Categories
Interview

Theresa Kishkan – Red Laredo Boots and Phantom Limb – Interview

LP: You’ve had two books of essays published Red Laredo Boots ( New Star Books ) and Phantom Limb ( Thistledown Press ). What is it about the essay form that interests you as a writer?

tk: I have a curious and undisciplined mind. I’m interested in the details of a place, a time, the layers that make up a particular history – geological, regional, human, natural; and how they fit together. I’m interested in long meditative lines that I somehow couldn’t make work in poetry, lines that take their inspiration from roads, the shape of hills against a wide sky, how a formation of sandhill cranes scribbles its name over Nicola Lake on a late September day. And the essay form is generous and flexible, capacious enough to hold everything that comes to mind, to heart.

LP: How do you these pieces start, do you keep detailed journals/notes?

tk:  Something will agitate for my attention – a fragment of song, a building, a phrase, a moment in which I sense a particular potency.  And then I follow this to wherever it might lead. Often I’m not sure exactly what it is I’m looking for but I know when I’ve found it.  A name might speak from a page, a plant will appear with the most evocative family tree, or a photograph will show me a place, or a family, or a moment in history, and then I’ll get out my maps, my field-guides, and try to put something together to give a shape to what has until then been a series of notations, maybe, that I hope will accumulate until I have the critical mass that acts as a first draft. I used to keep journals but don’t any longer. I always have a notebook, though, and use it to make little cryptic notes that I have trouble deciphering afterwards.

LP: Many of the essays have history and historical events woven into them. Do you have to do much research for those pieces or that information?

tk: I am devoted to research, though as I confessed in my answer to your first question, I am not very disciplined. I think I begin with the best of intentions and am sidetracked by interesting details, like a magpie taking bright objects back to its nest. I do build my work from an accurate or actual ground, though, and think of this as a kind of anchor, or ballast. And we find ourselves in history, don’t we? We see aspects of ourselves as the past shifts slightly to accommodate our presence there. Reading letters in an archival collection, we suddenly hear our story. Or looking intently at old photographs, we see a familiar cheekbone, the ghost of a smile.

LP: While the writing in both books covers everything from travel to personal reflection ultimately they form a personal history of your family. We see your children grow etc.  Any thoughts on that?

tk:  Years ago I read something by Annie Dillard that has served almost as a raison d’être for me.  Writing about her journals and notebooks, she said that when looking at them, she has the sense that time has not simply passed but rather it has accumulated. I think of my essays in the same way. Although they can’t be read exactly as a precise record of our lives here on the Sechelt Peninsula, they contain much of what has been significant – the shifting seasons, the passages, our pleasures, and some of the sorrows too. The other day John and I were walking over by Ruby Creek and we saw the dark forms of fish in the water. These are one of only two known fall-spawning populations of cutthroat trout on the Coast. One year our older son conducted a census of the spawning trout as a science fair project – he was 12 that year – and every day for about a month we’d go over to the creek after school and count fish. So of course the shadow of that boy was present at the creek the other day, the shadows of those earlier days, when we were accompanied by a dog now long dead. And that boy is now about to defend his PhD dissertation in Canadian History so how time does accumulate!

LP: The details of the natural world really jump out in the work. Do you feel particularly close to the environment/landscape?

tk: I’m enraptured by the natural world, constantly in thrall to what I find there. It’s important to me to be able to “read” the landscape, its intricate narratives. And those change, as anything changes; new versions or idioms emerge just as older ones surface too. I’ve become fascinated by the fossils of the Tranquille Shale, between Kamloops and Cache Creek, and the amazing stories that are told in those layers. Tiny pre-salmon, sequoias, maple samara: the quotidian details of a lake bed 51 million years old!

LP: A few of the essays, especially those dealing with death, The Road to Bella Coola and Phantom Limb, are intensely personal. They must have been difficult to write and possibly even more difficult for you to re-read.

tk: Language and form allow us to shape our grief and lend a formality to what might otherwise be wild and chaotic. “The Road To Bella Coola” has as its epigraph a line from a poem by Stanley Kunitz: “How shall the heart be reconciled to its feast of losses?” That’s the central paradox, isn’t it? That we are nourished in some deep way by the rituals and ceremonies associated with death. It’s the way human beings can attend their dead with respect and dignity.

