Canadian Fictions

International Women's Day

2011-03-08T19:27:00.007-05:00

In the West, International Women’s Day doesn’t mean much any more. It’s little more than a marketing opportunity for businesses, or an excuse for the last remnants of women’s grievance groups to keep griping.

"For the free, educated and affluent, welcome to the century of women."Margaret Wente; Globe & Mail. 07-March-2011.

There ya go - it's all over but for the whiners and gripers. We won; the war is over.

What? Did you miss the memo? Yeah, me too.

Wente, in her article, points to a few stories & statistics to support her argument. Women now outnumber men in many university programs, for example. Oh, and the outrage over Robert Dewar, the Manitoba judge that recently put his foot in his mouth during a rape case - that's another indication that we're all good now.

Great - but shall we ignore the fact that even so, the gap between men's & women's wages is going in the wrong direction? We never actually did get to parity, even though the rhetoric is that we did and are.

In 2003, women working on a full-time, full-year basis had average earnings of $36,500 - 71% of what men made [StatsCan ].

Neither Canada (22%) or the US (16%) has a particularly impressive number of women in parliment (2009)

In Canada unpaid work is estimated to be worth up to $319 billion in the money economy or 41% of GDP; globally the numbers skyrocket to $11 trillion US. Most unpaid work in Canada and around the world is performed by women. [UNPAC]

Women are more likely to live in poverty (Leaf), to be subjected to violence and don't even get me started on the challenges faced by Aboriginal women, or women with disabilities or mental illnesses, or....

We have made significant gains in some areas though - women are, for example, the fastest-growing population in prisons in both Canada and the US. And there are a whole lot more homeless women now - there's something to be proud of, eh?

Obviously, women have made progress in many western - or northern - or developed - (pick your term of choice) countries. For a time - and this is the point that people like Wente (and Palin and numerous other highly public anti-feminists) seem to have gotten stuck on - it even looked as though the war had indeed been won, or nearly so.

But with the rise of neoliberalism and the erosion of the welfare state, the gains that had been made have not stuck and we are now, in fact, heading in the wrong direction.... but shhhh... we are not supposed to notice! We are supposed to believe - as Wente obviously does - that it's all good now ... no more need for griping; we should celebrate.

Apparently she doesn't read the rest of the Globe & Mail ... or pay attention to what is going on around her either. Me, I would think that someone paid to write opinion columns for a major national newspaper should have a clue about what the current government is doing, for example... but hey, what do I know... I obviously missed the memo.

Issues Related to the High Number of Murdered and Missing Women in Canada

2011-02-06T22:16:00.004-05:00

Isn't that interesting?

I went looking online for a copy of the report by the Coordinating Committee of Senior Officials Missing Women Working Group - "Issues Related to the High Number of Murdered and Missing Women in Canada" (MMWC) which was published in September 2010. It was - for a bit - available on the Canadian Intergovernmental Conference Secretariat website - but no more.

A few links of interest remain, however:

There is a (very) short synopsis posted by the Ministry of the Attorney General in British Columbia

here is a brief discussion which occured in the House of Commons on October 26, 2010

and here is my personal favourite - the one in which the Canadian government announces in a press release that they care about violence against Aboriginal women in Canada and are prepared to throw $10 million at it.

So generous - except for the ~minor~ little details that they don't mention - which if one reads - critically - the press release, the above mentioned report - MMWC - in conjunction with any of the research reports provided by the Sisters in Spirit Initiative - jump out relatively quickly.

Things like the fact that while the SIS research is extremely nuanced, and recognizes that the only commonalities between all of the missing & murdered women they are researching is that they are 1. Aboriginal 2. women 3. missing or murdered 4. in Canada. (And they do note concern about non-Aboriginal women, or about Aboriginal women who die or are harmed through other causes, also - but since those are not the subject of this particular research project, they are not included in the research database)

The only commonalities between the people directly responsible for their deaths/disappearances are ...well, none, actually, beyond the fact that they were presumably in Canada long enough to commit crimes here. Offenders are not all male, nor all Aboriginal or non-Aboriginal, nor are they all serial offenders.

The report of the MMWC, on the other hand, considers Aboriginal women who are missing or murdered in Canada and who are most often

living in poverty
homeless, transient, and lacking in social networks
addicted to alcohol or drugs
involved in sex work or other dangerous practices such as hitchhiking
experiencing mental health issues (MWWG 3)

And the offenders about which they are concerned do share a ~few~ commonalities. They are

male
serial sex offenders
predators
follow a pattern of repeated abduction, infliction of assault, degredation, torture and murder.

So - we can ~throw out~ all of those women who are not killed by strangers - that's all but approximately 17% of cases where the offenders are known, using the SIS research. We can ~throw out~ all the cases where the women are not involved in sex work (about half of the women about whom enough is known to make this determination). And hey, lets throw out any one-offs, also, because we are only interested in serial offenders.

Another very important difference between the Sisters in Spirit report(s) and the MMWG is that one is very clearly in favour of an approach with attention paid to being both PROACTIVE and REACTIVE strategies to reduce the number of missing or murdered Aboriginal women in Canada, while the other - in spite of the occassional nod towards the need to prevent these crimes in the first place, is quite clearly concerned to a very large extent with the REACTIVE side of things. Care to guess which organization advocates for which approach? Too easy?

The goals of the MWWG were to:

Share information and expertise with personnel across Canada who are responsible for identifying, investigating and prosecuting these cases
Develop strategies and proposals that would assist in addressing current barriers that hinder the resolution of cases involving victims of serial predators
Promote the development of resources and training to assist personnel who are responsible for handing cases of missing and murdered persons
Ensure that the Criminal Code and other relevant federal and provincial legislation provide the best tools for investigating and prosecuting cases of serial killers who target marginalized persons (3)

See any proactive approaches in there? Yeah, me neither. Training and changes to the Criminal Code are all well and good - and one could, I suppose, make an argument that these are proactive - but they are proactive only in the sense that they set up strategies that can be used when "these cases" happen - none of these are proactive in the sense of gee, I dunno, looking for root causes and strategies to ensure that women don't wind up missing or murdered in the first place?

But of course, we are talking about people who are up there in the judicial - and especially policing - system - of course they are focussing on cases - and so they should be. Their work, however, does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING that replaces the work of the Sisters in Spirit Iniative's research or victim support work, however.

Absolutely nothing...

And yet Harper & co would have you believe that while the Sisters in Spirit did good work, they are all set to handle it from here.

Even if that were true, I would have a problem with it. We are supposedly living in a post-colonial society.

In a post-colonial society, if a group of Aboriginal peoples have proven themselves capable of researching and working on a problem that impacts on Aboriginal peoples - and motivated to keep doing so - does the state swoop in and take it over? Really?

Honestly, it seems just a ~little~ ... okay ... a LOT... colonial to me. Am I, perhaps, missing something?

Lee-Ann Chyoweh-Pawis - Still Missing?

2011-02-06T16:04:00.007-05:00

Awhile ago, on Facebook, I joined a group called Red Circle Alert, which was formed by (Red Power United - Native Rights Movement) to try and help Native Families and Communities find Missing Friends and Family Members.

I have, over the course of my studies, become increasingly aware of, and concerned about, issues of violence against Aboriginal peoples - and especially women - in Canada. It upsets me. I do share the alerts as they are posted or sent to me by email, and I always hope that the person will be found safely. Some are.

Tyeshia Jones was not. Tyeshia was 18 years old and a member of the Cowichan Tribes. She went missing on 22 Jan. 2011; her body was found less than a week later, and autopsy has since confirmed that she was a victim of homicide. This was not a woman living a dangerous life-style. She had been to a party earlier in the evening, and was walking to a store to meet up with a friend from whom she had become separated. She never made it.

Aboriginal women are far too vulnerable to violence in Canada, especially in our western provinces. Although they make up only 3% of the total female population, they represent approximately 10% of the total number of female homicides. They are, too, 3 times more likely than non-Aboriginal women to be assaulted or killed by strangers. And clearance rates for murders of Aboriginal women in Canada are lower. In 2010, for example, charges were laid in 53% of cases involving Aboriginal women, compared to 84% of cases involving non-Aboriginal women.

And contrary to popular (mis)conception, not all of the women and girls who are murdered or missing in Canada have anything at all to do with the sex trade. Certainly, women who are involved in that life are at increased risk - and in some provinces, Aborginal women are seriously over-represented - interestingly enough, a very high percentage of these women are women who were removed from their home communities & families (the so-called Sixties Scoop is a misnomer - the practice of scooping is alive and well, and Aboriginal children are hugely over-represented in foster care and facilities for youth) - but before I get off on another tangent ... in cases where such information is known, turns out that only about 50% of missing or murdered women were, in fact, participating in such risk behaviours.... and even if that stat were higher, that would not negate, or mitigate, the problem.

