Monthly Archives: October 2010

Seven Questions with Carin Makuz

Published October 29, 2010 | By admin

What literary character most influenced you when you were young, and why?

Nancy Drew, without a doubt. At least that’s what I was reading when the idea of writing occurred to me. Initially I wanted to write books just like ‘hers’—hidden staircases, etc. The important stuff. So as I saw it, part of my apprenticeship was to ferret out intrigues—and how better to do this than position myself behind shrubbery on our front lawn and listen to snippets of conversations as people walked by. Or better yet, pick up gum wrappers and wonder what is the significance of Juicy Fruit versus Dentyne…?

Can you recall the premise of your earliest work?

A story called ‘Emily’. About a girl who visits her grandparents’ farm and discovers a horse-in-need up the road. It goes on from there for 36 pages. All I remember is how fun it was to write. I stayed up well into the wee hours. The teacher asked if he could keep it. I said yes, but I really didn’t want to part with it; it felt like giving away a friend. I actually bumped into him at a thing a couple of years ago; when I introduced myself as a former student he paled. Mumbled something like oh my god.

Do you have a favourite writing “place”?

The beach. (And yes, in all weather. I’m Canadian, right?)

Reading is….

…a way not of escaping reality but enhancing it.

Reveal some themes that often come up in your work… (drywall, hens, sponge toffee…??)

Oddly, sponge toffee to an extent. But mostly relationships of all sorts. I’m fascinated by how people connect with each other. And why, and what they do in order to get what they need. The dance that ensues. Families being the original ‘connection’—so I wonder: what do we take from that experience and what parts of it do we lose or inadvertently perpetuate in the families we go on to create? And how does that ‘stuff’ affect our choices in subsequent relationships, and how does it affect the relationship itself? And why. Yes, the ‘society’ of people is a big curiosity for me.

A Choice (or seven):

Sweet or Savoury? Savoury Savoury Savoury!! And chocolate.

Waltz or Polka? Waltz. Three or so hundred years ago I belonged to a folkdance group that regularly polka’d for fun. I was too young at the time to know they were a raving band of lunatics.

Cherries or Eggplant? Hard choice. Love them both. Hmm. How to decide? Okay. I’m on an island. There’s a cherry tree….OR… there’s an eggplant tree. Which makes me happier? I want to say cherry for the bonus of shade it offers (eggplant trees are so spindly and this is a very hot island) but I’m going to go eggplant. For the baba ganoush.

Lake or Mountain? Lake. Mountains are nice on postcards. Claustrophobic in real life. Especially when they have tunnels through them that are kilometres long and you have to turn David Bowie’s Changes up very loud because it’s the only way to get your mind off what would happen if a fire broke out or an accident and you end up trapped in there for hours or days. And what if you forgot to pack the Bowie??

Poems or Songs? Oh god. Another toughie. I’m going to say songs. I’m a sucker for the ambience music offers to (poetic) words. And, to be honest, I’m thinking of Laura Smith, who I saw recently at Hugh’s Room and who is *$#@ing brilliant. As a writer of poetry. And a singer of songs.

Dylan or Cohen? Love them both but have to choose Mr. C. Saw him last year for the first time. My knees still haven’t recovered. The first time I saw Dylan was many moons ago—at Maple Leaf Gardens. I’d like to say I remember every fabulous detail, but I think it’s kinda like Woodstock—if you remember it you weren’t there.

Shaw Festival or Stratford? Stratford. Most recently saw For the Pleasure of Seeing Her Again, which I’m still enjoying every time I think of it. Shaw doesn’t do enough Tremblay…

What advice would you give someone who said: I’m thinking of writing my life story…?

Make sure you’ve paid attention.

Carin Makuz spends long hours writing relatively short fiction, some of which occasionally appears in various magazines and journals. Her work has been broadcast on CBC and BBC radio and was nominated for the 2009 McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize. When not writing she can be found wandering in her garden muttering about darlings that won’t take a hint.