LP: You also write about the loss of things, Erasing The Maps (places) and Autumn Coho In Haskins Creek (salmon) are two that come to mind. Do you think writing is a way to make sure those things don’t disappear completely?

tk:  Writing is an act of commemoration. Think of what we know because someone has written it down! So I try to pay an attention to what matters to me and to explore it, adore it, praise it. And sometimes that attention takes the form of elegy, I suppose, or threnody. It conspires to remember. Memory itself is such a complicated entity. I’ve been reading Cicero with reference to his Method of Loci and am intrigued by his system for the ordering of memory. In some ways I think of my work in this way — the attachment of a particular body of imagery to a specific locus as a way of remembering.

LP:  Are the essays something you work on all the time or do you write a series all at once?

tk: I’ve always written essays along with other things. While working on a novel, I might find myself wanting to explore something that I’ve come across in research or on a trip or as a result of reading or some unresolved personal issue. It’s a wonderful luxury to break away from an extended work, a novel, to write an essay.  (I’m reminded of the pleasure of taking an unexpected side-road while travelling!) I usually have several in various stages of completion and some of them never really find their true shape, remaining as drafts for years. Working with an editor tends to help me identify particular thematic connections and so I’ll shape a manuscript by concentrating on a specific group of pieces, leaving others out. I’m currently at work on a book-length series of connected essays. Right now each one is discrete, devoted to a particular set of materials. When I’ve finished the whole series, I may in fact decide to create a kind of connective tissue to draw them together into a single body. I’m not sure yet and don’t want to second guess not only myself but the material I’m immersed in by predicting the final form this work will take.

LP: You’ve had several books of poetry (six) and two novels published. Can we look forward to a new book in either of those genres soon?

tk: I’ve recently completed a novel, The Age of Water Lilies, which I hope will be published next year. It’s set partly in the community of Walhachin on the Thompson River just before the Great War and partly in Victoria in the years just after. And I’m at work on a memoir called Mnemonic: A Book of Trees. I’d love to write poetry again but haven’t been able to find that voice, that concentrated sense of language, for some years.

LP: You operate High Ground Press with your husband, the poet John Pass. Can you tell us about that endeavor?

tk: John and I bought a late 19th c. Chandler and Price platen press in 1980 and we use it to print mostly poetry broadsides. This is letterpress printing in which we hand-set the work and then print in very limited editions. We’re presently working our third series of broadsheets; this one we call the Companions Series. We’ve asked a number of Canadian poets to respond to another poem – preferably one for which we don’t need to get permission to reprint – and we print the two poems on a single sheet. So far we’ve printed work by Bill New (responding to John Clare), Maleea Acker and Wallace Stevens, Sue Wheeler and Don McKay, Joe Denham and John Thompson, a version I did of a recently discovered poem by Sappho,  George McWhirter and John Donne, Russell Thornton’s bow to Juan Ramon Jimenez, and John is just setting Chris Patton’s response to a passage of Ezra Pound. Several more are planned for this series. We’ve also printed a couple of chapbooks over the years as well as ephemera – Christmas cards, keepsakes for the Alcuin Society Wayzgoose, etc. To be honest, John does most of the work because when we began to learn to print, we had a baby, quickly followed by two more, so he was able to go out to the print shop – it’s a building of its own, away from the house – more than I could. But we plan the projects together and design them together and I think we both see the work as a congenial adjunct to our writing lives.

LP:  Did you ever buy yourself a pair of red Laredo boots?

tk: I did. A few months after I’d written the title essay for Red Laredo Boots, I sold a different essay to the Vancouver Sun. The payment was exactly the price of those boots. So the next time I was in the Nicola Valley, I went to the Quilchena Store and bought them. I still love them. There was never any discussion of an author shot for that book. The boots went to Vancouver for their own photo shoot, packed in their box with a coyote yipping at the moon,  and came home with soft blue flannel from someone’s old  shirt (maybe even Gary Fiegehen’s as he was their photographer) tucked into them to give them the demure shape they have on the back cover of the book.

Categories
British Columbia Canadian Interview Writer

Tim Bowling – Interview

LP: Your childhood, salmon fishing and a certain part of the lower mainland where you grew up play an integral role in most of your writing. Can you fill us in on that background?