There is a great deal more information available in the Sisters In Spirit Iniative 2010 Research Report. And there's yet another tangent that I have already been off once and will no doubt visit again .... I am so incredibly angry that the Canadian government has cut funding for the Sisters In Spirit Iniative! Here's a quote that just makes my blood boil:

Con MP Shelly Glover, Parliamentary Secretary for Indian and Northern Affairs :

"That project was finished. Don’t mix apples and oranges. That project
was finished, now we’re working with them to pursue other projects."

I have sent my letter off to a number of politicians - for all the good it does. Did get some (inane) responses though... but that's a topic for another ~~tangent~~ post.

Anyway ... I really do need to get back to my reading - next up is the Coordinating Committee of Senior Officials Missing Women Working Group. (2010) “Issues Related to the High Number of Murdered and Missing Women in Canada” ...which I have read enough already to know that I shall be doing some more writing about that too...

but before I shut up, I wanted to tell you what I actually set out to write about today when I first mentioned the Red Circle Alert - and that is a young lady by the name of Lee-Ann Chyoweth-Pawis.

She is missing... has been since June 2005, at which time she was 17 years old. And she went missing from Midland Ontario - a town about 10km from me. I lived here then - how is it that I have never once heard about her disappearance? I read newspapers, watch the news, see posters... lived here then... the fact that I cannot recall hearing a word makes me unhappy.

As far as I can tell, Lee-Ann is still missing: she is listed on several registries of missing persons, but does not come up at all in a search of Google news. It makes me very sad. Tomorrow, I think I will call the contact number and see if they will tell me if she is still missing - if so, will update this blog, and at least submit the info to the Red Circle Alert group.

I wish there was more that I could do....

Global Lockdown: Race, Gender, and the Prison-Industrial Complex

2011-02-05T15:03:00.007-05:00

Sudbury, Julia. Global Lockdown: Race, Gender, and the Prison-Industrial Complex. London: Routledge, 2005. Print.

This is the book that I have been reading this week. I finished the last few chapters today... thank goodness. I am in a miserable enough mood without it. This book just made me more and more angry - or perhaps, furious would be a better word. Hell, no perhaps about it.

The book is a collection of essays and chapters written by academics and activists from around the world and edited by Julia Sudbury. And did I mention it is infuriating? Not the book itself... it is far more accessible on the whole than many other books on my reading list... but it details the incredible (and not in a good way) growth of the prison industry around the world, and highlights the impacts of that on so many people.

I tend to be a ~bit~ of a bleeding heart at the best of times...I feel for the people I read about and sometimes, that just out and out hurts. It seems easy - for some, and certainly for politicians and many in the media - to talk about statistics, without giving a moment's thought to the fact that every one of the people that make up those numbers are PEOPLE.

People, not numbers.

People with hopes, dreams, wants, needs, families, relationships.... or without those things, which is, in many cases, even sadder.
People who, in far, far too many cases, hurt no-one.

It is so damn easy to say that he or she chose to do something illegal and therefore, they deserve what they get. That is what we are supposed to believe in this neoliberal - capitalist - global - harsh society.

Every last one of the men women children in prisons around the world deserves to be there. Every last one of them is guilty, and none of those of us who chose better needs to spare an iota of concern about any of them.

It sickens me.

There are innocents in prisons - in your country and mine and in the others too.

There are people in prison for having the wrong colour skin and/or for being poor and/or for having/lacking a penis and/or for refusing to allow themselves or their children to be abused or even killed and/or for having a mental illness or other disability and/or for needing to eat. Hell, in Nepal, as of 2005, women were still in prison for the 'crime' of having had the misfortune to have miscarriages. The nerve of them!

There are, in fact, an inordinate number of people in prison for these 'crimes'.

And there are altogether too many people who are not in prisons for these crimes because they are dead as a result of their incarceration.

But hey - those people must have chosen to be not white, to be mentally ill, to.... bah! BULLSHIT even.

Why is the prison-industrial complex growing at such a drastic rate? There are several contributing factors - but neoliberal globalization is at the root of most of them. I'll skip the big long explanation of neoliberalism - Wikipedia has it pretty much covered - but the (very) short definition is, in my mind, it's all about the money.

People don't matter any more.... what matters is money... the economy... the bottom line. Less government, more private enterprise (although the less government thing hasn't actually worked out so well in practice; in reality they mean less governmental responsibility, not any actual reductions in government size or spending). In neoliberal ideology, everyone is responsible for their own choices and especially for their own welfare. We're all equal, we all have equal opportunities, blah blah blah ... more pure and utter bullshit, that.

Prisons are not about rehabilitation - and in a neoliberal world, they're not about keeping communities safe either, although that's the line they use to justify them. They are about power and money....with a great big helping of racism thrown in for good measure.

I knew that already - I have done a lot of reading and learning and thinking about the issue since Ashley Smith died.... most of my research to date, though, has been focused on Canadian women in Canadian prisons... with a bit of US ~stuff~ thrown in.

Global Lockdown: Race, Gender, and the Prison-Industrial Complex pushed me towards thinking on a much larger scale ....which is good, I guess... but oh so discouraging, also. And oh yeah - infuriating!

Memories of G20

2010-12-28T23:29:00.004-05:00

Interesting.... CTV news is on and I happened to catch a bit re: what Canadians will remember about the G20 debacle earlier this year....

According to CTV, apparently, all we are (supposed to?) remember is the ridiculous spending on silliness such as the fake lake and glow sticks.

Really? Huh!

I must be doing it wrong.... because when I think of the G20, the amount of money spent is pretty far down on my list.

Me, I'm inclined to remember the things that absolutely disgusted and appalled me:
innocent people abused, imprisoned - beaten, for God's sake, for the crime of being too slow to get up from the ground when the ~~bullies~~ cops ordered him to. How DARE he have an artificial leg? And there was Mr. Nobody - yes, that is his name - and for that, our fine ~~bullies~~ cops laid a beating on him. To serve and protect, my ass!

I also happened to catch entirely too many of Chief Blair's media conferences to ever make the mistake of thinking that man has any credibility at all. I do not understand why he is still there! First he made a big deal of showing all the weapons the ~~bullies~~ cops had confiscated from the protestors... oops... wait a sec there... yeah... no... most of those had absolutely nothing to do with G20 protestors... oops, my bad. Tee hee.

And THEN we have the whole line of BS about how they couldn't POSSIBLY identify any of the ~~bullies~~ cops that were video-taped behaving badly, cuz, you know.... they weren't wearing their right badges and like NO-ONE could POSSIBLY expect a cop to recognize another cop they work with every damn day without a name tag now could they? Oh dear... oopsie again... the TO Star was able to ... yeah...we're co-operating with all investigations... or not. Heard that interview on CBC radio .... I'm sure people in cars all around me were wondering who the crazy woman screeching in fury was.

Anyway....I could go on and on and on about the whole thing.... Canada did not acquit itself at all well, if y'ask me.... and every single Canadian should be concerned about what that means for our right to have opinions and to voice them without the Canadian state responding with brutality, BS and outright lies - but the point of this particular post was CTV's suggestion that it is the cost that Canadian's remember.

Ridiculous!

And a clear indication, I think, that one must pay attention to the media and think critically about what they are feeding us - or trying to.

Do they think if they tell us often enough that its the fake lake we care about, we'll forget about the rest? Actually, they quite likely do... it has worked before, and it will, no doubt, work again.... *sigh*

We must pay attention!

Theft of Indian land ... simply not true

2010-12-18T08:15:00.006-05:00

...or is it? It all depends on whose version of events you want to go with. This week, a guest editorial in the Midnorth Monitor shared his particular (white, Eurocentric, male) version of the Robinson treaties. I won't post it here, because I'm not too interested in giving that sort of thinking a boost, but here's the link.

And here is my response, which I today submitted to the Midnorth Monitor.

I was interested to read Mr. Best’s perceptions of the Robinson Huron and Robinson Superior treaties; there are many other perceptions and interpretations available, of course, including, even, those on the Canadian government’s own Indian and Northern Affairs site, which offer entirely different depictions of the process and of the violence and hostilities that preceded it. Rather than offering a study of the many different viewpoints of the history of these events, however, I thought I might draw attention to a few key facts.