Bits of her can also be found at www.matildamagtree.wordpress.com
and www.frontdoorbackdoor.blogspot

Seven Questions with Noelle Bickle

Published October 28, 2010 | By admin

What literary character most influenced you when you were young, and why?

When I was about nine, I read a book about a girl my age, living in Harlem with her mother, whose only source of money was washing clothes (she actually scrubbed them in a wash tub in their tiny apartment). All she wanted for her birthday was a new dress so she’d have more than just the one her mother washed each night to wear to school. They decided on a fabric striped in pink, brown and white, like Neapolitan ice cream. As her birthday approached, her mother didn’t have the money to buy the fabric. I cried my eyes out when her mother told her. In the end, of course, the mother scrubs her fingers to the bone, buys the fabric and makes the dress. In turn the little girl feels loved, happy, beautiful and full of hope. I don’t know who the author is, or (try as I have for many years now) remember the title of the book. But I remember how it made me feel. It opened my eyes to a whole world so far away from where I lived. I was a fair haired, middle classed girl whose only diversity in school was whether you were a subdivision or farm kid. The fact that the writer successfully put me inside the head of a little girl struggling in Harlem for hope – that influenced me to keep my eyes open, remain hopeful, and understand the power of words. My biggest goal as a writer is to have readers think or feel something about an issue or circumstance they’ve never considered.

Can you recall the premise of your earliest work?

As a child I was always jotting stories of assorted travels and fabulous adventures, but the characters were always key – crazy, kooky, scary characters. When things got a little tougher in my life I tried my hand at poetry in order to release my teenage angst. The poetry was as horrible as the angst.

Do you have a writing “routine”? A favourite place?

I write in my pyjamas, and I’m not talking sexy silky ones. Fuzzy, bold printed pj’s, with polka dots and cupcakes and such. Whenever anyone comes to the door they apologise for getting me out of bed, and I tell them I’m working. Oddly enough, nobody ever takes a writer in fuzzy frog pyjamas seriously.

Reading is…. (finish the sentence)

The key to exhaling.

Recite a favourite passage from a favourite book. Why is it special?

“Mam says that dog has to go tomorrow and Michael cries all night and cries worse in the morning when he finds the dog dead in the bed beside him. He won’t go to school because he has to dig a grave outside where the stable was and he wants all of us to dig with him and say the rosary. Malachy says it’s useless saying prayers for a dog, how do you know he was even a Catholic? Michael says, Of course he was a Catholic dog. Didn’t I have him in my arms? He cries so hard over the dog Mam lets us all stay home from school. We’re so delighted we don’t mind helping Michael with the grave and we say three Hail Marys. We’re not going to stand there wasting a good day off from school saying the rosary for a dead greyhound. —Frank McCourt, Angela’s Ashes

The entire book broke my heart and tickled my funny bone almost equally. The child’s voice is undeniably gut-wrenching and pure. The honesty and vulnerability – his willingness to show us both the warts and the wounds is a gift. The fact that he could sprinkle it with charm and wit was just frosting on the triple high cake. I aspire to be as vulnerable, charming, and witty as the brilliant Mr. McCourt was.

A Choice (or seven):

Sweet or Savoury? Sweet. Maple fudge, rockets, barley sugar. Go sweet or go home.

Dylan (Bob) or Dylan (Thomas)? Thomas Dylan, though between the two could more words be written?

Summer or Winter? It was summer until I turned 40 and now heat = sweat. Give me a crisp, bright sunny winter day with snow-laden trees.

Lake or Mountain? Sitting lakeside grounds me, calms me. Mountains are beautiful too, until I feel closed in and very small.

Twitter or FaceBook? I haven’t started to twitter yet. FaceBook started out as a great way for me to stay connected to my daughter when she went off to University. Now I use it as a forum to keep people posted on my writing successes as well as blog updates. A fabulous tool for connecting with people with very little effort.

Movie or Book? Book. Although I love a good movie, it rarely leaves me wanting like a good book does.

Fiction or Non? I love historical, dystopic, and contemporary fiction. I’m also hooked on memoirs—but only if they are honest and gritty. Funny and heartbreaking together is magic.

