Authors serve as source of inspiration, admiration
From poetry to cookbooks, the discipline and resolve of writing is impressive
Authors! Authors!
I didn’t know that 2017 was going to be the year of the book. But looking back, it was a real page-turner, har har.
My most favourite story of 2017 has six chapters, one for each local writer I interviewed.
1.
Alice Kuipers — Me (and) Me
I’m always in awe of creative people who see their projects through to the end.
How do they work? Where does the inspiration come from? Kuipers likes to ask ‘what if ?’
“I’m interested in how we as people cope with what life throws at us when it’s weird and strange,” she said.
I’m also fascinated by the writing process. Kuipers, with four kids in the house, employs will power and planning. She listens to music on headphones (the same few songs in repeat, intriguingly). She sometimes retreats to a cafe to work. She has a basement office.
“When the children discover I’m in there, they’re like police dogs,” she said. “Within about 15 minutes of going in my studio they come in, they sit on the floor or they colour, or walk on the treadmill desk or want to see what I’m doing or want to change the music, or write their own book.”
2.
Renee Kohlman — All The Sweet Things
I know Renee from editing her freelance recipe column in the StarPhoenix, so prepping for All The Sweet Things was, you might say, a piece of cake. Renee is a pastry chef who got her start in writing as a food blogger.
She shot all the photos for the book, and they’re incredible. In fact, the book won best first book in the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards.
“I knew that my voice was very authentic and I wanted people to see themselves in my stories," she told me. “I’m not the only girl who’s been dumped once or twice or three times, or had a father who passed away too early. Writing it was very emotional.”
3.
Katherine Lawrence — Stay
The artistic process doesn’t have a lot of straight lines in it, as my interview with Katherine Lawrence informed me.
Stay was going to be a book for young readers inspired by the story of how her family’s beloved dog got its name. She visited elementary schools for early feedback. The older kids “clobbered me,” Lawrence says. It was too happy. They wanted more conflict.
Stay became a novel-in-verse about a family breakup. The kids had convinced Lawrence they could handle it. “It was a really, really interesting process,” she said.
4.
Henry Woolf (Barcelona is in Trouble)
And then it was time for something completely different: Henry Woolf ’s memoir Barcelona is in Trouble.
The book describes his unusual childhood in wartime London and his various adventures in and around the theatre world.
It’s a fine representation of the man’s sly, subversive sense of humour.
He’s self-effacing to a fault and always ready with a twinkle in the eye to draw you in as a coconspirator.
5.
Bill Robertson (Decoys)
Bill Robertson belongs in the StarPhoenix freelancers’ hall of fame, having written about music and books since before I was born. I kid.
He’s also written five books of poetry. I don’t consider myself a poetry guy but after reading Decoys I began to realize just how much I’m missing. Robertson’s ability to find big moments in small things — sparrows, a dragonfly on the sidewalk, fall coming too soon — is remarkable.
He does that writerly thing of capturing the essence of something using those blocky, stubborn and evasive things called words. It’s a kind of miracle, really.
6.
Joanne Paulson — Adam’s Witness
Joanne Paulson is another writer I’ve worked with at the paper.
The story behind Adam’s Witness is compelling — a plot idea at 3 a.m. on a sleepless night, a very dark time in the writer’s life salvaged by writing.
Adam’s Witness is a Saskatoon murder mystery-romance full of familiar locations and based on a real-life homophobic incident.
There’s a big difference between intending to write a book and actually doing it. Joanne learned what she needed to know about publishing and marketing along the way.
She saw it though. She’s doing a sequel.
Bravo.