First of all, if the Natives involved truly, as Mr. Best himself writes “felt they had no other option,” how is it possible that they also “freely” signed the treaty, as he claims? These two claims, obviously, are in complete opposition to each other. Also, he argues that “it was territory that the Indians had never, in any real sense, effectively possessed in the first place.” And here we have a lovely demonstration of the sort of white-guy colonialism that we here in enlightened Canada have supposedly moved beyond in these supposedly post-colonial times.

It is true, of course, that Aboriginal people in Canada and elsewhere around the world, had – and have – different principles when it comes to the ownership of land and resources. In keeping with those principles, land is not subject to ownership but rather to collective and co-operative use. So no, the Aboriginal peoples of this land did not write up deeds, or build fences and put up “No Trespassing” signs. They did not, by colonial standards, “effectively” possess the land. But when are we going to wrap our (white, Eurocentric, male) heads around the fact that our (white, Eurocentric, male) ways are not the only ways? Aboriginal law was centred around principles of collective collaboration and cooperation; we (white, Eurocentric, male) societies favour individualism and adversarial and punitive systems. Mr. Best, apparently, is rather too fond of his (white, Eurocentric, male) principles and systems to consider that perhaps there might be other ways of interpreting history – and even more importantly – other ways of doing and being.

When I look at the horrendous damage our (white, Eurocentric, male) ways cause not only Aboriginal peoples in Canada, but also women, the poor, and many, many others, and the environment as well, I often wonder why we even bother to cling so desperately to our (white, Eurocentric, male) ways. It is time, I think, to consider unclenching our fingers and challenging our (white, Eurocentric, male) ways ....because they are simply not true.

Don't know if they'll print it, but hey...what can it hurt?

Federal Government Approves MacKenzie Pipeline

2010-12-16T21:36:00.006-05:00

Money, money, money....always money... in a neoliberal world :(

I stopped by Google news this evening and was distressed to read that Canada's Federal government has approved the MacKenzie pipeline - in spite of the fact that it is no secret that to go ahead with the project is likely to have major negative ramifications for both the people and the environment.

But hey, who cares? It's all about the money, n'est-ce pas?

I was particularly distressed to see that, according to the article in the Vancouver Sun,

Absent but in discussions are the DehCho which hold 40 per cent of the lands the pipeline will go through in southwest NWT, and the only one of the group to yet resolve its land claims with the feds.

I read about the DehCho last year when I did a unit on the Berger Commission (1977) .... it wasn't required, but I was interested in finding out where the whole pipeline project was at that point.

Then, the DehCho were not jumping on board with the whole thing. They had not joined the Aboriginal Pipeline Group, and were standing up to the considerable pressure being applied. In an April 2010 report by the CBC:

Dehcho Grand Chief Sam Gargan said the pipeline should not go ahead until the First Nations resolve two outstanding issues with Ottawa: the unsettled land claim and a land-use and resource management plan for Dehcho territory.

Gargan accused the federal government of punishing the Dehcho by holding up progress on those issues.

"Over the last decade, the Dehcho people have repeatedly been subject to direct and veiled threats of false deadlines, as well as attempts to undermine and intimidate our leadership — all in an effort to get the Dehcho to take an ownership stake in the Aboriginal Pipeline Group," he told the board on Thursday.

The Dehcho First Nations claim traditional territory in the southwest corner of the Northwest Territories that would be part of the right of way for the pipeline.

The claim covers about 40 per cent of the pipeline's projected route. The Dehcho are the only remaining First Nations along the route that haven't expressed support for it.

So - I wondered if they had given up and joined the APG or if they had resolved their land claims. It seems clear from the Vancouver Sun article that they have not - but that the federal government has decided to just disregard that and steamroll on their way.

But hey .... Harper has agreed to meet with Aboriginal leaders..... and he's going to make Aboriginal education a priority....

So ... it's all good now, right?

I just visited the DehCho site... I feel sick. How dare we?

I am Canadian.... and I am sorry.

Canadian Outrage

2010-12-13T19:48:00.003-05:00

A couple of weeks ago, in one of my classes, we watched a film called American Outrage, about the Dann sisters, elderly Shoshone women whose animals got in the way of a gold mine. The US government subjected them to repeated harassment, charging them with trespassing (on SHOSHONE land as per the Treaty of Ruby Valley) and rounding up and stealing their stock, and spending millions of dollars in their campaign against them. The Dann sisters fought back - took it all the way to the Supreme Court and the United Nations....and even though they won - over and over again - nothing much has changed. Almost 30 years of fighting for what is RIGHT. Ludicrous.

I wish I could say that such things don't happen in Canada. After all, we Canadians have apologized to our native peoples, eh? So we must be ever so much better than the U.S. right?

NOT.

We apologized...but that doesn't mean that we have stopped behaving badly.

How long before we apologize for depriving the Algonquins of Barriere Lake of the money the Canadian government has been withholding since 2001? For once again imposing our will on them and engaging in deliberate attempts to undermine them at every turn?

When are we going to apologize to our missing and murdered Aboriginal women in Canada? We cut the funding for the Sisters in Spirit Initiative research - do you know why? I do. The same reason we are ending the long form census in Canada.

The Canadian government does not want us to know how many Aboriginal women go missing, or how many children live in poverty, or how many Canadian women work without wages or....

If we don't know about any of the problems they do not exist. The Harper government strategy for everything. Vanish the statistics. Ta dah! Problem solved. Magic!!!!

We can point to the apology that Harper made to our Aboriginal peoples all we want - it means NOTHING if the abuse does not stop.

It is not enough to close the residential schools and apologize if we turn around and find other ways to abuse our Aboriginal peoples. Five new prisons! And Aboriginal peoples are the fastest growing population in our prisons - a trend that we EXPECT to continue according to everything I have read.

Why do we expect it to continue? Why is it so acceptable that even the Human Rights Commission, in their 2005 report "A Matter of Rights", just presents it as fact, without even questioning it, or, gee, I don't know - maybe suggesting that THIS IS A PROBLEM?

Aboriginal people are already over-represented in our prison populations - and now we're planning to build new prisons to lock up more of them and that's okay cuz hey, we only promised to end residential schools.

We can talk about decolonization all we want - it is only talk. And it is an outrage.

Thinking about Canadian Fictions

2010-10-18T12:07:00.000-04:00

So ...I haven't been doing much with this blog lately (how's that for understatement!?) but I did have a thought about it the other day.

I haven't been blogging here because I am so swamped with my schoolwork (PhD in Canadian Studies) that I really don't have much time/energy for reading/reviewing Canadian fiction these days.

So ... how to use this blog, then? It's called Flitting through Canadian Fiction ... but I'm not. And then, my ~brilliant~ thought.

I am indeed still flitting through Canadian fiction... well, fictions. The more I learn about Canada, the more fictions I discover... and especially, catch in the news media.

Canada respects human rights.
Canada is compassionate.
Canada cares about the environment.
Canadians have access to free health care....
Stephen Harper... oh where to start!?

and so on.

So (yes, I know, I am over-using SO; so what? [I'm a little punchy; been marking first year essays for days now]) .... that's where I think this blog is going to head over the next year or so.

Nora Roberts The Search

2010-07-06T21:10:00.000-04:00

I (almost) feel guilty.

When I was offered a copy of Nora Roberts' latest (well - I think it's her latest; that woman is SO prolific, sometimes it's hard to tell) I jumped at the opportunity to read and review it.

I (almost always) enjoy Roberts' work. The J.D. Robbs series are my absolute favourite - but I have enjoyed many, many of her other novels as well. I can't think of any that I didn't, actually - and I have read a great many of them (Vampire series excluded; I don't DO vampires. NOT EVER, even for Nora)

So ... my hardcover copy of The Search arrived a couple of weeks ago. I was in the middle of re-reading Dragonfly in Amber - one of Galbaldon's Outlander series - but hey, I've read them before, so I put that down and switched to The Search.

Made it to about page 117 ...and it was far harder slogging than I expect a Nora Roberts book to be. It is not BAD, per se. Just - so far, anyway - boring. Way, way, WAY too much dog training detail. I get that she's a trainer and he has a bad dog ....but for crying out loud, could we get to the STORY? You know... the one that's on the inside flap about the serial killer ...and the attraction between Fiona and Simon? When does THAT show up? The characteristic tensions that Roberts can do so well just seems to be missing from this one.... or maybe it's just me?

I will finish it... but honestly, only because they gave me the book to review - I will feel guilty if I don't.

So. I will be back with a more complete review of it when I have actually finished the book. But so far, I'm mostly just dying to put it down and get back to Claire and Jamie.

