Adventures in Writing

I'm Back! (and ready to ride)

2011-08-05T15:30:00.000-07:00

Okay, summer is finally here in Victoria, so I figured it was time to relaunch the Great Ride & Sign Fatal Tide Event. What? You don't remember that stroke of self-marketing genius? That fad that swept the nation?

Let me refresh your memory of how it all works:

1) If you live in the Victoria area, first you head out (run, don't walk!) and buy a copy of Fatal Tide: When the Race of a Lifetime Goes Wrong. (Not Fatal Tide, the million-seller by mystery author Iris Johanssen. She doesn't need any sales help.)

2) Drop me a line at dleach@uvic.ca or via Twitter @LeachWriter or even via the Comment link below.

3) I will set up a day & time to RIDE MY BIKE to your place and sign your book IN PERSON. (Spandex and sweat included.)

Wow, what a deal! Your own autographed copy of Fatal Tide! How cool is that? You could look as happy as this guy or this guy or... wait, I think that's all I sold the first time around.

Plus, my name inked in your first edition will either (according to conventional wisdom about author-signed copies) instantly double its resale value or (according to this online reseller) instantly cut it in half! Who knows?!?

But what, I hear you asking, if you're just too damn lazy to go to a bookstore or boot up your computer to order a copy online?

Well....you still don't have to miss out on this great event! Drop me a line, set up a date, and I will stick a hardcover copy down my cycling shirt and pedal to you in person and sell it to you for a flat rate of 30 bucks -- that saves you a toonie plus tax over the list price, as well as the environmental cost of any and all shipping (exc. for minor mid-ride flatulence).

Don't delay! This is a limited offer for the month of August — and maybe a little longer, depending on the weather and while supplies last!

Hang ups

2010-01-11T10:23:00.000-08:00

Like a stopped clock, even a botched government gets it right twice a term. While the B.C. Liberals are suffocating the province's artists with savage cutbacks (behind a veil of Olympic hoopla), I will give them credit for two decent moves: the carbon tax (in opposition to which the NDP impaled themselves last election) and the new ban on talking and texting while driving.

The latter is a bit of a half-measure—drivers are still allowed to use hands-free phones, despite the evidence that they're just as dangerous—but it's better than nothing. And it puts the force of law (which will finally, maybe, sort of be enforced come February after a month of issuing warnings) behind me whenever I dementedly scream from the sidewalk at drivers holding their mini-screens up to their eyes to "Get off yer frickin' phone!!!!" End rant.

In other news, while I've hardly been the most diligent of bloggers of late, it's partly because I've moved my online writing to a new home that will let me focus on a current project. It's got a little to do with adventure (or at least my first travel experiences abroad) and writing (or at least my trying to make sense of those memories), and a lot to do with the transformation of Israel's kibbutz movement and its communal ideas over the last 20 years. And I've thrown down a gauntlet to myself: 100 posts to mark the centenary of Degania, the original kibbutz.

Come join me at Look Back to Galilee. I'm still waiting for my first comment! (And I'll hold on to this site, too, for whenever I have more spleen to vent or non-kibbutz tales to share.)

Digest This

2009-12-27T17:55:00.000-08:00

Well, I survived a hectic last month of essay marking, administrivia, last-minute Xmas shopping and even a much-procrastinated and extended feature-article deadline. Finally, I have a wee smidge of free time to catch up on my pleasure reading of books, magazines and newspapers. (And a little blogging.)

I realize you'd have to be a complete magaholic to want a read about the business history of Reader's Digest Magazine — that hoary old standby on grandparents' bathroom magazine racks everywhere — but I found the feature in last week's Sunday New York Times about the magazine's rise and fall (and attempted rise again) fascinating reading: how the magazine became a surprising success that made more money than its founders could give away and then turned into yet another debt-burdened, bankrupt victim of short-sighted corporate profit-first ambitions.

