A love letter to book clubs

One of the major activities of 2014 was visiting book clubs. (That's right: I have procrastinated on this blog post for over A YEAR. The last time I opened it to edit it was November 2014. Even more amazing: this is not even the oldest blog draft I intend to finally finish this year! My excuse is that I had a baby, who really is a pretty good...and awfully cute...excuse.)

I visited many book clubs all over Montreal: the Plateau, downtown, Westmount, NDG, and even Nun's Island. I even took a suburban commuter bus to visit a book club at the Brossard Library! (As a lifelong pedestrian, I have an actual suburban phobia, so this felt like more of a triumph to me than it might otherwise seem to someone with a driver's license.)

A lot of it was a learning experience. I didn't set out to do book club visits -- it was just something that started happening, and I was flattered and happy to be invited. I'm proud to say that I experienced a lot more anxiety before the early visits than I did before the ones at the end. I struggled a lot with what I should charge (if anything), and while that is probably a whole other blog post in and of itself (why artists..who usually need the money more than anyone.. end up doing things for free that anyone in any other profession would charge for!), I consulted with other writers and did some soul-searching and eventually arrived at a number I could feel good about and which clubs were happy to pay. My only regret is not taking more photos.

The most amazing and humbling part of it was meeting so many thoughtful readers. Clever readers with questions and opinions and theories and insights. And sometimes even favourite sentences (!!!)

The fact is that as a writer, you are not necessarily the authority on everything in your own book. Yes, you can say whether the bagel shop in your novel is based on this one or that one (Fairmount, for the record) or whether your character has an eating disorder because you used to have one yourself (nope), but I like to let other people talk about what the novel is about. And I like to take notes. I've learned a lot this way.

My other favourite part (besides the always mind-blowing experience of having a dozen people discuss your characters as though they actually exist) was how inspiring it has been to witness so many friendships between women that have endured over decades and that have been enriched by books and their shared discussions. Many of the groups I visited have been gathering for TWENTY YEARS! They have seen each other through the births of their children, divorces, cancer...everything. Female friendship is where it's at, and I got a sneak peek at some amazing ones.

These visits were truly soul-nourishing. As a writer you spend most of your time working alone, and the majority of writing events (e.g. public readings and panels at writers festivals) are for an audience who is unfamiliar with your work. If you're lucky, a few people will pick up your book at the end. But getting to meet people who have made a point of reading your novel and talking about it...? It's a treat I hope all my writer-friends get to experience.

And speaking of treats, did I mention the snacks? These book clubs had some great snacks!

There were many groups in contention for being my favourites, but I think I have to give it to the club that did themed food to match Bone and Bread.

Bagels and cream cheese, of course!

And even more amazing:

Hors d'oeuvres just like the ones described

as being prepared and served at Sadhana's 

housewarming party!!!

And the most fantastic thing ever:

A school bus cake! Just like Sadhana and Beena

bake for Quinn for one of his birthdays in Bone and Bread.

And here are a couple of photos of me and this amazing book club --  one of the twenty-year ones, whose members were all terrific readers and who had a very lively and passionate discussion about the novel. I'm sharing two shots as the obliging husband who took the photo caught some of us with smiles in one and some of us in the other.

Is this really happening?

Feeling ever-so-lucky!

It really almost makes one think it is enough to have engaged readers, even without literary prizes. I know a lot of writers would agree. Of course, the one (prizes) often leads to the other (readers), so it takes you back to square one, a little bit. At any rate, a sincere and profound thank you to every book club that hosted me: you made me feel as though my work mattered, and there is truly no better feeling. And thank you to all the other book clubs (I know you're out there) who have chosen Bone and Bread for your discussions over the past two years. I'm honoured and privileged to have played a part in the conversation.

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 

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving! I hope everyone had a wonderful long weekend full of yummy food, friends, family, and relaxation --- or at least one of the above!
 
This year's Thanksgiving was a musical one. I sang in a beautiful concert on the top of Mount Royal with the McGill Choral Society Chamber Choir. It was the same material we sang in June at Loyola (in preparation for this concert), and it was an incredible place to perform. It was a huge audience and more and more people wandered in and stayed until the end. It was also an unbelievably beautiful sunny day -- I was walking around outside in short sleeves afterwards!

 Waiting to sing.

