Reading, writing and music

NOWW presents Fall Reading “Sweet Treats”

Mary J. L. Black Library Auditorium Tues. Oct. 7, 6:30 pm to 9:00 pm
M.C. James Arthur
Short readings by:
Marion Agnew, Sue Blott, Brian Green, Marianne JonesSherri Lankinen, Scott Pound and Jack Shedden
Musical guests:
· Singer/songwriter Nancy McNabb with Scott Freeborn on classical guitar.
· Hugh Hamilton on keyboards
· Author Roy Blomstrom on vocals and banjo.
Plus: Dessert and refreshments in a social setting.
Everyone welcome
See our website for details: http://www.nowwwriters.com

Mark Your Calendar!

The Writing Process
Dr. Scott Pound, Professor of Creative Writing at Lakehead University, returns with more of his popular and inspiring NOWW workshops. The Writing Process Part 1, Mon. Oct. 20;

Part 2, Mon. Nov. 10
These workshops focus on what writers can do to facilitate the writing process: how to cultivate habits of awareness and mindfulness, how to write when you don't feel like writing (and why you must), how to read like a writer, and how to finish what you start.

NOWW’s 11th Annual Writing Contest for 2009
Categories will be: Poetry, Fiction, Memoir, Children’s Story and Flash Fiction. Competition will be announced in January, entries accepted to April 1, 2009

NEW from BOOK CLUB IN A BAG

A very intersting letter arrived listing new books for book clubs purchased by the Thunder Bay library

Hello Everyone!
I hope you had a wonderful summer and are ready for another season of book clubbing.

I want to thank everyone who sent in suggestions for new book bag titles. It was certainly helpful having the list when it was time to purchase the books. Unfortunately we couldn't buy everything on the list due to budget limitations. Also, some criteria need to be taken into consideration when purchasing; is the book available in trade size paperback (or comparable in price); is there a reading guide available; is the book well reviewed and promotes discussion, etc.

So by following these and other criteria as well as your suggestions, we have currently added 5 new titles and another 3 to 5 will be added in another month or so.

The following new titles are ready for booking:
Late Nights on Air by Elizabeth Hay
The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill
Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson
The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer

Also, a great big thank you goes out to The Calico Book Club for their generous donation of 10 copies of "I Feel Bad About My Neck" by Nora Ephron. This has also been added to our Book Bag collection and is ready for borrowing.

Thanks to this club and all the clubs for their continued support of this Book Club in a Bag program. We now have 63 titles with more coming.

I will keep you posted. Happy reading!

Helen Cimone
Public Services Assistant
Mary J.L. Black Library
807-475-5906

GOOD NEWS - BLUE PENCIL FOR ALL

A valuable service, previously available only to NOWW (Northwestern Ontario Writers' Workshop) members is now open to the general public thanks to a grant from the Ontario Arts Council.

A Critique Service. You can now submit your manuscript for a critique from a NOWW reviewer for a small charge. Reviewers provide comments and advice on how to improve your writing. They are encouraging but honest. Fees range from $22.50 to $30, a steal when you consider that similar critique services can run $100 or more. Blue Pencil will accept memoir, short story, novel excerpt, poetry or non-fiction up to 5000 words (or 100 lines in the case of poetry).

Submitting writers and reviewers remain anonymous from each other.

Rules for Submission of Manuscripts. Please print and keep.

1. Manuscripts must be printed in 12 pt type, white paper, double spaced.
2.A cheque payable to NOWW must accompany each submission.
3. A stamped self addressed envelope must accompany the submission.
4. A separate cover page must include writer's name, address, phone number, e-mail if available, the title of the piece, genre and a word count. (line count for poetry)
5. Manuscripts should have headers with title and page number but no identifying marks.
6. If you have specific questions, write them at the end of your manuscript.
7. Only one submission at a time.
8. Maximum word count is 5000

Fees for NOWW members - up to 1000 words, $15. From 1001 to 2500, $20. From 2501-5000, $30. Poetry is $20.

Fees for non members - up to 1000 words $22.50. From 1001 to 2500, #30. from 2501 words to 5000, $45. Poetry is $30.

