Marie Carrière - Ten Canadian Writers in Context

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The University of Alberta Press

Ring House 2

Edmonton, Alberta, Canada T6G 2E1

www.uap.ualberta.ca

Copyright 2016 The University of Alberta Press

LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

Ten Canadian writers in context / Marie Carrire, Curtis Gillespie & Jason Purcell, editors.

(Robert Kroetsch series)

Includes bibliographical references.

Issued in print and electronic formats.

Text in English; some text in French.

ISBN 978-1-77212-141-4 (paperback).ISBN 978-1-77212-284-8 (EPUB).ISBN 978-1-77212-285-5 (mobipocket).ISBN 978-1-77212-286-2 (PDF)

1. Canadian literature (English)21st centuryHistory and criticism. 2. Canadian literature (English)21st century. 3. Authors, Canadian (English). 4. Authorship. I. Carrire, Marie J., 1971, editor II. Gillespie, Curtis, 1960, editor III. Purcell, Jason, 1990, editor IV. Series: Robert Kroetsch series

First edition, rst printing, 2016.

First electronic edition, 2016.

Digital conversion by Transforma Pvt. Ltd.

Copyediting and proofreading

by Joanne Muzak.

Book design by Alan Brownoff.

A volume in the Robert Kroetsch Series.

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Contents

Making Literature, Literature in the Making

by Marie Carrire, Curtis Gillespie & Jason Purcell

Experiment and Innovation by Julie Rodgers

a.k.a. The Wit by Mat Snauwaert

The Presence of the Past by Jennifer Bowering Delisle

History Lost in Forgetfulness by Joseph Pivato

Lights and Shadows across the Continent by Daniel Laforest

History and the Truth of Fiction by Winfried Siemerling

Metaphors, Myths, and the Eye of the Magpie by Don Perkins

Reading for Bgwus by Kit Dobson

kistyihtamowin kwa skihitowin (Honour and Love) by Angela Van Essen

A Gentle Power by Pamela V. Sing

Acknowledgements

THE EDITORS wish to warmly acknowledge the support that the Faculty of Arts at the University of Alberta has bestowed upon the Canadian Literature Centre (CLC) since it came into existence in 2006. Dr. Eric Schlosss leadership gift in turn made possible the creation of the Centre and thus the fruition of this anniversary anthology. For their enthusiasm from the very start of this process, many special thanks to the ten creative authors featured in this anthology: Ying Chen, Lynn Coady, Michael Crummey, Caterina Edwards, Marina Endicott, Lawrence Hill, Alice Major, Eden Robinson, Gregory Scofield, and Kim Thy. They most generously agreed to share the beauty of their talent and the power of their words in celebration of the CLCs tenth anniversary. Our heartfelt appreciation goes out to the ten essay contributors: Jennifer Bowering Delisle, Kit Dobson, Daniel Laforest, Don Perkins, Joseph Pivato, Julie Rodgers, Winfried Siemerling, Pamela Sing, Mat Snauwaert, and Angela Van Essen. They have worked diligently and patiently with us throughout this project, and give collegiality its true meaning. CLC Director Marie Carrire thanks her co-editors, Edmonton author, journalist, and magazine editor Curtis Gillespie, and writer, singer, and composer Jason Purcell, for their discerning editorial brilliance, their good humour, and their friendship. Finally, the editors express love and gratitude to their respective families and friends. These individuals know who they are, and without them, there would be no milestones.

INTRODUCTION

Making Literature, Literature in the Making

MARIE CARRIRE, CURTIS GILLESPIE & JASON PURCELL

IT IS AN EXCITING TIME to engage with the literatures of Canada. Diverse and powerful voices are increasingly writing back to the national canon, which makes curating an anthology of contemporary Canadian writers a heady and somewhat daunting task. Making the choices for this collection was not easy, and we could have gone in many different directions. In the ten years since its inception in 2006, and thanks to the founding gift of Edmonton bibliophile Dr. Eric Schloss, the Canadian Literature Centre/Centre de littrature canadienne has hosted over fifty authors in its Brown Bag Lunch (BBL) reading series. Our BBL authors typically appeared on a Wednesday at noon in the Old Arts Building on the University of Alberta campus, always in a full room with an audience comprised of students, staff, and professors, and most especially of Edmontons remarkably ardent community of readers, to whom this anthology is warmly dedicated. The authors featured in this anthology, ten from the ten years of BBL readings, have not only passed through our doors to share their work with our audiences, but they now generously contribute to this print anthology project as well as an ongoing digital project. The authors original readings have been recorded live in front of an audience, or subsequently in the offices of the Canadian Literature Centre, and can be seen and heard in a digital archive titled Inside the Bag: Can Lit Alive! (edited by Marie Carrire and Jason Purcell). This online scrapbook (abclc.ca/insidethebag/) accompanies the anthology and houses the video and audio recordings, creative bibliographies by Dylan Bateman, our own take on the Proust Questionnaire, and other supplementary materials.

The CLC pursues a uniquely bilingual and multicultural mandate that consists of a three-fold objective of reaching out to students, researchers, and a wider community of readers. This anthology is in part a celebration of that mission. But its wider aim is to represent diverse voices from various races and ethnicities, writing genres, and backgrounds that inhabit Canadian literature today, and to reflect the countrys geographical breadth: Michael Crummey from the east coast of Newfoundland; Eden Robinson from the Kitamaat territory on British Columbias central coast; Kim Thy from Montral, Qubec; as well as Edmonton authors who exemplify the vibrant literary community of Alberta. This anthology is unique in that it samples not only contemporary writers from different regions and languages, but also of different genres. It features poetry, nonfiction, and fiction, the latter admittedly a favoured genre in this anthology as it has been in the reading series these past ten years. This volume showcases a lived and living Canadian literature from an interlingual and transcultural perspective.

There is no doubt that the making of anthologies, whether large or small, contributes to the construction of literary histories and institutions, just as it responds to these entities. In this collection, we have a literature written in French, in English, and even in Cree. We have purposely reproduced the two Qubcois excerpts in their original language, seeking to underline the fact that in Canada and Qubec literature is produced, distributed, and read not only in translation (although thankfully it is!), but also in its original French and English. If FrenchEnglish bilingualism has been deeply entrenched in the work pursued at the Canadian Literature Centre in the past decade, it has not been as part of a mandated colonial ideology extolling Canada as made up of two founding nations. We have instead chosen to adopt bilingualism as a practice of open dialogue and comparative literary activity. But we need to do more, to foster and promote further the multilingualismparticularly of Canadas Indigenous peoplesthat a truly pluralistic society requires. These writers offer a literature that is contemporary, and thus a literature that is still in its own making. While the excerpts in this anthology can only provide us with mere glimpses into these writings, we hope that our selection is attentive and respectful. If the restriction to ten authors mirrors the tenth anniversary of the BBL reading series, it has also allowed us as editors the space to match each literary selection with a critical essay. The selections thus allow readers and students to engage with an introductory assortment of different texts, traditions, regions, and genres for further discovery and study.