People often ask about creativity. What it means. The process of it all. Recently, my wife and confidant, Susan Stenson, was interviewed on a site titled Own Your Creativity, managed by Elizabeth Johnson. Link as follows: http://ownyourcreativity.podbean.com
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Just when you think the past is so far behind you the only recollection you'll have is from well-stored memory. Then you stop at a motel in Weed, CA. The Town House Motel to be exact. You travel back in time once you check in because you are handed a key to your room. An actual key. They say the rooms have recently been updated. That must mean the art on the wall. Well maybe not.
Just got back from the AWP Conference, this year held in Los Angeles. This is the second time I've attended and I find I don't go, as so many do, to make contacts and meet people. It's enough for me just to be around 13,000 people who cherish books and writing and want to talk about it. I want to listen.
There are hundreds and hundreds of presentations and you can only attend a handful in three days. It's like being in a huge chocolate store where you only buy one or two small pieces but leave feeling reassured that there is chocolate there waiting for you should you ever return. On the last night Joyce Carol Oats read. She didn't read from her most recent novel, her 40th I believe, but instead created an interview with herself based on the kinds of questions, many suspect, that she'd been asked over the years. It was funny and insightful as one might expect. She is getting on in years now but in person she looks and talks and reads like a woman in her mid-thirties. She writes with a pen from eight-thirty in the morning until one in the afternoon. If she's on the road she writes from ten in the evening until one in the morning. She was once asked if she ever lounged by the beach with a light summer read. She said she'd rather eat ground glass.
There are so many fine writers in Canada. It is logical, with ten times the population, that it is the same south of the border. Every time I venture down to the States it seems I discover another fabulous writer. One I discovered several years back is Kent Haruf. I am always surprised how few people know about this Colorado writer. He’s one of my favourites for sure. Here’s why. Heading south to our Writer's Retreat in Mesa, AZ. There are always lots of things to learn on a road trip. If you smoke a pipe you go places most do not and hear and see things only you can report. For example, a man I met on the Coho ferry drove his Jeep from Victoria to Modesto, California every year so his favourite mechanic could tend to it. Why would anyone do such a thing? you might ask.
Today was a special day. I'm in the charming town of Fernie to do some research and we went on a "Walking Tour" of the town. We learned about the native curse that lead to two fires and one flood, learned about the Home Bank of Canada bankruptcy that lead to current Bank of Canada regulations. One of the changes was that those with loans had to actually pay them back! Janet Peery. A writer I discovered while on a sojourn to the U.S. I think I found one of her books in a second hand store. I quickly became the owner of three books to her name: Alligator Dance (short stories) What the Thunder Said (novella and short stories) and The River Beyond the World (novel). Janet Peery has been called a writer's writer. I can see why. Her stories and novels are exhibits of true craftsmanship and delicate journeys into the lives of everyday people. When my wife read her work she said she read it slowly. Not because it is ponderous but because it is splendid. Janet teaches at Old Dominion University. |
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March 2024
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