Hi folks! I’m taking a mini-vacation this week, so I’m going to keep this brief! Today’s show features author Grace O’Connell. We talk about her new(ish) novel, Be Ready for the Lightning. Super book, tore through it in record time as I was enjoying it so much. Enjoy the show!
CFMU
GET LIT E34 with David Layton
Summer fun is exhausting. Yet I manage to plug away at the new book! In the meantime I understand The Captain of Kinnoull Hill is finally going to be reviewed…I’ll obviously be posting that when it happens 🙂
In the meantime, this week’s show. I spoke with David Layton about his new book The Dictator. He’s a successful author of fiction and memoir, a creative writing teacher, and if you want historical context, the son of famous poet Irving Layton (and, fun fact, Leonard Cohen was his godfather). Enjoy!
GET LIT E33: Darryl Whetter and Suzannah Showler
Good day folks! Not much in way way of bloggy thoughts today, so let’s get down to the episode.
Today’s show features two poets. First up, Suzannah Showler, author of Thing Is (Penguin Random House). Next is Darryl Whetter, author of Search Box Bed (Palimpsest). I haven’t done a lot of poetry but we’re going to start, with upcoming shows featuring Aisha Sasha John, Phoebe Wang, and plans to speak with Gary Barwin, John Terpstra and Shane Neilson. Stay tuned!
Get Lit E32 with Mark Sampson
Hi everyone, hope your summer is going. Here in southern Ontario, the weather’s decidedly unsummery many days, but at least you can leave the house without risking frostbite, so my complaints are fairly muted.
Work on the new novel continues. Waking early in the morning is far less painful now. The new pain is one some of you know all too well – grant applications. The Canada Council generously offers grants for research and creation, so I’m applying for one of those to cover the costs of heading to Japan for research. I missed the deadline that would have me approved/declined in September, but I’m going whether or not I get the grant, so I’m going to apply and find out if I get money in March. Why not. Still, grant writing. Ugh.
Today’s show is a great one because it features Mark Sampson, poet and author of Sad Peninsula and The Slip, his most recent novel (with Dundurn Press). I met Mark at the Ontario Library Association Super Conference, as we share a publisher (not Dundurn, but Palimpsest). I’m happy to have had the privilege. There’s also that weird little bit of serendipity involving his wife Rebecca Rosenblum, which you might recall from episode 25.
You’ll also notice that there’s a weird technical glitch two or three minutes from the end. Turns out you can work in a place for almost twenty years and still forget about the existence of an important power switch (and, hence, not think about it when your guest back his chair into it).
Enjoy the show!
Get Lit E30 with Sally Cooper and Gary Barwin
Hi folks,
The experiment in early rising in order to write seems to be working. By the end of the month, I should be finished a short story that is also the nexus of a new novel. Stay tuned.
This week I talked briefly to Gary Barwin about winning the Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour. We also plugged his performance as part of the Something Else festival, in which he and Stuart Ross will be performing (or performed, depending on when you’re reading this) sound poetry together.
Our feature interview is with Hamilton author Sally Cooper, who talks about her great new collection Smells Like Heaven, available through ARP Books. Hope you enjoy!
GET LIT E28 with Claire Cameron
Last week I had the pleasure of heading out to beautiful Pelee Island. No, I wasn’t buying wine (well, okay, I did buy some wine) and I wasn’t birding (though all those wild turkeys were cool). I spent seven days on a writer’s retreat at the Pelee Island Book House, and I can’t recommend it enough. This isn’t a sales pitch, though I’m a big fan of Dawn Kresan, who owns the Book House – she’s a fabulous poet the all ’round cool woman who used to own Palimpsest, my publisher, and even designed my book cover. It’s more of a “damn, I’m enthusiastic and need to share my enthusiasm” sort of thing.
There were a few reasons it was such a great experience, and part of that is just the nature of a retreat itself. I must have written well over 5,000 words (I wasn’t keeping track, really) and had some major breakthroughs. I wasn’t sure if I would be able to work with long stretches, being so used to small slivers of writing time. Turns out, yes, it’s all good. Of course, much of it was the environment. When you have to take a 90-minute ferry ride to get somewhere (on top of a 3.5 hour drive) you certainly feel like you’ve left the daily world grind behind. The House is on the shores of Erie, and between the crashing waves and constant birdsong, it was like natural white noise; accumulated stress faded quickly. It’s a big cottage, so there’s plenty of room; even with three fellas in a bedroom, it never felt crowded. The rest of the house is laid out in such a way that we were all able to stake out our spaces and work uninterrupted if we chose.
