Andrea MacPherson

The Calgary Herald announced one of the most depressing stats I’ve seen in a long time [even in this economic swirl of depression] — apparently, ’50 per cent of Canadians surveyed do not know the name of any Canadian authors, and of those who do, only four were mentioned by more than four per cent of them.’

The four that apparently we [that is the collective we, not the me-we by any means] can name are Margaret Atwood, Pierre Berton, Farley Mowat and Michel Tremblay. That’s it. Seriously.

What happened to Michael Ondaatje? Elizabeth Hay? Ann-Marie MacDonald? Alice Munro? Timothy Findley? Or some other, perhaps less well-known [if that is possible, according to this poll!] like Madeleine Thien? Camilla Gibb? Ami McKay? It’s incredible to me that we don’t know or recognize so many wonderful authors. Do we need more Canadiana in the schools? More contemporary titles? Do we all just need to read more?

Read the complete article here.

These lists are everywhere — from Papercuts to Amazon to Quill & Quire and The Atlantic — so it seemed only natural to throw my two cents in. After all, I read a lot. A lot. But then I started thinking about it, and I’ve mostly read my students’ work for 2008, and it hardly seems like a good idea to do a ‘Favourites’ for them. Ahem.

So, here’s my list — it’s not as long as some, but they are the ones I felt strongly about this last year, when I wasn’t reading first drafts from keen, intelligent students.

The Boys in the Trees by Mary Swan
The voice, the use of language and description, the layering of POV, the slow revelation of mystery, the seamless historical detail, the use of alternate forms of storytelling, the — spoiler alert! — we never actually discover the truth to what happened in this small house, in this small town: I loved everything about this slim, spectacular book.

The Dream World by Alison Pick
I’ve been a fan of Alison’s work since we did a reading together years ago in Calgary. She writes challenging, dense, complex poems that sit with you for days after you have put the book down.

Double Lives ed. Cowan, Lam & Stonehouse
Admittedly, I only first read this because my friend Jane Silcott was included — her essay won the CBC Literary Awards Non-Fiction prize in 2006 –but I found myself drawn into these essays very quickly. Disparate voices, but a real strength and craft in an often challenging form.

Good to a Fault by Marina Endicott
An engaging voice, a slow unravelling of connected lives, luminous prose — what’s not to like?

Who By Fire by Diana Spechler
Forgiveness and big, messy families — religion and violence and all that implies — haunting.

I’ve mentioned before that I’ve been called a melancholy writer, which, for the most part, I can’t argue with. I don’t tend to write sprawling, hilarious, tongue-in-cheek sagas including a quirky narrator’s voice and unlikely scenarios. And here is the rub, though, with being an author — people assume that your work informs them about you. You as a person. You as a private citizen. Somehow, the distinction between an author’s work and an author’s life gets muddy. Yes, they tend to overlap — we thieve, we thieve, and so we sometimes thieve from ourselves — but they are not an exact replica of one another.

This got me thinking. I like to laugh. I really do. But I tend to reside in the shelters of irony and sarcasm; I’m never going to be the one doing a crazy costumed dance for your viewing pleasure. So why do these elements not translate to my writing? I appreciate and enjoy novels that combine the tragic and the comedic — I just finished Lesley Kagen’s Whistling in the Dark, a very humorous story about a hospitalized mother, a rampant pedophile and a dead father: I know, sounds hilarious, right? But it is — but these are not stories that I write. My characters don’t roll on the floor laughing, they don’t dance in their skivvies until they are breathless, they don’t point out the ironic in life. Is it perspective? Voice? I think sustaining a story involving humour in such a natural and integral way might tire me out. It’s tricky, that fine line, the need to balance the tragi-comic.

So, I’ll just say I am not endlessly surrounded by suicides, doomed love affairs, depressed and lovely women, horrible and handsome men, tragic deaths, fires and missing children. Maybe that’s why my characters are.

This has been an interesting few weeks for me: first, the inevitable shock and awe at my computer crashing, and facing the possibility of books and collections lost; then, the joy of saving the work, and getting a new computer [MacBook Pro - still adjusting]; then a weekend at the Surrey International Writers’ Conference and the Vancouver International Writers’ Fest, where I was forced to consider and articulate my own work; and the publication of my first piece of non-fiction with Prism International. It’s had me thinking about words, and strangely being unable to actually work with those words.