The night before, my stepdaughter and I baked two desserts for Thanksgiving dinner: a devil’s food chocolate cake with maple icing and a pumpkin layer cheesecake.

 The fruits of our labour!

Halloween came early for my co-baker

We headed out to the Townships right after the concert, where family had kindly waited on supper for us (and delayed Thanksgiving until Monday). It was a brief trip, but I managed to  squeeze in a walk and even a few rows of knitting with my morning coffee.

We also walked some paths I'd never been on before.

A new path beckons

A mother bear with three cubs has been spotted a few times around the area, so we tried to remember to make noise.

 D. walking with a big stick

The ground beneath our feet

Ce pont n'est pas...

 ...a metaphor

We missed the peak of the fall colours, but there were still a few leaves clinging to the trees.

 Leaf-blanketed road

As always, the fallen leaves made for some irresistible piles.
 

 Mandatory frolicking

And I'd show you a picture of the turkey, but it got eaten too quickly!

One of the surprise highlights of the weekend was turning on my computer Monday night after 11 p.m. to check on something, and somehow, without planning to, starting work on a new story that had been percolating for a few days.  Sometimes 400 words take forever and sometimes they spill right out. Another thing I'm feeling grateful for this week.

Books and a blaze

I hardly know what to call this post or what to say.  It's after 4 a.m. and I'm in our neighbours' basement.  I can't sleep.  I am trying to type quietly on this wonderfully clicky keyboard to keep from waking my husband.

This morning I was worried about what I had planned to say to the Books and Brunch Breakfast audience at the Sheraton.

 Book & Breakfast: a wonderful literary tradition in Montreal.

The event turned out to be lots of fun, and I was so relieved to be slotted first so that I could actually enjoy what all the other writers had to say.

 Signing books afterwards.

But this was what happened later...

 A fire in our building. We were in the upper floor.

This is a photo I found on Twitter.  We are lucky to have escaped unharmed, and I pray that is the case for everyone in the building as well as the firefighters who worked to put it out.  We left with only the clothes on our back - no phones or car keys, and in my case no ID or wallet.  It is terrible to contemplate the possibility of losing everything we had, but compared to what we might have lost, it is nothing at all.  We are fortunate, too, that we have people who can take us in, and an empty apartment we're moving into in a few weeks.  It might stay unfurnished for longer than planned.

Thank you to those of you who have sent supportive messages on FB, Twitter, and elsewhere.  

There is the urge to grieve and be thankful at the same time.  I'm not sure what else to say right now.  We may know more tomorrow if anything is salvageable, though more likely it may take a few days before anyone is allowed in.

(I keep thinking of the books... how between us we had at least 16 overstuffed bookcases, and if the flames made it in, they'd go up in a flash.  And if they didn't burn, they'd be soaked through by the firehoses.) 

Miracle on Veith St.

Ninety-five years ago today, my grandmother Marguerite Ainsworth (née Dryden) survived the Halifax Explosion.  Born in December 1916, she may be among the last living survivors.  In our Catholic family, it’s considered a miracle.

Just a few days shy of her first birthday, she was pulled from the rubble of her Veith St. home after the disaster on December 6, 1917.  Her father, William Dryden, had arrived home to find his wife Georgina, 34, and his son Percy, 6, and daughter Dorothy, 3, dead.  According to the Halifax Explosion Remembrance Book, he identified their bodies. 

It is one of the first stories I remember hearing about my family, and I vividly recall visiting the Maritime Museum for the first time and seeing the personal effects taken from the pockets of schoolchildren killed by the explosion...and feeling haunted by the homeliness of the objects, by my grandmother's narrow escape, by the horrible randomness of unpredictable tragedy.
   
The listings of the dead are available online, as linked above, through the Halifax Explosion Remembrance Book, thanks to Nova Scotia Archives.  The book is an amazing document of tragedy that supplements the original handwritten ledger book that was started after the explosion to keep track of the dead.

At first I thought these listings for Andrew Dryden and Alice Dryden were misidentified as Georgina Dryden’s children since there was another family at 48 Veith Street, the Findleys, with a mother also named Georgina, and who also died along with a number of children.  Then I found a birth record for Andrew Percy Ernest Dryden, the same age as Percy Dryden, born in 1911 to my great-grandparents William Andrew Dryden and Georgina (Cooke) Dryden  There is no birth record available in the archives for either an Alice or a Dorothy Dryden, but my best guess now is that this is a similar double-listing for Dorothy, based on her full name.  I’ll ask my grandmother. 
   
