The Writers’ Show
| Host: | Holley Rubinsky |
| Airs: | Episode Archive |
The Writers’ Show talks to nationally published Canadian writers and others in publishing who are based in British Columbia, Canada. The emphasis is on the how-to of the writing process - character development, motivation, writing scenes - and experiences in publishing, including getting work accepted, finding an agent, publicity and reviews. The show is a resource for college-level writing instructors, students of writing, others who write, and readers. Guests include fiction writers, poets, nature writers, agents, and publishers. The show’s purpose is to make listeners aware of writers’ lives and to explain the process of writing to readers and others who are interested in how it’s done. The show offers tips to writers and explanations of the publishing process - what happens after acceptance, the role of the editor, the art design of a book, covers, marketing and publicity. The Writers’ Show website is a resource for writers, with links to individuals and helpful pages.
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Episodes
Apr 14 2008 - Writers’ Show - 41 - Vicki Delany
About In the Shadow of the Glacier, Margaret Cannon of The Globe & Mail wrote, "Vicki Delany has a great narrative voice, fine, well-developed characters and a real eye for the small details that keep a novel in place." In the first thirty minutes of the show, Vicki Delany explains styles within the mystery genre and stories from the road. In the second half, readings recorded for Authors Aloud, the voices of Canadian literature. Readings are by poets Robert Hilles, John Pass, Rhea Tregebov and Terence Young, as well as by John Gould, a writer of very short fiction, and novelists Kristjana Gunnars and Caroline Adderson.
Download MP3 of this EpisodeMar 31 2008 - Writers’ Show - 40 - Audrey Thomas
Audrey Thomas has published eighteen books, both novels and short stories and has won almost every prize going, including the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize, B.C., three times. Her body of work is the topic of English theses and research papers. Her books include Intertidal Life, Coming Down from Wa and Isobel Gunn.
Topics: her new novel in manuscript; how she works; the soft line between fiction and memory; stories of awards and publishing.
About working on a book for years: "Keeping the excitement up is like Viagra of the mind."
Mar 17 2008 - Writers’ Show - 39 - Edith Iglauer
Edith Iglauer, author of Fishing with John, turned 91 this March. Bill Schermbrucker talked to her at her home in Garden Bay, B.C. She was a staff writer and frequent contributor to The New Yorker magazine, and is the author of, among other books, Inuit Journey and Dennison's Ice Road. About Bill (William) Shawn editing Fishing with John she said, "He didn't have to do much. I really write my own stuff." Topics: Her New York life, her childhood, her life in B.C., her current project, a memoir. Greetings from Lynne Van Luven, Mary Schendlinger and Geist.
Mar 03 2008 - Writers’ Show - 38 - Baba Brinkman, Ian McAllister
Baba Brinkman is a literary rap artist, with a B.A. with Honours from Simon Fraser University and an M.A. in Medieval and Renaissance English Literature from the University of Victoria. His thesis drew parallels between the worlds of rap music and literary poetry. He is the author of The Rap Canterbury Tales, published by Talon Books. Brinkman was born in the West Kootenays of B.C., and raised in the midst of the province's tree-planting sub-culture.
Nelson Before Nine host Randy Morse interviews Baba Brinkman about his artistic evolution and experience with Talon Books. Audio editing credit: Kelley Humphries. The music is Aaron Nazrul from the CD "The Butterfly Man," produced by Baba Brinkman and available at Cdbaby.
Conservationist and photographer Ian McAllister is known around the world for The Great Bear Rainforest, published by Harbour Publishing. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including, along with his wife, Karen, Time Magazine's "Hero for the Planet" award. The Last of the Wild Wolves won the B.C. Booksellers' Choice Award, a B.C. Book Prize. Topics include: Editorial help from Mary Schendlinger, Show #35; Howard White at Harbour; covers of the American and Canadian editions; the continuing threats to the unique biosphere of the coastal rainforest. The music is Michael Franti & Spearhead, "Skin on the Drum," from the CD Rock the Nation.
Feb 18 2008 - Writers’ Show - 37 - John Vaillant
John Vaillant, a journalist living in Vancouver, wrote the seminal story for "The New Yorker" that led to the writing of The Golden Spruce: A True Story of Myth, Madness and Greed, published first by Norton in the U.S. and then, with a different edit, by Knopf Canada. The Golden Spruce won the Governor General's award for English non-fiction in 2005.
Topics: his learning curve at "The New Yorker", the influence of his agent, the development of an article into a book-length manuscript, working with Louise Dennys at Knopf Canada, what he learned about his writing and himself as a writer.