Who has been influential in your work? Name three people.

Paulo Coelho—The Pilgrimage is blurbed as “adventure story, part guide to self-mastery, this compelling tale delivers a powerful brew of magic and insight.”

And it did. The biggest lesson I learned was about self-hate. He writes about negative self-talk. If someone stood beside you saying the things that you say in your own head, you’d walk away. But internally, we tell ourselves the most horrible messages. He instructs readers to dig their index fingernail deeply into the fleshy tip of your thumb when you say something like “I’m such an idiot”, or “this writing sucks” or “I’m not really a writer”. The day I tried this, my finger was mutilated like raw meat… seriously. I almost cried at the end of the day when I called myself a dummy for forgetting to lock an office cabinet and had to push on the wound. But I dug that nail in, and learned a good lesson. One look at that fingertip and I could see the damage my words had caused. I still remind myself to do it when I am hard on myself as a reminder to treat myself with respect, and to be a little kinder to my own little self.

Wayson Choy—The Jade Peony transported me to another world. Much like the girl in Harlem with the Neapolitan dress, Wayson opened my eyes and gave me hope. It was a book that pained me to read the final pages, not wanting it to end.

I was lucky enough to have Wayson as my mentor at the Humber School for Writers Summer Workshop. His daily workshops reflected his mantra of “know thy self”. What an honour and a blessing it was to be guided by such an enlightened source of inspiration. He told me, “What you write will matter” and I believed him. He gave me that gift tied in a big ribbon, the decision to actually believe in myself.

Margaret Atwood—This is a woman who pushes boundaries. I love her willingness to be different, slightly odd, and to question the “what ifs”. She also encourages new writers instead of the standard “it’s almost impossible to break in” message some accomplished writers put out there. She comes up with some wild ideas in her writing and I think she would be a fabulous dinner guest. I hope to break bread with her one day, discussing all things literary.

Noelle Bickle is a writer, editor and creative writing instructor certified to facilitate writing workshops using the Amherst Writers and Artists (AWA) Method. She is a graduate of both the Journalism and Public Relations Programs from Durham College, and is a Humber School for Writers alumni.

Her work has been published in multiple anthologies and magazines. She currently serves as President on the Board of Directors for the Writers’ Community of Simcoe County, and acts as Speaker Coordinator for the Writers Community of Durham Region. She is an affiliate with Amherst Writers and Artists, and a member of both the Editors Association of Canada, and the Canadian Creative Writers and Writing Programs.

She teaches a wide range of writers: youth-at-risk, underserviced populations, closet-writers working in the corporate world, young mothers, and vibrant seniors – all with a wealth of
stories to tell. She also works with writers with a varied level of experience – from those just diving into the art form to emerging, established, and published authors.

She is currently working on her second novel. Catch up with her on her blogs: http://boundbytheword.wordpress.com/ and http://ateenagemutant.wordpress.com/ or check out her website for upcoming events and workshops at www.boundbytheword.wordpress.com.

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Seven Questions with James Dewar

Published October 18, 2010 | By admin

What literary character most influenced you when you were young, and why?

If I choose very young, my earliest memories are of the prince who slays the dragon or some other evil creature, often for the sake of a beautiful princess. The Walt Disney movies and cartoons made heroism attained through violence the role model for myself and every other boy in my neighbourhood. When I was nine I was given a book called The Adventures of Tom Swift, which introduced me to the notion of both the brilliant boy hero and Science Fiction. I grew up the oldest of seven catholic kids in a poor family living in a small house on the edge of a hostile protestant town. Escaping into books, and the wonderful alien lives available there, was my favourite coping mechanism. I never dreamed that reading thousands of books over the next few decades would lay the groundwork for eventually becoming a writer.

Can you recall the premise of your earliest work?

