Kudos to the Oshawa Public Library for sponsoring this fabulous event and for encouraging expression through art and writing.
Prizes were awarded at an invitation-only get-together on Saturday, May 29, at Northview Branch. The WCDR, represented by Sue Reynolds and Carin Makuz, was thrilled to be on hand to present gift bags to the winners in the following categories:
Grades 7-9 Writing:
FIRST PLACE: Ashley Kemp, “Elementsia”
SECOND: Brandon Taylor, “Melancholy Vale”
THIRD: Andrew Lipski, “Untitled”
Grades 10-12 Writing:
FIRST PLACE: Carly Midgley, “Walls”
SECOND: Marie Ottenbrite, ” M.M.J.”
THIRD: Roselle Uhlig, “Fireflies“
Marie Ottenbrite reading from "M.M.J."
Carly Midgley reading from "Walls"
From left to right: Andrew Lipski, Brandon Taylor, Ashley Kemp, Marie Ottenbrite, Carly Midgley, Roselle Uhlig, Sue Reynolds
Contest Participants:
Samantha Askew
Katherine Brudit
Mackenzie Caldwell
Melanie Close
Michaela Deschamps
Carly Gangemi
Sarah Hoyos
Emily Hutcheson
Serena Ireland
Liam Jose
Ashley Kemp
Laura Knapp
Andrew Lipski
Natalya Locke
Rachelle Marteu
Skylor McQueen
Carly Midgley
Kaylyn Morris
Rebecca Murrell
Marie Ottenbrite
Katie Ann Pekelny
Sarah Persad
Jadie Rutokowski-Jones
Brandon Taylor
Roselle Uhlig
Naomi VanderTeems
Conor Williams
Tanya Zvezdina
Reviewed by Mary McIntyre
Tatjana Soli’s debut novel, The Lotus Eaters (St. Martin’s Press, New York), a story set during the Vietnam War in the 60s and 70s, shows the deadly risks combat photographers took to bring headlines out of chaos. 
The story begins in the last days of the war, with panicked Saigonese crowding the gates of the American embassy, begging for helicopter rescues out of their enemy occupied city. A desperate American combat photographer, Helen, and her wounded Vietnamese lover, Linh, navigate the streets and alleys amidst a fleeing population. Helen delivers Linh to the care of the Americans and chooses to reenter Saigon for an opportunity to photograph the occupation. Ten years earlier, Helen arrived in Vietnam as a novice photographer whose purpose it was to find evidence of her veteran brother’s death in a mismanaged battlefield in Vietnam. While in Saigon she falls in love with a veteran combat photographer, Darrow. Through his eyes she sees the raw ugliness of combat. She is a conflicted American woman who strives for equality in a male dominated field. Danger tests her courage and her ability to understand the confusion of a foreign war. Her admiration for the Vietnamese people is further questioned when confronted with opportunists and traitors.
The book is well researched. We are immersed in noisy, stinking jungle, swamp, river and rice paddy battlefields. We sense the cunning enemy hidden all around. We lament the senseless slaughter. There are no villains, only people trying to survive against hopeless odds. For me, there are two minor flaws. I am not convinced why she loved a married, embittered, battle-worn combat photographer who secretly respected her as an equal, but treated her shabbily. The story is about finding courage and overcoming fear for a greater cause. At times, Helen seemed too girlish. She often agonizes about whether she should go back to America and leave it all behind. Why does she stay? Is she a shock junkie?
The following review by The Washington Post may shed some light: “Lotus eaters, in Greek mythology, taste and then become possessed by the narcotic plant. Already an accomplished short story writer, Soli uses as her epigraph a passage from Homer’s “Odyssey” in which the lotus eaters are robbed of their will to return home. It is a clue, right from the start, that this novel will delve into the lives of those who become so fixated on recording savagery that life in a peaceful, functioning society begins to feel banal and inconsequential.” —The Washington Post
It isn’t until the last few pages that we learn what happens to Linh and Helen after the collapse of Saigon.
What literary character most influenced you when you were young, and why?
Lennie Small from Steinbecks Of Mice and Men which was part of the grade nine English curriculum “back in the day.” Character-rich stories with endearing underdogs are what keep me turning the page to this day.
I suspect Stephen King fashioned his character John Coffey after Lennie Small when he was creating his serial novel, The Green Mile. Suffice to say, Lennie has stayed in the hearts of many readers.
And don’t even get me started on Tom Robinson, Boo Radley and Mayella Ewell.
Can you recall the premise of your earliest work?