It’s been a slow couple months for me, in terms of my own writing. I assumed this was because of my heavy teaching load this term, and because – of course! – I could scribble in long-hand [as I always do] but not transfer onto computer. This should not have presented a problem, but it did. It was, I now see, a convenient reason not to write. But the better question was: why did I need an excuse at all?

I’m in the throes of trying to finish a draft of a novel, and at the same time am falling slowly in love with the idea for a new novel. I’m in limbo. And, as anyone will tell you, that is not a good place to be. Do I need to commit to one, finish it through? Or can I give myself permission – and the gift – of allowing myself to write what is inspiring me at the moment? To write in hot, fervent flashes of prose that might be good. Or might be complete rubbish.

I heard myself tell 30-ish other writers this weekend that the important thing was to write the story you are passionate about. I heard the words, and then I wondered, why I am not taking my own advice? Perhaps because writing is a craft, it’s work – I know no one wants to hear this – and if I never made myself finish one project before starting the next, I would never complete a chapter, nevermind a whole novel. Passion is wonderful – essential, grand, breathlessly wonderful. But hard work and perseverance, however dull they may sound, really are the thing.

So, a friend of mine informed me that there was another cover using my book image – imagine the shock and horror! I understand the need – it is a beautiful, if melancholy, cover – but it shocked me that they would want to use it. And, to be honest, it’s the second time there has been another book using the image I had agreed to….

I’m told by a certain computer guru friend that he has been able to save the work from my hard drive as well as all the photos archived there. A huge sigh of relief by me. And from others, Why don’t you back up? It’s a question that continues to baffle me – why don’t I?

This weekend means laptop shopping for me – because, while he was able to save my work, he could not save the laptop – and the purchase of something on which to back up. I promise.

My laptop has frozen – completely. Words are trapped in some limbo, grey and sluggish and waiting to be rescued. Say your prayers for me.

We took a trip to Ka’anapali this summer, and when I returned a friend said to me, ‘Well, it must have been relaxing – you wouldn’t have to see any “sites” there’. The assumption, I suppose, being that because it was Hawaii, because it involved a beach and sea and sunshine, and perhaps because it was the States, there was no culture or history there. This surprised me, and got me thinking.

I find travel to be a boundless source of inspiration. I’ve published a collection of travel poems, and most of my fiction owes, in some part, its inspiration to travel. I’m not entirely sure why this is, why I am more comfortable writing about the view down a dormant volcano than the view from my kitchen window [where, sadly, the geraniums are coming to an end]. Perhaps it’s the surprise of a new place, a new culture, being bumped up against something surprising. Each place I visit leaves some sort of fingerprint on me, smudged and sticky, regardless of its locale. Tropical, dusty, rainy – it makes no difference to me.

When we were in Nuevo Vallarta last year, I didn’t write about the sea, or about the way the palms lined the walk, but about the Feast of Guadalupe, and the way the streets bulged with white. And this time, coming home from Maui, I had a poem about a missionary’s wife and the gift of a commode tucked in my pocket.

Natural Disasters was longlisted for the ReLit Awards, ‘the  country’s pre-eminent literary prize recognizing independent presses’ [The Globe & Mail].

I will admit, straightaway, that I am a sunshine person, someone who loves all things to do with summer – dresses, sandals, flowers that keep blooming, bbqs, sitting out all night long, pitchers of sangria.  And, so, it might make sense that I have been over-occupied with all things to do with the garden.  Might.  Might, if I wasn’t also trying to start a new novel, to have a coherent thought, to think of anything beyond the way my regal geraniums droop and how my hibiscus keeps blooming beyond reason.

 I wonder if maybe, just maybe, because of my home on the west coast of BC, of seeing so many months of grey and being comforted by it, I’m unable to write when it’s sunny out.  Once, a reviewer insinuated I was melancholy.  I balked.  And then I thought, but yes.  I suppose I am.  It’s the tragedy that interests me, the parts of ourselves we’re not keen to admit.  So perhaps I am a rainy, cool, all water-coloured [like my mother's paintings] writer.  Expect nothing from me during the months I might tan.