P.K. Page 1913 - 2010

2010-01-14T20:20:00.000-05:00

P.K. Page died today.

P.K. was an extremely prolific poet and artist (as Page Irwin); last year (at the age of 92), she published a children's book - The Sky Tree - and also other works, including Coal and Roses, which I have written about on this blog.

I was talking about P.K. just today; my Canadian Literature into Film class meets in the Page Irwin Colloquium Room, which was dedicated last year. The room is an incredible learning space used primarily for Trent University's Public Texts M.A. program, and includes several pieces of her artwork, in chronological order around the room.

I am so sad that I missed out on an opportunity to meet her last year - it was rescheduled a couple of times and ended up being at about the same time as I had booked my flight back from Victoria for - but she did sign a copy of Coal and Roses for me. Now, obviously, I will never have the opportunity to get to know her in person.

R.I.P, P.K. You will be missed.

The Dragon Book

2009-11-08T12:02:00.001-05:00

This week when we got back from Peterborough, there was a new book from Penguin Canada waiting for me. A collection of never-before published stories, The Dragon Book features - you guessed it - stories about dragons.

Lots & lots of dragons. Big fiery dragons, annoying little ones, a worm-like dragon, talking/non-talking dragons... all sorts of dragons.

And of course, all sorts of other characters to go with them.

There are a lot of big name authors who have contributed to this edition, including Jonathon Stroud, Gregory Maguire, Diana Gabaldon, Tamora Pierce and many others. Edited by Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois, the collection includes stories for everyone.

It's unlikely that any one reader is likely to enjoy every story - there are a few that just did not engage my interest, and given the limited amount of time I have for reading texts-that-aren't-on-the-syllabus these days, I happily moved on to those that did.

But with this many well-written stories to choose from, it just doesn't matter - there is still plenty of excellent reading in The Dragon Book. My particular favourite is "Oakland Dragon Blues" by Peter S. Beagle, although Kate Baker's "Are You Afflicted With Dragons" is a close second.

Whether you are looking for great reading for yourself, or perhaps a gift for a dragon-loving friend or family member, The Dragon Book is sure to please.

My ~New~ Book - Seeds of Pine

2009-10-01T22:16:00.000-04:00

On the way home from Peterborough today, Ross & I stopped at an antique shop. Lots of WAY cool stuff - including a $5000 desk that I am now coveting....and $600+ light fixtures that would be PERFECT in our Peterborough house.

Actually, also makes me wonder how much some of the light fixtures we DO have might be worth - there is one right inside the front door that looks like it has probably been there since the house was built in the early 1900s. It's missing a shade though - and not something you can just pick up at Home Depot.

Anyway, in addition to bunches of way cool antiques that would be PERFECT for the P. house, they also had a very nice selection of books. LOTS of Canadiana - and since I'm in Canadian Studies, now, I have a much better excuse to buy Canadiana, right? Right!

There were plenty I would have liked to buy - there was a Canadian military history that almost came home with me - but then we spotted a 1922 edition of Seeds of Pine by Janey Canuck.

Janey Canuck was the pen name of Emily Ferguson Murphy, who is one of the so-called Famous Five, "the women who carried the Persons Case to the Privy Council in England where, on October 18, 1929, the decision was handed down that women were persons qualified to become members of the Senate of Canada" (Library and Archives Canada). She was a social activist, the founder of the Federated Women's Institute for rural women, and in 1916, she became the first female police magistrate in the British Empire.

Most of what I have found out about her is focused on her activism rather than her literature - I'm looking forward to reading the book to find out why. And to assess whether this might be a potential editing project for an aspiring Canadian Studies PhD student! Will have to see what there is in the archives about her too... perhaps I shall have a look when I am in Ottawa next month. (Like I need more archive work! But seriously, I am interested)

Still Around

2009-09-24T01:45:00.000-04:00

Funny, isn't it? Now that I am in Canadian Studies, I just don't seem to have much time for reading Canadian fiction.

Obviously, I am going to have to make time for it again! I'm going into withdrawal.

Right at the moment though, I'm mostly engaged in reading Canadian NONfiction. Suppose I could write about some of that too.

Will spare you the many academic articles I have been reading for my core course - interesting as they may be. Actually, I have enjoyed reading them far more than I expected to. I'm a little embarassed at how much I have already learned - I am almost 50 years old and have lived in Canada for all but a few years (during which we lived in Germany; I'm an air force brat) - and I was around for many of the events I have been reading about - I just didn't pay much attention!

I should know a lot more about Canada than I do - and by the end of this year, I will.

But I am reading a couple of interesting nonfiction books - got 3 on the go right now, actually.

One is Taking Back Our Spirits by Jo-Ann Episkenew - a book about Indigenous literature, public policy and healing that is based on the author's PhD thesis. I met Jo-Ann at Congress earlier this year, and will hopefully see her again at Congress next year as well. The book is highly readable - a LOT more readable than many other based-on-thesis books I've waded through - and I'm sure that I will be able to use it.

I've also just finished Joseph Gold's The Story Species - that would be us, i.e. humans. A very interesting read, and like Taking Back Our Spirits, very relevant to my thesis research. Gold also wrote Read For Your Life which I absolutely love, and which is the most commonly cited book in many of my research papers - it is an excellent resource on the function of fiction, which is, of course, the topic of my doctoral research. Me - I'm doing doctoral research - isn't that cool?!

My bathtub book right now is also Canadian nonfiction - I've been reading Neil Sutherland's book about the history of childhood in Canada (Growing Up). I've read one chapter of this work numerous times - "When You Listen to the Winds of Childhood" - I used it when I was working on my honours essay in fourth year, and have used it since, also. When I saw the book in a used book store, I had to buy it.... but just now getting around to actually reading it!

The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet

2009-07-20T11:09:00.000-04:00

The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet is the last of the books I added to use as an exemplars for my major research paper on fiction for emerging adults (18 - 25 year olds). I had intended to use Slam! by Nicholas Hornby, but was never as enthusiastic about it (it was originally published in the U.K. not in Canada - and there were rather too many similarities between it and one of the other novels I am using, Having Faith in the Polar Girls Prison by Cathleen With - not that the two books are really all that similar - but both deal with teenage pregnancy).

So when The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet was suggested as one which fit in with what I'm doing, I happily accepted a copy and now, having read it, have decided to use it.

The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet was written by Reif Larsen and is about 12 yo T.S. a genius mapmaker who wins an award and fellowship at the Smithsonian in Washington D.C. He does not go to his parents (Dad's a rancher not into all the science stuff, Mom's a self-absorbed scientist) or even to his supposed mentor (who is the person that nominated him for the award) but rather sets out on his own, hobo-ing his way there by train.

The book is unique in that it provides maps, diagrams and other assorted materials in its margins, and also includes a secondary work supposedly written by T.S.'s mother. I found these bits somewhat challenging at first - I have attention issues so a novel which includes its own distractions can be a bit frustrating - but soon discovered that they were well worth exploring and really did add a great deal to the experience of reading The Selected Works.

The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet is, as Stephen King calls it, "a treasure", and has a great deal to offer; I did, however, find the ending of the book to be rather a disappointment; Dad shows up and they run away through secret tunnels presumably heading for home, the end. Fortunately, it wasn't the ending that made the experience worthwhile though - clearly, in this novel, it is the journey that matters.

Canadian

Canadian

Too Many Girls!

2009-07-11T11:33:00.000-04:00

I have decided that I have too many emerging adult girls in my facebook connections and not enough boys.

My paper on emerging adults and Canadian publishing kept running into issues because of my not having been able to push the Internet survey bit through the Ethics committee's process - I had to axe that part of my application in order to get approval to do anything. Yesterday I hit upon a solution - a way of gathering data about what fiction emerging adults are reading: I logged into the weRead application in facebook and was able to copy & paste the titles/authors for all of my connections who are in the emerging adult group. Which gives me a lot of what I needed to work with - except for the fact that I only have a very few EA males as connections at all and not one of them uses the weRead app.

If you happen to have any 18 - 25 yo (preferably Canadian, but not necessarily) male friends/family/connections that use weRead (or Shelfari or any other such app) I sure could use your help to make a connection with them (assuming they don't mind) .... all I'm doing is making a list of the books in their collections - I'm not allowed to actually interview or anything :(

Archival Research

2009-06-30T21:06:00.000-04:00

Went to the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library to go through Mavis Gallant's manuscript collection there (the answer to your question, Phyl) .... and yes, once it's done, you'll be able to read it on the Historical Perspectives on Canadian Publishing website.