Of course, we collaborated, read, talked and socialized. Having like-minded people in the House was invaluable. I was able to just wander up to people and ask actual writing questions. People respected each other’s work and each other’s space without being distant and unapproachable. There was a little summer camp syndrome – you know, a small group of people in close quarters for a short time, sharing an important experience, tends to stoke bonding that’s fairly intense by normal adult life standards.
Thanks to Dawn and the eleven incredible writers I met and befriended. Oh, and there was also, you know, hangin’ with Margaret Atwood…but I’ll talk about that next week.
In the meantime, a great show today with Claire Cameron, the best-selling author who took the time to join me and discuss her latest novel, The Last Neanderthal. Enjoy!
GET LIT E27 with Simon Donato
Good morning folks!
Other than the minutiae of my life (car dying, mom’s birthday, other excitements) I have little to share with you this week other than an excellent edition of the show featuring television personality, athlete and (now) author, Simon Donato. I hope you dig it!
As for me, by the time you read this, I’ll be at the Pelee Island Book House on my first-ever writing retreat, so I’m sure I’ll have lots to share next time. Cheers!
GET LIT 23 with Emily Schultz
Hey everyone! I’ve started trying out a new thing. That new thing is called “waking up.” So far, I have had modest success. I’m almost awake right now!
But as a comedian in all seriousness, writing time is scarce. I’m trying something bold, in order to have more then 30 scattered minutes a day, and it’ll amount to a fairly big lifestyle change. Going to bed early (I’m a night owl) and getting up early (I like sleeping in) is going to be strange as hell.
I have, in case I haven’t mentioned this, started a new work. I have lots to talk about in the pre-writing stages (more on that later). It’s been challenging and strange to say the least.
In the meantime, Emily Schultz! I truly enjoyed her novel Men Walking On Water, and the conversation we had about it. You might know Emily from her previous book The Blondes, or from Joyland Magazine…or perhaps from her novel of the same name, which was also the name of a novel by Stephen King. This led to some people purchasing Emily’s novel when, in fact, they meant to purchase Stephen’s. Not sure how one buys a novel by the wrong author, but anyway, it led to Emily’s entertaining Spending The Stephen King Money tumblr.
We also have a first for Get Lit – a guest reviewer! Scott Neigh is the host of Talking Radical Radio, which airs on various Canadian community stations, coast to coast. A logical person to review L.A. Kauffmann’s “Direct Action: Protest and the Reinvention of American Radicalism.” Enjoy the show!
GET LIT E22 with Janie Chang
Welcome to another show! Welcome to another week without a real blog, even though I promise them endlessly! Welcome to my life. Sheesh.
Did have some authorial adventures last week, though! These days you never actually have to meet the people who publish you. That was certainly the case for me. The fantastic Aimee Dunn at Palimpsest Press has been a digital presence, even down to the edits on the PDF of my manuscript. It’s normal now, but still, a little strange, so I jumped at a chance to hop on the VIA and head down to Windsor for a reading. It was a modest affair (as many readings are) but that’s really not the point. If you’re in writing to make money, you’re finished before you start. Likewise, if you’re doing readings for the roar of the crowd, you’re in the wrong business – take up fire eating instead. You do it because it’s really fun to do. You do it to improve your reading abilities. You do it to meet other authors, share experiences, and maybe, just maybe, for those two or three people who come up to you afterward and say “Actually, your Scottish accent isn’t terrible at all.”
You also do it for the train. Damn, that’s the way to get to Windsor, I tell ya.
A great interview with Janie Chang this week. She’s great, very enjoyable chat. Check out her book Dragon Springs Road.
Janie is also the person behind Authors for Indies. Independent bookstores in Hamilton are also participating in the event April 29. Including me! Come see me at Epic Books from 3 – 5 pm.
GET LIT E21 – Trevor Cole and The Whisky King
Hey all! On today’s show I’ll talk about my own personal impression of gritLIT, and then feature an interview with Trevor Cole, one-time Hamilton resident, HarperCollins author and the man behind The Whisky King: The remarkable true story of Canada’s most infamous bootlegger and the undercover Mountie on his trail. Now that’s a serious title.
Rocco Perri was one of Hamilton’s – and, indeed, Canada’s – most notorious gangsters. He was also notoriously good-natured and gregarious, and most of the city loved him. A great read!
As for gritLIT, it was a highly entertaining weekend. We managed to sneak in some interviews with Leslie Shimotakahara and Rebecca Rosenblum, which we’ll get to in future weeks. I also managed to stay up way too late talking to the likes of Denise Donlon (one of my music journo heroes, former host on The New Music, telling me Tom Waits stories for cryin’ out loud…NBD, though, right?). Stayed up even later with the immensely entertaining Lesley Livingston, doing Guy Gavriel Kay impersonations and telling stories until far too much wine was drunk. Look forward to next year’s festival already!