Send your submission to
Blue Pencil Annonymous
c/o 358 McIntyre St.
Thunder Bay, ON, P7A 3C1

An intriging poem by Ulrich Wendt

Mr. Livingston

Mr. Livingston is a lens-grinder. How?
His daily work among the dials,
the burning oil, the powdered glass
like sugar, cocaine, snow
is over and over and over vari-grey
tone-lite, tone-ray, blue, green
and the occasional lens bursts into flame.

If you are free this evening,
he will take you slowly down. The grey March rain
has wrecked the old snow down, exposed
the naked neon junk man broken cars
dead bird and are you free
to where the empty men go no place in their over-coats
to where old clothes, a wheel, a broken doll,
a clock with mangled hands
lie useless in the snow and he will take you down.

He will show you down the basement stairs to where
his careful notions of distracted light
burn green, blue bending red. An unmade bed,
a broken chair and paints lie scattered.
He will offer wine in paper cups and he will offer
visions in a sketch-book, page by page, the holy visions
burning in a slowly turning brain.

And are you free this evening?
He longs and lingers for conviction.

Submissions Wanted

Get Published!

Submissions Wanted - poetry, short stories, memoir, non fiction and novel excerpts.

Send as an attachment to jbaril@tbaytel.net

Label your e-mail as Submission, Literary Thunder Bay.

Creative Memoir Writing

Heather Summerhayes Cariou, who gave a notable workshop on memoir writing at the recent writers' conference, writes "thank you for a marvellous two days in Thunder Bay at the Sleeping Giant Writers Festival."

She adds a set of quotes to use as prompts or springboards to creative memoir writing. Many are the words of well-know people but others reveal Cariou's own wisdom. Cariou is the author of Sixtyfive Roses: A Sister's Memoir. (check out http://www.sixtyfiverosesthebook.com/)

“I am the place in which something has occurred.” ~ Claude Levi-Strauss

“Your own self-realization is the greatest gift you can give the world.”

“Every person’s memory is his private literature.” ~ Aldous Huxley

“Any writer of any worth at all hopes to play only a pocket torch of light into the bloody but beautiful labyrinth of being.” – Nadine Gordimer

“If you don’t tell the truth about yourself, you can’t tell it about anyone else.” – Virginia Woolf

“Take no care for your dignity. Don’t be afraid of appearing angry, small-minded, obtuse, mean, immoral, calculating or anything else.” [I would add: IN FIRST DRAFT] “Don’t approach your history as something to be shaken for its cautionary fruits. Tell your stories, and your story will be revealed.” – Tobias Wolff (to Mary Karr)

“You need only claim the events of your life to make yourself yours. When you truly possess all you have been and done, which may take some time, you are fierce with reality.” – Florida Scott Maxwell

“I have come to believe over and over again that what is most important to me must be spoken, made verbal and shared, even at the risk of having it bruised or misunderstood. That the speaking of it profits me, beyond any other effect.” – Audre Lorde

“What are the words you do not yet have? What are the tyrannies you swallow day by day and attempt to make your own, until you will sicken and die of them, still in silence? – Audre Lorde

“...we have been socialized to respect fear more than our own needs for language and definition, and while we wait in silence for that final luxury of fearlessness, the weight of that silence will choke us.” – Audre Lorde

Loose Control

The unspeakable can be spoken.

“In real life get out of the way when a person with a gun is running down the street. In your writing life step in front of his path, let him shoot you in the heart.” ~ Natalie Goldberg

“All sorrows can be borne if you put them in a story or tell a story about them.” ~ Isak Dinensen

What are you calling attention to?

“The ecstatic widening of association leads to revelation of more content.” ~ Anya Achtenberg

“Look for verbs of muscle, adjective of exactitude.” ~ Mary Oliver

The secret to life, and writing: Show Up. Pay Attention. Tell the truth (without judgement or blame). Let go of the outcome.

