A Necessary Change

I’ve been quiet on this blog recently. Besides dealing with the death of my dad, a motley of illnesses, and difficult unplanned events, I’ve been thinking. About writing, about self-promotion, about blogging, and primarily about my life. Where I want to focus, how I want to carry on. A change is needed, and though this was evident before Dad died, I was managing okay and planned to finish up the projects I’d chosen to do before making any alterations to my lifestyle. Dad hastened all that along. With the bottoming out of my energy and the going to sleep of my work-related brain, I’ve been forced to do what I was able to more or less ignore before. Rest. Take care of my physical health. Lower the stress in my life. And ask myself what my priorities really are, because clearly, there isn’t enough of me to do the many things I want to do.

“Where I want to focus, how I want to carry on.” This question is different in weight than when I first asked it in my teens. I realized then I had to choose between a flood of interests, that I would benefit from narrowing in on and really exploring just a few of them. Years later, I wanted to focus still more tightly, to become adept at one or two things and let other activities—beloved or unfulfilling—go. Now, with chronic tiredness and pain, and a very slow thought turnover rate, I have to cull as never before. Yet after Finding Creatures & Other Stories* came out, I actually did the opposite. I opened up my sights and welcomed in the world.

Is it 19 months since my book came out? Something like that. With that event I no longer settled down to ponder stories and flesh them out. I waded into the world of self-promotion and social networking, and I began working on other people’s writing projects more. It was a lot of work, often fun, and I learned a great deal. I even got a few stories written and some of them published. I wrote the second draft of a novel I’d written the year before. All good. But all very wearing, as well, and instead of waking up and wondering what writing I’d do that day, I woke up wondering if I’d ever have time AND energy to write again. Not a good thing.

Writing is nothing new, and it’s not the only thing in my life that matters. But it is the lens through which I revisit and interpret and re-experience life, the way I return with heightened senses to matters that fly too quickly by, to realize and appreciate them deeply. You could say it's my meditation, or part of it—you could call it my prayer. When I'm worried about who I'm keeping waiting or whether I'm making sales or how to keep my profile up, when I'm digging in to help other people lift their careers and am investing too much time in that, I don't come back to that still place where I remember why I chose writing over singing and art, why I chose it over science and religion and all my early loves.

The nearest thing I can compare writing to is staring. Being a kid, and a young adult, with nothing I had to do and lots of time to do it, I would stare close up at a spider web, a slick of machine oil on dusty water, crumbs of cement, shadow on tile. I would notice precisely the air touching my skin. Would stare at an idea, a book, an animal, a friend. Stilling to wait for the next breath of an insect, the next turn of a leaf, I found something far more profound than I could guess at when headlong. In not rushing by, I was discovering some part of them, and in discovering, bringing them into myself.

When I write, I touch these things once more, bring them out of me again, hold them up, meld them with other ideas, beings, sensations, questionings, and offer them to the page, where with luck another person will pause some time, read, and see still more than I have seen.

It isn’t about producing something, but about making contact with what already is, with noticing and perhaps celebrating it; at the very least, whispering it aloud.

Last week for the first time in months I was able to start and complete a piece of creative writing. I had to give up the thought of writing a story I owe someone, or working on the novel, or any other such constructive thing. Instead, I just wrote like I used to, letting the words and images that needed to come, come, and welcoming them. Not surprisingly, it’s a three page observation of dying and death. It made me cry. It made several other people cry, too. And talk. And smile. Those are very great rewards.**

The last 19 months of producing and promoting have changed my life, and they have changed the way I write. Although the output has slowed, my writing has deepened, or at least my sense of things has done. Doors have opened in my mind and heart, I have greater expertise in bookish things, and my appreciation of my own and other people’s limits has sharpened accordingly.

But it isn’t the life for me. I would love to support all the inspired people I find around me, and to learn well the skills of layout, cover design, and editing. I’d love to hang out online regularly with all sorts of writers and readers, share ideas and promote our work. But what I need is a quiet life where I am rested and cared for enough that I end up moved and inspired to write a little, now and then, rather than dragging myself from commitment to commitment with the guilty feeling that I’m just not doing this right. That someone with more energy than I have should be taking these things on.

