If I was Mavis Gallant I'd want a champion like Lisa Moore

If I was Mavis Gallant
I'd want a champion like Lisa Moore.

If you missed listening on the radio to the CBC Radio CANADA READS session of debates for this year they have podcasts, blogs and no end of comment flying on the Canada Reads website.

If you want to cast your own vote for which of the five books you think stands above the rest they also offer that consolation until midnight tonight I think it is.

Check it out.

And then check out Mavis Gallant and Lisa Moore.

Attention Public Librarians: Rattling Books will be at PLA in March

Attention Librarians attending this year's Public Library Association 12th National Conference in Minneapolis, Minnesota at the end of March:

Rattling Books will be there.

We invite you to visit us at Booth 756.
Click here for the Exhibit Hall Floor Plan.

Just go straight down the aisle from BWI, past Recorded Books and find us on the corner.

Rattling Books is a Canadian publisher of unabridged audio books (fiction, poetry and true adventure historical non-fiction). Founded in 2003 we strive to stay small - so small we're fine.

You can check out our PDF catalogue here.

Literature to listen to
from rattlingbooks.com

Mavis Gallant Book Ousted from Canada Reads

Mavis Gallant, widely considered to be one of the best fiction writers to emerge from Canada, has been kicked off the island. Well, not really. Her short story collection The Fifteenth District was voted off the Canada Reads list, though. Read about it below.

from CBC.ca Arts

Five contenders were reduced to four on Canada Reads Wednesday morning, with actor Zaib Shaikh providing the killing blow.

The first elimination vote began the broadcast of CBC Radio's annual book battle and appeared headed for an impasse, with the participating celebrity champions each picking a different title to dump.

However, Shaikh ended a four-way tie by adding his vote to that of musician and writer Dave Bidini against Mavis Gallant's From the 15th District.

After literally crying out at the decision, author Lisa Moore, who had advocated Gallant's book, asked her fellow panellists, "But don't you think this is the best writing?"

To read the rest of this article, please click here.

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Lisa Moore's latest short story collection, Open, and Mavis Gallant's classic Montreal Stories are available as unabridged MP3 CDs and digital downloads from Rattling Books.

Sherry White Sauce: two varieties

There are atleast two varieties of Sherry White Sauce.

There's the one you cook:
Cooking Basic Sherry White Sauce recipe


and then there's the Sherry White Sauce you listen to.

Women’s Work Festival 2008 - Series of dramatic readings of works in progress, Eastern Edge Gallery, St. John's, NL

Women’s Work Festival 2008
a co-presentation of
RCA Theatre, She Said Yes! And White Rooster Productions

A series of free reading from works-in-progress by women writers to celebrate International Women’s Week

Sunday March 2 at 3 pm

Split Ends by Megan Coles
With Melanie Caines, Monica Walsh, Nicole Rousseau ,Philip Goodridge, Phil Churchill, Jody Richardson
Dramaturgy Lois Brown

Monday March 3 at 7 pm

Drinking Song by Amanda Jernigan
With Kemo Schedlosky, Mary Lynn Bernard, Philip Goodridge, Jody Richardson
Dramaturgy Berni Stapleton

Containers by Dawna Wightman
With Amy House, Berni Stapleton, Sheilagh Guy-Murphy, Lois Brown, Kay Anonsen, Mary Lynn Bernard, Ruth Lawrence, Nicole Rousseau
Dramaturgy Anne Chislett

Tuesday, March 4 at 7 pm

Aphasia by Michelle Butler Hallett
With Willow Kean, Phil Churchill, Dave Sullivan, Jody Richardson
Dramaturgy Robert Chafe

All readings are at
Eastern Edge Gallery, 72 Harbour Drive, St. John's

Donations accepted at the door. Proceeds to the Naomi Centre.

This project was made possible with support from the Newfoundland & Labrador Arts Council and the City of St. John’s.

Canadian Poet Laureate John Steffler to Deliver Memorial University's Pratt Lecture

from http://today.mun.ca/
By Janet Harron

Canada’s Parliamentary Poet Laureate, John Steffler, will deliver Memorial University’s 2008 Pratt Lecture on Saturday, March 15.

Mr. Steffler, who recently retired from teaching English and Creative Writing at Sir Wilfred Grenfell College, will explore the special value of poetry in contemporary society during this public lecture, titled The Uses of Poetry.

Ironically, it is the commercial uselessness of poetry, Mr. Steffler argues, that is the foundation of its value to human kind. Since poets are in no danger of making money for themselves or others, they can be as honest and natural as they please.

“Poetry really is able to express the state of our culture’s soul, our fears, desires, vanities, neuroses, nobilities, shames, obsessions and wisdoms: the whole insides,” said Mr. Steffler.

He went on to say, “Poetry brings out people’s private experience, puts people in touch with their inner selves, and refreshes their awareness of the outside world.”

Poetry, John Steffler maintains, is the underpinning of all literature as it makes the most exact and intense use of language. He calls it “language off the leash” as compared to the practical, dull applications of language in the everyday, modern world. It also acts as an energy source that can rejuvenate individuals and keep them in touch with the life of the imagination.

Originally from Ontario, John Steffler has lived in Corner Brook since 1974, when he began teaching at Sir Wilfred Grenfell College...

To read the rest of this article, please click here.

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The unabridged audio edition of The Grey Islands by John Steffler (narrated by John Steffler, Frank Holden, Janis Spence, Deidre Gillard-Rowlings and Darryl Hopkins) is available from rattlingbooks.com

Canada Reads Panelist Lisa Moore and her selected Author Mavis Gallant could be on your ipod

Listening to CBC Radio's Canada Reads this week?

Want to check out some Lisa Moore and Mavis Gallant short fiction for your ipod?

Rattling Books has two collections of short fiction by Lisa Moore and Mavis Gallant that you can either order as an MP3 CD or pay to download as an mp3 digital download playable on your ipod or other mp3 player.

Open by Lisa Moore

unabridged audio edition

narrated by Lisa Moore, Holly Hogan and Mary Lewis.

Montreal Stories by Mavis Gallant

unabridged audio edition

narrated by Margot Dionne.

AudioFile Earphones Award and one of 12 Best Audio Fiction titles of the year selected by AudioFile Magazine.

REDEFiNE iT Contest Winner Andreae Prozesky Wins the St. John's Round of the CBC Poetry Face-off

Can we pick them, or what?

Not only was Andreae Prozesky the winner of the Rattling Books sponsored REDEFiNE iT New Year's Resolution Contest, she has just won the St. John's, Newfoundland round of the 7th Annual CBC Radio Poetry Face-off.