For the Love of Crows by Becky Klein McCreary

They puncture the clear, September sky
like fat black commas in the story of a season
They feast on plump ears of yellow corn, cradled
on dry, brown stalks in a farmer’s field.
The social club of ebony birds
converge on a scrap of paper
littering the alley, appearing to discuss it
rather than covet the new find.
From the Colorado Spruce, they watch
The green-eyed house cat lying
Along the green porch rail,
teasing them into shrill laughter.
Crow, I want to follow you to your nest
where male and female take turns
season after season, incubating a half dozen eggs.
And if I split your tongue
Would you really learn to mimic my words?
Oh! With you, I want to fly
into a clear September sky.

PROMINENT CITIZEN ASSAULTED EMPLOYEE (the sequel)

Part two of Alan Wade's account of a little known Port Arthur/Loon Lake incident.

As we saw in the previous post (see below), Col. Little, a prominent local businessman, attacked his 69-year-old gardener, John Neilson, on September 25, 1921 at Loon Lake during a dispute over wages. After the confrontation, Neilson went to lawyer Byers' place. Byers took him to the place of Dr. Spence, who administered first aid. Neilson then took the train to Fort William and went to McKellar Hospital, where he stayed until June 5 the following year and underwent three operations.

At 2:20 p.m. on Friday, November 3, 1922, the jury came out with its verdict in the civil court case which resulted from this incident.

Frank Keefer, the Colonel's lawyer had argued that Neilson was falsely claiming that a previous medical condition had been caused by the confrontation and that he was exaggerating the extent of his injuries with the active encouragement of others, in particular his lawyer, Byers. Keefer: "We have proposed to show that the medical attention given had nothing to do with the case. I propose to show that he didn't have to go to the hospital; to show that it is the worst trumped up thing you ever heard of."

Keefer had the following exchange with Dr. Gillespie: "He was kept around the hospital for kindly motives?/ He had no place to go. Did the doctors have anything to do with keeping him there?/ They asked us and we said we couldn't turn him in the street."

With Dr. Cook: "You found this obstruction and you knew that was the accumulation of a long while?/ Probably yes."

He elicited this testimony from Dr. Crozier, a friend of the Colonel's: "I examined him thoroughly and found his right ear and cheek swollen, the apparent effect of a blow. He had no other marks. He was complaining of his bladder. I asked him if he ever had that trouble before. He told me he had it frequently. He said he had it with every cold. I thought, like Col. Little, there was an unscrupulous lawyer trying to make something out of it."

Little continued this theme when questioned by Byers: "I began to think there was a conspiracy going on and sent Dr. Crozier over. There were still further rumours among them that Neilson was dead. I thought you were doing a little ambulance chasing."

Byers' strategy was to emphasize the seriousness of Neilson's injury. He elicited this testimony from Neilson: "My head is not so sound; headache, aches over my eyes. I'm dizzy. I'm nervous, get easily excited; after all that pain in the hospital. I don't hear so good with my right ear. I don't see so good. My memory is not so good. I can't grasp anything so quick. I have an ache in the small of my back. My arms are weak and shaking. My hands, I can't close them together. I can't hold my coat to put it on. I have pain in my knees nights and days. I can't bend my knees. The calves are aching. I can't lift anything to speak of."

Dr. Cook testified that Neilson's right eye was swollen, his right cheek discoloured and his abdomen distended. On October 3 he operated because of an injury to his bowels from mauling or bruising.

Byers' arguments convinced the jury. It awarded Neilson $2,490- $250 for doctors, $250 for hospital, $1100 for loss of earning power, $500 for indignity, and $390 for suffering.

(My thanks to Dave Nicholson, local genealogist, for giving me the tip for and source references to this story.)

PROMINENT CITIZEN ASSAULTED EMPLOYEE by Alan Wade

Local historian, Alan Wade, researches true tales of old Thunder Bay. This is one of his best.

On September 25, 1921 at his summer camp at Loon Lake, Col. Little attacked his 69-year-old gardener, Jan Neilson.

In Neilson's words: "First thing I knew I was getting beaten up. I was lying down and getting beaten. I thought if he keeps on he'll kill me."

Not only was the Colonel the commanding officer of the 96th Lake Superior Regiment from 1909-1921, he was also a very influential businessman. J. P. Mooney called him "the hero of a hundred payrolls." He had interests in railway tie and lumber production, exclusive fishing rights on Lake Nipigon, and owned the Thunder Bay Harbor Improvement Company and the Empire Hotel which he bought "dirt cheap" when Prohibition came to Ontario in 1916.