The first story I wrote was to earn extra marks in a grade 9 English Class. I went to a Catholic school. One of my favourite teachers ever was Sister Mary Clara, our English teacher. She always pushed us to improve ourselves, but was patient and kind. I was a voracious history book reader at the time so I asked if I could write a story about ancient Spartans and she agreed. After dozens of hours of research in the library and writing late into the nights, I handed in the story of two boys learning to be warriors. She gave me an “A”. I was over the moon. I just kept churning short stories out after that. She always handed them back quickly and gave me comments or suggested books I should read. She later asked me to write a column for the school newspaper. I will never forget her twinkling eyes.

Do you have a favourite writing “place”?

I prefer to write in notebooks with specially selected pens. I like drafting pens the best. Those fine lines of ink arrive with such a flourish. Where I write is not that important. I can write in a busy restaurant or alone in an easy chair. I never write out of doors.

Recite a favourite passage from a favourite book. Why is it special?

To answer this question I leafed through my favourite poems, since my preferred method of writing is poetry, but I found myself drawn to fiction. The first book I read that introduced me to the realm of truly brilliant writing was in grade 12 when we studied Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. I studied it again when I was earning my BA in English at York University. I have read it at least ten times since then. It is no surprise to me that one of the greatest movies ever made, Apocalypse Now, was based on this short, but profound novel. One of my favourite passages is Marlowe’s reaction to seeing a chain gang of black criminals just after he arrives in Africa:

“I’ve seen the devil of violence and the devil of greed, and the devil of hot desire; but, by all the stars! These were strong, lusty, red-eyed devils, that swayed and drove men—men I tell you. But as I stood on this hillside, I foresaw that in the blinding sunshine of that land I would become acquainted with a flabby, pretending, weak-eyed devil of a rapacious and pitiless folly. How insidious he could be, too, I was only to find out several months later and a thousand miles farther. For a moment I stood appalled, as though by a warning.”

Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness (p. 77). Broadview Press ed., 1999 version.

Why this one? I marvel at the choice of words and sentence structure. It gives me a chill every time I read it. I want to write like this. I have had two epiphanies in my life about wanting to be a writer. One was reading this novel. The other was the first time I read the poem “Pike” by Ted Hughes in first year university.

Reveal some themes that often come up in your work.

The theme that grabs me the most these days is the depiction of males in our society. I research the work of such psychologists as Terrence Real who provides valuable insights into the socialization of males. One of the most damaging is the suppression of emotions while condoning violence as an acceptable form of expressing feeling. I believe that the feminist movement addressed the fundamental inequalities and suppositions as they relate to the role of women in our society, but the same stereotyping and dehumanizing aspects of males remain to be fully addressed. Until these negative suppositions are addressed by both genders we cannot transition into a healthy society. Unfortunately the dominance of the religious systems that perpetuates the notion that god is male, and (only?) men are capable of being god-like, means that we all will continue to be at risk of losing all the gains that women have made over the last 100 years. Men need to learn how to handle feelings in a healthy way. And they need to have the ridiculous religious justifications for brutality removed from their upbringing. It creates a false arrogance that makes it easy for the weakest and stupidest men to behave like beasts; while preventing the bravest and smartest men from doing what they should to curtail them. Both my new book of poetry, Guys on the Surface, and my novel, Group of Seven, wrestle with these issues.

A Choice (or seven):

Sweet or Savoury? Savoury

Waltz or Polka? Waltz

Cherries or Eggplant? neither

Lake or Mountain? Lake

Poems or Songs? It depends: songs in the car, poems at the bar

Shaw Festival or Stratford? Shaw. Smaller theatres and better comedies.

Movie or Book? Movie. Time is short.

What advice would you give someone who said: I’m thinking of writing my life story?

Hire a lawyer. Better yet, write a novel based on your life and then fire the lawyer.

James Dewar is the president of the Writers’ Community of Durham Region (www.wcdr.ca) and a writing workshop presenter (www.inkslingers.ca). In addition to teaching advanced creative writing at Durham College, he is the editor of Piquant Press. His poetry series, Hot-Sauced Words (www.hotsaucedwords.ca), enjoys a unique place in Toronto due to its inclusion of audience interaction and on-the-spot writing challenges. He is a freelance editor, writer and poet and writing his first novel.

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Seven Questions with Dorothea Helms

Published October 18, 2010 | By admin

What literary character most influenced you when you were young, and why?