The event was hosted by Weekend Arts Magazine host Angela Antle (see below for bios of the readers) and featured poems written on the theme of "heating up." Andreae's winning love poem, "Spring, even if it should come late," threw off flankers and flames.

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The Contestents Were:

Leslie Vryenhoek is a writer, communications professional and occasional poet. Her work has appeared in journals and magazines, bathroom stalls and Power Point presentations across this great country. She works at Memorial University.

Andreae Prozesky writes the popular "Food Nerd" column in St. John's alternative paper The Scope, and has also written for Maisonneuve magazine and for CBC North Radio One. She has won a number of literary awards including the Newfoundland and Labrador Arts and Letters Award, the Lionel Shapiro Award for Creative Writing, and, most recently, the terribly prestigious Rattling Books/Dictionary of Newfoundland English REDEFINEiT New Year's Resolution Contest. She lives in St. John's.

Gerard Van Herk teaches linguistics at Memorial University. He used to be in a band called Deja Voodoo. He loves cheese. He once rhymed “poetry” and “below a tree”. He was also one of the judges for the terribly prestigious Rattling Books/Dictionary of Newfoundland English REDEFINEiT New Year's Resolution Contest.

Anthony Brenton’s forthcoming publications are Morning, Noon and Night in an Apartment; Music for Youngster’s Minds and Greedy Little Animal along with other writings collected over the past years. He is the self-published author of Triskaidekaphobia in St. John’s Muzak and A Book, both reflecting on his environment. Brenton lives in St. John’s Newfoundland where he thinks and loves. Anthony Brenton's latest book is Daybreak, Saint City (Trainwreck Press, 2008)

Michelle Butler Hallett was born in St. John's in 1971 and is the author of Double-blind, a novel and The shadow side of grace, a collection of short stories. Her newest short story, "Pardon-speaking Blood," is part of the anthology The Vagrant Revue of New Fiction. Two of her poems, "Demobilized" and "Meet again," were published in the spring 2007 issue of CV2, and her next novel, Sky Waves, is coming out this fall. Butler Hallett is also working on a screenplay adaptation of some of her short stories. She lives in St. John's with her husband and children.

Canada Reads Audio Clip Posts relating to Mavis Gallant

Mavis Gallant


Lisa Moore makes a passionate pitch for Mavis Gallant’s From the Fifteenth District. [runs 2:29]

Mavis Gallant describes her encounter as a young reporter with Jean-Paul Sartre at his Montreal press conference. [runs 1:25]

Literary larceny: The tale of a crooked agent, and how Mavis Gallant discovered his perfidy. [runs 1:27]

Eleanor Wachtel talks to Mavis Gallant about bringing her fictional characters to life. [runs 12:07]

Portrait of a marriage: Mavis Gallant reads from her story The Moslem Wife. [runs 2:30]

The above audio clips are found on a Canada Reads site featuring a section for each of the authors championed during this year's Canada Reads. Mavis Gallant is the author that Canada Reads panelist Lisa Moore has selected. The work of Mavis Gallant's that Moore has chosen is The Fifteenth District.

Poetry Face-off in St. John's, Newfoundland, Feb 25

Looking for a good dust-up?

Come to the annual CBC Poetry Face-off tonight at The Ship Pub, St. John's, Newfoundland. The event will be hosted by CBC Weekend Arts Magazine's Angela Antle. The battle kicks off at 8PM.

The five poets are Leslie Vryenhoek, Anthony Brenton, Michelle Butler Hallett, REDEFiNE iT New Year's Resolution Contest judge Gerard Van Herk, as well as the winner of that same contest, Andreae Prozesky.

Come drink beer and watch a pile of poets duke it out.

To visit the official website, click here.

New Short Fiction Single (Digital Download) available from rattlingbooks.com - End of the World by Mavis Gallant, narrated by Margot Dionne

Now available as a
Digital Download Single
from rattlingbooks.com

The End of the World


by Mavis Gallant
narrated by Margot Dionne
Duration: approx. 21 minutes / MP3 DD $2.95

The End of the World first appeared in the New Yorker in 1967. It was later included in several collections of Mavis Gallant's short fiction. In 2006 it appeared in the unabridged audio edition of Montreal Stories by Mavis Gallant published by Rattling Books.

"Gallant's subject is the comic opera of character...Before we know it she will have circled a person, captured a voice, revealed a whole manner of a life in the way a character avoids an issue or discusses a dress."
Michael Ondaatje

"One of our era's masters of the short story."
Harpers



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Not ready to handle a whole collection of short fiction? Swing a Single!

Authors: Mavis Gallant / Lisa Moore / Susan Rendell / Janis Spence

Jonny Harris moonlights as a trichologist

An actor always needs something to fall back on and while Jonny Harris may play the fool he's no gommel. No sir, he's got it all figured out.

When not on the stage Jonny is a director of the Belgravia Centre and although not a trichologist, has spent much of his time over the past 4 years studying hair loss and scalp problems, the treatments available, and the issues surrounding the hair loss industry.

Hear Jonny Harris' recent podcast interview about hair loss treatments at the following link - HAIR LOSS TREATMENT PODCAST

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When not tackling the world's hair loss problems Jonny Harris is a member of the sketch comedy troupe The Dance Party of Newfoundland. For Rattling Books he was one of the narrators (along with the author Joel Thomas Hynes and Sherry White) of Down to the Dirt by Joel Thomas Hynes.

You can download Firebug a Short Fiction Single from Down to the Dirt featuring Jonny Harris from rattlingbooks.com

Word of the Week at REDEFiNE iT (Feb 24-March 1) gommel

Word of the Week (Feb 24-March 1)

gommel

For the definition according to the Dictionary of Newfoundland English and to follow tangents on gommel through the week visit the REDEFiNE iT Blog

N.B. Any Word of the Week receiving more than 10 posts will trigger a prize from Rattling Books for our favourite.

We also invite you (if you are "on facebook") to visit the REDEFiNE iT facebook group.

An essay on the writing of Mavis Gallant: Politics and Religion, Language and Art by Daniel Woolford for Sudies in Canadian Literature

Mavis Gallant's Overhead in a Balloon:
Politics and Religion, Language and Art
An essay by Daniel Woolford

The full text of Daniel Woolford's essay on Mavis Gallant is available online at Studies in Canadian Literature.

Here is an excerpt:

"In this essay, I will examine the Speck stories and "Luc and his Father," with a glance also at the Grippes group, to determine what Gallant has to say about politics, religion, language, and art.