It's hard to imagine how Reader's Digest might survive long enough to experience a renaissance in the digital age. (Hiring Derek Webster, the brilliant founder of Maisonneuve Magazine, is a good first start for the Canadian edition.) Still, I've got a soft spot for a publication that is too often a punching bag and a punch line for urban hipsters in the periodical biz: I can certainly credit early reading of the "Drama in Real Life" (recent hed and dek: "The Trapper’s Trial: This first-hand look at one survival expert’s near-death ordeal will chill you to the bone") and "Laughter is the Best Medicine" sections from my parents' subscription for my interest in misadventure stories and humour writing (of the bad pun variety) respectively.

Speaking of Digests, another one that ran afoul of the inevitable production "dead zone" between wrapping up a magazine's editorial and its printed version actually hitting newsstands was Golf Digest. The January 2010 issue includes a cover photo of Tiger Woods and President Obama and the coverline "10 Tips Obama Can Take From Tiger"—all to promote a feature article that was "put to bed" (as they say in the biz) before what Tiger has been doing in his various extramarital beds hit the tabloids in December.

Oops. I hate golf, but I'm dying to know what advice Tiger for has Obama these days!

Making Art out of Tragedy (and Tragedy out of Art)

2009-11-21T10:20:00.000-08:00

Last weekend marked the 50th anniversary of the brutal, senseless murder of the four members of the Clutter family in Holcolmb, Kansas. That terrible event might have been long forgotten by now, if novelist and short-story writer Truman Capote hadn't read a news story about the killings in the New York Times. The brutality and mystery of the murders piqued his literary interest—he had been searching for a true-life subject with which to test his ideas about writing a "nonfiction novel"—and he embarked on what would turn out to be five years of research, interviews and even a controversial correspondence with the two men who were eventually tried, convicted and executed for the crimes.

The result of his efforts, of course, was In Cold Blood. Even before it was serialized in The New Yorker, the project had generated enormous buzz, and in book form, it became an instant bestseller. It launched a whole sub-genre of true-crime books—few of which have even come close to the exacting literary standard that Capote set. (The opening chapter remains one of the most haunting in all of literature.)

The book

was made into a movie in 1967—one that used many of the real-life settings (and even people) to evoke a sense of authenticity and that starred Robert Blake, an actor who would gain his own infamy decades later. More recently, two immensely watchable bio pics (Capote and Infamous) offered perspectives on the making of the book and the unmaking of its author.

His long immersion in the sordid, tragic lives of his characters ultimately exacted a great emotional toll on Capote. He never wrote anything close to the quality of In Cold Blood, either in fiction or nonfiction, and descended into a boozy parody of himself on the talk show and party circuit. But 50 years after the tragedy, his book remains one of the classics of North American nonfiction writing—much admired, rarely emulated, a testament to its author's obsessive commitment to transforming the raw, bloody matter of real-life into high literature.

Adventures of Greg

2009-11-10T10:59:00.000-08:00

I got a lovely (and unexpected) note from Greg Kolodziejzyk, who recently read Fatal Tide. Greg knows more than most people about the highs and lows of outdoor adventure, endurance races and the other themes of my book. He is a multiple Ironman finisher (and was at a fatal race I described in the book) who is now on an epic journey to try to pedal-boat across the Pacific Ocean.

He recently had a mechanical breakdown off Vancouver Island while testing his ocean-going pedal-powered kayak (that's an earlier model in the photo), but I'm sure that setback won't slow him down for long. I'm still hoping to write a profile of Greg—and try to understand what motivates someone to undertake such a daunting, expensive, physically and psychologically taxing adventure as the journey he has cooked up.

Anyway, here's what Greg had to say about his reading experience:

I just finished "Fatal Tide", and I just wanted you to know that I really enjoyed it. I kept thinking about my first Ironman which was the inaugural Ironman Utah where John Boland died in the swim due to the freak wind storm. It was pretty brutal. I see you did mention that event - you are VERY thorough! I especially appreciated your summary and background research into hypothermia, kayak safety, and risk with adventure sports. Very thought provoking stuff!

