Political Writer
Mood:  chatty
Topic: WC - Daily Practice
Tuesday 9:44am 24Oct06

I spoke to Rawi Hage last night at the second reception. He asked me if I was a political writer. I said I didn't think so and then we both agreed that writing is a political act for people from our background. I admitted that I don't consider myself a feminist but that I realize that I actually live feminism and politically. My thoughts are not feministic nor political at the outset because it is ingrained in me as a matter of fact based on all the people that fought for me, all the people that have suffered for me, all the people that had to picket and organize...

I wish we had more time to talk to each other. He is nominated for a Governor General award and I'm hoping that he gets it. Spoke briefly to Kiran Desai who just won a Man Booker award. Philippe Dupuy and I shared a great laughing rant about how people don't understand what we do. Our family, our friends, strangers. "It's almost better not to tell," he said. "I wish I could say I was a proctologist."

It was good coming face to face with the life that I want to lead. I actually woke up this morning and started to cry. To be a little less of an outsider. To talk to people that understand what goes on inside my head and my heart. To work through my shyness and get to know people. As always, I'm so glad that I showed up despite my fear that I'd be stuck standing in a corner by myself the whole night like loser girl.

Gay Talese makes me want to go and live in different countries and get to know the people with years of immersion hunting for personal stories. Rawi Hage makes me want to identify what is political about me, what feminist acts do I live with gratitude and yet take for granted? How do I honour those people before me? How do I use my gifts wringing out everything that I need to say?
Philippe Dupuy makes me want to pull out my fun side and get back into comics. It's funny that the only thing I could ever draw well when I was a child was comics.

Seeing the chance that I can have what I want, what I really want and not what others think I should want makes me emotional. More people hugged me and kissed me and even Geoffrey Taylor turned and smiled at me as if he was acknowledging that I was in my element. Damn straight, I deserved to be there. I deserve to do what I want to do. That is political.

Paul Quarrington had me cracking up when I asked him if he enjoyed interviewing Jasper Fforde. He did his normal schtick about hating Jasper because he's attractive, smart, funny and sells. At Humber College he basically did a stand up routine about being on a book signing junket with Wayson Choy and Nino Ricci and how about 8000 people lined up for Wayson and Nino and no one came to him. ha ha! He always acts like he's the big traumatized writer. The show 1-800 Missing which is now called Missing is his brainchild. Not too shabby. I think it's in it's third year now with Vivica Fox and Mark Consuelos.

I drank a glass of Gazela (Portuguese wine) in honour of my boss at my day job. He doesn't get what I do but appreciates my passion. Plus he's turned me on to lots of things Portuguese including some of the wines.

I had a chance to come across some other cat lovers. We're really everywhere! I said, "I wonder if Zelda is white because she is so fascinated by my hair. She wants to touch it all the time."

I'm happy gushy girlfish, inspired and in love with about ten people, if not more.

Happy Birthday Aubrey Christopher! You are still something extra!

EY

IFOA Receptions
Topic: Writing Outings
Tuesday 1:05am 24Oct06
We're in Scorpio now. Being a water sign it's a good time for me. Came home to an email from my watery Cancerian friend. Feels good! Totally thrilled that he wants all that I asked for.

I had a banner time at the receptions. Got up the nerve to grab Philippe Dupuy by the arm as he was walking by and started a conversation with him. We hit it off like a house on fire and hung out at the second reception. Got him to draw something for me in my little notebook and autograph it, which is my thing. Exchanged a kiss and a hug when he said his good night. He's in Montreal for the next three days. Spoke to Rawi Hage who lives in Montreal. Told him all the reasons why I love him and he in turn told me that he needed to hug me and did! When girlfish finds her inner charm the world is her oyster! I had so much fun and every author I talked to told me that they couldn't wait to run into me at more festivals as a published novelist. Paul Quarrington remembered my face and stopped to chat. Jowi Taylor was out with his six string and we shared a kiss and a smile. Met other up and comers and handed out my business cards for emails notifying me of what they're up to so I can attend.

Lots of jokes about the drunken writer cliche. Lots of jokes. It's fun when you can work past your shyness and get to know people who are also getting past their shyness.