...

On the religious question, too, Gallant is equivocal. While insisting that she is not "a practising anything," she does aver that "I can't completely-and this is nobody's business-take seriously a philosophy that excludes the possibility of divine intervention" (Hancock 53). The explicitly private nature of this avowal sets it at a considerable remove from the sometimes politically suspect complacency and selfrighteousness of the Church, and indeed from the whole orthodoxy of the Judeo-Christian tradition. And it removes any possibility that Gallant's fiction may have a religious axe to grind.

Indeed, I would suggest that Gallant's nonaligned position is what enables her to create a text that is truly "interrogative," that engages the reader in considering the issues brought to attention, a text that is, in Barthe's terms scriptible (writable) rather than merely lisible (readable) (see Belsey 105). Returning to "Overhead in a Balloon," we can once again see how, rather than offering us a single, fixed, prepackaged position which we are simply required to learn and accept, the text articulates a variety of possible positions for our consideration. Again, I am not suggesting that Gallant never makes value judgements; on the contrary, false or dangerous political positions are ruthlessly exposed. But there is not necessarily one position that merges as being the correct one. "

To read the entire essay by Daniel Woolford on Mavis Gallant at Studies in Canadian Literature click here.

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Montreal Stories by Mavis Gallant, the unabridged audio edition narrated by Margot Dionne is available from Rattling Books.

Online Interviews with Rattling Books Authors: Leo Furey interviews Michael Crummey for the Antigonish Review in 2002

The Antigonish Review # 131
Leo Furey Interviews Michael Crummey
(May 8,'02)

excerpt:

LF:
You cited the BC poet, Tim Bowling, in describing what you hope to achieve. He said: "I want to face the world with so much grace that the world would always know my love of it." In your stories, Flesh and Blood, lives lived above ground in the small Newfoundland mining town, Black Rock, the recurring theme of love comes through. Sometimes often painful love, how it endures in the face of obstacles such as estrangement, exile and misunderstanding. Would you care to comment? How does this tie in to what you've said about Tim Bowling and your notion of why you write?
MC:
Well, I think the reason that Tim's words struck me in a particular way is because there are good writers I don't enjoy reading because it seems to me that they dislike the things they are writing about. Or they look down upon the people and places they are writing about. Or they're exploiting the people and things they are writing about. And that's something that I've never wanted to do in my own writing. I think when I'm writing at my best . . . what I hope I'm doing is honoring the things I'm writing about in some way. Even when they are difficult things. Many of the stories in Flesh and Blood are not about very pleasant things. People aren't particularly happy. But in trying to write about them honestly, I hope what I'm doing is honoring their experience of the world. And the pain that they are experiencing in being in the world.
LF:
That's very beautiful. Something you might hear from someone who's been writing for 110 years. Very powerful. You've always thought that way, obviously.
MC:
Not consciously. But I think that when I look back…
LF:
And that's why writing is a meditation.
MC:
I think so. Yeah.
LF:
Wallace Stevens said that the poet is the priest of the invisible. That's really what you're doing, isn't it? Looking until you see and understand. And trying to best reflect that truth.
MC:
Yeah, I'm thinking now of Lisa Moore's latest book, Open, which is a fabulous book, an incredibly moving book, partly because what each of her stories does is honor the experience of this place, St. John's, the people here. And she's just trying to see it clearly. And speak about it in a way that honors the experience of people who live here.
LF:
Michael, you've had quite a few jobs on the way to becoming a writer. What did you find most interesting? Was there anything you felt tuned up your antennae?
MC:
I don't know if there was anything in particular. You know the old cliche, a writer's always working. I think that's true for me. Everything that happens around me feels like it could wind up being used. You know, especially if I'm working on something pretty intensely. I remember Carol Shields talking about this, how when she's working on something, it seems like the exact thing she needs comes along. And she's not airy-fairy enough to think of that as the world offering it to her or anything. To her, it's because her antennae are up and she's looking for exactly what she needs.

To read the rest of this interview with Michael Crummey by Leo Furey click here.

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Hard Light: 32 Little Stories by Michael Crummey, narrated by Michael Crummey, Ron Hynes and Deidre Gillard-Rowlings is available in audio from Rattling Books as either an Audio CD or Digital Download from rattlingbooks.com.

1988 Interview with Mavis Gallant to read online in Athabaska University's Aurora Interview Series

Genesis Of A Story:
Mavis Gallant Describes The Creative Process Behind Her Award-winning Stories
Interview by Kathy Williams


.....Aurora: In The Pegnitz Junction, you stretch the limits of the traditional use of point of view. You tell the story from Christine's point of view, but she actually is receiving the thoughts of the other characters.

Gallant: Fiction. That to me is the writing of fiction. I truly enjoyed writing The Pegnitz Junction, and I didn't care if it was ever published. I absolutely adored writing it. I wrote it in a great hurry and put a lot of things into it that I liked and that amused me. It's one of the few things I can reread.

Aurora: I feel sometimes that she is almost helpless. They are transmitting, and she has to receive these waves, these messages. Sometimes she doesn't know what to do with them.

Gallant: But it's not metaphysical. I absolutely refuse that! I won't have it! No, I'm joking. The things that she sees out of the train window all had a reference to German literature. I was just having a good time with it, and a lot of it is satire. There are names in it from Wilhelm Busch, the German caricaturist. That thing in the castle is obviously just a satire of Kafka's castles. Even the names I gave people, if you look at them closely, are satire. But I just did it for myself.

Aurora:At the same time, I have read that you were exploring the whole phenomena of the rise of Nazism.

Gallant: Was I now? When I was writing the stories that were in the book—not the novella—I was fascinated with Germany, but that has something to do with my generation. I am the war generation, and I was never satisfied with anything that I had read about it. Everything seemed to me to be written in black and white, and I wondered if I could do something with fiction. I thought it had to be done at a kind of lower middle-class level. I think that's where it all arose, the Nazi movement. I got very much into it, then I couldn't do anymore, so I stopped. That was when I wrote all those stories, as well as a couple that were in other anthologies.

Aurora: I think you stated that you don't deliberately strive to create symbols in your stories.

Gallant: No, that would be a very cheap thing to do. I did it deliberately in The Pegnitz Junction because I was doing it for myself. But there is something in the writing of fiction that one will see only later. In a funny way, your memory and your unconscious work together without your being always aware of it, and then you are aware of it much later. I have had to change things in proof because I realized I had used a real situation or a real name that I didn't remember having remembered.

