the writers communicated the meaning, the emotion, the small epiphanies attached to the scientific or technological experience. The stories I chose all answered that question: how did you feel when it happened? And they did it by bringing me along on the journey.


You can read the 29 stories on the longlist here. Congratulations to all who entered!

"The next task is in the capable hands of CBC host and author Nora Young, who will select the winner of this challenge. That person will receive $1,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts.

The winner will be announced on Canada Writes on Wednesday, December 5th. Stay tuned!"

The Meaning of Children and The Bad Review

The Meaning of Children is divided into three parts, featuring stories with protagonists who are children, in the parenting years, or elders. Though I wish it were otherwise, many of the book’s stories are dark, reminding me of that Tolstoy maxim “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way,” and its corollary, “If it’s happy, it’s not literature.”

Growing up, without the rose coloured glasses. To paraphrase Katie Hewitt in The Globe and Mail, these aren’t the wonder years.

But reading a book is like taking a Rorschach test: what you get from it is deeply entwined with what you bring to it, with who you are. 

 

Which brings us to The Bad Review. Writers are usually admonished to ignore The Bad Review (hopefully, there will only be one!) and focus on the good, and there is much wisdom in that advice. I have also been blessed to have received so much wonderful, positive feedback. But there is also much to be learned from the negative review…and so, despite the kerfuffle between Michael Lista in the National Post and CWILA, based on the earlier call and response round between Jan Zwicky and Zach Wells, I believe in writing, reading, and acknowledging, the bad review. And so, here is a discussion of mine.

Bee Markus oversimplified terribly when she wrote “what the fourteen stories in Akerman’s collection do is describe the myriad ways that mothering and marriage can damage and destroy a woman’s soul and spirit.” (B.A. Markus, mRb, vol. 14, no. 3, Summer 2011. Reproduced below; archived here).

There’s no doubt in my mind “that mothering and marriage can damage and destroy a woman’s soul and spirit (emphasis mine).” Not always, but sometimes. The thing is, my work doesn’t shy away from that. My book takes on the female experience, leaving behind the rose-tinted glasses. Maybe, deep in the heart of the mothering years, it can be hard to appreciate what, exactly, one is sacrificing. Maybe a little denial is not a bad thing.

But (in my opinion) there is much more in the book than what Markus saw; maybe the review says as much about her as it does about the book. That she saw the child point-of-view stories as introducing “the mother as a resentful victim” completely misses the point: that to grow up is to peel a series of layers of knowledge gleaned from experience. That growing up doesn’t end with an eighteenth birthday. It’s a lifelong trip.

 

Markus’s real problem may have been with the paperback’s cover: all those happy photos suggesting a light-hearted tiptoe through the parenting tulips. This was my publisher’s choice, part of the Faustian bargain that must be struck between gaining the reader (and, more importantly, the bookseller marketing department’s) interest and giving the flavour of the contents. I love the paperback cover and gave it my blessing, though I also warned it might lead to exactly the sort of reaction Markus appears to have had: the suggestion “that the stories behind the cover will most certainly be heart-warming vignettes celebrating the innumerable gifts that children bring to our lives.”

Several women, some “of a certain age,” as we say here in French, actually commented that the book was so much better than they thought it would be, based on the cover. They’ve had enough of the saccharine view that a woman’s life is consummated by motherhood. Which is one reason why I had a problem with Richard Wright’s Clara Callan, where Clara’s inner life, as represented in the series of letters she’s been writing, ends with the birth of her child.

I heartily acknowledge that my book probes the dark hearts of growing up and of mothering, but I also feel that the book as a whole is a much more balanced portrayal than Markus—and mRb--let on. Happily-ever-afterish stories do appear: “Paternity” and “The Woman with Deadly Hands” spring immediately to mind. What I’ve tried to do is to show you my 14 snapshots of life, with compassion. And without glossing over the hard parts.

So, there you have it. My take on The Bad Review. Of course, every writer should be grateful for every single review, good, bad, or indifferent. It means that serious readers seriously considered your work. Which is what every writer dreams of...or, at least, what this writer dreams of.

Thankfully, there are a number of other, much more positive takes from reviewers and other readers. You may find many of them here.

The Meaning of Children is available as a paperback (~$15) or an e-book ($5). Decide for yourself.

The Meaning of Children: Latest interview, at Inspiration Forum UK

From Inspiration Forum UK, September 2012

Thank you, Fiona McVie!