TB: Re; my background: I was born in Vancouver and immediately taken under the Fraser (via the Deas Tunnel) to Ladner – a salmon-like little journey appropriate for someone who’d grow up to be so involved with that magical species. I had an idyllic childhood at the mouth of North America’s wildest river, a Huck Finn childhood of raftings and roamings, except, unlike Huck, I had loving and supportive parents! What can I say? I was very fortunate; children weren’t then supervised every second of the day, my family worked in the salmon fishery, and so I spent a lot of time on my own in the
outdoors. Everything I write comes out of the sense of awe I drank in daily
as a boy.

LP: When you finished high school you went away to university, got your degree, and then came back to the fishing industry for a fair number of years. Where and when did the urge to write begin?

TB: Re: the urge to write: It was always there. In grade one, I remember answering that infamous question “What do you want to be when you grow up?” with “A writer.” Why? Who knows?

LP: Did you leave fishing simply because it was a dying industry or did the writing take over as your primary focus?

TB: As much as I appreciated the work of salmon fishing, I was never entirely at ease in the culture. In fact, I was only an appendage to it, as my older brother, Rick, rented the boats and made the decisions. I got my hands wet and bloody, right enough, but the stresses were mostly his. All through the 80s, I was focussed on the apprentice work of the poet and novelist (ie, reading a lot and writing a lot, most of the latter material being bad, of course)

LP: You now live in Edmonton. How did you end up there?

TB: Long story. To be brief, I moved to be with the woman who is now my wife. Funny thing is, I have very deep roots in Edmonton – my great-grandparents moved here from Ontario in 1905 and my father was born here in 1923. I’m only now beginning to explore these roots in my work.

LP: Is it a challenge to maintain your ties, creatively, to the west coast while living on the prairies?

TB: No challenge at all. But perhaps that’s because I visit the coast at least twice a year (for several weeks at a time) to see my family. In any case, Edmonton, like my hometown, has a river running through it. That helps.

LP: You have written poems and a novel set in Alberta but, if anything your Alberta focus seems more on the Badlands area rather than Edmonton. Why, what appeals about an area that is so different from your west coast home?

TB: The badlands reminded me very much of the west coast circa 1970 because of all the darkness and silence (the title of my poetry collection that contains several badlands poems). I’d sit on the porch at night in the Red Deer River Valley and feel that I was standing on the deck of a Fraser River gillnetter – the same sense of mystery and awe, the same exhilarating closeness to the source of things. But I should point out that Edmonton is becoming more of a focus. I’m currently writing a full-length collection of prose and poetry that investigates my family’s pioneering role as Edmonton
beekeepers.

LP: Even when you do write about Edmonton, and I’m thinking here of the poem A Cup Of Coffee In Solitude which starts with the line –January in Edmonton – later you write -A car passes on the muffled road, spawning salmon slow. Do you think that earlier life will always infuse your work?

TB: Yes. as Flannery O’Connor said, “Who ever’s been through childhood has enough material for several lifetimes.”

LP: Your last book, the memoir The Lost Coast talks about growing up in Ladner on the Fraser River, your family and fishing. Your two novels Downriver Drift and The Paperboy’s Winter are set in that area and deal with the land/riverscape, families and fishing. Most novelists do mine their own lives but are careful to point out that the stories are fiction, only loosely based on real life. You sort of undermine that in the memoir by telling the real life stories that parts of the novels are based on. Any thoughts on that?

TB: Hmm, I wasn’t aware that most writers are careful to make the point re: fiction vs autobiography. It’s an odd thing to worry about. Good writing is good writing. Besides, as anyone who’s ever written a memoir will tell you, memory plays a lot of tricks with reality. Even when I’m writing straight out of my own life, I’m fictionalizing much of the time. The key point, of course, is that the writer must transmute lived experience into meaningful art.

LP. In the acknowledgments for your novel Downriver Drift one of the people you thank is writer Jack Hodgins. Hodgins is noted for the depiction of Vancouver Island life, or at least a certain Vancouver Island life, in his novels. Did you ever talk about the details and the sense of place in writing?

TB: Jack Hodgins actually edited Downriver Drift. And what a gift that was for a beginning novelist! Jack is a superb editor, sensitive to every little nuance of prose style and critical in the most encouraging way. I don’t recall that we talked much about the sense of place, likely because it’s not something either of us would really consider – we just write out
of the worlds we came from, without doubt, without apology. Most of our editing discussions were more technical.