I could have stayed there for hours longer but hubby had driven me and had other things to do... as it was, we got tied up in traffic and got to his supplier 1 stinking minute too late, which SUCKED.

I ordered copies of bunches of pages though ... as soon as they come (in the mail) will get my essay written.

Historical Perspectives on Canadian Publishing

2009-06-27T10:37:00.000-04:00

SO much to write about when I find the time & energy .... am finished my summer school adventures and now embarking on an editing project in addition to the many other things I need to get done.

One of the things that came out of the EMiC course though, was that we had an opportunity to learn about the Historical Perspectives on Canadian Publishing project, which is a collaboration by The William Ready Division of Archives and Research Collections at McMaster University Library (Hamilton, ON), the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library at the University of Toronto, and Queen’s University Archives (Kingston, ON).

One part of the project involves the preparation of case studies by graduate students - and yes, even though I have bunches of stuff to get done this month, and even though the due date is sooner rather than later, I volunteered to write one. It is a good opportunity to do archival work, to learn about a particular Canadian author, and to have something published. And it is doable - 800 words is not THAT many afterall - although the truth is that going through boxes and boxes of material and sticking to less than 800 words is probably way more of a challenge than writing longer would be - whatever... I'm up for the challenge and looking forward to it.

Summer School

2009-06-16T18:21:00.000-04:00

Finished Day 2 of TEMiC - that would stand for Textual Editing & Modernism in Canada. This week is all about theory. A LOT of theory - fortunately, I'm finding it all far more interesting than the theory we read in my Public Texts course - even the articles we actually READ for the Public Texts course (there are several) are more interesting now that we're actually going to have an opportunity to use them in practical, hands on sorts of ways.

While this week is all theory, next week is focused on PRACTICE - and we are actually going to do some editing and put together (short but) critical scholarly edition(s). I will also be doing a paper for the course - I took the credit option (I am such a sucker for punishment sometimes!) .... my plan is to focus on the intersect between editing theory and web usability; to look at issues of site design. There are several very effective online archives - the Rossetti Archive being the one most often mentioned - so I'm not starting from scratch...but hopefully I will come up with something useful. My goal is to come up with a paper that is not only potentially useful, but also, I hope, something publishable.

Bad Blogger!!!

2009-06-06T00:22:00.000-04:00

So .... here is is June 6 and I'm leaving for Victoria BC in a few hours to start learning all about digital editing ....and I haven't posted anything about Canadian fiction in eons; I'm sorry!

It's been a very busy couple of weeks - so busy that I really haven't read much of anything other than blogs and websites and ~stuff~ about pest control.

I now know WAY more about spiders, roaches, bats and bedbugs than I ever wanted to know - but hubby has his license and his product and his database and is good to go - so now tis time to focus on me and MY stuff.

I have a presentation to get done that has to take first priority - and a whack of reading about editing practice and theory, and about Canadian modernist poets. But I shall return - and when I do, will be about time to gear up for the Leacock Festival, which is one of the highlights of my summer.

It is a writers' festival that is held in Orillia every summer... normally I go to just about every event. Not sure that I'll be able to get to them all this year (there are a lot) as I still can't drive - but will get to as many as I can, and then will likely fill this blog with way more than you could ever want to know about Canadian authors and Canadian fiction.

Buying Books

2009-05-24T22:21:00.000-04:00

So - I said I was going to stay away from the Book Fair here at Congress ...and other than a visit there with Ross yesterday when we checked in (2 new books) I have.

Can I help it if authors bring their new books to the sessions too?

And if they are books that will help me with my Phd thesis so I just HAVE to buy them? Of course I do!

The last session I attended today was particularly interesting - it was a book launch for three new books - and even though all three sounded very interesting, I only bought one of them.

It is called Taking Back Our Spirits: Indigenous Literature, Public Policy, and Healing by Jo-Ann Episkenew. I haven't read much of it yet, of course...I've been altogether too busy attending sessions and socializing - but I am very much looking forward to reading it. It, according to the back cover

traces the links between Canadian public policies, the injuries they have inflicted on indigenous people, and the role of indigenous literature in healing individuals and communities. Episkenew examines contemporary autobiography, fiction, and drama to reveal how these texts respond to and critique public policy, and how literature functions as "medicine" to help cure the colonial contagion.

In other words, it is about the function - and practical application - of fiction. And the author was there to sign it for me. Of course, I had to have it.

The Story Species, too, is about the function of fiction - literature as a "species survival tool". This one was written by Dr. Joseph Gold, who also wrote Read For Your Life, which is an incredible book that I have read - and cited - many times and will continue to use as I move into my doctorate. Oh, and he is here at Congress as well, and was willing to sign it for me. Of course, I had to have it.

Another book that we bought is Editing Modernity: Women and Little Magazine Cultures in Canada, 1916 - 1956, by Dean Irvine. He is the Director of Editing Modernism in Canada - a large project funded by SSHRC. I am attending 3 weeks of training that is all being offered through this project - and my RA at the National Archives of Canada, which I am having meetings about tomorrow - all of that is also under the EMiC project as well. So - duh - of course I had to have THAT book.

And...well...with all that heavy academic reading .... obviously I also had to have a copy of Lauren B. Davis' novel, An Unrehearsed Desire. Contrast, you know. I met Lauren at last year's Leacock Festival in Orillia...and have been following her blog since then... so when Exile was offering it for only $10 at the book fair....

I Will Be Back

2009-05-21T23:41:00.000-04:00

Sorry for my lack of posts lately ...but am going to Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences 2009 in Ottawa next week and plan to attend several CanLit-related talks... so look for updates soon.

Do You Use Hubpages?

2009-05-14T18:22:00.000-04:00

Apparently at some point about six weeks ago, I signed up for a hubpages account - and promptly forgot about it.

This week, I've come across quite a few bloggers talking about hubpages, so I went back and had another look.

I put up four quick pages.... but no real sense of whether it's worth continuing to add to them... seems to me I have enough with my blogs... but we shall see, I guess.

My hubs are:

Do you use hubpages? As a primary source of income, or as backlink builders?

Dissertations & Thesis

2009-05-13T08:45:00.000-04:00

Today I have been wandering through Proquest's online database of dissertations & theses finding tons of stuff that I can use for my major research paper and for my Phd thesis topic.

I like working with dissertations & theses, even though they tend to be several hundred pages longer than the journal articles I could be using. In part, I find them useful for the depth of the information they provide - but also, I figure that if I'm going to have to write one, I might as well be reading them so that I will have a better idea of what my end goal is.

While I haven't found any that are directly related to my own topics - which is actually a good thing, since if my topic(s) had been done already, there wouldn't be any point to ME doing them - there are plenty that are relevant. An added benefit, of course, is that they often point me to other articles that I can use.

So ... it is more than a little time consuming - but in the long run, will make my major research paper - and eventually my thesis - just that much better. At least that is the plan.

Les Miserables

2009-05-09T14:36:00.001-04:00

No, it's not Canadian ... but this Canadian loves Les Miserables... and since that is what I am doing today .... listening to Les Mis rather than reading anything, I thought I would post a bit about it.

Have you seen it? I know Stephanie has ... and I have gone to see it every few years ...seems to me it should be about time for Les Mis to hit Toronto again! Not quite sure how long ago it was here last though ... I know Ross & I went, so has to be within the last 8 years.

We like musicals - have been to about one a year since we met, although not this year! Might have to do something about that.

Anyway, there are lots of musicals that I enjoy - but none has ever challenged Les Mis for its spot as number #1. I own the Dream Cast version pictured here - it is excellent. I especially enjoy Act #2 and listen to it about twice as often as I do the first side - typically, I start at the beginning... but then when it's over I don't want it to be over so I start side #2 again. Oh, and I love the encore in this one, too. They have Jean Valjean's from all over the world singing ...including Canadian Michael Burgess...so there... Canadian content after all :)

Virtual Freedom by Sean Kane

2009-05-06T18:08:00.000-04:00

Still not reading much .... no attention span for it... but thought I would tell you about Virtual Freedom by Sean Kane, a novel that I read more than a year ago, as I just happened to see it on my newly organized CanLit shelves.

Published in 2001, Virtual Freedom was particularly interesting for me because it was written by a Trent U professor, and set in a fictional university called Avalon. It is dedicated to Thomas H.B. Symons, the Founding President of Trent, and the person that our graduate students lecture series is named after. Since at the time I purchased it, I had been accepted at Trent, but not yet been there, it was a natural choice when I saw it on a 4 for $20 table at my undergrad university's book sale.