Anne Frank. The Diary of Anne Frank was the first book I read that resonated with me. In fact, it’s the book that got me hooked on reading. I led a kind of sheltered life, so I was amazed and sickened that such cruelty existed in the world. I read the book two or three times, hoping the ending would be different each time. I wanted to be Anne’s friend.

Can you recall the premise of your earliest work?

It was in grade school. We had to do a report about the pioneer days. I waited until the night before it was due, and I stayed up most of the night writing it. I made up a journal of a young person traveling across the U.S. in a wagon train. It was pure fiction. I got an A.

Do you have a favourite writing “place”?I prefer writing in my office at my computer. I can type faster than I can write with a pen.

Reading is…

… why writers write. Reading is fun, annoying, fascinating, depressing, inspiring, educational and necessary to a fulfilled life for me. I own so many books, I’ll have to live to 150 to read them all!

Reveal some themes that often come up in your work… (sledding, dental hygiene, green…)

Religious hypocrisy, writing, humour, family, relationships, free will, the illogical things men do.

A Choice (or seven):

Shaw Festival or Stratford? SHAW FESTIVAL

Movie or Book? BOOK

Fiction or Non? NON

Jamie Oliver or Jamie Kennedy? I’D MARRY EITHER ONE IF HE’D COOK FOR ME

Secret Garden or Narnia? NEITHER

Bob Dylan (Bob) or Dylan (Thomas)? DANNY THOMAS

Summer or Winter? SPRING

What is the writer’s role in society?

Interesting question. Does a writer have to have a role other than fulfilling his/her passion? Writers educate, instruct, entice, entertain, inspire, promote, annoy, document, titillate and more. Writers convey the social, political, cultural and human aspects of their times, and they speculate on the future. I contend, however, that writers have the right to not fulfill some societal role, and it’s fine to just write for the pure enjoyment of it.

Dorothea Helms, a.k.a. The Writing Fairy, is an award-winning, internationally published writer and popular writing instructor. The author of The Writing Fairy™ Guide to Calling Yourself a Writer, she offers workshops that inspire adults to write. Dorothea also owns Write Stuff Writing Services, which provides topnotch professional writing and editing services to diverse clients. Her work has appeared in publications including Homemakers, Chatelaine, The Globe and Mail, Toronto Sun and Canadian Architecture and Design Magazine. She was featured on CBC Radio’s “First Person Singular” twice, and has twice had personal essays published in The Globe and Mail. www.thewritingfairy.com AND www.wsws.ca

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Seven Questions with Ruth Walker

Published October 7, 2010 | By admin

What literary character most influenced you when you were young, and why?

Oh, as a very young child I think it had to be just about any and all fairy tale characters—good or evil, it didn’t matter. Just about any fairy tale, fable or mythological character tickled the back of my brain. So much more interesting than Dick or Jane or Sally—these ‘people’ spoke to me in ways that ordinary kids’ lives just didn’t. A Thousand and One Arabian Nights, Old Peter’s Russian Tales, Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Andersen, Aesop’s Fables, Mother Goose—oh yes, those were full of characters who lived fabulous, magical lives.

Then.

Age 13 arrived and hormones twitched and I wanted to be Jane Eyre. What a strong romantic woman. Except for that one weakness but what can I say, even strong women can have a soft spot for soul-tortured men.

Then.

I grew up. No more soul-tortured men. Just one great guy for 37 years.

Can you recall the premise of your earliest work?

I remember using handwriting for the first time at age 6. I was reading by age 4 but knew that grownups wrote messages in a secret code. I recognized the cursive letter “I” and started out that way, copying an endless line of loopy “i”s across a lined sheet of paper. After that, it was easy as, letter by letter, I cracked their code. I figured that was real power. That built into stories—I wrote lots of cute (awk!) stories in school. In high school, I wrote some desperately tragic poetry (sample title: Burning Altar of Life—oh yes, tragic indeed—see “then” pic for greater understanding) for a few months. Then I put it all away and didn’t come back to it until much later on in life. I still love tragedy but I write much better titles.