LP: You have two new books of poetry out this fall. Nightwood Editions is publishing The Book Collector and Other Poems. What can you tell us about this book?

TB: Many of the poems in The Book Collector were written when I lived in Gibsons from 2004-2006, so there’s a Sunshine Coast flavour to many of the poems. Briefly, the book contains nearly 40 poems touching on a wide range of subjects, from books and art to soccer and salmon. I hope the metaphors are memorable; I put a lot of faith in them.

LP; Your other book of poetry coming out is from Gaspereau Press, the magnificently titled Refrain For Rental Boat #4. It is a 12 page , limited edition book priced at $160. Gaspereau is noted for their beautiful regular editions so I’m assuming this will be something quite special. What’s the story behind this book?

TB: Refrain for Rental Boat #4 was removed from my 2006 book, FATHOM, because the editor and I didn’t think that it fit tonally with the other poems. Then I read the poem after publication, at one of Gaspereau’s annual parties in Kentville, NS, and Andrew Steeves, who liked it a lot, wondered why it hadn’t been included in FATHOM. After I told him, he said he’d like to do the poem as a limited edition. There’s only been four copies finished to this point, three of which I have. 45 copies will be made in total, and I believe the cost is $100.

LP: Earlier this year you were one of the winners of the Guggenheim Prize, the only Canadian winner. It’s certainly an honour to win and the prize money attached would be welcome too. This was your first attempt at the Guggenheim, did you have any expectations of being chosen for the award?

TB: No serious expectations, but I never apply for things if I don’t think I have a chance. And the Guggenheim is an award whose criteria seemed a good fit for me, in that the Foundation wants to fund those with a solid publishing record who seem likely to continue publishing.

LP: You are a prolific writer, have published books of poetry, novels, a memoir and edited a book of interviews with poets. You won a number of awards for that writing as well and yet you seem to fly under the radar as far as the press goes. It’s difficult to find interviews with you or even articles about you. It was surprising that even for the Guggenheim, it appears only the National Post did a stand alone interview with you. Is that a deliberate strategy on your part? Do you avoid media coverage? If not why do you think you get overlooked.

TB: I don’t exactly avoid the media, but I certainly don’t seek them out either. Newspapers, TV, magazines (even, gasp, websites) rarely pay for a writer’s time, and, given my busy domestic and writing schedule, I can’t afford to work for nothing. Usually, though, I’ll do interviews when I have a new book out. All things considered, I’m a pretty amenable type.

LP: In The Lost Coast you make the point that you don’t live in the past, that you type on a computer, communicate with your editors over the internet but a certain yearning for the past and maybe even some anger at losing that past seems to be part of your writing. Do you think so?

TB: Absolutely. But I’m not stupid about the past either. Of course there’s no Golden Age. On the other hand, there’s almost no fishing industry anymore, the growth of the farmed fish business moves along in happy tandem with the growth of neo-conservative conformity, and every year moves me closer towards death – yearning and anger seem reasonable enough.

LP. What’s your next project?

TB: I’ve just finished a new non-fiction ms. which is entirely different from THE LOST COAST. In fact, the whole story takes place in Edmonton, mostly in a library, and deals with my interest in a little-known American poet named Weldon Kees who jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge in 1955. I’m also doing preliminary research for a new novel set on the Fraser River and in the American South in the mid and late nineteenth century.

LP: When you were working as a fisherman, you were also writing poetry, correct? Was your writing something that ever came up with other fishermen and if so, what was the reaction?

TB: No, my writing never came up, mostly because I never brought it up. But then, I wouldn’t want to talk about poetry with most graduate students in English Literature either! In fact, my salmon fishing poems, all my poems set on the Fraser, have gone over very well with Ladner folks.

LP: In our memoir you indicate your dissatisfaction with the school system so I’m assuming your kids are home schooled? How does that affect your writing, what special allowances do you have to make to your writing schedule?

TB: Yes, my kids are home schooled. Not only do I think school is one of the great brainwashers into North American culture and capitalism (a culture not entirely repellent, of course, but one that could be resisted a bit more seriously), I just don’t want not to see my children for six hours a day, five days a week. I mean, I really enjoy them. I’m selfish that way. On average, I suppose I write two hours a day and parent the rest. This is a tricky schedule when I get deep into a book, but hell, children are more important than books.