The novel is an enjoyable read, with many very funny passages. I particularly remember the scenes involving a group of retired professors holding court - in a food court at a local mall. And student protests, and the interactions between the new Dean and students, particularly one who is all about women's issues..... hmmm...I think that now I have talked myself into reading it again.

Survival by Margaret Atwood

2009-05-04T15:09:00.000-04:00

Survival, by Margaret Atwood, is not a new book. It was originally published in 1972 - the edition I have been reading this week was published in 2004 by McClelland & Stewart, and includes a new introduction by Atwood.

Survival, I think, should be required reading for any student of Canadian Literature. It wasn't for me - it has been referenced several times throughout the course of my studies, and we were given a chapter of it to read for my first CanLit course - but really, the book is so important, that now that I've read it I can't imagine that I would ever teach Canadian literature and not include it on the syllabus.

I am glad I ordered it... I've actually had it sitting here for several months ...just didn't get to reading it until all of my papers and marking were done.

ANYWAY, in a comment thread somewhere that I can no longer find, we were talking about differences between US and Canadian lit... and that the US tends towards a frontier mentality - good vs evil; conquering, all that good stuff - while Canadian literature tends to focus on survival.

All of that is discussed in Atwood's Survival. Not that she takes credit for coming up with all of the concepts - she clearly states that she is, in this work, drawing on the work of Northtop Frye (the other book I bought with this one and will likely talk about sometime soon) and others.

In the 2004 Introduction, Atwood writes:

We now take it for granted that Canadian literature is an acknowledged category, but this proposition was not always self-evident. To have any excuse for being, the kind of book I had in mind had to prove several points. First, that, yes, there was a Canadian literature - such a thing did indeed exist. (This turned out to be a radical proposition, and was disputed by many when the book appeared.) Second, that this body of work was not just a feeble version of English or American, or, in the case of francophone books, of French literature, but that it had different preoccupations, which were specific to its own history and geopolitics (6).

The book provides exactly that - evidence and examples to prove that there is such a thing as Canadian literature, and highlight its differences. Each chapter builds on the original themes of survival, and especially victim/victimizer. I was particularly interested in chapters dealing with First People, women and "the paralyzed artist" - but have found every chapter interesting and relevant.

This is a highly readable and entertaining book - SUCH a relief after all of the theory and other assorted forms of academic torture I have been reading over the past year....and it really is not at all as dated as one might expect of something written more than 30 years ago. In fact, it is not at all dated.

I highly recommend Margaret Atwood's Survival for anyone interested in Canadian literature.

Coal and Roses by P.K. Page

2009-05-03T08:18:00.000-04:00

Coal and Roses is P.K. Page's newest book of poetry. It includes a collection of twenty-one glosas, and is published by Canadian publisher Porcupine's Quill.

The glosa form opens with a quatrain, borrowed from another poet, that is then folowed by four ten-line stanas terminating with the lines of the initial passage in consecutive order. The sixth and ninth lines rhyme with the borrowed tenth. Glosas were popular in the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries among poets attached to the Spanish Court.

P.K. Page's glosas are highly readable and enjoyable - one does not need a degree in English literature to understand and enjoy them. My particular favourite in this book is "How to Write a Poem" which builds off of a quatrain of John Ashbury's "Paradoxes and Oxymorons" It was one of the three glosas read by writer Andrea Johnston at yesterday's book launch.

Page did not attend the dedication and book launch, although several family members were there, and she did record a video which was viewed as part of the dedication ceremony.

The Colloquium Room in which most of the classes and meetings for the Trent University English Public Texts M.A. program are held is now officially called the Page Irwin Colloquium Room. It was a beautiful room already, but is even more remarkable now that it includes several of PK's paintings - and my favourite piece, which is an embroidered work that PK's mother did of some of her childhood drawings.

There was another book launched at the same event. This one is gorgeous but was way out of my price range, unfortunately. It is called The Golden Lilies, Poems by PK Page, and is a limited edition:

Hand-set 18 point Cloister Old Style type printed on St. Armand hand-made paper using a Vandercook #4 proof press. Wood engravings printed directily from the blocks on Iwami White hand-made Japanese paper, with a hand coloured frontspiece printed on Gampi Torinoko hand-made Japanese paper. Hand sewin into yellow linen hard covers. Binding by Taylor & Murdoch.

The book is truly a work of art and I would love to own a copy. Maybe someday!

Canadian Modernist Poets - PK Page

2009-05-01T08:58:00.000-04:00

Poetry has never really been my thing... I did study it in school, and I have written some... but will all there is to study in Canadian literature, I tend to head off in other more interesting to me directions.

But now that I have a new job - and one which will, I think, significantly enhance my CV - I shall have to pay more attention.

I have been offered a Research Assistantship with The National Archives of Canada, and will be working on Canadian Modernist Poetry, and especially with the many works of poet and artist PK Page. My role will be to tag digital images of her work and to create a database linking the finding aids to those images. At this point, I don't know all that much about tagging digital images - but since that is the focus of my three weeks of summer school, I will learn.

Tomorrow, we're off to Peterborough to the official dedication of the Page Irwin Colloquium Room at Trent. That's the room used for most of the classes for the MA in English Public Texts program, so I know it well.

The event will also be a book launch for 2 new works:

Coal and Roses is a collection of new poems published by The Porcupine's
Quill and The Golden Lilies is a selection of eight of these poems, with ten
wood engravings by Alan Stein hand printed at The Church Street Press.

PK Page was born in 1916 and is still publishing and still painting at 92. She has more than 37 published books to her credit, numerous awards and honours, and her art hangs in the National Gallery of Canada, among other places. I am looking forward to it.

Still Not Reading Much

2009-04-28T17:40:00.000-04:00

Perhaps it is just that I have done SO much reading over the past 8 months ... now that school is finally done (well, except for my major research paper, and that is waiting on approval from the ethics board and for my proposal to come back from my advisor) ...I just haven't been motivated to pick up a book and start reading.

I HAVE almost finished Stephanie: the rocket scientist's Bete novel though ... am really enjoying it! But as to Canadian fiction, mostly this week, I have been relocating it rather than reading it.

I have bookshelves in my office - two walls of them... and still never enough room for all of my books! Over the time I have been doing the school thing, they have become increasingly chaotic, with schoolbooks and everything else all over the place. So yesterday I started trying to organize them somewhat.

It is slow going - my wrists are weak yet, so moving piles is something I can only do a little at a time, and for a short while, then I have to take a break. Fortunately, I've got time now for frittering now :)

Book Meme

2009-04-26T02:21:00.000-04:00

I stole this meme from Stephanie at Ask Me Anything... and she got it from Books and Movies.

1. To mark your page you: use a bookmark, bend the page corner, leave the book open face down? I know better...but I do all of the above none the less.

2. Do you lend your books? Most often I give them away without expecting to get them back. I made the mistake of lending a signed book out once - never again! Never did get it back.

3. You find an interesting passage: you write in your book or NO WRITING IN BOOKS! I write in books - mostly just in books I use for school though, not my pleasure reading (although sometimes those end up being one and the same)

4. Dust jackets - leave it on or take it off? Gotta go! I always mean to put them back on when I'm done reading but, well, you know...

5. Hard cover, paperback, skip it and get the audio book?
I much prefer paperback, especially since I wrecked my wrists. I have a book stand that I still use a fair bit for hardcovers or textbooks. Pain in the butt to actually read with it though - and it doesn't work worth a damn in the tub!

6. Do you shelve your books by subject, author, or size and color of the book spines? I make piles on the floor around my desk, mostly... or beside my bed... or on the bathroom counter. The book fairy comes along and puts them on shelves.... he also finds them again when I need a particular book.

7. Buy it or borrow it from the library later?
I buy it - or whine so my sister gets it for me, cuz she's got connections. I try to avoid libraries as much as possible because they always want you should bring them back!

8. Do you put your name on your books - scribble your name in the cover, fancy bookplate, or stamp?
Hardly ever.

9. Most of the books you own are rare and out of print books or recent publications?
All of the above. I have a lot of signed editions from Canadian authors that attend the Leacock Festival... and also a lot of advance reading copies cuz I am spoiled (or maybe it is that I whine well).

10. Page edges - deckled or straight?
Who cares? Well, people do - including many people who study Public Texts (yeah, that would be me) ... but mostly I care more about what's on the pages than what they actually look like.

11. How many books do you read at one time?
I often have many, many books on the go at once .... unless something really engages me, in which case, all the rest get left where they are until I am done that one.

12. Be honest, ever tear a page from a book?
Nope, although I have once or twice torn a recipe from a magazine at the doctor's office.