The first writing assignment I ever tackled as an aspiring writer was from a prompt given to the class by the Creative Writing 101 instructor (his name was T.S. Elliott… Tobin S.) at Durham College several years ago. It was about an abused wife of a decorated general who week after week would wash and iron his shirts and hang them up in his closet: the guy was long dead.
You can imagine the many genres this prompt could flow.
Immediately I went all Stephen Kingish and wrote a not very good short story that had the wife sleeping with her dead husband. Since then, I’ve written the outline and the first nine chapters of my novel The Good Wife, which presently hangs out in my office drawer waiting to see the fiction light of day.
Do you have a favourite writing place (other than whatever is ‘usual’); somewhere that relaxes, inspires, gets your brain swirling in new ways?
Our mobile trailer parked in a family-run campground just outside Shelburne, Ontario; that’s been a continual source of writing inspiration. My characters literally walk through my screen door! Believe it or not, every short story, poem or non-fiction piece I’ve written there has been published.
Reading is…
…a luxury when doing so for pleasure.
Reveal some themes that often come up in your work… (llamas, food, Montevideo…??)
As a food writer, food factors big time in my work, especially in my poetry: food can be very sexy. Coming-of-age themes and personal/social injustices surface in my writing as well. It’s become obvious to me over the years that I write what I read.
A Choice (or seven):
Plane or Train? Plane; I’m way past 50. Those got the time for train travel?
Bagel or Croissant? Bagel
Fiction or Non? Fiction
Lake or Ocean? Tossed a coin for this one; lake.
Movie or Book? Book
Jamie Oliver or Jamie Kennedy? Without a doubt, Jamie Kennedy. I once interviewed him two minutes out of his bed!
Poems or Songs? Poems, even the ones that hurt my head.
Why write?
It saves on the shrink bills!
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What literary character most influenced you when you were young, and why?
My dad read Joel Chandler Harris’ Uncle Remus stories to me when I was five. The trickster, Br’er Rabbit was prone to troublemaking with Br’er Fox and Br’er Bear. I admired the rabbit for living by his wits. The 1946 Disney movie, Songs of the South, popularized the book’s
characters. It is considered politically incorrect for today’s viewers. Too bad, as kids see only good storytelling.
The memoir, The Long Walk by Slavomir Rawicz, moved me so much at fourteen that I carved his name into the thick plastic cover of my school binder. The book has taken on James Frey’s reputation for fictional memoir, but Rawicz still has loyal fans for his epic 1939 story of seven escaped prisoners from a Siberan work camp. They walked thousands of miles across some of the world’s most challenging terrain to freedom. At fourteen, I believed every word.
Can you recall the premise of your earliest work?
I wrote a descriptive essay to convince my Grade 10 English teacher that the scenery in Nova Scotia was spectacular. She pointed out to me that as I’d written a long view of a broad scene from ocean to mountain, I should not have written the details of the blueberries growing in patches on the hillsides. It was a valuable lesson.
Do you have a favourite writing place (other than whatever is ‘usual’); somewhere that relaxes, inspires, gets your brain swirling in new ways?
Sadly no. I’m easily distracted by my environment and require quiet at my computer. Even when I visit inspirational outdoor settings, I am irritated by flies, frustrated by windblown pages, distracted by sounds and agitated by knowing dinner should be started, etc. Sometimes at night I scribble notes in bed.
Reading is…
… an essential element of the business of writing. Reading is a forgivable reason to delay housework and grocery shopping.
Reveal some themes that often come up in your work. (fjords, rice, Easter Island…??)
Theme: Coming of Age.
I’ve chosen this theme for a family memoir within the contexts of The Great Depression, World War II and post war boom times. Four generations of my family grew up and grew old at Washburn Island, Lake Scugog over nearly sixty summers.
Theme: Why do bad things happen to good people?
I am exploring this theme question in an attempt to dislodge the mystique surrounding a tragedy that happened to my extended family at Washburn Island. Because families are bound together by a shared mythology, the bafflement of a senseless loss to a family with strong ties is rocked to the foundation.
A Choice (or seven):
Plane or Train? Train. I loathe crowds, speed and hassle. I’m very much a sit back and smell the roses person.
Lace or Cotton? How about cotton with lace trim? I’m practical, but love a little whimsy on the side.
Fiction or Non? Although my current project is creative non-fiction, I love reading and writing fiction.
Lake or Ocean? Lake. Lake represents tranquility. Ocean is damp maritime climates, underwater creatures, bottomless depths, unpredictable storms and seasickness. My grandfather and father were Navy men, so I kept this a secret.
Movie or Book? Book first, then go to see the movie version of the book.