Aurora: Irony seems to operate on several levels in your stories. There's a tension, an inconsistency, between the characters and even the reader's expectations and reality. You juxtapose the commonplace with the bizarre. In The Fifteenth District the dead are haunted by the living.

Gallant: This is very cruel, but I am going to tell you anyway. I am at an age where everybody is dying, so I've seen quite a few little widows. One thing I've noticed is that when the poor man dies, often very glad to get out of his misery, the widow will always evoke an extraordinary marriage, nothing that ever really existed. I have often thought about this poor guy running through eternity, with this complete nonsense following him from the living. That was where I got the idea of the professor who keeps saying that his wife is a saint, and she's so sick of hearing it. The whole thing is meant to be funny.

To read the rest of this interview with Mavis Gallant click here.

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Montreal Stories by Mavis Gallant and narrated by Margot Dionne (the unabridged audio book) is available from Rattling Books.

Quill and Quire : Gabriele Schreiber: 1951-2008

Industry news
Gabriele Schreiber: 1951-2008
February 22, 2008 By Michelle Collins

Veteran library sales rep Gabriele Schreiber died suddenly on Feb. 14. Schreiber had worked for Random House of Canada for about 20 years, and since 2005 had worked at the library wholesaler S&B Books.

Schreiber had a passion for books and a commitment to her clients, Random House manager of library services Lahring Tribe told Q&Q Omni. “She established the gold standard by which other people who serve the library market are measured, [she's] who we judge ourselves by,” Lahring said. “She didn’t just sell [books] as sort of a casual thing, she absorbed them.”

S&B president Arthur Gale, a close friend, recalled that he first met Schreiber more than 30 years ago, when they were both starting out in book sales and stayed at the same hotel for a conference in Vancouver. Gale says Schreiber’s unique and personal style distinguished her from other reps. “While she was in your dining room or home, she would really become your friend, and amazingly you’d find yourself buying books from her,” Gale said. “She knew books inside and out, and she would gloss over the obvious titles. One of her favourite phrases was, ‘There’s a great little title hidden in that catalogue.’”

Schreiber also favoured adventurous routes in her travels, recalled Anne Ledingham, national sales manager for S&B. Rather than stay in hotels, Schreiber would camp her way to the Maritimes and seek out mom and pop restaurants, collecting many friends along the way. “Her sales trip would be part sales trip and part adventure,” Ledingham said. “She was very much a free spirit, and very much an amazing person.”

A funeral service was held Thursday in Waterloo, Ontario; Schreiber was living in nearby Bright at the time of her death. She is survived by her mother, Ingrid, and her sister, Benita Laing.

Mavis Gallant, "The Chosen Husband", The New Yorker, Rattling Books and Montreal Stories

Mavis Gallant, Fiction
"The Chosen Husband," The New Yorker, April 15, 1985, p. 40

Mavis Gallant, Audio Fiction Single
"The Chosen Husband," Rattling Books, 2008, 47 minutes

Mavis Gallant, one of 15 short stories
"The Chosen Husband," Montreal Stories, 2007, 11 hours

GABRIELE SCHREIBER 1951 - 2008

February 19, 2008
THE RECORD
Kitchener / Waterloo, Ontario

(Feb 19, 2008) -- GABRIELE SCHREIBER 1951 - 2008 On Thursday, February 14, 2008, Gabriele embarked on a new adventure. Predeceased by her father, Willy Schreiber, she will be missed by her mother, Ingrid and her sister, Benita (Ian) Laing. Her many friends and colleagues will miss her passion for life, love of books, and unending curiosity. Friends are invited to a memorial gathering in the Historic Kuntz House of the Erb & Good Family Funeral Home , 171 King St. S., Waterloo on Thursday, February 21, 2008 from 2-5 p.m. Condolences for the family and donations to your local library or the Nature Conservancy of Canada may be arranged through the funeral home, 519-745-8445 or www.erbgood.com. In living memory of Gabriele, a donation will be made to the Trees for Learning Program by the funeral home.

Mavis Gallant Reviewed in the Montreal Review of Books

My Favourite Montreal Story
Montreal Stories
Reviewed By Ian McGillis

from Montreal Review of Books
Winter 2006
eighteenth issue
Vol 9, No 2


When I first moved to Montreal eight years ago I chose an apartment in Mile End. It was actually a bit of a dump, but that didn't matter because it was around the corner from where Mordecai Richler grew up. When my first novel was published three years ago I had my author photo taken in front of Wilensky's, in a very deliberate salute to Duddy Kravitz. So you would assume I'd choose a Richler book. But even the Dickens of St. Urbain must bow before the majesty of Mavis Gallant, master of the short story and, in my humble opinion, the greatest writer ever born in Canada...

To read the rest of this article, please click here.

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Rattling Books' unabridged audio production of Montreal Stories by Mavis Gallant, narrated by Margot Dionne was selected as one of 2007's twelve best fiction audiobooks by the U.S. audio book magazine AudioFile.

Mavis Gallant's Paris Diary

from Slate

I live in a narrow street on the Left Bank, in Paris, closer to Montparnasse than St. Germain des Prés. We all look into the rooms of near neighbors, know the programs they watch, the musical instruments the children play, but we never acknowledge one another in the street. We do, however, nod and smile (but never speak) if an encounter takes place at Le Midi, the café-bistrot at the corner, on the Rue du Cherche-Midi. So much for local customs. In an apartment just across from mine, a distraught, lonely, barking poodle has been keeping us all awake at night...

To read the rest of this article, please click here.

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Mavis Gallant is the author of the short story collection Montreal Stories. Rattling Books' unabridged audio production of Montreal Stories was selected as one of 2007's twelve best fiction audiobooks by the U.S. audio book magazine AudioFile.

Lisa Moore's Canada Reads Blog Entry on Mavis Gallant

Novelist, short-story writer and Mavis Gallant fan Lisa Moore has written a blog entry on Gallant's story The Remission for the Canada Reads competition:

I sat down and took Mavis Gallant’s From the Fifteenth District out of my purse. I was reading the story called The Remission. It’s about a young wife. She is the wife of a man who is dying in a foreign place. It’s also about the husband, dying in a suffocating, beautiful heat and watching trains roar past and knowing your wife has already fallen in love with someone else and being beyond caring. It’s about being too young to give up on love just because you are about to become a widow. It’s about waiting for someone whom you have loved to die and refusing to give up sex and love and just feeling and being alive while you wait. Listening for death...

To read the rest of Lisa Moore's blog on Mavis Gallant, please click here.