Those books aren't just going to read themselves, you know...

Our Interview with Beverly Akerman 
 

Name Beverly Akerman

Age North of 40, south of 60. Okay, you win: I’m 52.

Where are you from? Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

A little about your self ie. your education, family life, etc.
Born and raised in Montreal. In fact, I’ve never lived anywhere else. Sometimes I feel a bit bad about that, like it’s a character flaw or something. I have three kids well on their way to being grown-up. One moved out of the house to live on his own just this summer…and it was my middle guy, the one who’s always been easiest to get along with and the most helpful. (Or maybe it just seems that way; hindsight, rose coloured glasses and all that. Still, he was the only one of the three who used to point to his bed at night when we’d be rocking him in the rocking chair. He did like his sleep!) My husband is still here at home with me. I’m happy about that, actually. He worked in politics for many years, while our family was young. So I worked full-time, mostly, and single-parented it half the time.

I was busy and exhausted, so over-programmed that I don’t have all that many memories of that period. Why do we do this to ourselves? I suppose you’ve heard the saying, “Of course women can have it all: just not all at the same time.”

I have BSc and MSc degrees in biology from McGill University and worked for over 20 years in molecular genetics research. But I’d always known I’d be a writer some day. (At least, I’d always wanted/intended/hoped to be a writer some day…)

Fiona: Tell us your latest news?
I just had my longest ever giveaway on Amazon for the e-version of my award winning short story collection, The Meaning of Children, and it went really well. Over 4300 downloads, which I think is amazing for literary fiction. And the reviews—from periodicals as well as “real” readers-- are absolutely incredible as well. Words like “luminous,” “illuminated,” “haunting,” “a life-altering read,” “profound,” “a book of rare sensitivity and masterful creative writing”…You’d have to look on the Amazon.com book page to see them (it hasn’t quite caught on yet in the UK, I’m afraid) and on my blog.

Here are some links:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Meaning-of-Chi...B007H067R6
http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Meaning-of-C...B007H067R6
http://beverlyakerman.blogspot.ca/p/rad-...aning.html

Fiona: When and why did you begin writing?
I'd always thought I'd be a writer some day. My first publication was a poem that won an honourable mention when I was nine and a half years old, something I wrote about in The Rampike last year, in the creative nonfiction piece "Aversion Conditioning, or Why I am Somewhat Conflicted About Poetry.” But I guess my imagination-my self confidence?-failed me because I could never seriously picture myself as a writer. So I put it aside, joked about needing to live life first in order to have something to write about (though maybe that isn't a joke), and tried to prove something (though exactly what and to whom I'm not quite sure) by distinguishing myself in math and science, the subjects everybody else seemed to think were the hardest.

I'd been keen on genetics since first learning about it in high school and in grade 10, when we were offered testing for Tay Sachs disease carrier status and one of my friends tested positive, I was well and duly hooked on DNA.

I majored in biology (human genetics) and went on to graduate work in genetics, where one of my most cherished delusions was that, once I finished the residency requirement and no longer paid by the credit, I'd be able to take all the English and creative writing courses I'd always dreamt of.

Guess how much time I had for non-science courses while pursuing a research degree in genetics?

That's right: none.

By 2003, I'd been in science for over two decades, mostly in McGill-affiliated labs. I'd been fairly successful, writing or co-writing 19 papers, mostly on mutations associated with several rare diseases. I also had a life--three kids and a husband who made a career in politics. But a funny thing happened as I waltzed through the genomes: the work had started to lose its meaning for me.

Something was wrong, I just couldn't put my finger on what, exactly.

And then my father-in-law, Gerry Copeman, died of lung cancer.

Gerry and I didn't even get along that well, although we'd made our peace, especially after the grandchildren arrived. But when he died, it affected me deeply, beyond the sadness of losing someone so close. For the first time, I understood-emotionally, as opposed to rationally or intellectually-that my time on this earth was finite, and that I'd better use it doing something I'd always dreamed of doing.

Which turned out to be, once I spent some time trying to figure it out, writing fiction.

So I switched gears, started taking writing workshops-the Quebec Writers' Federation has been stellar in providing learning opportunities for someone like me, unsure if she wanted to go back to university (and, more importantly, not convinced it would be helpful to have roomsful of young strangers tear up her work). I've been writing and submitting like mad ever since.