I’ve never, luckily, been interested in being famous. The idea scares the bejeezus out of me, actually. I’m unlikely ever to write anything that hits big in the popular canon, and I’m unlikely to fill a bookcase with publications before I die. But I can let writing be the essence that makes the details of life weave together for a moment, now and then, into a pattern I can recognize and delight in and not forget. I can let writing be an oar, not a compass. An awareness, a sensation, instead of a statement, a summing up, a pressing on. Something to rest in, in other words, rather than something to grapple with. And if my writing can offer the same for a reader, well—wonderful. I couldn’t ask any more.

* Finding Creatures & Other Stories, by C. June Wolf.

** The story is “The Corpse Pose”, and it will be published in Room Magazine’s “Women and Spirituality” issue in December 2010.

Coming Publication: "The Corpse Pose"

I'm happy to report that my story "The Corpse Pose" has been accepted for Room Magazine's Women and Spirituality issue, coming out in December 2010. "The Corpse Pose" is the first thing I have completed since my dad's death in December. I tried to write about something else but, as you might guess from the title, death is still very much on my mind. I'm happy to say that the story is getting wonderful reactions. One reader said, "You've written about death, but you've given us life." I'm grateful for this kind of response. The submission details are below for those who are interested. I know there is not a lot of fiction coming in, so if you have something, fire away. Casey Room Magazine's Call for Submissions on Women and Spirituality Room's 2010 December issue (33.4) will examine Women and Spirituality. The Canadian Oxford Dictionary defines "spiritual" as "...relating to the human spirit or soul; not of physical things." How do you define it? We're looking for writing that transcends the material realm and explores what lies beneath, beyond, and above. Send us your best original, unpublished fiction, creative non-fiction, and poetry. We are also looking for suitable artwork and illustrations. For submission guidelines, click here. Submit to the attention of Clélie Rich by June 30, 2010.

Shekhar Kapur: We are the stories we tell ourselves | Video on TED.com

Okay. You are getting the idea that I think TED is great. A rich store of short films offering ideas, inspiration, observation--wonderful! Here is a talk by Shekhar Kapur on the creation of stories.

Where does creative inspiration spring from? At TEDIndia, Hollywood/Bollywood director Shekhar Kapur ("Elizabeth," "Mr. India") pinpoints his source of creativity: sheer, utter panic. He shares a powerful way to unleash your inner storyteller.

'...When I go out to direct a film, every day we prepare too much, we think too much. Knowledge becomes a weight upon wisdom. You know, simple words lost in the quicksand of experience. So I come up, and I say, "What am I going to do today?" I'm not going to do what I planned to do, and I put myself into absolute panic. It's my one way of getting rid of my mind, getting rid of this mind that says, "Hey, you know what you're doing. You know exactly what you're doing. You're a director, you've done it for years." So I've got to get there and be in complete panic. So it's a symbolic gesture. I tear up the script. I go on [unclear]. I panic myself. I get scared. I'm doing it right now. You can watch me. I'm getting nervous. I don't know what to say. I don't know what I'm doing. I don't want to go there. 

And as I go there, of course, my AD says, "You know what you're going to do, sir." I say, "Of course, I do..."'

"He was completely and utterly unusual, and deeply unafraid."
Cate Blanchett, in Time

Shekhar Kapur: We are the stories we tell ourselves | Video on TED.com

Ryan Lobo: Photographing the hidden story | Video on TED.com

What storytelling can be.

From TED: Ideas Worth Spreading:

As a photographer and filmmaker, Ryan Lobo uses his exquisite lens to capture humanity and nature at their most open and vulnerable moments.

"...the theme of Lobo's career: breaking down stereotypes while reframing the landscape. 

"Since 2001, Lobo has been taking haunting stills of everything from Yakuza tattoos and the illegal organ trade to the Indian middle class. He's worked as a field producer on many nature-oriented shows for National Geographic and founded Mad Monitor Productions, a production company based in Bangalore and Washington, D.C. There's no scientific, economic or sociopolitical boundary Lobo isn't willing to cross. His intense fieldwork continues to illuminate his traveling (you can read about his journeys and see photographs on his blog) and a forthcoming book project."