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Lisa Moore's latest short story collection, Open, and Mavis Gallant's classic Montreal Stories are available as unabridged MP3 CDs and digital downloads from Rattling Books.

Death in the Wilds, a February 18, 1905 review in the New York Times of Lure of the Labrador Wild by Dillon Wallace

The following review of The Lure of the Labrador Wild by Dillon Wallace appeared in the New York Times on this date in 1905.

DEATH IN THE WILDS.; Dillon Wallace's Story of the Ill-Fated Labrador Exploring Expedition.

February 18, 1905

Saturday Section: REVIEW OF BOOKS, Page BR2, 1577 words

IT is a homely and pitiful story of enterprise, disappointment, and starvation that this survivor of an amateur exploring expedition of three has to tell. Its manifest moral is that it does not do to start wrong if you would go exploring.

To read the rest of this article from 1905 click here.

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The unabridged audio edition of The Lure of the Labrador Wild narrated by Jody Richardson is available from Rattling Books.

Reassessing Traditional Inuit Poetry by Robin McGrath, a Chapter of Native Writers and Canadian Writing (1990)

Native Writers and Canadian Writing
W. H. New
$27.95 Paperback Release Date: 1/1/1990
ISBN: 9780774803717

Fans of Robin McGrath's fiction and poetry may be interested in Robin's contribution to the above volume:

Reassessing Traditional Inuit Poetry


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Robin McGrath is the author of the novel Donovan's Station and Coasting Trade, a performance for three voices. Both are available in audio from Rattling Books.

REDEFiNE iT: empter

Word of the Week (Feb 17-23)

This week’s word of the week was suggested by Kathleen Winter, a regular contributor to REDEFiNE iT and one of the winners of our New Year's Resolution Contest.

empter

To read the definition according to the Dictionary of Newfoundland English and join in there are two places you can go:

The REDEFiNE iT Blog

or

The REDEFiNE iT Facebook Group

Inside the Extra's Studio: a short film (comedy) by Gerard Neil starring Frank Holden and Gerard Neil viewable online

Inside the Extra's Studio (a spoof on the life of a professional extra) featuring Frank Holden as Jame Slipt-on and Gerard Neil as Ian Ernest is available for viewing online at undergroundfilm.com

Written, produced and edited by Gerard Neil. Directed and filmed by Gerard Neil and Ray Penton Jr. Technical coordinator and extras handler Rob Dawe. Executive Producer Ray Penton Jr.

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Frank Holden is a frequent contributor to Rattling Books. He created Judge Prowse Presiding, narrated The Last Voyage of the Karluk by Captain Bob Bartlett and also appears on The Grey Islands by John Steffler.

Gerard Neil also directed and acted (with Stephen Lush) in delirium, Blood from a Turnip, St. John’s NL, Canada 5 min (An exploration into the mind of a man freezing and starving to death.)

Audio Publishers Association Communications Committee members and special guest Janet Russell of Rattling Books do first Member Call in a series

Learn best publicity practices in the audio industry!

The Communications Committee will be holding the first Member Call of the year on Friday, February 22 at 12:00 – 12:45 pm EST.

Log in to the Members' section of the APA website for details on how to RSVP.

The first in a series of educational calls planned for 2008, APA Communications Committee members will be on hand to discuss ways to promote your titles, narrators and authors through effective public relations strategies.

Some topics for discussion may include:

• Working with reviewers and other members of the media to get the best coverage for your titles

• Managing publicity campaigns with limited staff resources• How social media can enhance your publicity efforts

• And much more!

Join Communications Committee members Theresa Pantazopolous from Simon & Schuster Audio, Liz Noland from Macmillan Audio and Katherine Tiernan from HarperAudio, with special guest Janet Russell of Rattling Books in Newfoundland. All will be available for questions during this call.

Come prepared with your questions!

If you are not a member, but would like to join our call, click here and sign up for APA membership now!

Janis Spence Tribute by Geoff Meeker in his Telegram Blog

Geoff Meeker dug up a profile of Janis Spence that he wrote in 1990 in the Newfoundland Signal and has reprinted it with an introduction on his Telegram Blog.

The photo above (scanned from that 1990 Signal) was taken by Geoff Meeker during that interview almost two decades ago.

Here is an excerpt:

Although she has all but pulled back from performing, Spence says she has enormous respect for actors, calling them “the most delicate, the most wonderful people in the world – and the craziest, because nothing could be crazier than pretending to be somebody else… in front of a whole crowd of people. I mean, how loony can you get?”

These days, Spence considers herself first and foremost a writer, a writer-director second, and an actor third. “I love acting… but I love writing more. It’s a question of control, of complete autonomy. I get to say what I want and there’s no interference from anybody.”


At the root of this attitude is an aversion to humiliation in any form, Spence said. “I think everywhere you work in life, (the rules) are courtesy, respect, kindness and dignity. I think good rehearsal halls with really good directors and really good companies – that’s the ultimate.” But finding those things is the exception rather than the rule, she added. “It’s as rare as anything else in life, as rare as really good doctors, lawyers and teachers… who are truly called.”

Actor-writer Cathy Jones of the Codco comedy troupe worked with Spence to create the Live Soap series in 1984 at the LSPU Hall. In an interview, Jones said Spence is a “brilliant” writer: “She always has a very good sense of what people really do and what people really say… She knows what someone would say if they went to Home Hardware and couldn’t get the thing they wanted to get… She rips through the bull and gets to what’s really going on.”

Jones said if she harbors one “secret wish”, it is to collaborate on another writing project with Spence.

Local actor-writer Greg Thomey echoed those sentiments. Thomey, who has worked with Spence on numerous projects over the last 10 years, said people jump at an opportunity to work with Spence.

“She has a great eye for the stage and a great talent for recognizing a good line, when it comes to writing… She’s a very hard worker and I think she’s becoming recognized a little more around here. I think she’s a well-kept secret. The quality of work she has produced consistently has been very high.”

Thomey said Spence always has a strong idea of what she wants to communicate with her writing: “She was always very focused. In that way, it’s no surprise to me when people talk about her… There are certain people that you are inspired by, and Janis is definitely one of them.”

To read the rest of this Profile click here.

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Janis Spence was a central shaper of Rattling Books. Of special interest is her own collection of short fiction on the beach in spanish room which she also narrated.

Film by Gerard Whelan featuring Stephen Lush featured this week on undergroundfilm.com

Gerard Whelan writes:

http://www.undergroundfilm.com/
is featuring my (dark-ish) film 'delirium' on their home page until friday of this week which features Stephen Lush - it's about five minutes

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Stephen Lush is the creator of Sunday Dinner with Brianee Newell on CBC Radio. Rattling Books is just one of many adoring fans.