Categories
Canadian Interview

Interview: Ken McGoogan – Race To The Polar Sea

LP: You have a new book coming out any day now called Race to the Polar Sea: The Heroic Adventures and Romantic Obsessions of Elisha Kent Kane. What can you tell us about this book?

KM: Race to the Polar Sea tells the story of Elisha Kent Kane, a nineteenth-century explorer who sailed north in search of an Open Polar Sea, hoping to rescue survivors from the lost expedition of Sir John Franklin. After surviving two horrific winters in the Arctic, discovering the so-called American Route to the North Pole, and forging a unique alliance with the Inuit, Kane led his men in the most dramatic escape in northern exploration history, man-hauling sledges and sailing hundreds of kilometres in small open boats. Kane was the most literate and artistic of all northern explorers, and he left a vivid portrait of the Arctic that speaks to the contemporary debate about global warming. Once celebrated, Kane has been largely forgotten. In my book, I trace this to his relationship with Maggie Fox – a “spirit rapper” from Ontario whose tragic death has been wrongly blamed on Kane. Race to the Polar Sea also draws on a long-lost journal I found in the possession of a Calgary antiquarian. There’s more at www.kenmcgoogan.com.

LP: This will be your fourth book dealing with early Arctic exploration. These books have been extremely popular. What’s next, do you have plans for more books looking at the same eras? Do you have any plans for a contemporary Arctic book?

KM: Race to the Polar Sea is the fourth and final stand-alone volume in what I consider an Arctic Discovery Quartet. These works augment and resonate with each other, and can be read in any order. I see the four as speaking to contemporary concerns, and for the moment, at least, they represent all I have to say about the Arctic.

LP: What aspect of the Arctic region appeals to you personally?

KM: I seem to be obsessed with exploration history: so many dangerous voyages and disastrous expeditions, so many complex and revealing encounters with native peoples, so many heroic figures and damn-fool idiots, so much hubris, so much cheating and lying, so many mistakes, so many tragic deaths. Arctic exploration is Canada’s answer to the American Civil War: we can’t get enough of it. Certainly, I can’t.

LP: With the Arctic seeming to suddenly emerge as an important environmental and news story do you find yourself in demand now as an Arctic expert?

KM: I have experienced an increase in requests, yes. Some people say I’ve never seen a microphone I don’t love.

LP: You’ve been visiting the Arctic on a fairly regular basis over the past decade, what changes are you noticing?

KM: Because I have spent ten years immersed in the history of Arctic exploration, I carry in my head a vivid picture of the Arctic of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. As a result, when I look around today, I see the changes that have happened since then – both among the Inuit, but also in the landscape. Last year, while sailing in the Northwest Passage, where once Elisha Kane struggled through upraised tables of ice fourteen feet thick, I looked out and saw nothing but open water. That contrast shocked me. Obviously, it speaks to global warming.

LP: What do you see transpiring in the Arctic over the next couple of decades?

KM: More melting of the ice cap, less sea ice, worsening conditions for polar bears, more ships arriving from around the world, more chest-thumping from polar nations, more disputes about who controls the Northwest Passage, more searches for Franklin, more argument and contention, more ships carrying diamonds, more tankers carrying oil, and maybe an environmental disaster or two.

LP: Other books you have written have used Jack Kerouac and the Beats as a subject, any plans to return to that theme?

KM: Jack Kerouac was the first explorer I went chasing. Not long ago, I published a final revision of my first novel, called Visions of Kerouac: Satori Magic Edition. It’s available online and at www.WillowAvenueBooks.com. I had fun with it, and like to think it stands up.

LP: You spent many years as a working journalist and books editor. Do you miss that world at all?

KM: These days, while I put most of my energy into books, I do write some journalism – articles for The Beaver and The Globe and Mail, a books column for Active magazine. Of course, that’s different from daily newspapering. I don’t miss the stress or the office politics, but for sure I interacting with so many interesting people. Also the soapbox and the regular pay cheque – they were big positives.

LP: You grew up in Quebec, spent many years in Calgary and now live in Toronto. As a writer what are the differences?