The video:

Ryan Lobo: Photographing the hidden story | Video on TED.com

The transcript (which on TED Talks is interactive: click the words in the transcript and it starts the video at that spot. Is that cool or what?):

My name is Ryan Lobo, and I've been involved in the documentary filmmaking business all over the world for the last 10 years. During the process of making these films I found myself taking photographs, often much to the annoyance of the video cameramen.

I found this photography of mine almost compulsive. And at the end of a shoot, I would sometimes feel that I had photographs that told a better story than a sometimes-sensational documentary. I felt, when I had my photographs, that I was holding on to something true, regardless of agendas or politics. In 2007 I traveled to three war zones. I traveled to Iraq, Afghanistan and Liberia. And over there I experienced other people's suffering, up close and personal, immersed myself in some rather intense and emotional stories, and at times I experienced great fear for my own life.

As always, I would return to Bangalore, and often to animated discussions at friend's homes, where we would discuss various issues while they complained bitterly about new pub timings, where a drink often cost more than what they'd paid their 14 year old maid. I would feel very isolated during these discussions. But at the same time, I questioned myself and my own integrity and purpose in storytelling. And I decided that I had compromised, just like my friends in those discussions, where we told stories in contexts we made excuses for, rather than taking responsibility for.

I won't go into details about what led to a decision I made, but let's just say it involved alcohol, cigarettes, other substances and a woman. (Laughter) I basically decided that it was I, not the camera or the network, or anything that lay outside myself, that was the only instrument in storytelling truly worth tuning. In my life, when I tried to achieve things like success or recognition, they eluded me. Paradoxically, when I let go of these objectives, and worked from a place of compassion and purpose, looking for excellence, rather than the results of it, everything arrived on its own, including fulfillment.

Photography transcended culture, including my own. And it is, for me, a language which expressed the intangible, and gives voice to people and stories without. I invite you into three recent stories of mine, which are about this way of looking, if you will, which I believe exemplify the tenets of what I like to call compassion in storytelling.

In 2007 I went to Liberia, where a group of my friends and I did an independent, self-funded film, still in progress, on a very legendary and brutal war-lord named General Butt Naked. His real name is Joshua, and he's pictured here in a cell, where he once used to torture and murder people, including children. Joshua claims to have personally killed more than 10,000 people during Liberia's civil war. He got his name from fighting stark naked. And he is probably the most prolific mass murderer alive on Earth today.

This woman witnessed the General murdering her brother. Joshua commanded his child-soldiers to commit unspeakable crimes, and enforced his command with great brutality. Today many of these children are addicted to drugs like heroin, and they are destitute, like these young men in the image. How do you live with yourself if you know you've committed horrific crimes? Today the General is a baptized Christian evangelist. And he's on a mission.

We accompanied Joshua, as he walked the Earth, visiting villages where he had once killed and raped. He seeked forgiveness, and he claims to endeavor to improve the lives of his child-soldiers. During this expedition I expected him to be killed outright, and us as well. But what I saw opened my eyes to an idea of forgiveness which I never thought possible. In the midst of incredible poverty and loss, people who had nothing absolved a man who had taken everything from them. He begs for forgiveness, and receives it from the same woman whose brother he murdered. Senegalese, the young man seated on the wheelchair here, was once a child soldier, under the General's command, until he disobeyed orders, and the General shot off both his legs. He forgives the General in this image. He risked his life as he walked up to people whose families he'd murdered.

In this photograph a hostile crowd in a slum surrounds him. And Joshua remains silent as they vented their rage against him. This image, to me, is almost like from a Shakespearean play, with a man, surrounded by various influences, desperate to hold on to something true within himself, in a context of great suffering that he has created himself.

I was intensely moved during all this. But the question is, does forgiveness and redemption replace justice? Joshua, in his own words, says that he does not mind standing trial for his crimes, and speaks about them from soapboxes across Monrovia, to an audience that often includes his victims. A very unlikely spokesperson for the idea of separation of church and state.

