Writer | Journalist
Hey folks! I’m currently sitting at a desk overlooking the frozen road (and, if I squint through the trees, the Toronto skyline) in front of the Gibraltar Point Centre for the Arts. I’m half-way through a seven-day retreat, working on my current MS.
Still, the show goes on! This week we talk with Sean Minogue about his novel, Terminal Solstice. Listen in.
Hey folks!
The blog section of this site is becoming a bit unwieldy. I’m looking into a simple table of contents plug-in that will allow you to browse past episodes of the show by guest, so look out for that.
I’m also about to launch the show, in edited forms (with time-sensitive information removed) as a podcast. It will likely be available in all the usual places – iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, etc.
I’m also working on some exciting things that I cannot currently reveal. I’ll keep you in the loop! Otherwise, it’s business as usual – writing, writing, and more writing.
And reading! Books like You Are Among Monsters, by Jon R. Flieger, who is our feature guest this week. We’ll also talk to Dawn Kresan about the Pelee Island Book House. Check it out.
Hey folks! I’m off on another run down to Windsor doing a reading for the ChiZine folks at Phog Lounge. By the time this posts, I’m probably on a via train on the way home. Maybe I saw you?
Today’s program features two interviews with fabulous poets. Klara du Plessis joins us to talk about her collection Ekke. After that, we chat with Linda Frank about her newest collection, Divided.
Hope you enjoy….!
I haven’t made as many personal blogs as I originally intended to, but hopefully no one minds (or cares!). It seems that whenever the time comes to post the new show, I’m just too busy or exhausted to bother saying much. As such, I’ll keep it to interesting news and self-serving information.
Work continues on the new novel. I’ve been struggling with it. Writers, has this ever happened to you? You’ve really, really needed an opinion on a draft…but the draft is so unfinished that there’s no one anyone should read it (let alone form an opinion based on it). What do you do? Personally, I’m doing two things. The first is doing the work. No matter how long it will take, it’s important to just do it, to rewrite and touch up no matter how long it takes. Eventually, there will be a readable draft.
The second is learning to trust yourself. When that little voices pipes up to tell you that you have no idea what you’re doing and you need a second opinion…you learn to ignore it, trust your talents, and keep going.
There will be plenty of time for second opinions.
Speaking of opinions, my opinion on today’s guest is that she seems super cool and has written a wonderful book. In Search of the Perfect Singing Flamingo is a very enjoyable read and I hope you enjoy the conversation with author Claire Tacon. Dig.
Some writers will tell you that writing is painfully solitary work. There’s some truth in that, of course; when I’m staring down the barrel of a 6:30 am writing session, all I have at hand is my CFMU mug of coffee and, occasionally, one of the cats in the cat tree behind me. You spend your time alone at a keyboard (or with a pen, or etching stone tablets, whatever your jam) and then, when you’re not actively writing, a lot of time in your own head, mulling, creating, upending, uprooting, debating, convincing, paining, despairing…you get the idea.
If you’re not an isolated person by nature, however, there’s usually an incredible community out there, wherever you live. I’ve been lucky enough to be accepted – mostly, I think? – by the community here in Hamilton, Ontario. Between writing groups, readings, events, committees and SM activity, I have met some ridiculously talented, very giving, very open, very thoughtful people.
At 7:30 am one day this week, I was feeling especially stuck with the new (still untitled) novel. At 36,000 words, the work felt as though it were barely a quarter done…and there’s little chance that I could pull off a 140,000 word book (or get it published for that matter). All I did was post on Facebook, and suddenly there were dozens of people giving me good advice (and I should add that not all of them were writers, but…). Over on Twitter, another dozen of us were having an entertaining riff on #BookLoversDay, and it was wonderful.
Unsolicited, obvious advice again: if you ever feel stuck, if you ever feel alone, take a chance and try to find your community. It’s probably out there.
Today’s show is a feature interview with Carole Giangrande. Her latest, All That Is Sold Melts Into Air, is available through Inanna Publications. Enjoy!
Jamie
Welcome to my blog at jamietennant.ca
This is the first blog I’ve written for my own website.
That’s boring as hell.
What’s hilarious is in the photograph. This is the first long-form story I ever wrote. Inspired by Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang, I did what any budding storyteller would do. I shamelessly ripped off the great Mordechai Richler, stole his characters, and then, always one to live vicariously through fiction, turned his characters into me and my friends. I figured he wouldn’t mind.
I found this recently, as I was searching for a long-lost manuscript about demons from other dimensions (as one does). Written on a plastic portable typewriter in my parents’ kitchen at the age of about 10, it reminded me that inside, I’d always known I would be a novelist. Adult life wasn’t proving it – from the ages of about 25 to 35, in fact, I wrote tens of thousands of words but nary a clause of fiction. Now, rounding that last bend to middle age, I’m published and have caught the bug again. It began with this 4,000 word riff on Intrepid Shapiro and Fearless O’Toole.
This blog will be about…well, tons of things, I’m sure. I’m a music nerd, a father, a husband, a pop culture geek, an author, a community radio program director…it might get unwieldy here. It might go off on tangents. I will be posting episodes of my soon-to-air radio/podcast, Get Lit, as well as some short videos, if I can stomach looking at my own face during the editing process.
Hopefully, you’ll come see it.