Thanks, Greg. And safe travels on your future journeys!

Victoria Butler Book Prize

2009-10-08T17:38:00.000-07:00

Well, I've been a lazy, lazy blogger. But it's been that kind of a back-to-school month: little writing, less adventure. (Although I suppose having your family caught in an international media shit-storm counts as adventure...but more on that another day!)

Still, amid all the class prep and administrivia, there has been some good news about previous writing projects. The most exciting honour in a long time has been getting nominated for the Victoria Butler Book Prize. Considering the per capita density of great authors in this town, I never assumed I'd get even short-listed for Fatal Tide, especially considering that poetry, fiction and nonfiction all duke it out for a single award. (Kids lit gets its own prize.)

There's a reading and awards night next Wednesday at the Union Club. Sadly, I have to teach the next morning, otherwise I would have really whooped it up—organizers even threw in a free night's stay at the swanky Magnolia Hotel, which I likely won't be able to use.

Again, it's a big honour just to get nominated, and I look forward to congratulating literary switch-hitter Patrick Lane—poet, memoirist and now novelist—whose Red Dog, Red Dog is the heavy favourite.

I may suggest we collaborate on our next book and call it Red Tide, Red Tide.

Stop Me Before I Subscribe Again!

2009-08-19T09:00:00.000-07:00

"Hi, my name is David, and I'm a magaholic..."

Those are my first words to students in my second-year magazine writing class. It's just a cheeky way of acknowledging my passion for the subject and my hope that some of them will come to share my obsession with magazines by semester's end.

But recently, I've been wondering (and so has my Canada Post deliverywoman, I suspect) if my fondness isn’t more of a sickness. A month ago, I’d been reading Gabor Mate’s In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, a book about addiction, the author’s medical practice in the Downtown Eastside, and—oddly enough—his own “addiction” to buying classical CDs. (He says he is no way equating his Mozart collection, a habit that cost him eight grand one week, with mainlining heroin, but still...)

My love of magazines is the closest I’ve ever come (and hopefully ever will) to an addictive personality trait. I grew up around magazines (my parents both subscribed to several), and began getting my own from as early as I can remember: Chickadee, Owl, The Electric Company, dozens of Marvel comic books. That was followed by magazines to match every strange teenage hobby or interest I developed: Dragon (during my spotty-faced D&D years), Circus (my spotty-faced heavy-metal era), Soldier of Fortune (my, uh, weird obsession with mercenaries phase), Outside (my discovery of outdoor adventure, or at least reading about it).

If I am to admit I’ve got a problem, I’ve got to first come clean about its extent. Herewith, the magazines that enter my house every month.

Magazines I subscribe to:

Bicycling (see below)
Harper’s (my longest-running subscription at more than 20 years)
Maclean’s (Canada’s chattering class may hate Ken Whyte’s politics, but he’s an editorial genius and turned around this once-moribund newsweekly; plus, it runs the hilarious Scott Feschuk)
The Atlantic (I haven’t got my first issue but was suckered into an impulse sub by a “professional deal”)
Chatelaine and Today’s Parent (I get these for my wife, and flip through both)
Maisonneuve (the little mag that could, out of Montreal)
The New York Times Magazine (the main reason I get the Sunday Times, which was even better when they also published Key and Play magazines)
National Geographic (how else will my children inherit an attic full of moldy Nat Geos?)

Magazine’s I’m subscribed to (there’s a difference):

The New Yorker (world’s best birthday present—thanks to my father in law for renewing annually)
Sports Illustrated (from my sister in law—does that make them both enablers?)
The Torch (from UVic) and Queen’s Alumni Review

Magazines I get for free as a contributor:

explore
2 Magazine
Financial Post Business
British Columbia (my wife works there)

Local magazines I pick up for free:

Monday (sadly, more of a conventional alt-newsweekly than a true magazine after rounds of freelance cutbacks)
Focus (a strong arts and politics monthly)
Boulevard (I don’t always grab it but know several of the columnists)
Wavelength (for kayakers...and I’m not really a kayaker!)