The second story I'm going to tell you about is about a group of very special fighting women with rather unique peace-keeping skills. Liberia has been devastated by one of Africa's bloodiest civil wars, which has left more than 200,000 people dead, thousands of women scarred by rape and crime on a spectacular scale. Liberia is now home to an all-woman United Nations contingent of Indian peacekeepers.

These women, many from small towns in India, help keep the peace, far away from home and family. They use negotiation and tolerance more often than an armed response. The commander told me that a woman could gauge a potentially violent situation much better than men. And that they were definitely capable of diffusing it non-aggressively. This man was very drunk, and he was very interested in my camera, until he noticed the women, who handled him with smiles, and AK-47s at the ready, of course. (Laughter)

This contingent seems to be quite lucky, and it has not sustained any casualties, even though dozens of peacekeepers have been killed in Liberia. And yes, all of those people killed were male. Many of the women are married with children, and they say the hardest part of their deployment was being kept away from their children.

I accompanied these women on their patrols, and watched as they walked past men, many who passed very lewd comments incessantly. And when I asked one of the women about the shock and awe response, she said, "Don't worry, same thing back home. We know how to deal with these fellows," and ignored them.

In a country ravaged by violence against women, Indian peacekeepers have inspired many local women to join the police force. Sometimes, when the war is over and all the film crews have left, the most inspiring stories are the ones that float just beneath the radar. I came back to India and nobody was interested in buying the story. And one editor told me that she wasn't interested in doing what she called "manual labor stories."

In 2007 and 2009 I did stories on the Delhi Fire Service, the DFS, which, during the summer, is probably the world's most active fire department. They answer more than 5,000 calls in just two months. And all this against incredible logistical odds, like heat and traffic jams. Something amazing happened during this shoot. Due to a traffic jam, we were late in getting to a slum, a large slum, which had caught fire. As we neared, angry crowds attacked our trucks and stoned them, by hundreds of people all over the place. These men were terrified, as the mob attacked our vehicle.

But nonetheless, despite the hostility, firefighters left the vehicle and successfully fought the fire. Running the gauntlet through hostile crowds, and some wearing motorbike helmets to prevent injury. Some of the local people forcibly took away the hoses from the firemen to put out the fire in their homes. Now, hundreds of homes were destroyed. But the question that lingered in my mind was, what causes people to destroy fire trucks headed to their own homes? Where does such rage come from? And how are we responsible for this? 45 percent of the 14 million people who live in Delhi live in unauthorized slums, which are chronically overcrowded. They lack even the most basic amenities. And this is something that is common to all our big cities.

Back to the DFS. A huge chemical depot caught fire, thousands of drums filled with petrochemicals were blazing away and exploding all around us. The heat was so intense, that hoses were used to cool down firefighters fighting extremely close to the fire, and with no protective clothing. In India we often love to complain about our government bodies. But over here, the heads of the DFS, Mister R.C. Sharman, Mister A.K. Sharman, lead the firefight with their men. Something wonderful in a country where manual labor is often looked down upon. (Applause)

Over the years, my faith in the power of storytelling has been tested. And I've had very serious doubt about its efficacy, and my own faith in humanity. However, a film we shot still airs on the National Geographic channel. And when it airs I get calls from all the guys I was with and they tell me that they receive hundreds of calls congratulating them. Some of the firemen told me that they were also inspired to do better because they were so pleased to get thank-yous rather than brick bats.

It seems that this story helped change perceptions about the DFS, at least in the minds of an audience in part on televisions, read magazines and whose huts aren't on fire. Sometimes, focusing on what's heroic, beautiful and dignified, regardless of the context, can help magnify these intangibles three ways, in the protagonist of the story, in the audience, and also in the storyteller. And that's the power of storytelling. Focus on what's dignified, courageous and beautiful, and it grows. Thank you. (Applause)

Haiti Updates

Gody, in La Vale, Haiti, sent me this video link: "Haïti, retour au pays dévasté". Temps Present: Magazine de Reportage presents footage and French language discussion of the current situation in Port au Prince. 