I want to write so off to bed for an early ish rise to write in the am.
Have I mentioned lately how much I love Geoffrey Taylor the director of IFOA? Last year I asked him if I could hug him for the joy that he gives me through the festival. I think the hug will our yearly thing. Almost didn't make the final reception because I was alone and then Jowi Taylor bailed me out by making sure I went in with him. Did I mention I love him too?

How many more people can I love? And isn't it just great loving people?

Okay sleep so I can rise again...

EY

IFOA Sun
Topic: Writing Outings
Monday 2:43pm 23Oct06

Round Table Discussion with:
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Kiran Desai, Jonathan Safran Foer, Gautam Malkani

Where and what is home when you no longer live in your place of birth?
the difference of being an African in America versus an African American.

The style and form of their novels. With the internet and our different ways of getting information the novel form is bound to change - cutting and pasting ideas.

Yes yes these authors will be added to my wish list.

Round Table with:
Rawi Hage, Simon Ings, Randy Boyagoda, Yasmin Crowther

Exile and Homecoming
Immigration allows an invention of oneself rather than a reinvention. The ability to leave the past and who you were behind.
Exiles take culture with them

Even a villain should have a chance to tell his story.

the difference between leaving or wanting to leave.

an Exile says/believes - "I'm eventually going to return." He/she is longing for a Utopian version of the place that they've left.

What is the burden of the imaginary homeland?

When we write fiction we are playing with our experimental selves taking trips we've never taken, doing things we've never done.

"I would never talk to him at home."
That was the statement regarding a man out side of his homeland that moved to England and was appalled when a lower class person from his homeland spoke to him. It was one of the things we laughed at when I first moved to Toronto and became friends with some French people. "In Montreal, we could never be friends."

Kate Grenville
We can live with a fair degree of doublethink.
Whipping up fear is a way of getting things to go the way you want. IE, the government, the media.

Round Table Discussion with:
Deborah Eisenberg, Nicole Krauss, Colson Whitehead interviewed by David Eddie

Colson talked about taking notes in the city, putting thoughts into strangers heads.

Why do you write?
Writing is an act of freedom. Why not write?

Writing to follow untraveled paths. Writing about the disruption of our view of ourselves.

The perversity of the reader - The perception of the public that when we write fiction we are hiding the truth (is this autobiographical?)
When we write non-fiction we're making things up.
It brought up the topic about James Frey. Why can't his book just be inspiring and help who it helps?

It's better to say you have written a fictional memoir or a personal history.

Round Table discussion with:
Yves Beauchemin, Alon Hilu, Bernice Eisenstein and Marisha Pessl interviewed by Ken Alexander

the idea of re imagining history
looking at the slight chance that he did do it. Alon's book specifically is about playing what if with the facts that are there and the information that isn't and creating a history of someone that works with the slight chance that he did do it.

Pushing history and memory uphill.

We don't know the people who are closest to us.

Kate Grenville is the woman with the great lines to quote.
"the local is now where the universal resides."

Oh and Philippe Dupuy drew a self -portrait for me after I'd shown him the self-portrait that Sherman Alexie drew for me many years ago. Philippe's self portrait is him as an alien with six arms, three antennas, a tail and two feet. ha ha!

No real notes from the Going to Print Round Table discussion...

EY

IFOA Sat
Topic: Writing Outings
Monday 12:34pm 23Oct06

The big bonus is that Starbuck's is giving out complimentary coffee during the festival. Can we say, too much Decaf? Yup!

Mark Z. Danielewski
wrote House of Leaves... add to my wish list.

Jonathan Safran Foer questioned Mark about what the Z in his name stood for. Mark said that he'd decided that he wouldn't reveal it until he told his wife of which he hasn't met yet. That went into a conversation about that which is hidden. Closed Doors - What is behind those closed doors? Family history that is behind closed doors or kept secret. His father was in a work camp (concentration camp) in Dachau. He went from being in a work camp to becoming an avant garde film maker. His dad, in his younger days performed in other languages that he couldn't speak in. He'd learn the piece and could perform it like it was his language. Fascinating the spirit of humans. What we can do when we're motivated and possessed.

In my notes I wrote... Language he could perform but not understand.