Magazines that my father in law brings for me whenever he visits:

Toronto Life and The Walrus (which I used to have subs for)
The Literary Review of Canada (a bit wonkish, but otherwise decent book coverage)

Magazines that fall out of the newspaper and that I flip through:

Driven, Sharp, Douglas, Western Living, Report on Business

In-flight magazines that I take home when any sane person leaves them in the seat pocket:

Up! and EnRoute (Canada is lucky to have not one but two in-flight mags that run more than just boring travel bumph)

I’ve likely missed some in there, and I haven’t mentioned the many magazines that I once subscribed to, or my impulse buys of individual issues at grocery stores and airports, or my large collection of obscure, international or regional magazines, or the online-only magazines I browse, or the magazines I think I should subscribe to or wish I could justify, or the books I buy that are about magazines or that anthologize magazine stories...

Of course, there is no way—even if I didn’t have a full-time job and two small kids—that I’d ever have the time to read every issue of every magazine I get. (So, yes, my habit has an environmental cost, too.)

So you tell me: fondness or sickness?

The 100-Mile Ride-It

2009-08-18T11:35:00.000-07:00

After a couple years' hiatus, I recently resubscribed to Bicycling magazine. (Long story short: I'd been trying, vainly, to curb my rampant magaholism.) My first issue arrived with a rather anti-climactic main coverline ("Lance Rides Again: Why he can win"—or not as it turns out), but I still enjoyed the other lead feature, by Todd Balf, "My Family Gave Up Driving for 30 Days to Stick it to the Man".

At first I thought, "Big deal! One lousy month! My family has been car-free for going on nine years!" But Balf and his clan faced bigger obstacles to their experiment in low-carbon living. They live in a community (Beverly, Mass.) not especially conducive to biking (certainly not compared to Victoria, B.C.), in a climate (the U.S. Northeast) not as temperate as the Pacific Northwest. His wife has a long, complicated commute to work. And his kids are at that tween-ish age when they have lots of after-school activities at out-of-the-way locations.

It's easy enough to justify your own "inconvenience" of not operating a car. It's a lot harder—as I fear I will soon discover—when it means forcing social, and even educational, sacrifices upon your children

While the Balfs experienced a few bumps and scrapes along the way (and plenty of weird looks from other families), the story is an otherwise humorous recollection of their month of logging miles on two wheels rather than four. I was fascinated by the quiver of bikes the author used to entice his family into riding: an electric hybrid, an extend-a-bike, a single-speed, a fold-up bike, a tandem. And I was impressed with how many times he ended up cycling home, while ferrying one (or even two!) of his kids' bikes along with him, because they'd decided to catch a lift home with a coach or a friend.

In the end, the feature is an honest yet still inspiring account of the challenges (and rewards) of riding against the grain of a culture in love with the car—and one of the reasons I started subscribing to Bicycling in the first place.

Facts & (Many) Arguments

2009-08-11T13:33:00.000-07:00

I don't usually read the "Facts & Arguments" reader-written essay in the Globe & Mail (usually too cute or maudlin), but I was struck by the illustration and the accompanying personal memoir in today's section. Well, struck is definitely the wrong word.

The story is a haunting and poignant account about getting hit by a truck while cycling, dragged for 100 metres, nearly dying, and then slowly and painfully recovering until the author could bike again. Brutal stuff, close to home, and vividly written. (A caveat: avoid the online audio version read, I'm sure, by a cheesy "voice actor" and not Kyle G. Brown himself.) There's hard-learned wisdom, too:

One year on, the driver who ran me over has yet to be tried. If convicted, he faces a maximum fine of $120 for making an unsafe turn.

But my fury isn't focused on him as much as on a society that honours pseudo-virtues of comfort and convenience at the altar of the automobile. It's directed at people who profess a love for the environment while driving distances a brief bike ride away. My ire is aimed at commentators who characterize the building of bike lanes as part of the “war on cars.”