If you should decide to do this one, I hope you'll let me know...would love to read it.

Not a Review of Wake by Robert J. Sawyer

2009-04-24T08:48:00.000-04:00

It would be a review - and I will write one eventually - but right now I am just trying to kill a few minutes while I wait IMpatiently for hubby to finish his breakfast so that we can get out the door and on our way to Peterborough - we're going to be late already and I do so wish he would hurry the hell up!

Anyway ... to keep myself from rushing him which, I know, would have exactly the opposite effect, I'm staying in here at the computer poised to go as soon as I hear him make any indication that he's ready... so I thought I'd write a quick post about Robert J Sawyer's Wake.

Excellent book - it's just loaded with bits that I can use in my viral contagion essay - seems like every time I flip through it, I find more that I can use and hadn't noticed before.

I really enjoyed the main protagonist, Caitlin's story - but for this essay both that thread plus the epidemic in China plot threads give me tons of scope.

Yay ... the dog's cleaning his dishes - we're on our way as soon as I hear a flush :)

Having Faith in The Polar Girls Prison

2009-04-22T12:09:00.000-04:00

Having Faith in the Polar Girls Prison, written by Cathleen With, is one of the three books I am working with for my Major Research Project re: publishing & emerging adults. Published by Penguin Group, it is scheduled for release later this month.

Trista, the main character, is a young native girl who is in the prison with her infant daughter, Faith. Told in her voice, the novel uses a stream of consciousness style, which allows the reader to experience Trista’s confusion and distress as she comes to terms with the possibility of losing Faith to foster care, and with the events that led to her incarcaration.

For a more detailed review, visit Quill & Quire.

My interest in this novel - aside from the fact that Andrea, my sister, recommended it for the project and she gives me free books so ….. is that although the title and cover suggest - to me, and to others in my course as well - a novel for adolescents, it is being released as Adult fiction….which gives scope for discussion in the paper. It also includes a whole bunch of themes that I am dealing with elsewhere - portrayals of First Nations people in literature being the big one, of course.

Having Faith in the Polar Girls Prison hubpage

French Fries - A Short Story by Flit

2009-04-21T13:16:00.000-04:00

This is another of my short stories, previously published on Gather.com and tooWrite.com as well.

And yes, this one is (mostly) true.

Originally, I used made up names for my little darlings but somewhere along the way I changed them and now when I read it (at writers’ festivals and so on) I usually go with their real names. It seems silly to change just the names when the story is based on real events.

Both of my daughters have blogs on Today.com, btw…. Jess writes about her job as a early childhood education provider , and Tamara is working on a public relations theme . They’re all growed up now (ha! as IF!) and both have graduated college.

No critters - or children - were harmed in the making of this story…although french fries became a banned substance at our house for a very long time!

French Fries

“Oh, you must miss them” people used to tell me when my kids were away for a few weeks in the summer. Uh yeah. Right. Miss them. Not! I loved it when they went to camp, or to my sister’s, or to – well, just about anyplace I could send them. As long as they were safe and happy wherever they were, that worked just fine for me.

No hockey, no baseball, no last minute runs into town for a piece of Bristol board for a school project assigned three weeks ago, due tomorrow. No constant bickering over every little thing. No competition for my attention. No fighting over who gets to pick what restaurant we go to or what bedtime story or what TV show to watch. No TV in fact; it goes off the day they leave, and stays off. No noise! And most important of all, no stress – by comparison, anyway. I love my girls, really. But some days…!

Like the day Tamara made French fries; that was fun. For some reason that I don’t remember, I had let her stay home that day. A headache or something, most likely. Jessica had gone to school and would be taking the bus home; usually I drove them, but that day I was supposed to have had a late class, and she didn’t want to wait for a ride. My class ended early, but she would have already left on the bus, so I just headed home. We lived about halfway between Barrie and Orillia, then, on the 7th line of Oro, in an apartment above what used to be a motel, but at that point was just a bunch of mostly empty rooms. It wasn’t a great location, but the apartment itself was pretty nice; everyone had their own bedroom, and it had a great balcony with a view. Of course, the view was of a gas station and the highway, but beggars can’t be choosers, or so I’ve heard. The place we had been living in had been sold and we had been forced to move several months before. There wasn’t much available in the city at that point– and what there was had so much competition for it that a single mom with two teenagers and a dog, working only part time while going to school to be a geek…well, I wasn’t a prime candidate for tenancy.

Anyway, so I’m driving up the highway and I’m almost home and there is a fair bit of traffic, which is pretty usual for dinnertime. An ambulance comes up behind me with its sirens and lights going; I pull over, and let it go by, thinking that people that don’t get out of the way are such jerks and idly wondering if there’s an accident up ahead. Um, nope – not an accident. The ambulance is going to a fire. And not just any fire, but a fire that just happens to be in my area. I’m driving northbound on the highway and I’m almost to my house, and I see flashing lights and fire trucks in front of it. Please let it be the gas station or the restaurant or….Oh! Nope, it is most definitely my house. My dog barking her fool head off on the balcony. My front door open, with firemen with hoses heading up the stairs. And my kid on a stretcher being pushed across the parking lot towards the ambulance, which still has its flashing lights going.

And I, of course, am on the wrong side of the blasted highway and I have to drive past my house, take the next exit, stop at the stop sign and wait until it’s clear to turn left and go over the overpass from which I can’t see a blessed thing. And then I follow the road around and there is another stop sign and the school bus has just gone by and had its stupid flashing lights on and kept all the cars waiting while the kids crossed the road and now there is a backlog and I have to sit at the stop sign and wait while my house is on fire and my kid is in an ambulance and the lights are flashing and I can’t see and I can’t get there and…

Finally I am clear to turn left and then right onto the bumpy mess that our landlord considers a road and I am in such a panic I almost don’t register that Jessica is running down the road ahead of me and I don’t want to stop to pick her up but I do anyway. I yell at her to hurry and she does; she has seen the fire trucks too, from her school bus and she is near hysterical, not about her sister, but about her animals. “If any of my animals are dead she’d better hope she is too!” She is not helping, and I ignore her and screech to a stop behind the ambulance and startle the paramedic who is adjusting an oxygen mask over Tamara’s face.

The paramedic must have figured I was the mom and I was a tad stressed; he is telling me that she’s okay, she’s just inhaled a bit of smoke and she’s upset so they’re just giving her oxygen just for a few minutes and then Tamara is crying that she didn’t mean to and she’s sorry and Jessica is still ranting about the animals and …eventually… my heart starts beating again and I remember how to breathe.

Author Letters

2009-04-18T21:55:00.000-04:00

Sorry I haven't added anything to this site this week - I think I'm just too swamped in Canadian fiction to write about Canadian fiction right now!

I'm working on an essay (that has to be done by Monday) about Catharine Parr Traill and her children.

CPT, as she is commonly called, was born in England but emigrated to Canada with her husband in 1832. She and most of her sisters, some here and some there, was a writer. In addition to the work that she is most known for, The Backwoods of Canada, she wrote many other works both for adults and for children. And she wrote letters. Many, many letters!

Which is great, because I happen to really like reading people's letters....especially authors' letters. It interests me - not so much the descriptions and so on ...and in this case, I could surely do without some of the preachy content ... but often there are very interesting differences in how an author constructs themself in their letters to various people, and also, I have found, in more than a few instances, that often you can see material from the letters that winds up in the fiction.

I am looking forward to reading some of CPTs later works to see if this holds true in hers as well as it did when I was studying Margaret Laurence's novels and letters. But first I have to get this paper done. And then the next (viral marketing in publishing) and then the 2 short papers and 20 essays to mark and 100 database marks to calculate and submit and OMG I'm never going to get it all done before the 24th!!! What am I DOING here? I should be working!

Canadian Fiction

2009-04-16T15:24:00.000-04:00

..... but not necessarily all written by Canadians.

Basically, I expect that this blog will end up being about whatever this particular Canadian winds up reading :)

With a writers' festival, some homework/research and whinging about grad school and having too much to do thrown in for good measure. Hey, you've got to go with what you're good at, right?

The Stone Carvers by Jane Urquhart

2009-04-06T11:07:00.000-04:00

The book I have just finished, The Stone Carvers , by Jane Urquhart , is one that I expect will be added to my collection of books worth re-reading.

I met Urquhart at last year’s Leacock Festival in Orillia Ontario; she signed a book for me. That book was just a collection of Canadian short stories that she had edited though - not one of hers. I should have bought one of hers at the Festival. But I was being a ~good girl~ … I go to the Festival every year…. almost every event …. and thoroughly enjoy it… but it does tend to get a ~bit~ expensive if I start buying all the books I want to buy there. So I just stayed far, far away from the book table last year.