Questions posed to think of when writing:
How will I show things that are private to me?
Who is the witness of this story?

The act of looking. Looking for the history. Looking behind closed doors. Looking for the secrets. He said that his father used to call him the drill because he'd drill him daily about his life prior to coming to the States. What stories families tell.

He talked about enjoying things now that you know that your dead parent would enjoy. That his dad would be into ipods and downloading and all the gadgets. I think in the same way about my mother.

Empathy starts in the imagination.

Style seemed to be the theme of the weekend as a whole. Things that I want to do in my writing. A novel that is set up like a scrapbook and the more you delve into the scrap book the more the story is revealed.


Gay Talese
interviewed by Sandra Martin

What is my true home? another theme that ran through the weekend. When you are from somewhere else and you reach a point where you're not of that place nor of this place.

What is it about others I can relate to, find myself in?
Of course Gay is for immersing in the area that he wants to cover. Living with the people etc.

He read from his book, The Writer's Life... my wish list!

His piece was about going to Calabria which made me chuckle to find out that he was Calabrese (or Calabrian). All the Italians I know that are Calabrese never say they are Italian they always say they are Calabrese. He even mentions that in his piece. We're so attached to where we come from.

He discussed eavesdropping on the stories of others. Personal stories. Knowing the personal info of others. You can see how he could become the type of writer that he became.

He uses fictional techniques in non fiction.

"Work is like the art of hanging out."

He likes subjects an Historian wouldn't write about. Writing about the ignored people. People on the fringes. The lady that carried Frank Sinatra's hair pieces. The third horn player in his band. People that were not known but were affected by his life.
He said that the history we most think about was written by fiction writers.

Both Gay and Mark Danielewski mentioned Herman Melville - not successful as a writer while he lived but the audience, the readers decided after his death that he was a worthwhile writer.

Philippe Dupuy and Charles Berberian
Graphic Novelists.
They work together. They showed some drawings trying to explain how they work together. One drawing of two guys sitting across the table from with both of them holding on to the same pencil. Another one showing one guy drawing with the head of the other on top of his.

They said they can't really explain how they work together other than saying that they sit down and discuss the story and from there one starts to draw, the other adds to it and it keeps going that way until it's done.

I especially want to add them to my wish list...
Imagine if I bought every thing I wanted?

Their comic series Monsieur Jean basically started with the idea of a 17 year old writing a letter to the man he'll be in his 30's.

They are interested in telling really sad stories in a funny way; building bridges between the past and the present; loners, outsiders, bohemians.

Jaime Hernandez
of Love and Rockets fame. - hmm - Wishlist!

the characters write it I just have to take them somewhere
Kill someone you know not a character that just arrived in the last issue.
Our duty to have characters of our own ethnicity. We have lots of stories to tell. Yes he discussed that when he and his brothers were delving into comics that all comic characters were white. That they couldn't come up with many stories for white characters but when they made their characters Hispanic they had lots of stories to tell. They realized that if they didn't write stories with their own people no one else would.

Ran into Paul Quarrington and asked him about his musical recommendation that I know he tells his students. He said that he recommends listening to symphonic music to help with structure.
it's a good thing I bought all those Beethoven !

EY

What Day is it?
Mood:  bright
Topic: WC - Daily Practice
Monday 12:17pm 23Oct06

Slept for 12 hours. I've only been up a couple hours now and trying to get a little bit of everything done. Just cleaned the bathroom, going to write for a bit, work out, got to cook some carrots and cauliflower and then on to the next thing.

Running down to Harbourfront for 4pm for a round table discussion on Going to Print. Plus I'm invited to a couple receptions as a Patron member the major one being with the authors tonight.

Went out for drinks with a friend Saturday night and the beer was going down far too smoothly for words. Of course our conversation about death and funerals and the behaviours of people certainly helped with one beer turning into five. The "experts" that get the grieving riled up and paranoid. I'll have to delve into that in writing at some point.

Zelda and Picasso have been playing lots and cracking me up. In the midst of teasing Picasso Zelda's tail was banging on the bed, she noticed her tail and proceeded to attack that forgetting all about Picasso. Freak!

Not much to say...

EY