"I feel like most of my life I was dodging my destiny until I started writing."
Music is Tom Waits' "What's He Building" & "Colossal Head," Los Lobos
Feb 04 2008 - Writers’ Show - 36 - Mark Forsythe, Theresa Kishkan, Trevor Owen of WIER
A grab-bag show that includes conversations about how a concept for a book is developed, why you might want to read (or write) personal essays, and what kids are up to who call themselves "Wierdos."
Jan 21 2008 - Writers’ Show - 35 - Mary Schendlinger
Senior editor at Geist Magazine, published in Vancouver, Mary Schendlinger also draws comics under the name Eve Corbel, teaches writing and editing at UBC and SFU, and edits books for Harbour Publishing and others. Topics: types of editing, from developmental, structural, to copyediting; writing Geist buys; finding an editor; the term "creative non-fiction." If you're a writer, check out The Writer's Toolbox on the Geist site. If you're a teacher, take a look at Geist in the Classroom.
Luanne Armstrong, writer and friend, is the interviewer.
Jan 07 2008 - Writers’ Show - 34 - George Bowering
George Bowering, a prolific writer, is a poet, novelist, editor, professor and historian, as well as the first Poet Laureate of Canada. Born and raised in B.C., he has earned an international reputation and now lives in Vancouver. Topics: small presses - Pooka, Above Ground Press; about chapbooks; creating restraints in writing - "alphabet" poems, for example; Bowering reads his tribute poems to Matt Cohen, Fred Wah, and P.K. Page; excerpt from the commendation from The Griffin Trust for Excellence in Poetry.
Linda Lee Crosfield, poet and friend, is the interviewer.
Dec 10 2007 - Writers’ Show - 33 - Don Gayton, Dick Cannings
Don Gayton is a grasslands ecologist and the author of many books, including Landscapes of the Interior: A Re-exploration of Nature and the Human Spirit and The Wheatgrass Mechanism. He reads from Interwoven Wild: An Ecologist Loose in the Garden, Thistledown Press. The music is Tom Waits.
Topics: from journal to prose, book covers, narrative arc in nature writing, discussion of the term "nature writing" as a genre and classification, his editor at Thistledown, Sean Virgo, with whom he had "a wonderful, extended conversation...a rich, rewarding editorial experience."
Dick Cannings is a biologist and bird advocate. In this brief segment that starts at the 30-minute mark, we talk about the Brown Pelican that came to Kootenay Lake, the first sighting in the interior of B.C. He also explains eBird, the Cornell University online database for birds, a resource for birders, beginner or proficient, across North America.
Nov 26 2007 - Writers’ Show - 32 - Eileen Delehanty Pearkes, Bill Schermbrucker, Alan Twigg
Eileen Delehanty Pearkes is the author of The Geography of Memory: Recovering Stories of a Landscape's First People, Sono Nis Press, and The Glass Seed: The Fragile Beauty of Heart, Mind and Memory, about her mother's Alzheimer's,Timeless Books, 2007. She writes regularly for ascent, a magazine described as "yoga for an inspired life." About the motivation behind The Glass Seed : "I sat down in an act of defiance to write something that I hadn't found anywhere else."
Topics: Cleya McDougall, editor at Timeless Books; Kootenay Bay Ashram; poet, thinker and activist Gary Snyder; Scar Tissue, by Michael Ignatieff; The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets, by Barbara G. Walker. Eileen Delehanty Pearkes can be seen on YouTube.
Bill Schermbrucker is most recently a producer for The Writers' Show and instructor in the memoir, as well as fiction writer, jurist and book reviewer. Show #24. He discusses the fine line between fiction and memoir and the question of fiction and non-fiction.
Topics: Creative Nonfiction magazine, edited by Lee Gutkind; "A lie that tells the truth: Memoir and the art of memory," by Joel Agee, in the November 2007 Harper's Magazine, also available online if you're a member (about $20 a year).
BC BookWorld founder and publisher Alan Twigg talks to Bill Schermbrucker about his brain tumour and the book he wrote about it, Intensive Care: A Memoir, Anvil Press, 2002. He said, "I've always used writing as a way to think my way through things, and so it's as natural as breathing. My natural inclination, as soon as I could move my hands, was to ask for a piece of paper." Friend and publisher, Julian Ross.
Alan Twigg is the author of numerous books about Canadian writers, publishers, and BC literary history, including Thompson's Highway: The Literary Origins of British Columbia, Ronsdale Press. Full Time: A Canadian Soccer Adventure is forthcoming, Spring, 2008, from McClelland & Stewart.
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