Do you have a favourite writing “place”?

Sadly, I can’t tell you about my wonderful secret garret. Or my pristine and sacred writing space. I most write at my computer these days. I love to take workshops when I have the time to give myself the gift of writing with a pen or pencil. But mostly it is keyboard because I am an impatient person when creative and short on time and I touch type pretty darn fast—faster than I write and when the engine is humming, I’ve got to get it down on the page…er, computer screen.

Reading is… until lately, more or less a luxury or a chore. A chore because I had to do it—I have spent years focusing on specific things I had to read for school or for my freelance editing business. A luxury for a long time because every once in a blue moon, I would read for pleasure. I’ve reverted however and have read three books of fiction in the past 5 weeks: February, by Lisa Moore; Three-Day Road, by Joseph Boyden; Silk, by Alessandro Baricco (English translation). And I started two others that I decided I don’t have enough lifetime to bother with. I never used to do that—put aside a book unfinished. No more. Capture me or I will leave you. Are you listening all you writers? Reading two books right now (hard to explain why and how, but I am managing this dual dance just fine, thanks very much) and will finish both: Earth and High Heaven, by Gwethalyn Graham (Gov. Gen. winner in 1945) and The Factory Voice, by Jeanette Lynes, a poet just publishing her first fiction. Both set in Canada in the 1940s but one by a writer who was ‘then’ and one from a writer who is ‘now’. Very very good books, both of them.

Reveal some themes that often come up in your work… (horse whispering, fruit based cocktails, calligraphy…??)

Loss and mystery. The past driving the present. The child on the cusp. Fairy tales. Secrets.

A Choice (or seven):

Sweet or Savoury? Both!!! Hands down, I love them both. I even love to mix them up. Accordingly, Thai food is welcome on my plate. Indian food with spicy innards and sweet sauces. Can it get any better than both?

Waltz or Polka? Polka is fun. I have to count with a waltz and I despise numbers (dyslexic with them, actually) and with a polka, if you dance hard enough and spin fast enough, nobody notices much if you miss the beat.

Cherries or Eggplant? Well, cherries are okay I guess. But I always want to spell them cheeries. And eggplant is nice in a casserole or breaded, and sounds great in French: aubergene, if you please. But neither really turn my crank.

Lake or Mountain? Lake. Mountains have a great presence and are nice to look at, to climb and to drive around, but I grew up compassed by Lake Ontario to the south and a scattering of camping lakes to the north. So lakes are in my blood. A canoe on a misty lake or a lake at sundown or a lake without any other canoes on it. Surrounded by highlands (quasi mountains, I suppose). It’s a lake, hands down.

Poems or Songs? oooh. Poems first and only those poems that can be ‘got at’ – obscure to the point of ‘look at me, I have crafted a clever, clever poem’ is not my cup of tea. Intelligent poems versus clever poems — now that is a good poem. Even The Wasteland can be understood. Rich poems with images that slip under my skin and take hold. But songs second. Leonard Cohen or Jann Arden songs — where lyrics are poems, just poems set to music. (and, of course, The Beatles and the Rolling Stones, who also understood the value of story in a song.)

Shaw Festival or Stratford? Stratford (except when it gets all snooty) but I still like Shaw – GBS was a mighty deep guy.

Movie or Book? Both! I love movies, good movies, old movies, animated movies, sappy movies, foreign movies (Run Lola Run and Das Boot are favs) BUT nothing like a good book to make you cry and cry and cry again. I cried reading “Jane Eyre” and I cried last week reading Joseph Boyden’s “Three Day Road”. A book cry is different from a movie cry. A book cry reaches to your toes which is why I rarely cry reading a book. It has to reach my toes to make me cry.

What advice would you give someone who said: I’m thinking of writing my life story…?

Well, everyone has had an interesting life, more or less. But you have to understand that before you write it—”understanding” comes from taking in what was going on around you at the time— the people, the places, the times. Write your life story like you ‘lived through it’ and it will not be so interesting. Write it like you watched it….now, that can become quite interesting. Get some distance. And finally, your whole life was not interesting. When life made you stop and blink back tears, or suck in your breath, or shout out loud “what the f—?”, or hold yourself absolutely still to take the moment in, THOSE were the interesting parts. Go for that part(s) of your life and write about it.