For those of you with Facebook accounts, you can view Gody's slide show of the situation in La Vale at this link: http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1321332146295&ref=mf

A film showing La Vale de Jacmel before the quake. Focus is on the people's credit union. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2hoPY30ul4

TIME Magazine looks at the cultural inheritance of the larger center, Jacmel itself, and efforts to save it. http://youtu.be/p2hoPY30ul4

Carla in Port au Prince sends this update:

Loved ones of ours,

 

(sorry, we experienced a tremor while I was working on this which made the unedited version go out!)

Loved ones of ours,

 

Today Feb 11, the day before the month marker of this "event" (as it is commonly referred to now) which will begin a 3 day national time of prayer and fasting, normally the pre-carnival time 12th-14th, was one of the lowest days so far for me.

 

I am deeply grateful as an undeserving human who was not buried in the rubble of a planetary shakedown.  We were somehow spared even as the church just a few yards above our house crashed, pancaking on itself during those fatal seconds. Fortunately, no one was within its unsuspecting death-chamber-like walls, but I am still reeling from the truth of the real disaster as it reveals itself out of the dust. 

 

The ensuing chaos continues to be upon us.  It almost feels immoral or unjust to me (is this survival guilt?), having been spared death, physical suffering or any loss of property through the quake but now even more so as the threatening clouds of the rainy season promise more disaster for the thousands cast out unceremoniously into the streets by this catastrophic itch in the underskin of mother earth.  This year those long awaited rains for the expectant farmers to plant and the welcome relief to the months of tongue coating dust film, (now mixed with cement and human remains), seems more like a death certificate awaiting those who have not been fortunate enough yet to get a tent or just a tarp.  Many families are sleeping with only a cotton sheet and scraps of plastic between themselves, their children and the cold evening downpours that will surely provoke sickness and more suffering will inevitably follow. 

 

These crushed concrete schools, churches, businesses, homes have turned into spontaneous tombs for the unretrievable bodies of loved ones decaying in undignified circumstances.  But, for me, the spiritual weight of all these instantaneously snuffed out lives is much heavier than the concrete and steel that smothers them. 

 

This photo is of one of my best friend's front "yard",  a place I've known for years, having visited a jillion times though always focusing on the beauty of laughter and the energy of life to blot out the sewage smell and uncleanable environment,  the material deprivation in this ghost town ghetto was stark.  This forced exodus from these once hot crowded spoonfuls of earth lay naked the truth of unbridled greed that crushed people into these conditions by an economic catastrophe that has been going on for generations.  This photo is simple, but perhaps it can help tell the story of the lives and dreams of thousands of lives of loved ones crammed into the virtual fissures of bare cinderblock destined to having their bones and breath suffocated out of existence in a mere few seconds.

 The uncomfortable question as to why an earthquake could kill the horrific numbers of people compared to earthquakes of equal seismic shock  was asked during the Discovery program shown the other night.   As the documentary camera zoomed into the rubble of Port-au-Prince, the condemning evidence of snapped off corner posts of schools and houses where too few bars of metal and sacks of cement were used in their construction gave some hints that should make us squirm.  The economic choices that parents in these types of neighborhoods are constantly pressured into making is that they literally sacrifice themselves to pay for their children's education at the expense of their own housing. This cosmic shudder exposed the worst of our human spiritual condition, stuffing a major part of humanity (most major cities have similar situations, but to a lesser degree) into indecent cracks and edges of life with no real choices.  It has exposed an ancient catastrophe of racism, prejudice, exploitation and greed that exploded into this cataclysmic catastrophe of unjust proportions. There's no more hiding behind the thin curtains of laughter any more, the wails of grief have torn it away. 

 

As I drove by a temporary shelter camp made up in a park in one of the richer neighborhoods of Petionville the other day, I saw an older man stooping by the curb having found an unusually clean bit of water running in the gutter to scrub out his small washcloth.  I thought about not looking at him allowing him my respect for his privacy in a somewhat humiliating circumstance, but I was impelled to see him and to have him see me understanding our mutual humanity in the seconds of our passing glances.  He smiled with eyes glistening into my own and cast out his hands in simple resignation.

