more naps, please

I had a major nap earlier this evening, and thank goodness because I am still playing sleep catch-up from last week and last weekend. 

This past weekend was rehearsal for and singing in my big choir concert (singing for four hours on Friday night, and four and half on Sunday), co-hosting a birthday sleepover (remember when you were twelve and parties lasted 22 hours??), and then getting up early on Monday morning to get to the Global Montreal studio for 7:10 a.m. (the time I normally wake up!) to talk with the awesome Richard Dagenais about Bone & Bread and winning the QWF Paragraphe Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction. Let's be clear: I am not complaining. All of these things were amazing experiences and fun in their own ways. But I swear I am still tired and tomorrow's already Friday. It's possible that part of the reason is the fact that I ended up going to a party on Tuesday night (haircut party!) and Wednesday (holiday party at work).  It's just that time of year. 

Oh, and last Thursday (in between the four-hour dress rehearsals on Wednesday and Friday) was a 24-hour trip to Ottawa to attend the Governor General's Literary Awards gala! It's also possible that that is what I'm still recovering from. (Yet another to-be-blogged later promise I may or may not live up to.)

Taking pictures in the green room at Global Montreal

Because of birthday festivities, I had to miss an extra concert my smaller choir did on the Saturday. (The bright side is that it meant I got to sit down for one song during a rehearsal last week and just enjoy...and take pictures!)

McGill Chamber Choir rehearsing

Blowing on candles on leftover birthday cake on her real birthday

In other news (and possibly marking the end of book-related activities for 2013), I'm reading with some other lovely writers and looking forward to a delicious meal at Souvenir d'Indochine this Sunday night at a Magical Evening with Canadian Authors. If you'd like to come, there may still be spots available. (I'm really hoping this restaurant is as delicious as promised because it's just around the corner from me.) 

air, and walking on it (or, Bone and Bread wins the QWF Paragraphe Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction!)

It was right around this time a week ago that Bone and Bread won the QWF Paragraphe Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction, and it would really not be much of an exaggeration to say that I have been walking on air since then... although slowly, inevitably, I have been coming down to earth. Buoyant, however, I remain!

I've been conscious of the fact that these moments do not come along very often in the writing life. There is always something to feel bad about on any given day...some prize your book doesn't win or some middling review that appears on Goodreads... or your book doesn't sell very well or another publishing house bites the dust... or whatever it is you're working on is stalling out or you don't have enough time to work on it...on and on forever. I'm not much given to these sorts of thoughts or even comparing myself to other writers because I don't think that much good can come from it, but there's no doubt that these are some of the deadly wolves circling the cabin if you stop to take your fingers off the keyboard and let your thoughts drift away from the positive. Even without all of those things (which truly, I don't spend a lot of time thinking about), the fact is that writing is hard. Hard and often lonely and it requires a lot of sacrifice....and the payoffs can be few and far between.

I think I was trying to say that I've been enjoying myself.  And I really have! So many friends and acquaintances have sent me kind notes of congratulations, and even students and staff at my work have been tracking down the book thanks to this story in the McGill paper. My publisher sent me flowers that I've been enjoying at my desk all week. Thank you, everyone, for sharing this excitement with me!

I spent some of my prize money on purely wonderful, fun things: extravagant leather purses (this weekend was the m0851 sample sale), Arcade Fire concert tickets, a couple of pretty Modcloth dresses, and a big, hardcover novel (The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt, even though I have tons of books already queued up). But I still have one of two skirts I bought with the first money I earned from a story (published in Grain), and it makes me happy to think about that fact every time I wear it. There's something to be said for not just paying bills.

The gala was lovely, even if I was a little bit too tense to enjoy it as much as I would have otherwise. The fiction prize is announced last, so I had somewhat of a hard time concentrating through the other categories, though I was really happy to see Juliet Waters pick up a giant trophy and I liked what she said about writers needing to go dust off their old abandoned drafts (her winning story was something she had decided to pick up again). I also loved what Monique Polak said about writing as a committed relationship. I was also really excited to see Ann-Marie Macdonald hosting, and she was effortlessly funny and lovely. (Sadly, I did not get to meet her!) The funniest speech of the night was by Andrew Symanski who won a prize for his book The Barista and I. He was truly shocked and kept saying how weird it was to be up there and how he'd had to borrow shoes and how he spends most of his time writing alone in a squalid bedroom. (I think there were a lot of us there who felt like he was speaking our truth. Or, at any rate, a truth we could relate to.) I was really happy for him!

Citations for all the shortlisted books are read out before the winner is announced, and it's always a good way to find out about books that might not already be on your radar (in my case, some of the non-fiction titles and the books in translation). My to-read list has increased exponentially as a result. The jurors' comments that were read out for Bone and Bread were so kind and humbling and inspiring and frankly overwhelming that I literally thought I was going to fall off of my chair. I really would have been happy to fall off, lie on the floor and weep for a few minutes. At that point, I almost didn't care if the book was going to win the prize or not.

Bone and Bread has engrossing humanity, relevance, readability and the adumbration of a sage reflection on our Montreal universe. This novel really gripped me through its characters, not through plot devices.  On the whole, it is brave, it inhabits fresh territory, it is ambitious, and successful... The author is very gifted, and…I believe she will produce significant works and become a major Canadian writer.  

(!!!)

I feel like it's the most wonderful fortune cookie fortune...the kind you tuck in your wallet and carry around forever and ever and pull out and read whenever you need to hear something good. I'm so grateful to the jury not only for the prize but for saying something so kind and encouraging.