KM: For someone who writes in English, no matter how well you speak French, living in Montreal means dealing with the French-English dichotomy, one way or another. You can’t get away from it. A writer in Calgary is up against it locally. Slowly but surely, neo-conservatives have decimated a once-thriving book publishing industry. Toronto still has a viable book-trade infrastructure. The barbarians are at the gates, but writers at all levels can still find places to publish.

LP: What are you reading now?

KM: We recently returned from five weeks in Scotland, my wife and I, and I’m reading a whack of books about Scots in Canada.

Categories
Canadian Interview

Robert J. Wiersema – Interview

First off, let’s look at who Rob Wiersema is. You’ve been described 
as a writer, journalist and bookseller. You’re also married and a 
father. How do you balance all these roles?

Not all that well, depending on the day, to be perfectly honest.
The fact is, my job at the bookstore is full time. Writing is a 
full-time job (to say nothing of the on-going mental detachment from 
the “real” world which seems to plague me fairly often). And the 
amount of reviewing I do is pretty much a full-time job. As a result, 
”balance” doesn’t really enter into it, and things end up sacrificed. 
One of the main things I’ve sacrificed is sleep. I get up at about 
3.30 every morning to write, and get to bed around 11, so… the math 
is actually pretty brutal. I went to the doctor a few weeks ago and 
he actually prescribed me 2 nights of 9 hours sleep each per week, 
and at least two naps of more than 3 hours duration per week. I 
haven’t filled that prescription as yet… maybe once the new book 
is done. The level of busyness has actually been pretty hard on my family 
life. I miss out on a lot of stuff with Xander, my son, being locked 
in my writing studio for the bulk of most weekends. I try to make up 
for it, though — we toured as a family through the Pacific Northwest 
for Before I Wake, which was a terrific time (family-wise, at least). 
And we went on a cruise and to Europe for three weeks this spring, 
which was lovely. I comfort myself with the awareness that he’s watching me, and 
gaining life lessons from what I’m going through. When I was growing 
up, dreams were too-big things that were unachievable for most mere 
mortals. My dream of writing was, as a result, seemingly out of 
reach. I’m hoping that Xander, in seeing what I do on a daily basis, 
and knowing what has happened with my dreams, learns that dreams CAN 
and DO come true, but that they don’t come free — there’s always a 
price to be paid.

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Your first novel “Before I Wake”, published in 2006, received 
positive reviews and a fair bit of acclaim. You’ve been involved in 
the book trade a long time. Did you expect this kind of response?

I didn’t expect it at ALL. As a reviewer, and as a bookseller 
especially, I’m very familiar with what gets published and what gets 
well-received, especially in this country. All the old 
CanLit/Can-Publishing cliches are rooted, at least partially, in 
fact. And Before I Wake conforms to none of those cliches. Plus, 
it’s a book that’s hard to pigeonhole, genre-wise. It’s a book that 
has an unorthodox narrative structure, with the multiple voices. 
It’s a book that straddles a lot of lines. When I wrote it, I had no 
notion that it would even be publishable. And once it was in the 
publication process, I had no hope that it would have any kind of 
success. I was thankful that I had a large family, as I really 
believed that they would be the only ones buying copies, the only 
ones reading it. I’ve never been so happy to be wrong.

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This was your first published novel but you had been writing for a 
long time. Was it the first novel you’d written or do you have other 
manuscripts tucked away?

There are four or five “first novels” kicking around in various 
drawers and on 5 1/4 inch floppy disks. Most of them are there for 
eternity, though there is one that I’m thinking of revisiting at some 
point in the future — starting with the premise and building it from 
scratch. The writing is terrible, but the idea is too good to walk 
away from. I think.

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You were very up front in a number of interviews that you took a 
calculated approach to getting this first novel published. Getting 
your name known through reviewing, meeting editors and publishers so 
that when you sent out that first manuscript people would know who 
you were. Was there much reaction to those statements from other 
writers? Did people see you as too calculating or just working smart?

Ah ha! Somebody other than me has been googling me! Part of that WAS calculated, part of that was just a function of reality.

The reality part: as the event coordinator at Bolen Books, I make an 
annual pilgrimage to Toronto for BookExpo (the annual trade 
show/gathering of the publishing tribes), and as a result I’ve gotten 
to know a lot of people in the trade. Not with any nefarious plan to 
get published, but just as a function of the business. Well, that 
and the nefarious plan to cadge free drinks — publishing types are 
always good for a free drink or two.