 

N a Sonje

"We Will Remember"

Carla

a mix of the artsy with some respectable hard SF: Schellenberg reviews Finding Creatures

Finding Creatures & Other Stories, C. June Wolf, Wattle and Daub Books, 2008, 236 pp.

The Storyteller and Other Tales, K.V. Johansen, Sybertooth, 2008, 106 pp.

I’d like to take a look at two recent short story collections, Finding Creatures & Other Stories and The Storyteller and Other Tales. Both are by Canadian authors, and are published by small Canadian presses (see more detail below). I feel like it’s been a while since I’ve checked in with the work being done by Canadian author and publishing outfits, so this was an interesting return for me. The short version: the work looks very good indeed.

Finding Creatures is a collection of 15 stories by Wolf and has an insightful introduction by Charles de Lint. The 15 stories make for a mix of the artsy with some respectable hard SF that I wasn’t expecting from a collection like this. No offence meant to small press short stories, but I don’t see a lot of hardcore science-fictional speculation from them.

The artsy side of the collection is represented by stories like “Claude and the Henry Moores,” the opening story (I’ll talk about this story in more detail in just a moment), and the title story which is about imaginary creatures and loneliness.

I liked these stories a great deal. In particular, Wolf does a good job with endings. Since we get a lot of detail about the internal life of the characters, the structure that leads to the ending is most often an epiphany, a moment where all those internal musings or developments come together in a rush, like a plateau before the next ascent begins. Not an “I feel ripped off” artsy ending, but an artsy ending that the story is nicely tailored for.

I’ll use the Henry Moore story that opens the collection as an example. Claude works as a security guard at the AGO (Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto), and he becomes fascinated with the Henry Moore sculptures on display in the gallery. Then entranced, then possessed with an incredible connection with the personality of each sculpture, then convinced that there is an entity trapped within each sculpture. The writing is very moving, and the “freeing” of the AGO sculptures is a memorable sequence. That could be the ending, but in the last few paragraphs, Claude realizes there are Henry Moores across the whole world. It’s both closure and grand reveal of new vistas for the protagonist. Neatly played.

I don’t want to give away the endings of any of the other stories in the collection; rest assured that they are just as craftily constructed.

Of the stories with a more science-fictional nature, I’ll mention “Thunderbirds” and “Equals.” The first is an unusual first contact story, between Norman the human, living by himself in the woods, and Chitta the alien, who crashes nearby. Again, the story works toward an epiphany, but the alien details along the way are suitably convincing. The second story is about a research mission on an alien world named Lorin4. I was reminded of Robert Charles Wilson’s Bios in Wolf’s careful attention to biological details.

The longer stories in the collection – “Thunderbirds,” “Finding Creatures,” “Miss Lonelygenes,” “The MagniCharisma Machine,” “Equals,” and “Kouzen Zaka” – are generally better than the shorter ones, but all told, the reading is very rewarding.

On to The Storyteller and Other Tales. I didn’t get as much of a grasp of Johansen’s style, since The Storyteller only has four stories in it. All are based on historical moments (or our stories of those moments, appropriately enough considering the title), but the styles vary. Each story has a motif illustration by Johansen herself.

The title story is about a character named Ulfleif, a royal girl in a remote kingdom, and two visitors, Moth and Mikki, storyteller and warrior respectively. The storyteller begins a familiar tale about seven demons who were bound into earthly prisons a long time ago, but the story takes a turn that brings the events right into the building with them. It feels like a piece of a longer story, but it works very well.

The next story, "He-Redeems," is about 3 slaves living in the palace of the Lady, and reminded me a great deal of Eileen Kernaghan's Winter on the Plain of Ghosts. One of the slaves is accused of heresy, and the title character, who is impossibly naive, gets his eyes opened in a painful way. A journey into apostasy, but rather baldly stated.

