Sinclair Ross

Image from Regina Leader-Post

James Sinclair Ross was born on a homestead in Saskatchewan in 1908. A master of the short story, he was of the first generation of truly Canadian writers. He was also an accomplished musician who played piano and organ in church.

He portrayed life on isolated prairie farms, and he plumbed this setting and atmosphere like no other Canadian writer. In 1933, his short story "No Other Way" won a British Literary competition and was published in Nash's Pall Mall. In 1935, he published "A Field of Wheat." Queens Quarterly continued to publish his stories for the next few years. Such stories as "The Lamp at Noon" and "The Painted Door" have been translated and anthologized widely.

In 1941 Reyal and Hitchcock published the first novel by Sinclair Ross in New York. Although that first edition of As for me and my house did not garner positive reviews, the book became a classic after it was republished by McClelland and Stewart in 1957.

The publisher re-issued in 1989 and 2008 as a New Canadian Library edition. Ross's tale of a failed minister and his despairing wife is set in a small prairie town during the Dirty Thirties has become a standard Canadian Studies text both here and abroad. His work has influenced that of other Canadian writers including Margaret Laurence.

Sinclair Ross had only a Grade 11 education and earned his living working for the Royal Bank. During World War II he served with the Canadian Army in London. Later he lived in Winnipeg and Montreal.

After retiring from the bank in 1968, he lived for some time in Greece and Spain. He came to Vancouver in 1982 and died here in 1996.

Elizabeth Hay

Image from canada.com

The first time I saw Elizabeth Hay was at the Sunshine Coast Festival of the Written Arts in Sechelt a few years back. This festival, which has just celebrated its thirtieth anniversary, is a great place to get up close and personal with writers who read there.

On a sunny morning, as Hay was signing books and chatting to readers, I overheard her mention a bakery in Toronto where she liked to buy fresh bread in the morning. This made her so accessible, especially as the woman whose book she was signing also knew and liked the bakery.

At the time, I was waiting to have the author sign Garbo Laughs, a title I found irresistible. I later read it while on vacation in Mexico and it made a strong impression. This book was nominated for the Governor-General's Award and recognized in the honours lists of the Globe and Mail, Macleans and Quill and Quire.

A Student of Weather (2000) was another of Hay's talked-about books. It was nominated for the Giller and won the Marion Engel Award.

Late Nights on Air, a novel about radio, is set in Yellowknife, in the Canadian North. Published by McClelland and Stewart, it won the Giller Prize in 2007, and was reviewed in glowing terms in Walrus and is featured in her author profile in Quill and Quire. Podcasts of the story from CBC Between the Covers can be accessed on the website.

Hay's latest novel, Alone in the Classroom (2011), takes place in 1929 in a small rural school. According to the author's website, it shows the "urgency of discovering what we were never told about the past."

Elizabeth Hay has also written for magazines and worked in radio.

Michael Ondaatje

Photo: Writing Bar

His most recent novel, The Cat's Table, has been getting a lot of attention. It was reviewed by The New Yorker in May, The Guardian and The Independent in August and The Telegraph in September. Three days ago, Nick Owchar gave author and book a positive review in the LA Times as it moved to Number 1 spot on the New York Times bestseller list.

Michael Ondaatje was born in Colombo and lived in England before coming to Canada. He was educated in Toronto and Kingston and began publishing poetry in the seventies, winning his first of several Governor General's Award for the collection There's a Trick with a Knife I'm Learning to Do in 1971. In 1982 he published a memoir, Running in the Family, after a trip back to Sri Lanka (still called Ceylon when he left.)

The English Patient (1992) was a lyrical novel that garnered huge attention and won the Man Booker Prize. In 1996, it was made into a blockbuster movie directed by Anthony Minghella and starring Juliette Binoche, Kristin Scott Thomas and Ralph Fiennes.

An earlier novel, In the Skin of a Lion (1987) is an exciting portrayal of Canada in the 1920s and 1930s. It won three Canadian literary awards, and on a personal note, I used it with several classes. The paper back version has the distinction of being one of the only novels I thumbed through so much that I literally wore it out. Even though I got a new one, I couldn't bring myself to throw away the original, which is still on the shelf in my office, held together by an elastic band.

The author has also published two other novels called Anil's Ghost (2000) and Divisadero (2007) and a variety of other work. According to the British Council Literature website, Ondaatje is "one of Canada's most important contemporary writers and one of the country's biggest cultural exports."

Ondaatje is an Officer of the Order of Canada and a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

500 days of blogging dangerously

I started blogging on a dare. I wasn't sure how long I'd continue, or where blogging would take me. When I started blogging in November of 2009, it felt edgy to put my thoughts out there for all to see. What made it better was knowing I could always go back and edit.

At first I didn't commit to daily posts, but just waited till an idea flowed into my head, scribbled a note about it, and then posted as soon as I got to my computer.

My early efforts tended to be paper-oriented. Then I started to thrash out my ideas in Word documents and import them. Neither method worked very well either. Finally, I embraced the medium and began to compose in the blog space, rough drafts first which I could improve any time, either before or upon posting.

Editing a blog post proved to be quite different from editing print. Posts needed to be short, to have a visually appealing shape and more white space. Editing them, I enjoyed rephrasing to get rid of "orphans," words that were alone on a line. Illustrations helped too.

At some point, I began to wake up with ideas for posts, often on a Sunday, after a nice sleep-in. I'd go straight to the computer to enter them before forgetting.