Gerard Whelan appears to be Gerard Neil : producer/director/piano/writer and actor of/for/in "delirium"

tarzan or jane? Valentine: take your pick

http://www.rattlingbooks.com/Product.aspx?ProductID=9

iPoet uMuse Valentine

Heart of a Poet Valentine

Review of Riddle Fence by Llyw Evans in gotpoetry.com

Riddle Fence, Issue One; Mark Callanan, Ed.; 2007
Reviewed by Llyw Evans

The front and back covers of Riddle Fence each feature a coloured photo by Scott Walden of a desolate community centre or fraternity lodge—a chair and two speakers sitting on the floor of one, a dartboard and poppy-strewn veterans' photos hanging on a wall of the other. Such desolation is unintentionally symbolic of the emptiness to be found between the glossy covers of this new literary journal out of Newfoundland.

Not surprisingly, Issue One is comprised mostly of authors who are important unto their own closed circle in St. John's and a few politically correct critics and editors in Ontario who take pity on them. And, to be frank, most of the material supplied by these authors appears to be bottom-of-the-barrel throwaways: slushpile poetic leftovers and third-rate ‘rants’—written over coffee on a word processor two hours before deadline. The exceptions—although quite fine when and where they do appear—are rather few and far between, to say the least.

To read the rest of this review click here.

The Moravian Inuit community of Hebron and its musical legacy

Music, Media and Culture Lecture Series

The sixth Music, Media and Culture Lecture series will showcase diverse research areas, approaches, and presentation styles.

Lecture Series Brochure (PDF)

The Final Lecture of the 2007-08 Series...
Dr. Tom Gordon
Wednesday, February 13th, 2008 at 7:30 pm
MMaP GalleryArts and Culture Centre

Memorial University musicologist Tom Gordon will offer a brief introduction to the Moravian Inuit community of Hebron and its musical legacy.

The highlight of the presentation will be six of the anthems from Holy Week in Hebron in 1859 performed by a choir and small orchestra from the School of Music under the direction of Amy Henderson. The works performed include Kuvianak Bethania iglunga, Nâlegavut ivsornaitoksôvok, PiniarneK ussornartoK!, NâlegaK inôgutaujoK, Merngoêrsertillutit ikkingnît and Nertorisiuk SalaKartoK.

First installment of Fictional Life, a New CBC Radio undertaking: Michael Crummey and Bernice Morgan

Wednesday, February 13, 2008
8:00pm - 10:00pm
Petro-Canada Hall, MUN School of Music

Award-winning authors Michael Crummey and Bernice Morgan read from their work and discuss issues of truth and invention in their historical novels.

The show will be recorded live for the new CBC Radio program "The Fictional Life" with host Jamie Fitzpatrick.

Admission is free and parking is available in Lot 15, just across from the Hall entrance.

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The audio recording Hard Light: 32 Little Stories by Michael Crummey is published by Rattling Books. Narrated by Michael Crummey, Ron Hynes and Diedre Gillard-Rowlings it is available as audio CD or Digital Download from rattlingbooks.com.

Telegram Article on Joel Thomas Hynes' Artistic Collaboration

'Broken Accidents': glimpse into production birth
Heidi Wicks
special to The Telegram

Whether it's a song, story, painting, sculpture or play, it takes countless hours of mulling, himming, hawing, arguing, moaning, dreaming and many other '-ings' to create a piece of art.

However, thanks to ample time and the ability to work 'in the space', the four principal collaborators - Joel Thomas Hynes (writer), Lois Brown (director), Sarah Joy Stoker and Louise Moyes (both choreographers, Neighbourhood Dance Works) - now feel each other's heat when discussing such sensitive issues as suicide and depression.

For several months, Resource Centre for the Arts and Neighbourhood Dance Works have been gathering in the LSPU Hall to create 'Broken Accidents' - a multi-disciplinary, highly collaborative conception that will eventually (hopefully in Fall '08, summer '09) tour across Canada and fringe festivals across the UK.

To read the rest of this article, please click here.

Article on Andy Jones

Jones gives life to host of eccentrics

By Stephen Hunt, CanWest News Service
Published: Wednesday, January 09, 2008

Newfoundlanders always have been pretty exotic to the rest of Canada.

What's surprising is that outport Newfoundlanders -- eccentrics who live in the remote hamlets that are often more connected to the sea than the rest of the people in the province -- seem just as odd to Newfoundlanders themselves. That was the inspiration behind Andy Jones's latest one-man show, An Evening With Uncle Val, the comedy veteran is performing as part of the High Performance Rodeo, Calgary's International Festival of the Arts, Wednesday and Thursday nights.

"I've always seen outport Newfoundland as a very exotic place," Jones says, over the phone from St. John's, where he grew up in the 'burbs. "It was the source of so much inspiration for Newfoundland artists. All the storytellers, all the musicians -- so many of them."

To read the rest of this article, please click here.

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Letters from Uncle Val, a series of fictional letters from Andy Jones' incomparable comedic character of the stage play An Evening with Uncle Val, is available from Rattling Books. Written and performed by the author.

Brick Books Update on Agnes Walsh's Tour

Coast to Coast to Coast: On the Road with Two Poets Laureate

Poets Laureate Agnes Walsh (St. John's, Newfoundland) and Lorri Neilsen Glenn (Halifax, Nova Scotia) started out in Edmonton (January 21) reading with Alice Major and Ted Blodgett, the city's first and current Poets Laureate respectively. From there the poets made their way to Yellowknife (January 23 & 24), Whitehorse (January 25 & 26), Salt Spring Island (January 29) to read with local poet Christine Smart, and Victoria (January 30) where they appeared with that city's Poet Laureate Carla Funk. They were very well received in all the cities and led a workshop in Yellowknife and Whitehorse as well as reading from their own work.

In March they are back on the road again with stops in Regina (March 5) and Saskatoon (March 6) where they will read with current Saskatchewan Poet Laureate Robert Currie as well as past Poets Laureate Glen Sorestad and Louise Halfe. In Toronto (March 10) Neilsen Glenn and Walsh will read with the city's current Poet Laureate Pier Giorgio Di Cicco and will be joined by Poets Laureate Liz Zetlin of Owen Sound and John B. Lee of Brantford. In Ottawa (March 11) the poets will read at the Tree Reading Series.