Angela’s Ashes or Diary of Anne Frank? Angela’s Ashes. Either way, the human condition is deplorable.
Stage or Screen? Screen. You know screen performances are the same for everyone. With stage performances, it’s harder to walk out part way through if you don’t like the play.
Why Write?
Writing validates my existence.
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Mary McIntyre placed first with her short story in “Scugog at Dark” for the 2008 Unionville
Memoir Writers Alzheimer’s Fundraiser. Lasting Impressions of Georgian Bay appeared in Parry Sound’s The Beacon Newspaper, 2009. Ugly Like A Scar was selected for Pearson Educational Publishing English textbook, Poetry Module “Live Lines”, 2010. Forthcoming book, WASHBURN ISLAND: MEMOIR OF A CHILDHOOD. A violent tragedy at Washburn Island, Lake Scugog, where four generations summered for nearly sixty years, rocks the foundations of a British immigrant family.
Reviewed by Mary McIntyre
Writer, Jhumpa Lahiri, is acclaimed for her collection of stories, Interpreter of Maladies, which won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and her first novel, The Namesake, which was adapted into a movie of the same name. I have seen the movie and recommend it.
In her more recent collection of eight stories, Unaccustomed Earth, Lhairi continues to explore the Bengali-immigrant experience. Her point of view is primarily that of the children of Bengali immigrants, chronicling the struggles they face to adapt to American culture. They are caught between parent-imposed expectations and traditions, and fitting in with conflicting American mainstream values.
Lahiri’s characters are not representative of all Bengali immigrants. She has transported well-educated Bengali men with arranged marriage wives to America’s northeastern seaboard. The men are professionals and academics who attain respected positions while their wives are traditional Bengali homemakers having limited opportunities to realize a greater potential. But it is the children who must walk the line between parental expectations and the cultural differences confronting them in the outer world. These are privileged children, attending expensive boarding schools and Harvard. But academic achievements cannot protect them from the sense of uprooted-ness that dogs them along their paths. They are tested by inter-racial marriages, raising children non-traditionally, running away from Bengali identities, alcoholism and striving to please by succumbing to traditional marriages.
Lahiri’s New England settings are a striking counterbalance to the references to Bombay and Calcutta, interspersed with a broader global experience enjoyed by the second and third generation living abroad. These are stories of displaced persons who long for home, but cannot always decide where home is for them.
What literary character most influenced you when you were young, and why?
Jo in Little Women by Louisa Mae Alcott. Even though I was the third of four sisters, not the second as Jo was, I loved her bookishness and her desire to write. But I’m still disappointed she didn’t marry Laurie. I wasn’t impressed with the old professor, and I didn’t think Amy and Laurie were a good match. I read the book a dozen times and could happily read it again.
Can you recall the premise of your earliest work?
Not really. The first piece I remember came during my Sophomore year of high school, a poetic tribute to my English teacher who was very supportive of me after my father died that March. Mr. Ames encouraged me as a writer and even came out to help us milk cows. So I wanted to honour him. He’s in Lifting the Veil too.
Do you have a favourite writing “place”?
Yes. As a girl I wrote under the lilac trees on the farm (somehow I convinced myself Mother couldn’t find me there and put me to work. But now I love my “office,” or the den in our house, where I hide out most mornings and try to create.
Reading is…
…an absolutely vital part of my life. I love it. When i finish one book, I go to the pile in the den and pick out another. The worst flight I ever had was coming back from Athens (a twelve-hour flight) and running out of reading material. I’d finished my book and the flight attendants couldn’t find an English newspaper. And the rest were? Yep, Greek to me.
Reveal some themes that often come up in your work… (Shetland wool, tango, pretzels…??)
Struggling to succeed as a teacher, trying to find happiness in love, a thirst for adventure
A Choice (or seven):
Sweet or Savoury? savoury
Habit or Discipline? discipline
Notebook or Keyboard? keyboard
Beach or Prairie? beach
Poem or Song? song
Shaw Festival or Stratford? Stratford.
Movie or Book? Unfair! I love both but I guess book a little more.
Shields or Munro? Munro
What advice would you give someone who said: I’m thinking of writing my life story…?
Go for it if you have experienced something unique that people have wondered about. That’s why my memoir has done well, because many people are curious about life in the cloister. But if you think your life is pretty mundane, stick to fiction or poetry, because there you can raise the ordinary to extraordinary without having Oprah accuse you of lying (e.g. A Million Little Pieces).
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Reviewed by Cheryl Andrews.