When I noticed how one post idea frequently suggested others, I began to sketch in and schedule these ideas to be published later. In this way, daily editing became an integral part of the practice.

Sometimes my posts were related to places I'd been, or trips I'd taken, so I started to import my own pictures to illustrate my words. From writing for Suite 101, I'd learned how to add links, so when I didn't have the pictures I wanted, I found illustrations online, acknowledged their sources and linked to them. I linked to related sites as well.

The more I did that, I noticed, the more visitors I was getting. The idea that people were actually reading my words encouraged me to keep working to improve, and I began to do more research to add interesting tidbits of information to my posts.

Since beginning to track numbers in 2010, I've had hits from all continents (except Antarctica), countries large and small and about 1600 cities. I'll probably hit 20,000 page views by late November.

Of course, most visitors who read more than one page, and most repeat visitors are from English-speaking countries.

It's been an interesting journey. My current passion is a series of CanLit posts that start here. Back tomorrow with Michael Ondaatje.

Alistair MacLeod

Photo: historic cannon balls at the Plains of Abraham, Quebec City

Alistair MacLeod was born in Saskatchewan in 1936, grew up on Cape Breton Island, and was educated in New Brunswick and Indiana. He taught for a time at Indiana University before moving to the University of Windsor in Ontario, where he is now Professor Emeritus.

MacLeod's prose sings. A certain passage read years ago still sounds in my head, words that carried me to the quaking edge of life's mystery.

When the narrator of "The Boat" hears his father, a simple fisherman, sing for the tourists, he feels "ashamed yet proud, young yet old and saved yet forever lost." His legs tremble and his eyes weep, "for what they could not tell," and I remember my own father, dead nearly thirty years, and feel the same confused flooding of emotion.

No Great Mischief came out in 2001, an appropriate date, as this novel touched upon important aspects of twentieth century history including French-English tensions, as well as US involvement in the Vietnam War and the draft dodgers that came to Canada as a result. The novel also deals with ethnic isolationism among small cultural groups, symbolized by the community of Cape Breton miners he so poignantly portrays. The novel won the Impac Dublin Award in 2001. The story was later produced as a play.

The phrase itself comes from a letter written by General Wolfe, and refers to the Scottish fighters he intends to send first up the cliffs to the Plains of Abraham, saying that since he does not trust them anyway, "no great mischief if they fall."

Though MacLeod has not been a prolific writer, his work is polished, translucent and true, a precious gem of Canada's literary treasure.

Wearing another hat at SIWC

Yesterday I was sitting in the glass corridor by the Guildford Ballroom, at the the SFU Writers' Studio table.

Last night we, the class of 2011, launched the latest TWS Anthology, Emerge 2011, at the beautifully designed Woodward's campus, the Goldcorp Centre for the Arts at 149 West Hastings.

Note: this is just the official address. The main entrance is from Cordova Street, by The Charles bar.

That launch and reading was a great celebration: the culmination of a year of writing, learning and fellowship with other members of a lively and creative community.

Today I'm sitting with an editing colleague in another part of the hotel lobby. We're watching a parade sweating writers crawl by to make their pitches at the Surrey conference's famous Blue Pencil appointments. No, I exaggerate. But on the whole, writers are notoriously introverted.

I'm here as a member of the Editors' Association of Canada. Writers need us and we need them. Wait," What am I saying, "them?" I mean us. I'm a writer, with a strong editing gene.

I love writing, and I love editing too. Guess I'll be wearing both hats for awhile.

Back to CanLit posts tomorrow, with Alistair MacLeod.

Surrey Writer's Conference from the sidelines

After years of being a regular attendee at the Surrey International Writers' Conference, I've moved to the sidelines. This year I'm proud and happy to be seated at the TWS table, getting the word out about the new Southbank Writers' Program in Surrey.

I’m sitting with Katherine McManus, the Program Director of SFU's Writing and Publishing. We're at the Writer’s Studio information table at the Sheraton Guildford, where SIWC has been held since 1994.

We’re listening to people who were here yesterday, talking about the tight security measures: George Bush and Bill Clinton were here, and spoke together. Somebody remarks, "I heard it cost $600 a plate. What could they have said that was worth that?"

It’s getting on for lunchtime. Diana Gabaldon wanders by, dressed in her trademark cerulean blue, with a bright shawl. I know she’s working on graphic novels now. But has she written another book in the Outlander series? I must find out.

Katherine has to speak at the luncheon, so she has to go into the banquet room across the hall. She's going to tell the writers about Southbank. There’s a brief lull and I watch the Happy Feet lady across the way. Her client lies in a recliner, cosy in a faux leopard blanket, while Lydia does Reflexology massage on her feet.

Anne Perry is browsing along the booksellers’ tables. Does she have a new one out? I am telling three young people about Southbank and encouraging them to enter the SIWC Teen Writers Contest. While the kids look at brochures, I glance up to give Anne a wave and a smile.

She smiles back. One of the faithful writers who returns here each year, she's an excellent speaker as well as being a great mystery writer. Last year I gave her a Saje aromatherapy fragrance, because when I met her briefly the year before, she noticed the scent and remarked on it.

I figured it was the least I could do for someone who’s brought me so much reading pleasure. Sure enough, she has a new book out: Acceptable Loss (Random House 2011). It's another in the William Monk series. Maybe if I get a chance, I'll ask her to sign it.