My first stories were published-online and in print-in 2006. Within a few years, I'd published more than 20 stories-in anthologies like the Aesthetica Creative Writing Annual 2012 and Best New Writing 2011, as well as literary journals and won or placed in a slew of contests. Links to my stories available online are on my blog. But let me direct you to a favourite of mine (and of my readers), “Pie.” It’s about love and loss, motherhood, baking, childrearing, and war.

And you can read it here:

http://beverlyakerman.blogspot.ca/2011/05/pie.html

Fiona: When did you first consider yourself a writer?
I’ve probably always considered myself a writer trapped in a non-writing body…but I remember when I won the Fog City Writers Fiction Contest…I opened the email and screamed. Hubby came running, thinking someone had died. But it was just that I’d won a $1,000 prize. I think that was the moment when I thought, “Okay, it’s not my imagination, this really is good work.” That was October 10th, 2007 (I had to look it up).

Fiona: How did you come up with the title?
I’d read somewhere that bestsellers were typically titled “The noun of noun” and so I played with that. The thing is, when I sat back and looked at the pile of stories I’d writing, the theme of children wasn’t hard to spot. I also realized, after submitting the collection for a while and getting nowhere with it (I am extremely impatient about such things) that I needed to have an overall structure to the book. So I thought about it some more and realized I could divide the book into “beginning”—stories from a child’s point of view—“middle”—about those in the child bearing years--and “end”—about older people, or stories that take the long view of life. And pretty soon after that, it was accepted for publication in Canada by Exile Editions.

Fiona: Is there a message in your story collection that you want readers to grasp?
You know, I think about that from time to time. There are 14 stories and I’d say that each of them has its own message and meaning, which may differ from reader to reader (and reading to reading). That’s what makes them literary, I guess.

I think one of the overall messages of the collection is about noticing those small moments of growth and insight, and that being a kid can be hard. Being a grown-up can be hard, too. And being a parent, a mother…well, let’s just say I wanted to shine the light on some feelings that are deep but not that much discussed. And they aren’t all dark, but some of them are.

Fiona: How much of the book is realistic?
Much of the book is quite realistic but I do have one story, “The Woman with Deadly Hands,” which, as you can tell from the title, is a bit of a fairy tale. But it’s a fairy tale for grown-ups. There’s sex in it, homosexuality, a deep dark secret, and a HEA ending (for happily ever after). Many of the themes, in fact, are similar to those in Fifty Shades of Grey, which is one of the reasons that trilogy appealed to me, though I don’t write soft porn. Probably more lucrative if I did!

Fiona: Are experiences based on someone you know, or events in your own life?
I tell everyone that the book is fiction. My kids always roll their eyes (or smirk, or both!) at that. So I’d have to also say some of the stories are based on real events in my own life, or those of people I know. But if real life is the basis of a story, I still take it and move it beyond the quotidian. Something has to happen to that interesting character, IMHO. Or it’s not really a story.

Fiona: What books have most influenced your life most?
As a writer? Mordecai Richler’s Barney’s Version is pretty much perfect, in my view. It’s largely about Montreal, it features characters brash and larger than life, it’s a book about the love of a man for his wife and children, it’s poignant and moving and very, very funny. A writer at the top of his game. If I could write something that had all that—humour, love of family, poignancy—I’d consider myself a success.

One of the things that means the most to me about it is that it’s about the love of a Jewish man for his Jewish wife…which is a kind of long story for me. Let’s just say that most male Jewish authors do not write about lovely and lovable Jewish women. If you like, you can read up on that here:
http://roverarts.com/2010/12/mordecai%E2%80%99s-women/
and here (because that was one of the few changes in the story when it was turned into film)
http://roverarts.com/2011/01/mordecai%E2...not-quite/

Other books that are important to me: Morley Callaghan’s The Loved and the Lost. I was very young when I read it and it impressed me immeasurably because it showed me my own home, Montreal, could be the setting for an important novel.

Then there’s the usual: Catcher in the Rye, To Kill a Mockingbird, both of which I re-read recently. The latter astounded me: these are books that are usually required reading for pre-teens here in Canada. So to discover that To Kill a Mockingbird was as much about parenting as about racism was a real eye-opener.

More recently, I’ve really enjoyed Lionel Shriver’s fearlessness in We Have to Talk About Kevin, and Michael Chabon’s tour de force The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Klay.