"The Inexorable Tide" is a serviceable bit of Arthuriana, told through the eyes of Nimiane, daughter of Merlin. The emphasis is on how Arthur's wanderings and distant battles are a form of desertion for those back home. Nimiane and Mordred and Guenevere get up to all the familiar troubles, but there's a reason for their actions in the absence of the king. Nimiane manages a happy ending for herself, but the moment of Arthurian glory is brief, as it always is.

“a.d. cmxci” (AD 991 for those of us who have trouble deciphering Roman numerals) is a short piece, riffing off of an old epic poem. It feels like a bit of academia, rather than a finished story.

Both books are published by small presses here in Canada. Wattle and Daubis a west coast outfit, putting out a handful of books each year. Finding Creatures and Other Stories is a nice edition, so they’ve done good work so far.Sybertooth is a little harder to figure out: they’re on the east coast, and have published a lot of Canadian humour. I hadn’t run across Donald Jack’s Bandybooks in years and years, so I’m glad to see that someone is keeping that series in print. They’ve also published a number of genre works by Johansen and other writers.

Wolf was recently interviewed over at Strange Horizons and talked about Canadian SF and fantasy (among other interesting topics).

---

I feel a bit like this is a sequel to my earlier piece,The Latest in Canadian SF, from 2007. The venerable Tesseracts series, collecting Canadian fantasy and science fiction short stories since 1985, is now at number 13, with a fourteenth volume set for release in 2010. Canadian authors have been doing very well for themselves – Robert J. Sawyer’sFlashforward is now a TV series on ABC, Karl Schroeder’s Virga series is now at 4 volumes, and much, much more. I’m looking forward to something new from Nalo Hopkinson, and of the books on my shelf, Robert Charles Wilson’s latest,Julian Comstock, is the one I’d most like to read. And I’m glad to see that small presses like Wattle and Daub, Sybertooth, and Edge are fighting the good fight.

---

Last modified: February 20, 2010

Copyright © 2010 by James Schellenberg

My Haiti Writings

I was asked by a friend where she could find my writings on Haiti. I discovered that they are not so easy to find on this blog as I'd assumed (bad tagging?), so here is the digest of important links. (There are also a number of Haiti postings not written by me, which you can find by following the tag "Haiti".)

my stories are in my book (Finding Creatures & Other Stories, by C. June Wolf. do you have? can send pdfs of said stories if required.) OH! one is on the blog:
http://cjunewolfden.blogspot.com/2007/08/story-coin.html

much about haiti on my blog (Tag: Haiti)

travel journals:
2008:
http://cjunewolfden.blogspot.com/2008/07/notes-from-haiti-days-1-4-6_01.html
http://cjunewolfden.blogspot.com/2008/07/notes-from-haiti-days-10-18.html
http://cjunewolfden.blogspot.com/2008/06/final-notes-from-port-au-prince.html
2006:
http://cjunewolfden.blogspot.com/2006_07_01_archive.html

For a list of books about Haiti, check out my LibraryThing site:

http://www.librarything.com/catalog/thesmellofbooks&tag=Haiti&collection=-1

Jou a Rive: The Day Will Come

TREZO "Jou A Rive" Music Video from Ciné Institute on Vimeo.

Jacmel, Haiti
cineinstitute.com

Ciné Institute provides Haitian youth with film education, training and production support. The Institute's programs are: Ciné Lekòl; a film school offering training in fiction documentary and commercials. Ciné Services; an income generating production center for film school students and graduates. Ciné Klas; daily educational film screenings in partnership with national public schools and Ciné Klub; weekly public screenings of world cinema.

Ciné Institute began as a film festival in Jacmel, Haiti. Held for three years, Festival Film Jakmèl showed hundreds of films from around the world free of charge to tens of thousands of local audiences.

Our mission is to use the power of cinema, integrated educational programming, technical film training and production funding, to entertain, educate and empower Haitian youth to create a movement that grows an industry in national cinema and arts which creates jobs, stimulates regional economies and drives sustainable long term development.

Nice Makes Write: Interviewed by Robert Runté

Here it is! Robert Runté's interview of me in today's issue of Strange Horizons. The photo was taken by Patrik in La Vale de Jakmel, Ayiti (Haiti) in 2006. That's mayi boukonen I'm eating and it is yummy and CHEWY!

