Tag Archives: This Hidden Thing

Thin Air

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Last week, which seems a long while ago already, was Thin Air week in Winnipeg. Thin Air is the city’s annual writers festival. I was honored to have a small part in the event, with a campus reading of This Hidden Thing, but mostly the week was about listening to and engaging with a great variety of other writers from across the country. As the event’s subtitle says, “it’s for readers.”

I took in four of the evening events, and two of the afternoon book chats. Here’s a few highlights.

From the festival opener, a line by Ismaila Alfa, traffic reporter for CBC Radio and poet/musician:

Long live the figures of speech before and after me.

Long live indeed, figures of speech!

Since I'm not much of a coffee drinker, my sleek Thin Air mug has top spot as pens and pencils holder.

The festival featured many wonderful writers and their books, and I hate to single some out, but… I enjoyed hearing Richard B. Wright (perhaps best known for his Clara Callan), whose new book is Mr. Shakespeare’s Bastard. Wright had some interesting things to say about how he works, including the comment that reading poetry unblocks him when he’s stuck, reinvigorates him. And, finding myself once again involved in the terror and joy of a new novel project, I certainly  resonated with what Wright said about that:

You’re sitting in a room talking to yourself — it’s almost a form of madness… You hope what you’re indulging in will be liked and indulged by others… [But] I seem to need another life. A writer needs this other imaginary world.

And the books I’d like to read because of the festival? Wright’s, yes, and also David Bergen’s latest, The Matter with Morris, which landed on the Giller prize long list as the week opened. Opening reviews have praised it and the passage Bergen read from it intrigued me. (Another festival author and Winnipegger who made the long list is Joan Thomas, but I’ve already read her Curiosity, so I’m up at least one!) I’m also looking forward to Sandra Birdsell’s new book, Waiting for Joe.

Every time I attend readings I realize again what a pleasure it is to listen to ideas and words crafted with care. Poetry, especially, shines when read aloud; the genre almost requires an oral presentation. Novels are trickier to judge from their performance, I think, because they turn and deepen on extended development. But the fragments we hear are an invitation, and we honor authors when we take them up on it.

Weather, links, a new header

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Mid-August, the days noticeably shorter, the nights cooler, and we’ve got more tomatoes ripe on the vine than we can possibly make sandwiches of. Yes, it’s the feel of autumn in the air.

Which reminds me — I was chatting with an editor/writer friend yesterday who was telling me about an article she’s working on, how she’s trying to get the “hook” (first sentence, paragraph) right. Which reminded her of how often people who write for publications like the educational newsletter she edits will simply begin with the weather. Late summer and signs of fall, principals and teachers are beginning to think about school, etc. etc., and in spring, well, the weather’s heating up and the kids are restless, ready for their holidays, etc. etc. Weather is just so convenient as a place to begin, whether it’s conversations at the supermarket or in our writing.

For readers, who are often busy and mostly grazing through all those pages of print we writers and publishers impose on them, opening with the weather is generally boring and won’t “hook” anyone. Which is why good editors like my friend simply scroll a few paragraph into the piece and see that there it is, the beginning — the hook! (Yes, this often works, especially with new or inexperienced writers.)

My inner editor being lazy or off-duty this morning, I started with the weather too, but what I actually had in mind to say was just a couple of disparate things, and that’s it for this lovely sit-outside-on-the-deck perfection of a Friday.

1. Back in April, I reflected on an article in the MB Herald concerning the B.C. conference and Mark Baker. Here’s a news update on that subject.

2. Someone over at CMU Press put together a great set of questions about This Hidden Thing, for book club discussion or study. My thanks to them, and this simply as an FYI for anyone interested.

3. I may (or may not) come back to more postcard excerpts from my grandfather’s postcard album in the header of this blog, but for now, a slice of a photo our daughter-in-law took recently. Her husband (our son) was posing beside his grandmother (my mom) when they were here in Winnipeg several weeks ago to attend a wedding. She caught their faces, yes, but also their hands. I think it’s a beautiful photo and very evocative too of my blog title and theme, of that awareness that we build our lives out of what’s given to us in so many ways, including intergenerational bonds. Of the bones of inheritance (for better or worse) and love.

Here’s the larger photo. (You can view more of D.’s work at her blog, listed under my “Family and Friends.”)

Hands, grandson S. and grandmother T. Credit: Dayna Dueck

Summer days

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MHV windmill

H. and I went  to Pioneer Days at the Mennonite Heritage Village in Steinbach today. We’ve been at the Village various times over the years, and it’s always a great way to spend a day. This time, among the “attractions” on offer at Pioneer Days such as demonstrations of spinning, bread baking, blacksmithing and more, yours truly was reading from This Hidden Thing in the site’s Lichtenau Church. (It’s one of two churches at MHW; as curator Roland Sawatzky said, “Any good Mennonite village has to have at least two churches!”) It was good to visit with some folks we know, but also to meet new readers and to know that besides locally, copies of the book are heading to Toronto and to Pennsylvania!

Lichtenau church, where readings and book launches are held. It's the first church built by Mennonites of the 1920s emigration from Russia.

After the reading, it was time to indulge in a waffle with sauce — cooked outside in an old cast iron mould, one-and-a-half minutes per waffle we were told. A waffle fills an entire plate. Then we listened to “3 Mol Plaut,” a group that sings in Low German. I probably understood less than a quarter of what they sang, and got even fewer of the jokes, but H., who grew up with the language, could be heard chuckling throughout. Low German lends itself to any number of plays on words. (Actually, it often sounds amusing to me even when I don’t catch on.) We didn’t stick around for the supper-hour tribute to Elvis, however; not sure how that works in this context!

Last year at this time we were down in Paraguay for the Mennonite World Conference and an extended visit to family in the Chaco, but this summer, except for a quick trip to a nephew’s wedding in Saskatoon last weekend and my few days at a conference in B.C., we’ve been at home. H. had a pleasantly light July, work-wise (he’s a drywall contractor) and it’s been lovely, sitting on the front porch or back deck (depending on the sun), watching the tomatoes ripen, reading, and catching up on home projects. August will be busier for both of us, but what a treat these summer days have been so far. — (Thank You, thank You, thank You!)