But then one of her novels, Away , turned up on my Canadian lit syllabus this semester, I had a good excuse to buy that one, right?

I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. So when I saw a copy of another of her novels, The Stone Carvers , used but in perfect condition, for $5 in a used bookstore, I grabbed it.

The Stone Carvers tells the story of siblings Klara and Tilman, who are both carvers, as was their grandfather. It is set predominently in Ontario in the early 20th Century.

Klara, for most of the novel, remains on the family farm, where she supports herself as a tailor, and after the man she loves goes off to war and doesn’t return, is content to be the eccentric spinster who remains on the family farm. Tilman runs away from the farm while still a child, in spite of the drastic lengths his parents go to to keep him there. He returns many years later, after having lost his leg in the battle at Vimy Ridge. Together, they journey back to Rimy to work on the monument being built by Walter Allward .

Urquhart’s prose is as poetic as her poetry, and she does a beautiful job of creating fictional characters that seem every bit as real and fully developed as the nonfictional characters, such as Allward. The Stone Carvers , like Away , makes it ever so much easier to develop a sense of Canadian history….something I very much appreciate, since it is all stuff I need to know if I do go onto Canadian Studies. I’ve never been so great at memorizing dates or that sort of thing… you know, the stuff you need to do if you’re going to sound like you have a clue…. Urquhart’s novels make history real.

Life, Death and Other Trivia By Ruth Dickson

2009-04-05T14:48:00.000-04:00

So…. homework this week (for my Public Texts course) included the task of buying & reading a book from Lulu.com , and writing an email to the author (no direction given as to what the email was to include).

So …I did. Even though I have purchased other books from Lulu, hey…. that doesn’t count cuz this was HOMEWORK. (Any excuse will do )

I cheated a bit though…. rather than just wade through the way too many books they have listed on Lulu …although I did actually look at some….many of which seemed to be categorized in ….ummm…totally illogical categories…. I chose to put my $$ on a work by an author I already know from gather.com .

Not, of course, that I know her - we’ve never met… but she stands out on Gather as someone who writes well and who is extremely witty, funny, and, on occasion, more than a little caustic. Dame Ruth will never be accused of political correctness… but for an extremely intelligent & entertaining view of the world, reading her work is a no-brainer.

I loved Life, Death & Other Trivia - particularly the sections about men & their body parts, and about the author’s view of a better way to choose a president. Oh, and the last chapter about religion and… and… and….

It was most definitely the most fun I’ve had doing homework in….well…. forever!

Dame Ruth also has a blog …which you should visit …but really, you should buy the book .

eReaders Guest Post

2009-04-05T10:13:00.000-04:00

The Kindle is a big and exciting topic now that the second incarnation is out there. It’s loaded with cool features and is backed by the Amazon.com conglomerate. I, of course, don’t have one.

What I got for Christmas is a Sony eReader and I’m lovin’ it. There were several reasons I chose the eReader. It can read pdfs and word files, so I could put my own novels in ‘em and bring ‘em. The wireless feature in Kindle didn’t interest me and I liked the Sony’s all-metal case. It looked, apparently, slightly better than the original Kindle (according to reviews) and the size was excellent (I saw one in Borders). And it was cheaper.

But why get an ereader anyway? Well, first of all, I love gadgets and I’m an avid reader. When I travel, I’m used to bringing six or more books with me so the thought of replacing them with one book-sized contraption is appealing. I’m absent minded and am constantly misplacing books so it’s nice to be able to find my favorites. My favorite books I read over and over and over again. Also, at least with the Sony, one can have as many as 8 eReaders using the same library, so I can let everyone in the family have access to my library if I get them a similar unit.

So, how is it? It’s great. It’s much easier to read than a computer, the screen is clear. You can read several days in a row, all day, on the same battery charge. It comes with a nice magnetized leather case (don’t bother buying one) and it feels very solid. The buttons are easy to use. The eReader, at least when I got it, came with 100 classics downloads, the $2 classic books (i.e. public domain) novels out there. That’s quite a hefty number and so I could stock up my Shakespeare and Poe and Dumas and Jane Austen and…

The menu is not desperately intuitive and the Sony eBook store wasn’t as easy to navigate as I would have liked. One can’t read it while charging and the software to transfer books wasn’t perfect.

Still, I have learned to love it and have already begun buying ecopies of my favorite rereadable books so that I never have to do without them again.

Steph: the rocket scientist

Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

2009-04-03T14:39:00.000-04:00

I was thinking about what to write about in this blog today …. something to do with fiction …but something that doesn’t require too much brain power because I seem to be fresh out.

But somewhere along the way while I was sulking about my cruddy day today, I remembered this book. Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst is just the right sort of book for me today. I’m tempted, actually, to order a copy, since I no longer seem to have one.

I was surprised to read that this book was first published in 1972! It is definitely a classic. I remember reading it to kids at the camp I worked at, and later, to kids in residential treatment for behavioural issues when I was a Child & Youth Worker…. and of course, I read it to my own kids, as well.

Now I am thinking that I shall have to buy another copy for the grandbabies…. yeah….right…that’s a good excuse, right?

Whatever works :)

What are your favourite children’s books? The ones you think every kid should have?

2009-04-02T14:20:00.000-04:00

End of an Era is the novel that Robert J. Sawyer ’s wife recommended when I asked her, via email, for “the best” Sawyer novel to read if one was interested in the topic of viral contagion, since that was the subject of one of my courses this semester.

End of an Era is a relatively short novel, easily read during one rather longish soak in the tub (no, I did not drown) And it does indeed address the topic of viral contagion, although not explicitly so until the latter part of the novel. Archeologist Brandon Thackery and his colleague & friend, Klicks, travel back in time in an effort to study dinosaurs before their extinction, and to attempt to discover the reason for their eradication. And yes, of course they are successful…but beyond that, I ain’t telling.

In addition to dinosaurs, time travel, and viral contagion, the novel includes aliens, space & astronomy - all packed into an engaging and highly readable package. As always, Sawyer succeeds in incorporating so much actual science that by the end of the book you feel like you’ve learned a whole lot - given that it is, after all, science fiction, you don’t necessarily know how much of it could actually happen (might have to Ask Stephanie ) …but it all feels pretty believable. That is, I think, one of the major differences between Sawyer and many other science fiction authors, and it is one I very much enjoy.

To read Chapter 1 of End of an Era , visit Sawyer’s webpage - you can also order signed copies there, at no extra cost. There are also several other resources there, including a A Discussion of the Book’s Opening Line and a Reading Group guide. And of course, Amazon.com and Amazon.ca both carry End of an Era as well.

Navigating Canada's Health Care

2009-04-01T14:08:00.000-04:00

Navigating Canada’s Health Care is, as you might expect, nonfiction rather than the fiction I more often review. But it came in the box of fiction for review - doesn’t that count?

Anyway, Navigating Canada’s Health Care is written in plain, straightforward language. It was written by Michael Dector, an economist who has served as the Deputy Minister of Health in Ontario among his many other roles, and Francesca Grosso, who has been involved in heath policy and health care communication for more than 15 years and who, along with Dector, worked to establish the Health Council of Canada.

The book contains a huge amount of information, and to be honest, I have not read all of it. Rather, I jumped right through the early chapters, in which the authors provide information about having a baby in Canada (been there done that - twice), getting the best care for your child (they do that themselves now that they’re ~supposedly~ all growed up) and child safety in Canada (maybe I’ll read that if/when I ever get to spend more time with the grandbabies) …. and started my more attentive reading in The Middle Years.

Okay, so maybe I fit in the tail end of that section or into the next …but the middle years section includes the sort of helpful information that I can use. It provides advice for finding a doctor - no easy task given the shortages around here - and, once you have one, working with your health care team, and assembling your own health record. I have no doubt that that particular task would be particularly useful for me… although once I started to read it, I kind of lost interest - sounds like a fair bit of work to me! Yes, I am lazy as a matter of fact.

The most useful section of the entire book, at least for me right now, is the last one (after Managing Aging which includes altogether too many sections that apply to hubby & I) …. Navigating Care Swiftly and Safely …. that would be the one that gives guidance and advice about needing to be your own advocate - or have someone that can do that for you - and about being a squeaky wheel. I have read the whole section through once… and will probably read it again once more before I head off to my next doctor’s appointment.

Navigating Canada’s Health Care seems to be a very practical, usable guide to Canadian health care…. I will definitely be trying some of the suggestions.