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Going Around with Bachelors by Agnes Walsh, published by Brick Books, is available as a digital download on the Rattling Books website (the print version can be found on Brick's website). Agnes Walsh's first poetry collection, In the Old Country of My Heart, is available as an audio book from Rattling Books.

Word of the Week for REDEFiNE iT (Feb 10-16): faffering

Word of the Week (Feb 10-16) over at our REDEFiNE iT Blog:

faffering

go there or to the sister facebook group to check it out.

REDEFiNE iT is inspired by words from the Dictionary of Newfoundland English and is sponsored by Rattling Books.

Telegram Notice regarding Janis Spence

SPENCE, Janis — Passed peacefully away at St. Clare’s Hospital in the early hours of Thursday, Feb. 7, 2008, Janis Spence, aged 61 years. Leaving to mourn are Graham, Sarah, Sebastian, Pauline, Michael and Christopher. Visitation at Cauls Funeral Home, LeMarchant Road on Sunday, Feb. 10 from 2 p.m.-9 p.m. Funeral Service to be held at St. Thomas Anglican Church, Military Road on Monday, Feb. 11 at 2 p.m. Cremation to follow.

Above notice appears in the Telegram, Saturday, February 9, 2008

Janis Spence

Yesterday morning (February 7, 2008) Janis Spence died in a St. John's hospital where she had lain for several months following a serious stroke. She was 61 years old.

I write this post to mark Janis passing and pay tribute to the incalcuble contribution she made to Rattling Books. Filling out the title was hard. It is a fact that yesterday Janis died but she is so alive in my head that to make a headline of her death seems a misleading thing. I tried many phrases after her name in the title above but none of them were true so eventually I gave up. Janis Spence isn't someone who can really die. She was too alive for that.

When I was in grade eleven my family moved to St. John's from Grand Bank and I discovered the theatre at the LSPU Hall. It was the late 70's and Janis Spence was in the thick of it with other names now household (e.g. Mary Walsh, Andy Jones). Going to their shows exercised all the emotions and gut and brain muscles. The CBC notice on Janis yesterday said of her and that time "an actor, playwright and director who helped spark an artistic renaissance in St. John's during the late 1970s".

That is my first thank-you. To Janis as actor and playwright.

Years pass. I am not always in St. John's. I am not always going to theatre. I listen to the radio. Janis is there with her caustic wit and a cat character. On the local CBC Radio and also on the national program Sunday Morning. It is hilarious. She makes me love radio.

My second thank-you. Janis as radio broadcaster and social critic.

More years pass. I hear nothing of Janis Spence. We cross paths socially a bit. I know her only superficially. She intimidates me. She has a punk attitude and seems "tough" and merciless. I associate her with a crowd infamous for self abuse and picking fights when drunk. I pass. As do more years.

I start Rattling Books, an audio publishing venture. One of my first titles is Donovan's Station, a novel by Robin McGrath. I hear it in the voice of Janis Spence. She agrees to do it and I move all the file boxes out of my office to make room for Janis. We create a "studio" in my tiny office and hole up there off and on for a week. Sometimes the surf is too loud and we have to cancel. Even so there is the faintest hum of surf in that recording somewhere although no one has ever noticed. When I told Janis that it was there - in the final recording - she laughed. She could see the truth in it. She didn't go in for dismay.

My third thank-you. Janis as narrator. Keziah Donovan.

Working on Donovan's Station we slowly got to know each other on our tea breaks and in the discussions around the recording. I started what I now see as my apprenticeship with Janis Spence.

My fourth thank-you. Janis as teacher. Narration 101.

In the course of recording Donovan's Station I learn that Janis has retreated from theatre and become a recluse in her downtown home where she gives herself over to writing. She identifies herself now not as an actor but as a Writer. She has a collection of short stories she'd like to publish. They become the next project of Rattling Books. Janis continues the treks down to Tors Cove and we record on the beach in spanish room. She insists it have no capitals. For the cover she selected a photograph by her dear friend Justin Hall whose work she admired immensely.

My fifth thank-you. Janis as Author.

on the beach in spanish room

written and read by Janis Spence

What an unassuming but brilliant little gem this recording is. Set in Newfoundland, all six stories stand proudly on their own, but together they have the sweep of a novel. The reason is Janis Spence’s marvelous characters, “who wore their lives as casually as big sweaters.” ...Spence gives a masterful performance of all the roles she’s created.

- AudioFile Magazine, Earphones Award

One of the most extraordinary things about Spence’s characters is that they are not particularly likeable, yet by the time we have finished with them we have enormous sympathy for their faults and failings.

..without sounding the least bit over-the-top, she shifts from hearty priest to ancient crone to drugged-out con artist in the blink of an eye. And she is funny! On the Beach in Spanish Room is a wry, witty, humorous, compelling narrative that will stay with you for years.

- Robin McGrath, Northeast Avalon Times

Real people, crashing through life often inflicting suffering, revealing themselves blotchy, acne-prone, wart-covered and then occasionally surprising you with rivulets of kindness in polluted rivers of love.

Oh, it’s black. And sometimes bleak, yet amazing in its ability to lift the characters above it through irony, humour and the character’s own sense of the absurd.

- Sheilagh Walsh, The Current

In the course of recording first Donovan's Station and then on the beach in spanish room I am getting to know Janis better and falling in love with her. She advises me on a multitude of decisions that will shape Rattling Books. I trust her judgement implicitly. It jives with my own sense of things but is informed by years of working in the theatre - something I know nothing about. She knows the lay of the land and she guides me through it. She decides Ron Hynes should be the male voice for Michael Crummey's Hard Light: 32 Little Stories. It is a brilliant choice. I ask her to direct the actors and she is delighted. She casts Frank Holden to read The Last Voyage of the Karluk and we end up recording it at Frank's house. It is a difficult book to read aloud and hard work. We drink gallons of tea and spend hours of tea breaks chewing the fat and laughing. Janis in those strident glasses gesticulating. Beating off her hot flashes with a waving fan. The twinkle in her eye a pair of hands rubbed together with glee. She would get going with her surgical but ultimately humane wit and actually personify glee.

Working with Janis and Frank we went through all the emotions and all the brain and gut muscles. I am flooded with memories of Janis and her delight in the absurdity of it all. She had the intelligent person's reaction to the tragedy of humanity - humour. That project, The Last Voyage of the Karluk was the longest and hardest project we did together. Janis and Frank produced a fabulous performance.