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Ruth E. Walker is a writer, poet, editor and creative writing instructor. Published in Canada, the US and the UK, Ruth has also won several writing competitions and awards. She is an artist in residence in education with the Durham District School Board and spent 10 days last summer at Sage Hill Writing Experience in Saskatchewan, thanks to a writers’ reserve grant through the Ontario Arts Council. Ruth is a long-time member of WCDR and co-owns Writescape, offering popular writing workshops and retreats in southern Ontario and Québec.

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Seven Questions with Kevin Craig

Published October 7, 2010 | By admin

What literary character most influenced you when you were young, and why?

Charlie Bucket. Charlie was a boy who believed in hope and magic and imagination. In Charlie Bucket, Roald Dahl gave me a character I could relate to…and such a huge love for reading that I was hooked for life. Charlie was pure and a wonderful dreamer…we should all be lucky enough to see the world through his eyes. I’m still looking for my Golden Ticket, but thanks to Charlie, I believe I can one day find it!

Can you recall the premise of your earliest work?

The premise of my earliest work? Garage Band. I wrote a novel when I was in about grade six. It was about a group of kids who formed a garage band and eventually became famous. The band’s name? Marjoram. Clearly, I wrote this novel in the kitchen. I still remember looking around for a band name! And, voila! There it was…right on the spice rack next to the cumin!

Do you have a favourite writing ‘place’?

Huntsville! My favourite place to write is WHEREVER the Muskoka Novel Marathon is being held. I’m hooked, baby…hooked!

Recite a favourite passage from a favourite book. Why is it special?

In all of literature, there is one perfect passage that I read and re-read obsessively. Here it is:

“The only completely stationary object in the room was an enormous couch on which two young women were buoyed up as though upon an anchored balloon. They were both in white, and their dresses were rippling and fluttering as if they had just been blown back in after a short flight around the house. I must have stood for a few moments listening to the whip and snap of the curtains and the groan of a picture on the wall. Then there was a boom as Tom Buchanan shut the rear windows and the caught wind died out about the room, and the curtains and the rugs and the two young women ballooned slowly to the floor.“

—‘The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Why is it special? THE TWO YOUNG WOMEN BALLOONED SLOWLY TO THE FLOOR. That’s why. It’s so beautiful it makes my heart bleed.

Reveal some themes that often come up in your work… (leg waxing, Hurricane Hazel, Wheatabix…??)

The theme that comes up almost always is the wonderful dysfunctional family. I love quirky family dramas mixed with comedy. Families are all wonderfully broken…I vow to take advantage of this theme in all my work.

A Choice (or seven):

Plane or Train? PLANE

Bagel or Croissant? BAGEL

Fiction or Non? FICTION

Lake or Ocean? OCEAN

Movie or Book? YOU’RE KILLING ME. I’M GONNA SAY MOVIE…ONLY BECAUSE I’M A PAINFULLY SLOW READER.

Jamie Oliver or Jamie Kennedy? OLIVER

Poems or Songs? POEMS… A GOOD POEM IS BETTER THAN GRAVY AND TWICE AS THICK.

What is the writers’ role in society?

The writer’s role is to celebrate life. The good, the bad, the ugly and hated and loved and crazy. The writer should celebrate everything that life has to offer, to the best of their ability. Their role is to lift the treasure to the faces of the reader in everyone…to lift it up and hold it there for all the non-writers to look at and say, “ooh! Shiny!”

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Kevin Craig is a three-time winner of the Muskoka Novel Marathon’s Best Novel Award (2007 for Sebastian’s Poet, 2008 for The Reasons and 2010 for Half Dead & Fully Broken). His first YA novel, Summer on Fire, will be released in July of 2011, by Museitup Publishing.

www.kevintcraig.wordpress.com

Click Here for Author page at Museitup Publishing

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