Fiona: If you had to choose, which writer would you consider a mentor?
I don’t think I could choose just one…there’s Colleen Curran, a playwright I’ve been studying with for the past few years. She is just incredibly motivating and supportive, and a wonderful all round bubbly person. She is a sucker for comedy and happily ever after (see her play Cake Walk or her novels, e.g. Something Drastic) but she has also written much more serious work (El Cladavista, Sacred Hearts).

Then there’s Neale McDevitt; I took writing workshops with him for about 18 months. He has a wonderful book of short fiction, One Day Even Trevi Will Crumble, quite a prescient title because I recently read that the fountain was out of commission for awhile after several chunks of it had broken away. Other writing teachers of who really stand out in my mind: Luis Alberto Urrea, and Nancy Zafris.

Fiona: What book are you reading now?
Right now I’m reading Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie for book club and really enjoying that.

Fiona: Are there any new authors that have grasped your interest?
All of them. Martin Crosbie, author of My Temporary Life, for example. Poet Samuel Peralta who is new to me, anyway. I’m learning so much on this indie experiment of mine.

Fiona: What are your current projects?
I’m still trying to figure out how to write a novel. I know how to start them, no problem. It’s keeping them going…that’s what I have to work on. I also have a couple of plays on the go.

Fiona: Name one entity that you feel supported you outside of family members.
Oh, there are many of those! An entire alphabet soup of initials: PWAC, for the Professional Writers Association of Canada, which helped me earn a (bit of? Modest?) living as a freelance writer; the QWF (Quebec Writers’ Federation), which made all the lovely writing workshops available for modest fees, the WFNB (Writers Federation of New Brunswick) for running the David Adams Richards Prize Contest, and; my Canadian publisher, Exile Editions.


Fiona: If you had to do it all over again, would you change anything in your latest book?
Yes: I wouldn’t have worried so much about no one wanting to publish it. I wouldn’t have said “yes” to the first offer; I would have investigated what a publisher was willing to do for me. I would have had more faith in my own talent.

Fiona: Do you have a blog/website? if so what is it?
http://beverlyakerman.blogspot.ca/

Lionel Shriver & Me on Goodreads (!)

This morning, my inbox at Goodreads 

yields 

this little gem:

from:	Jessica Donaghy
to:	Beverly Akerman
subject:	Lionel Shriver
message:	We selected your question! You can read the full interview here: http://www.goodreads.com/interviews/show... Thanks for participating! Jessica

My response? 

Pure valley girl*: 

OH WOW!

(*St. Lawrence Valley, that is...

not a lick a silicon in these hills a mine)  

Yes, possums, my qqquestion??? was selected 

to be put to 

the brilliant, 

the ballsy 

(the ovariesy? not to be confused 

with the over easy ....but I digress), 

the incandescent and

INCOMPARABLE

LIONEL SHRIVER  

 

Find the entire Goodreads interview here. 

The snippet with my question & Ms. Shriver's answer:

"GR: Goodreads Author Beverly Akerman asks, "What can we do to help make sure women writers and the tastes of women readers are not systematically discounted and disparaged?"

LS: One of the bizarre things about recent times and this whole phenomenon of "most fiction readers are women" is that we have somehow flipped that around to being insulting to women. "Oh, those women, they just have a bunch of time on their hands?" In the olden days, literature was a man's pursuit, and women shouldn't worry their pretty little heads about it. It was about serious, philosophical issues and grand drama, and literature was a man's world and a man's concern. And now that it is a woman's world and a woman's concern, it's considered kind of pathetic. Nobody in publishing ever says that, but there is definitely an element of condescension going on here. I am also insulted by the way publishers feel they have to package fiction now. It all has to be girlified. It has to have women on the front, which defies the statistics that women don't have to read about women—women are interested in reading about everybody. I'm in despair about what we can do. And the other problem is, the really heavy hitters—and this is worse in the U.S. than here in the UK— the writers who are trotted out as the voices of their generation are always men, and I don't know how to crack that. That nonsense The New York Times Book Review did with Franzen? They'd never do that with a female author. I'm at a loss. All I know to do is to write the best books I can. And women readers need to get it across to publishing companies that they don't want to be patronized—they don't want to be patronized in packaging, and they don't want to be patronized in content."

***

Thank you, Lionel Shriver! Keep on speaking truth to power: we women make up the majority of readers and writers. We are the publicists and the interns, the reviewers and the book store employees. 

WOMEN ARE PUBLISHING:  

PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE!

IF YOU'RE A PUBLISHER WHO WANTS TO HAVE A FUTURE, REMEMBER THIS! 