In this tale of Arctic exploration, narrator Frank Holden turns in a masterful performance as Robert Bartlett, captain of the ill-fated Karluk , which sank off the Siberian coast in 1914. From the Newfoundland accent to the fortitude of a polar adventurer, Holden inhabits his subject. The narration soars as the typically reserved Bartlett reunites with his rescued crew, an emotional breathiness imbuing Holden's voice.

- Publisher's Weekly

Frank Holden does an exceptional job channeling Bartlett and capturing his frank, straightforward tone so expertly that I quickly believed I was listening to Bartlett himself. By the time the captain reunites with his shipwrecked crew—people he did not know if he would ever see alive again—his famous restraint breaks and his deep, unreserved emotion (courtesy of Holden) is heartbreaking and real. Thank you to Rattling Books and Frank Holden for retelling this important and inspiring tale, and for creating this moving, enthralling time machine, which transported me to another time and to another place with an extraordinary hero. As intimately as I know this story, I found myself completely swept away by it, as if I was hearing it for the first time.

- Jennifer Niven, Author of the Ice Master

My sixth thank-you. Janis as Acting Director.

Janis went on to cast, direct and narrate several other projects with Rattling Books. Janis directed the narrators for In the Chambers of the Sea by Susan Rendell, Mary Lewis, Holly Hogan and Lisa Moore doing Open by Lisa Moore, Jody Richardson reading The Lure of the Labrador Wild and Chris Brookes as Wilfred Grenfell in Adrift on an Ice Pan.

As a narrator Janis can be heard as the principal voice on Donovan's Station by Robin McGrath and her own collection of short fiction on the beach in spanish room. In addition she narrated several of the stories in Susan Rendell's collection In the Chambers of the Sea and appears on Adrift on an Ice Pan by Wilfred Grenfell and The Grey Islands by John Steffler.

Janis Spence helped shape Rattling Books and taught me everything I know about casting and working with actors. She gave me the confidence to pursue the kind of understated narrations that we both loved.

My seventh thank-you. Janis as mentor.

I only got to know Janis Spence in the last years of her life but she has left me flooding with memories. Her fierceness. Her laugh. The glint of her ascerbic wit flashing. For me the surest sign of intelligence is humour and Janis was as smart as they get.

In re-reading this I realize the tenses are all over the place. I start to edit but stop. There is no correct tense for the presence of someone who passes from life into the minds of those that knew them.

I love you Janis Spence.

Newfoundlanders dans la maison

A few weeks ago, Maisonneuve online (the web counterpart of the award-winning Montreal-based magazine) republished an article Newfoundland playwright and Governor General nominee Robert Chafe had written for Riddle Fence, a new NL literary journal. This week, the Maisonneuve website features a travel article by Newfoundland poet and critic Mark Callanan.

Michael Winter Reads at UNB

Acclaimed author Michael Winter will be reading in Fredericton on Tuesday, February 12th, 2008 at 8PM in the Alumni Memorial Lounge of the University of New Brunswick. The reading is sponsored by the Canada Council for the Arts, the University of New Brunswick English Department, and the UNB Bookstore.

Winter is the award-winning author of several novels and short story collections, including The Big Why, and most recently, The Architects Are Here.

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The unabridged audio edition of The Big Why, narrated by Robert Joy, was recently published by Rattling Books. It is available from rattlingbooks.com as either an MP3 CD or Digital Download. Listening time 10.5 hours.

Andy Jones talks with Jian Ghomeshi on CBC Radio's Q today about his stage show An Evening with Uncle Val

Andy Jones will talk with Jian Ghomeshi on CBC Radio's Q today (February 6) about his stage show An Evening with Uncle Val

Radio One:

2 p.m. and 10 p.m.(CT 1 p.m., NT 2:30 p.m., NT 10:30 p.m.)

Sirius Satellite 137: 12 p.m., 8 p.m. and 2 a.m. ET
and there's also a podcast if you miss it.

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Letters from Uncle Val

written and performed by Andy Jones

audio CD or Digital Download

available from Rattling Books

Vancouver Sun Article on John Steffler

How a Poet Laureate Leaves His Mark

Rebecca Wigod, Vancouver Sun
Published: Saturday, February 02, 2008

Halfway into his two-year term as Parliamentary poet laureate, John Steffler is having a hard time composing poems, since making public appearances and leaving some kind of legacy are major parts of the job.

On the phone from the countryside near Perth, Ont., the writer known mainly for his evocations of the landscape of Newfoundland and Labrador said: "Since the new year, I've been kind of hiding out here, trying to get a new collection of poems together."

Steffler, 60, grew up on a farm in Markham County, north of Toronto. He spent three decades in Cornerbrook, Nfld., before moving to Montreal...

To read the rest of this article, please click here.

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The unabridged audio edition of The Grey Islands by John Steffler (narrated by John Steffler, Frank Holden, Janis Spence, Deidre Gillard-Rowlings and Darryl Hopkins) is available from rattlingbooks.com

Word of the Week at REDEFiNE iT: Dictionary of Newfoundland English (Feb 3-9): ballicatter

ballicatter

for the definition (from the Dictionary of Newfoundland English) and an invitation to REad, REmember, RElish, REnew and even REdefine iT visit the new Blog dedicated to just that or the sister facebook group.

REDEFiNE iT: Dictionary of Newfoundland English is sponsored by Rattling Books.

Winners of recent New Year's Resolution Contest: a Yaffle of Poets

Turns out they are all poets. To read a little about each of them visit our new Blog site dedicated to REDEFiNE iT.

Article on Michael Crummey in The Muse

Michael Crummey brings it home
Award-winning writer lends experience and support to MUN students

By Krysta Fitzpatrick
from The Muse

Michael Crummey has returned to the halls of MUN again after 21 years, only he's not a student this time – he's the new writer in residence.

Crummey, who received his bachelor of arts from MUN in 1987, has since gone on to publish a number of successful novels and books of poetry, such as Hard Light and River Thieves, and win a number of awards including the Winterset Award for Excellence in Newfoundland Writing and the Atlantic Independent Booksellers' Choice Award.

He isn’t just returning to Memorial for nostalgia’s sake though. Instead, he wants to be “a good resource for students.”

“A paying gig isn’t bad either,” he said.

The writer in residence program is offered by MUN's English department as a way for students to get feedback on their own writing from someone established in the field...

To read the rest of this article, please click here.

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Michael Crummey is also the author of three poetry collections: Arguments with Gravity, Hard Light and Salvage. Hard Light: 32 Little Stories is available in an audio edition from Rattling Books, read by Michael Crummey, Ron Hynes and Deidre Gillard-Rowlings.