What would have happened if my grandmother hadn’t survived?  It's too hard for me to imagine.  Among other things, I wouldn’t exist, or I wouldn’t be me. 

My grandmother, my mother, and me in front of my old house in Ottawa.

I don’t know how my great-grandfather coped with the loss of wife and older children.  He had already lost one son, his first-born and namesake, William, who had died in 1911 at age one from cholera.  I believe he married again, quickly.  My grandmother was soon joined by two half-sisters. 

My grandmother is an amazing woman.  Her husband (my grandfather), John Ainsworth, who died before I was born, was visually impaired, and after her marriage and even after his death, my grandmother has spent most of her adult life (well over 60 years) volunteering in organizations to assist the blind.  She is kind, conscientious, and generous to a fault.  Before her house in Halifax’s Hydrostone had to be sold this year, her wall was covered with recognition awards for her active volunteer work.  There is a little write-up here about her (you have to scroll down) on the occasion of receiving an award for merit in 2008 from the Canadian Council for the Blind.  

A family photo from my grandmother's 90th birthday party in Halifax in 2006.
 

This year she has not been well enough to get out and be as active as she used to be.  There was no way for her to come to my wedding.  I think I am the only grandchild now who doesn’t live in Nova Scotia. I miss her.  

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to my American friends!  I like the importance this holiday seems to have in the States, though a lifetime of television has given me to understand that it has a little bit more to do with nationhood and professional sports than our own modest counterpart here that seem geared only towards food --- and thankfulness.  But either way, it is one of my very favourite holidays.  Even when I haven’t been in a position to host or celebrate it in a family setting, I’ve made exceptions to my generic oh-no-not-a-potluck feelings to bring along pumpkin cheesecake or borscht or sweet potatoes or cranberry sauce to a gathering of friends.  I love cooking for Thanksgiving.  I even love the colour palette of the foods: orange, crimson, brown.  

Last month, we spent part of our Canadian Thanksgiving in the country.  We had a friend from NYC visiting, so we wanted to squeeze in some Montreal-time, too, so we only spent about 24 hours total in the country. 

It’s a month and a half later, but the weather right now doesn’t feel all that different from that weekend – one of the first chillier ones of the year.  The leaves were changing and just starting to fall.

Pumpkin pie colours.

The linden tree we were married at this July -- looking a little less majestic in October..

 Stowed pool noodles not quite resigned to the end of the season.

 

Long grasses in fire colours.

Too late now for these, but beautiful to see in late fall.

 

No need to open this on that overcast day.

 There's always a walk to the dock.

 Two men and a Chinese dragon.

Some of the day through the eyes and lens of friend and guest PW.  I hope he doesn’t mind me sharing some of his pics here – they’re so much better than mine and help bring back my memories of that weekend.  I want to remember: P playing guitar, P and D singing Neil Young's Coupe de Ville...before moving onto an endless, wonderful medley that would continue long after I went to bed.              

 The leaves pile up fast in the country.

 Sky and lake.

Wine on a weather-worn table before a chilly walk to the water.

Lake full of clouds.

 Coffee before a christening. 

  

Anglican services are almost like Catholic ones, except longer -- they sing ALL the verses.   Another thing to be grateful for.

 

Not everyone smiles in photos.

The priest (minister?) at the country church gave thanks for a long list of vegetables, which was one of my favourite parts, though it almost made me giggle.  Then I had to stifle a shocked yelp when he made an oblique joke about the more regrettable purposes for which carrots could be used, and I heard one of D's sister's make a similar noise behind me --- though it turns out this was mere sordid, city-folk presumption on our part.  (The purpose the priest was joking about had to do with hunting, as apparently carrots are used to lure deer.) Then D's sister's baby A. fell asleep during mass and slept through his christening as the congregation, laughing, surrounded him by the font.  It seemed to me to be a fortunate child who can sleep through a sacrament.  

Today I’m grateful for friends, for family, for writing, for projects I’m excited to work on.  For a job, for a place to sleep, for food to eat, for a home in a peaceful land. Happy Thanksgiving (again!)!