STOP DISCOUNTING US, 

OUR HOPES, DESIRES, & CONCERNS.

Fifty Shades of Grey is just the latest example...

WE ARE THE MARKET!

ignore/talk down to/diminish us 

at your peril. 

 We won't be ignored or marginalized. 

We vote with our Kindles, and Kobos, iPads, Androids...etc. 

Speaking of which: 

where 

is the 

FEMDROID?!(;-)

 Here's hoping we can work this out, 

as we always have...and to everyone's 

mutual advantage.

 

  

The Meaning of Children  on Amazon.com

 

"Emotional and tightly written, with a resistance to the happy ending, and the idea there is often something or someone waiting for the small mistake."

~TWUC Short Prose Competition Jury, commenting on 

"The Mysteries," a short story from The Meaning of Children

 

"Pie" at Third Sunday Blog Carnival

Just thought I'd point you to a new resource for getting more eyeballs on your work: the Third Sunday Blog Carnival, run by Adriene (A.D.) Joyce, aka Sweepy Jean.

 

Sweepy Jean is "a poet, writer, and editor who is inspired by the creativity of other artists that abounds on the internet. Hosting the Third Sunday Blog Carnival is one of the best ways I can think of to share what I find and to help keep the writing arts in the forefront–where they belong."

"Pie's" link is now live at the Third Sunday Blog Carnival! You can see it here:
 

http://thirdsundaybc.com/2012/02/19/vol-1-no-2

Adriene has some lovely feedback on "Pie," too: "Great characterization. Heartbreaking."

She also says: "Please share this link with your readers/followers. Visit the links of your fellow bloggers and let them know if you enjoyed their post.

"Thank you for your participation. Please feel free to submit a post for the March 18^th edition.

"All the best,
Adriene"

Akerman shortlisted for Aesthetica Creative Works Competition

Follow @Beverly_Akerman

Beverly Akerman's story "Spilt Milk," a more compact version of her "Sea Of Tranquillity," has made the short list for Aesthetica's Creative Works Competition. "Sea of Tranquillity" has won several other prizes and appears in Beverly's 2011 collection, The Meaning Of Children (see here for highlights of some rave reviews!).

"Spilt Milk" was also shortlisted for The Writers' Union of Canada's 2007 Short Prose Competition for Developing Writers.

Beverly received a Commendation for "Pie," the winner of Gemini Magazine's first flash fiction contest, in last year's ACW competition (read the story or listen to Bev read it).

Aesthetica is a UK arts and culture magazine published bimonthly and read by 60,000. The Creative Works Competition showcases outstanding artists, photographers, writers and poets from around the world. The prize is £500; finalists are also published.

Results for the 2011 contest will be announced in early December (http://tinyurl.com/dkn5fa).

The Meaning Of Children, published by Exile Editions, is available in fine bookstores including Chapters/Indigo, KidLink, Nicholas Hoare, and by all the major online purveyors.

Beverly seeks an agent or international publisher to bring the book & e-book beyond Canada's borders.

Full Circle: my Quebec Writers Federation Success Story

Recently, everyone who had taken a workshop or mentorship through the good offices of the Quebec Writers Federation (QWF) was invited to write them of our recent successes. These sorts of missives help to demonstrate to our generous funding agencies--such as the Canada Council for the Arts and the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec--the value of the programs supported.

This blog post is based on the letter I was delighted to provide to the QWF:

Below is my history of literary training with the Quebec Writers Federation (QWF):

Year	Workshop Subject	Program Duration	Instructors
2005	Investigative journalism	1 day	Guy Lawson
2005	Short fiction	8 wks (+16 wks outside QWF)	Neale McDevitt
2006	Science journalism	1 day	Robin Marantz Henig
2006	Short fiction master class (competitive admission)	8 wks	Tess Fragoulis
2006	Humour writing	8 wks	David McGimpsey
2008	Short fiction	8 wks	Mikhail Iossel
2008	Writing the first chapter	8 wks	Joel Yanofsky
2008	Young adult fiction (novel)	8 wks	Lori Weber & Monique Polak
2009	Fiction Mentorship	4 months	Robyn Sarah
2009-2010	Playwriting	2 x 8 wk	Colleen Curran

It is no exaggeration to say that through the QWF, I have availed myself top caliber teaching, on a par with a university program in creative writing. In fact, most of the QWF instructors I have had teach similar courses at Concordia University.

I’d also like to salute them for their compassion, humanity, and companionship on this shared journey of literary discovery.