Distinct from that, though, I did, semi-consciously at first, then 
with more deliberateness, set out to be noticed as a writer. Every 
young writer does. Every young writer has to. If you write 
non-fiction, maybe you get your name out there by writing journalism, 
or becoming known in your particular field. As a fiction writer, 
they typical path is the get some short stories published in the 
literary quarterlies, making your name known through those credits, 
so when a novel or collection is being submitted there’s some 
awareness there. This is a process that’s been going on for 
generations — it’s like the farm team system in hockey and baseball.

The type of writing that I do, however, isn’t the sort of stuff that 
finds a home in the literary quarterlies. And around the same time I 
finished the first draft of Before I Wake, I was starting with 
reviewing. And it occurred to me that with the literary quarterlies 
being unavailable to me, this would be the way that I had to get my 
writing noticed. So I made a point of reviewing a lot, and reviewing 
well, knowing that the pieces were being read by others in the 
industry. I My copping to this (which, again, is the same thing writers have been 
doing for generations, just not usually with reviewing) met with 
considerable disdain from some fellow writers, who assumed that if I 
was writing reviews with an awareness that I had an audience in the 
publishing community, then I MUST have been pandering to those 
publishing types, writing puff pieces and the like. Which is 
fundamentally NOT the case — I stand by my reviews, positive and 
negative. I calls em like I sees em, and if that means that I go on 
the record as saying that a certain CanLit figure pulled her punches 
in her latest book, I don’t hesitate (though she did manage to 
bad-mouth — without naming names, naturally — the length and 
breadth of her ensuing book tour). If it means I review books from 
even my own publisher negatively, well, so be it. I And I have reviewed books from Random House negatively, both before 
they were my publisher and after I signed the contract. I stand by 
those reviews. Robert J. WiersemaPeriod. 

But, sadly, some people couldn’t wrap themselves around what I felt 
was a fairly clear matter of integrity and continued to look down 
their noses on my publication. So be it.

The fact is this: unless you’re a celebrity, a book doesn’t get 
published because you know someone to say hello to them. And a book 
doesn’t get published because you might have reviewed other books 
from that publisher. Brass tacks: a book gets published because a 
publisher sees merit in it, and thinks it might sell. Period.

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Would you recommend the same route to aspiring writers?

It takes a certain mindset to be able to review. You have to have a 
certain fighting spirit, and a willingness to piss people off. You 
also have to have the opposite: a willingness to praise when you feel 
a book deserves it. And you have to have the fortitude to stand by 
your opinions, no matter what happens.

An example: there was a novel published a few years ago which I 
thought was fundamentally flawed, and I said as much in my review. 
The book went on to become a bestseller, and to win prizes in its 
category. Do I think I was wrong? Nope. I stand by my well-argued 
and supported position. Though I’ve just about managed to get over 
my fear that the writer is going to punch me in the head.

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What is the latest update on “Before I Wake” now? (Sales, What 
countries has it been published in etc)

Let’s see, it’s been sold into ten or twelve countries, the German 
and Greek editions came out in July, along with the US paperback. 
Poland, Israel and China are coming this fall, I think…

Sales in Canada have been very good, and the book keeps trucking 
along. It’s too early to tell how it will do overall in the US — 
the hardcover performed fine. And it’s done gangbusters in paperback 
in the UK over the past few months. Gangbusters.

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You signed a two novel deal. What is the status of the second book?

I’m finishing it even as we speak. It should be delivered on time to 
Random House in September. I think we’re looking at a fall 2009 pub 
date.

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Where and when do you write? Do you have a personal space /office or 
are you scribbling away between book stacks before the bookstore 
opens?

One of the smartest things I did for my career was to start renting 
an office last spring (2007). It’s actually a 2 bedroom basement 
suite on the same block as my house. I get up every morning at 3.30, 
and I physically GO to work — I get dressed, I leave the house, and 
I go to the work space. It’s a valuable psychological tool, to 
separate work from home — if at all possible, I highly recommend it.

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When that book is finished, what’s next? Any thoughts of writing in 
other genres, say non-fiction (since you’re written a lot of 
journalism)?