As well, Little had powerful political connections. He was "in tight" with J. J. Carrick, former Port Arthur mayor and Conservative M.P. and M.P.P and "go-getting" real estate promoter. Little was also very close to Donald Hogarth, local mining magnate (with interests in Steep Rock and several other mines) who took over Carrick's position after he left for federal politics. J. P. Bertrand in his book Timberwolves tells us Little was a member of the "Old Tory Timber Ring," which controlled all pulp leases and appointments to the Department of Lands and Forests in the province.

In March 1913 the Colonel purchased Hillcrest, a house which still stands at the southwest corner of High Street and Red River Road, from John Meikle, who had a fancy goods (i.e. department) store at the corner of Park and Cumberland St. (unoccupied today).

Neilson was a Danish immigrant who had lived in the U.S. for 36 years and for the past eighteen months in Canada. At the Bank of Montreal a clerk had referred him to the Colonel and the two had taken the train to Loon Lake on Sunday, May 18. They did not establish a rate of pay. Neilson: "He asked me how much I wanted and I told him we'd better wait and see what I could do." They never did reach an agreement on this matter. Later Neilson said he wanted $100 per month but the Colonel insisted he would only pay half that amount. Neilson: "When I found out he could pay only fifty dollars a month I got kind of hot and said he'd better pay me in full. I went back but only worked half a day." He then went to work for Dr. Spence but refused to give up the key to Little's cottage where had been boarding.

On Sept. 25 Neilson and Little came face to face.
Little: I said Neilson, where are the keys.

He said, “They're right here and I'm not going to give them to you.”

I said, “Neilson, do you mean to tell me on my own property you won't give me my keys?” I told him if he didn't he'd get into trouble mighty quick. I struck him with the back of my open hand. That unbalanced him. He got up and handed me the keys."
The Colonel insisted he never kicked him or struck him when he was down.

Neilson had a different version of these events. "I saw Col. Little, all red in the face and looking drunk. First thing I knew I was lying on my belly; his knees on my back and he was pounding my head. I thought if I don't give him the keys he will kill me. I got the keys out and he took them and left me."

(to be continued)

More Snippers From the Writers’ Conference

Heather Summerhazes Cariou recommended The International Women Writers’ Guild at http://www.iwwg.com/. She said the organization gave her help and inspiration when she was writing her book Sixty Five Roses: A Sisters Memoir. She urged everyone who could to attend their June conference at Skidmore College in upstate New York.

Alistair MacLeod recommended these books for writers. The Passion for Narrative by Jaock Hodgins and Introduction to Prose, as well as Introduction to Poetry both by X. T. Kennedy.

It is difficult to take notes while Alistair MacLeod is speaking. He has the amazing ability to set your mind spinning out all sorts of ideas for your own writing. A friend told me, “I love listening to Alistair MacLeod. He could talk to me about lint and I'd still love it.”
Here are a few snippets from his presentation.

Ask yourself, What is the story about. What are you trying to say? Ask yourself again in the middle.

The reader is influenced by images. The pictures you show create the attitude.

A good way to start a scene is to make a list of six images or details or or items from the scene.

Point of View. He suggests writers use the first person.

Every story must have conflict. Emotion rules. A strong feeling rules. Remembrances are full of emotion, full of import. They are strong enough so that you remember them. They can be the basis of a story.

Characters. Few in a short story. If you gave a character a name you have to be responsible for them. You must give information about them such as age, clothes etc.

This comment was amplified by Steven Heighton in his workshop of Flash Characterization

Heighton said Tolstoy was the master of flash characterization. He could describe a minor character in a few lines, a few details.

Heighton believes interest is increased if the details are contradictory.

What is important to bring a character to life? He noted
1. Voice of the character,
--the speech pattern,
--the sound of the voice
2. Physical presence –
--walk,
--stance,
--quirks,
--clothes,
--gestures, even small ones
--hair
3. Behaviour especially concerned with longings or desire.
4. Dialogue if applicable. It helps the story come alive.

All sorrows can be borne if you put them in a story. Isak Dinesen