I am a rampant consumer of books scooping them up by the armload from sales tables in the big box book stores – established authors, first time novelists, Canadian and international writers. But I have never read anything quite like Winterwood by Irish novelist and
playwright, Patrick McCabe.
Even as I read and re-read whole sections looking for clues, I couldn’t quite figure out how McCabe did it. You know something terrible and brutal and bloody has happened, continues to happen and will happen again, but McCabe doesn’t ever show it to you. He slips and slides all around it, sneaks up on it with incredible precision … real close. He has you peaking through the tall pines, holding your breath and then yanks you back just when you’re ready to cover your eyes, leaving you to imagine the horrific scene that must come next.
Uncomfortable throughout the entire read, I kept thinking ‘just put the book down, walk away’, then, afraid to leave it and, worse, to turn the pages, but unable to stop myself from doing so, reading on with trepidation. ‘Is he going to show me now?’ He never does. The violence remains in shadow.
I don’t think I’ll ever be able to open a chocolate bar again without thinking of the wild and wooly Auld Pappie, Ned Strange.
“A reader is left confused, dazzled and breathless. It’s astonishing.” Daniel Hahn
For an interesting perspective on Patrick McCabe, read Daniel Hahn’s “Critical Perspective” (scroll down page). Even though Hahn’s view pre-dates the publication of Winterwood he elucidates McCabe’s style eloquently: “It would be misleading … to give the impression that McCabe is in any way a miserable or depressing writer. His world is prone to nastiness, certainly, and teetering on the edge of total, wild desperation, but it’s never hopelessly, lifelessly miserable. On the contrary his writing bursts with life (as do his characters), with irrepressible wit and energy. It is simply that the places he looks … are grim and unconventional … with a view of the most shocking and disturbing elements of human weakness and cruelty. More often than not the result is a book which can appall, and yet with a personality which renders readers quite powerless to resist. At their best, these books are unstoppable.”
The WCDR was thrilled to be part of the Literacy Council of Durham Region’s second annual read-a-thon at Isabella’s Chocolate Cafe on March 28th.
She used to be a WHAT??
Karen Cole reading from Lifting the Veil.
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Don't look now but your grade five teacher's in the room... and he's getting out his marking pen. No pressure.
Erin Thomas reading from Boarder Patrol.
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I think I'll start with the bruschetta...
Carin M. reading from the menu.
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Other WCDR readers were: James Dewar, Sue Reynolds, and Ruth Walker.
(pictures came out fuzzy; the readings, however, were not)
Reviewed by Mary McIntyre.
Donna Milner’s book, The Promise of Rain, is a story that takes place in the 1960s. Its theme is relevant today. Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome was not a recognized or treatable symptom
following WW II. The protagonist’s father is a troubled survivor of a bleak incarceration in a Japanese prisoner of war camp in Hong Kong.
Our introduction to the Coulter family begins in British Columbia in 1962. A family is coping with a father’s under achievement, due in part to alcoholism. When his wife Lucy suddenly dies and he must care for their three children, his ineffective behaviour affects his 20-year old son, Frankie, a 13-year old son with Down syndrome, Kipper, and his 11-year old daughter, Ethie. The father’s flashbacks during the war, told in the third person, alternate with the 1960s narrative told from young Ethie’s point of view.
The father’s dark secret that had been hidden from the family – a promise to a dying friend – complicates his life and is revealed to the family by the end of the story. We learn of the father’s love for and dependence on his wife, and his loyalty to a wartime pal, a complex secret that thwarts his ability to act effectively when threatened with the loss of his daughter to a relative’s care, and assigning his mentally challenged son to an institution.
Milner’s portrayal of meddling relatives, institutionalizing the disabled, alcoholism and prejudice against Japanese Canadians are believable. This is a story of overcoming tragedy and coping out of love for an ideal or for family. The writer’s accounts of incarceration and cruelty are balanced, showing moments of compassion and hope amidst an ugly truth.
There were elements of clichéd foreshadowing, such as at the end of Chapter Five: As he said a silent goodbye to Lucy, he tried to ignore the ominous sense of foreboding that filled the empty space inside him. And then twenty pages later, Watching the circle of flowers disappear beneath the foam of the ship’s wake did nothing to dispel his growing sense of foreboding.
Overall, the book is well researched and the suspense keeps the reader interested until the end.
What Happened Later
Our first book was “What Happened Later” by Ray Robertson. If you’d like to read the discussion about this book, you may click on the link below. (Please note, the discussion posts read from the bottom up – i.e., first conversational salvo is at the bottom, scroll up to read responses and new ideas).
E-discussion about What Happened Later.
The “Who It Wasn’t” contest that kicked off the announcement of this book.