Nice Makes Write: An Interview with Casey Wolf

By Robert Runté

8 February 2010

Casey Wolf is the author of numerous speculative short stories, several of which were recently collected as Finding Creatures & Other Stories by C. June Wolf.

Wolf’s stories represent a uniquely Canadian approach to fantasy: where others write about the astronaut hero, she writes about the father who is left behind; where others write about planetary conquest, she writes about multiculturalism and the respect for alien life; where others write about revenge, she writes about reconciliation; where others write stories filled with sound and fury signifying nothing, her stories quietly engage the reader in the real lives of ordinary people—who become extraordinary because they have imagination, perspective, courage—and above all—integrity.

Yet, unlike a lot of CanLit, her stories are never depressing or dry. The speculative element makes her stories both more interesting and, in some strange sense, more real than other Canadian literature exploring the same themes. Consequently, I really wanted to ask Casey about her writing, and how her settings, themes, and characters reflected her Canadian upbringing. She graciously agreed to this interview.

Wolf: Not all of my characters do the right thing. But when they don’t, there are repercussions—not in terms of divine (or authorial) retribution, but in the same terms as life. I don’t see this as being about niceness, or characters putting others ahead of themselves. It’s more about integrity, something some of my characters summon up with ease where others struggle with it. When we live without integrity, we suffer the consequences: greater isolation, with all the lack of resource—emotional and psychological, at least—that that implies; lower self-regard (on whatever level we are honest with ourselves); an extinguishment of a sense of belonging and all-for-oneness that gets human communities through long periods of difficulty and want. In other words, supposedly selfish behaviour actually drags the individual down. We don’t like ourselves as much, and no one else holds us in such high regard, either. And we don’t heal from our wounds, but carry them around sequestered behind our defenses.

To read the whole article go to Nice Makes Write.

Dr. Robert Runté is an associate professor at the University of Lethbridge and co-edited (with Yves Meynard) the Tesseracts5 SF anthology. He has won two Auroras as an SF critic and was Fan Guest at the 52nd WorldCon. He is a regular reviewer for NeoOpsis Magazine.

Strange Horizons (www.strangehorizons.com) is a weekly web-based magazine of and about speculative fiction. The term "speculative fiction" refers to what is more commonly known as "sci-fi," but which properly embraces science fiction, fantasy, magic realism, slipstream, and a host of sub-genres. The magazine was founded in September 2000, and as we said then:

[Speculative fiction is] important to the world. These stories make us think. They critique society. They offer alternatives. They give us a vision of the future—and warn us of the potential dangers therein. They help us understand our past. They are full of beauty, and terror, and delight.

Even as the print publishing market for speculative fiction has contracted, the genre has expanded. A new generation of writers and artists has emerged: multicultural, non-traditional, willing to step past clichés. Strange Horizons hopes to give these rising stars another place to shine.

Strange Horizons has an all-volunteer staff, which enables us to pay our fiction and poetry writers professional rates. We are committed to expanding the readership, professional status, and literary appreciation of speculative fiction in all media, for all people.

Award Winner!!!

Okay, not really fair. It isn't my writing that's won an award, but my blog, and it's a "fun" award, not a big prestigious award but HEY! Who cares? It IS fun.

Martina Carter of the blog Creative Chronicles picked Den Page of C. June Wolf as one of her choices for the Over the Top Award. What she says:

The rules of the award are to answer the questions with one word answers, then to pass it on.

Your Hair? - Whacky.
Your Favourite Food? - Healthy
Your Hobby? - Yakking
Your Fear? - Atrophy
Your pets? - Felines
Something You Aren't? - Pregnant
Where Did You Grow Up? - Canada
Your Life? - Quiet
Your Mood? - Content
Your Favorite Colour? - All!

And I'm passing the award to these little known bloggers:

Under the Oak
Writer's Travels
Eileen Kernaghan's Blog
The Beacon Blog for Writers
Wisdom Play

Please go check out their blogs and if you like what you see become a follower.