So I went up there on the stage and said something, probably forgetting to say lots of things I should have (ahem, thank you PARAGRAPHE for sponsoring the prize and for everything you do for writers and readers in Montreal). The beautiful trophy (I have always wanted a trophy, though I have never done anything even remotely likely to get me one) has my name and the title of the book on it, which is a nice touch I didn't expect. I took it out for poutine afterwards.

still life with celebratory poutine

My only regret of the evening is not getting some pictures of my friends in their finery or of the beautiful interior of the Corona Theatre...and not getting to talk to everyone I would have liked to chat with. Given that it takes place on a Tuesday evening, the QWF gala is not a very late-night affair, so my husband and I just came home after our quick food stop with some photos to commemorate the evening.

me and my precious 

Blogging blackout and the QWF Awards

Well, it seems that my immense backlog in things I want to blog about (the Victoria Writers Festival and the Vancouver Writers Festival being foremost among them) is leading to the inevitable blog avoidance. I’m so behind! There’s so much to write about! There’s also something else going on that I’ve noticed, which is that when I’m actually getting writing done…that is to say, actually moving forward in a project…there is a lot less blogging. Or sometimes no blogging. So there is at least one good thing about my silence here. I have been doing some writing.

Tomorrow is the Quebec Writers’ Federation Awards gala, where Bone & Bread is up for the Paragraphe Hugh MacClennan Prize for Fiction. There’s not much more to say about it than this, except that I am trying very hard to simply be satisfied with the nomination and not end up too attached to whatever the final outcome is tomorrow night. After all, the book is written. It’s done! It’s too late to change it and pointless to wish I’d written anything differently. I’m mostly looking forward to seeing lots of writing friends and celebrating our small but sturdy English writing community in Quebec, such as it is. I'm also very excited that the evening is being hosted by none other than Ann-Marie MacDonald! Fall on Your Knees was a very important book for me in high school.

Maybe I’ll see you there? (For ticket info, see here.)

On literary prizes

This morning I went to the announcement of the winners of the Governor General's Literary Awards at the Grande Bibliothèque. It was an interesting format in that it was part press conference, part ceremony: it was mostly attended by members of the media, but the writers and illustrators still crossed the stage and delivered acceptance speeches. The speeches were mostly decorous and deeply thankful. Some of the writers explained the origins of the ideas behind the works in question (one, I can't remember which now, started as a Grade 11 school assignment!). It was a cheery and inspiring way to start off the day, and I learned a little bit about a lot of books I might not otherwise know about.

I wanted to write about prizes today because November 17th will always be a special date for me. Exactly one year ago today, my name was called out at the Writers' Trust of Canada awards gala as it was announced I was the winner of the Journey Prize. A giant picture of my face went on the screen and I went onstage and delivered a giddy and probably mostly incoherent speech, much of which I can thankfully no longer remember. I didn't blog about it here when it happened because it seemed too magical to be real. It still does.

Somebody pinch me! (Photo courtesy of the Writers' Trust of Canada)

It felt particularly meaningful for me because I'd been buying and reading the McClelland & Stewart's Journey Prize Stories anthologies for years, and so many writers I admire have appeared in those volumes.

I know there is a lot of debate about the merits of literary prizes, and certainly the winner is always chosen by a subjective process, influenced by who-knows-what kind of internal processes between the jurors, but I think they're a good and necessary part of the literary culture in Canada. They help the writers, they help the readers make some headway in providing some guidance in what to choose, and they give us all something to talk about. Without prizes, there would be a lot less media coverage of literature in general.

And since it is awards season, after all, I'm going to go get ready to attend the QWF Awards gala (where last year I was not so lucky, but still had a fabulous time). It's not too late to come if you're in Montreal! Tickets are just $15 ($10 for students) at the door. The reception starts at 7 p.m., and the awards start at 8 p.m.

Readings, readings, readings!

We've been wonderfully fortunate in our literary events lately in Montreal. Thanks to the Concordia Writers Read series, George Saunders was in town two weeks ago to give a reading, which I can honestly say was the best reading I've ever attended (a close second being Yann Martel reading from Life of Pi at a free event at the Winnipeg International Writers Festival, the same morning he found it was shortlisted for the Booker). Saunders read from his recent story in The New Yorker, "Victory Lap." It's a classic Saunders story -- I'm not sure anybody does tragicomedy better than he does. He did different voices for the characters, including a Mickey Mouse-type voice for the imaginary baby deer (read the story, you'll understand) that is still cracking me up whenever I think about it. He answered the questions generously and interestingly and humbly. Everyone I went with was equally impressed.

Then this past Monday was the Biblioasis Metcalfe-Rooke reading at Drawn and Quarterly, where Kathleen Winter, Rebecca Rosenblum, and Amy Jones read from their winning short-story collections (actually, in Rebecca's case, she read a new story, which was a treat). They were all excellent and inspiring readers, and there were some yummy snacks there to boot. Kathleen very nicely sent me home with some of the leftover blue cheese. I'm pretty sure that living off of literary reading leavings means that I'm a REAL writer now.

And tonight at Arts Cafe is a poetry and prose reading, with a lineup including Alice Zorn, who will be reading from her wonderful book Ruins & Relics. The collection is deservedly shortlisted for the Quebec Writers' Federation McAuslan First Book Prize, and I'm rooting for it to win. And on the subject of the QWF Awards, why don't you come to the gala? As always, it promises to be a great event, and at just $10 a ticket, I suspect it is the most affordable (yet still glitzy) literary gala in the country.