This year has seen the launch of my first book, the David Adams Richards Prize winning fiction collection, The Meaning Of Children. Most of the stories therein benefitted from valuable feedback generated at QWF workshops. Reviewer response to my book has been, gratifyingly, good to excellent. Selected comments:

Loved your book--read it in one sitting.

~Mutsumi Takahashi, Anchor, CTV News

Your book The Meaning of Children is great and so are you!

~Anne Lagacé Dowson, CJAD Radio journalist, on Twitter

A keen, incisive vision into the hidden world of children as well as intimate knowledge of the secret spaces that exist between the everyday events of life. A work with a brilliant sense of story…Magical, and so refreshing for me to read. I absolutely loved it and I hope it goes on to do marvellous things. Yours is a luminous talent.

~JoAnne Soper-Cook, author and 2010 David Adams Richards Prize judge

This isn’t the invented childhood of imagination and wonderment…[here] children both corrupt and redeem: each other, family relationships and the female body.

~Katie Hewitt, The Globe & Mail

Akerman holds up our greatest fears, not to dwell on them, but to marvel at our commitment to life, especially to passing it on to others.

~Anne Chudobiak, The Montreal Gazette

Akerman engages with dichotomies. Childhood is that safe, magical, carefree time and place — but it’s also risky, threatening, ominous and dangerous — full of impenetrable mystery around things seen and experienced, but beyond understanding. And if it’s not too much of a simplification or stating the obvious, life and the world are not gentle on children simply for being children…If, as Dostoevsky once remarked, and as is quoted on the collection’s frontispiece, “The soul is healed by being with children,” it is the tragedy of adulthood that we become so isolated from childhood — and what children offer us. Artfully, evocatively, Beverly Akerman’s The Meaning of Children reminds us of that.

~Darrell Squires, The Western Star, Corner Brook NL

Beverly’s background as a scientist, MSc and twenty years as a molecular researcher, inevitably spills into the stories…characters, the settings and her style. Intelligent, objective, open-minded but not clinical, her prose is refreshing and unprejudiced. Her characters are frank and genuine...With The Meaning of Children, we get a beautifully written exposé on the meaning of life.

~Francine Diot-Layton, The Rover

Your book is filled with insight and wisdom and gorgeous moving stories...You are dazzling. (I had read “Pie” long ago. It is just as moving the second time).

~Hal Ackerman (no relation), UCLA Screenwriting Area Co-Chair and Author of Stein Stoned and Stein Stung

A life-altering read is so rare for me, and I imagine for many writers, with a critical eye often hard to keep closed while hoping to get caught up and swept away while reading fiction for pleasure...Her stories are as diverse as her changing career path and yet string together a theme as connected as a genetic chain…Children weave their way through every tale…always sparking the reader to question where in all these stories sits their own story.

~Michelle Greysen, Writer, Editor, and Blogger

Just finished “Like Jeremy Irons.” That was a tough one. Saying I loved it feels contrary to the agony I'm feeling right now. (Perhaps I shouldn't have settled into it with a glass of wine?) Awesome writing - even if my uterus is cramping!

~Lisa Dalrymple, Winner, The Writers Union of Canada’s 2011 Writing for Children Competition

In Fall 2010, I had the pleasure of seeing my first theatrical piece, the monologue “Chelle,” professionally performed by Nan Fewchuk at Sarasvati Productions’ FemFest 2010, in Winnipeg, MB. I am very grateful to have been awarded funds from the Canada Council and the Playwrights Guild of Canada to attend the festival, where I was also a featured reader during the national Culture Days program.

Another highlight of the past year was being invited to teach my first QWF workshop, on short fiction, bringing me full circle. One of my workshop participants asked me to write a reference letter in support of his application for graduate studies in creative writing at UBC—I’m thrilled to say he was accepted.

As I write my latest appeal to the Canada Council for my next writing project, and embark on yet another ego battering roller coaster of submissions, and long and short lists, I can’t help but be moved and grateful for the guidance and support that the QWF has made available to me, and to all the other aspiring writers of Quebec.

Bravo, QWF, for doing what you do, and for doing it so well!

Thanks so much for being there for me when I needed you. Not that I don’t need you still…

(And special appreciation to Executive Director Lori Schubert and her right hand woman, Julia Kater!)

The Meaning Of Children is available in fine bookstores across Canada and online at Amazon.ca, Chapters, and through Exile Editions.