After that book, the next one. A collection of short stories this 
time, perhaps — I wrote quite a lot in the fallow time around the 
publication of Before I Wake. But I’ve also got a couple of novels 
percolating in the the cerebellum, so we’ll see.

I don’t see a non-fiction book in my near future — I think it might 
be laziness, but I’m not big on research. And I like conversations 
where I get to make up both sides — it’s easier that way.

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You have done a great deal of book reviewing, for quite a number of 
publications. Those reviews, as would be expected, are not always 
positive. You also host a great number of writers through the book 
readings you arrange at Bolen Books. Is that ever a problem? Have 
you ever had to introduce a writer whose book you’ve been less than 
kind to?

Oh, it’s been a problem, that’s for sure. It’s made for some 
uncomfortable evenings. Those two authors I mentioned previously? I 
hosted both of them shortly after the respective reviews ran — to 
say that there was tension would be vastly understating the case.

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You’ve seen a lot of writers come through on book tours and heard the 
stories, good and bad. Any great stories out of your tours for 
”Before I Wake”?

Well, certainly none fit for a family-friendly operation like this!

 Nah. To be perfectly honest, there wasn’t a whole lot unique or out 
of the ordinary as far as book tours go. I had some fabulous events, 
including a couple on the Gulf Islands (at Galiano Island Books and 
at Phoenix on Bowen) that were great reminders of the value of small, 
closely knit communities. The book’s launch in Victoria was one of 
the highlights of my life — I just wish it wouldn’t have passed in 
such a blur. And the event I did with Pages in Toronto, an 
audio-visual presentation about the music that shapes my process and 
my work, was unbelievable. As was the follow-up reaction, which 
included a blogger referring to me as something along the lines of 
”the rock-star of CanLit”. That makes me smile… I always wanted to 
play guitar.

One thing that touring did remind me of, though, was the strangeness 
of this country. I went out in late September, leaving Victoria on 
Sunday morning. The Saturday afternoon, we were out playing 
miniature golf in shorts and t-shirts, with temperatures in the 
mid-20s. The next day in Edmonton? Minus 3 with the windchill. Two 
days later in Toronto? Almost 30 degrees. How do you pack for that?

The US tour of the Pacific Northwest was a bit of different 
experience. The audience attendance wasn’t quite what we had hoped, 
and as we were driving across the plains, from Spokane to Oregon, I 
realized I was doing what every fledgling rock star (see, there it 
is again!) does: I was paying my dues. That made it easier to 
swallow. As did a great off-night on the water in Cannon Beach, and 
a great event in Bellingham.

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Now that you’ve got a published novel behind you, do you get many 
requests for book cover blurbs from other writers?

I’ve had a couple of requests, and if I’ve got the time, I’m happy to 
do it. It seems strange to me to be in a position where my 
imprinteur might be construed as a hallmark of quality, but every bit 
helps…

The thing is, if given a choice, I’d prefer to review a book than to 
blurb it. If I’m in a position to blurb it favourably, I think 
there’s probably more value, in terms of attention and public 
profile, to a positive review.

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Who are you reading right now?

Let’s see, what have I read recently. The new Paul Auster (Man in 
the Dark), which is a very strong book, very human. The new Rawi 
Hage (Cockroach), which is a tour de force, and certainly pays out on 
the promise he showed with DeNiro’s Game. The new Tim Winton 
(Breath) is fabulous. And probably the best book I’ve read recently 
is Andrew Davidson’s debut, The Gargoyle. This is one of those rare 
books that actually delivers on the hype, and on the news of 
multi-million dollar advances.

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Any writers you hope to host for readings during the upcoming fall book season?

That’d be telling, wouldn’t it?

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Finally, if you could get any writer for a reading at the bookstore, 
who would it be?

You know, I’ve been doing this for a decade now. I’ve had a lot of 
’visiting author’ dreams come true. Hosting Neil Gaiman a couple of 
times (if you ever get a chance to go for dinner with Neil, you 
should — the man knows his sushi). Hosting Timothy Findley for what 
turned out to be his last book-tour event. Introducing Salman 
Rushdie was such an overwhelming experience that I actually had to 
stop and savour the moment.

 Having said all that, though, I would love to host Stephen King. And 
getting the opportunity to welcome John Irving would be a dream come 
true — The World According to Garp made me a writer, and I’d love 
the opportunity to thank him in person.

You can find out more about Rob at his website.