Unlike most "Facts and Arguments" essays, this one set off a flurry of online comments and debate that reveal (surprise!) that drivers and cyclists are still a long way from seeing eye to eye.

Underage Driving vs. Homicidal Firefighters

2009-08-10T15:47:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure what makes me more nervous as a cyclist—the thought of seven-year-old kids driving (at least the gum-snapping boy seems to be paying attention to the road rather than text-messaging) or the thought of getting shot at by a driver—a firefighter no less!—who stopped to tell me it's unsafe to be cycling with my child!

Maybe I'm getting paranoid. Maybe I feel more aware of how vulnerable cyclists are and how many distractions are already on the road (before you add an Egg McMuffin and a BlackBerry) after a month on the other side of the steering wheel. (I rented a van for July, to go on family vacation etc., and likely added at least five pounds of inactivity weight in that short time.)

Whatever. For the first time in Victoria, I've taken to cycling with a whistle around my neck and often in my mouth, at least when commuting with the kids in tow. (It would, I agree, look kind of silly on a mountain bike or even a road bike.) Bike bells are useless, I learned during 3.5 years of commuting in Toronto, while dodging drivers and trying to convince taxis that cycle lanes aren't high-speed passing lanes. Whistles get people's attention.

More attention than I'd intended, given the weird looks I got from drivers during the last few days—and I haven't had to blow the damn thing yet. Do I look like a lifeguard or a referee late for work? How is pedalling with a whistle any more strange than, say, the guy I saw driving while wearing full-on audiophile headphones and one of those wraparound-the-chin mics? Was he planning to land his car on an aircraft carrier? Or maybe play a round of Halo at the next stop light? How am I the crazy-looking one?

Oh well, as long as seven-year-old drivers aren't busting a cap in my helmet, I'm happy enough for now...

Imitation

2009-08-06T09:11:00.001-07:00

Last week, Russell Smith of the Globe and Mail had an interesting column about the fine art of parody. Like Smith, I've also had writing students do assignments in which they have to parody the prose voice of another writer, with the understanding that they're not mocking the writer's style but trying to channel their literary spirit in a new context. It's a surprisingly difficult exercise, and one that really gets them thinking about the specifics of diction and syntax, and how any one writer establishes a unique way of communicating on the page.

Smith ended his column with a call for sample parodies, of one paragraph in length, aimed at either the humourless elevated lyricism of so much CanLit (aka, the school of Michael Ondaatje and Anne Michaels), or even his own hyper-urbane prose style. I was procrastinating over a massive to-do list (still am, in fact), and thought it might be fun to do my own version of Russell Smith, transported into an unlikely context. Here are the results:

How Conservative

Stephen stood in the gloom of the grand foyer at 24 Sussex and confronted his double. Before the mirror, he had tied the half-Windsor seven times and yet something still felt amiss. The oceanic blue of the Italian silk contained a leitmotif of grief that perfectly complemented his two-buttoned jacket, hand-cut to hug his newly svelte physique. (The kelp diet and Pilates had done wonders). And yet he was gripped by a sartorial uncertainty that he knew Iggy—he of the foreign surname and casual worldliness—could never share, not with a hockey-loving Reach for the Top nerd from Leaside. His RAZR trilled in a pocket—a lambent bar of Donizetti—and he flipped the phone open with immediate regret. “’Sup, S-Man? It’s Stock. The ride’s here and this blow ain’t gonna snort itself!” Stephen glared into the driveway and saw the limousine idling and, emerging from its black steel and smoked glass, the grinning visage of the Okanaganite. Stephen was seized by a Proustian despair, a sense of lost time. The Okanaganite had tried to match a fuchsia Farmer John wetsuit with a pair of tan brogues—after Labour Day! How could he ever conquer the nightclubs of Bytown, let alone bestride the international catwalks of power, Stephen wondered, when he couldn’t keep his own caucus in pleated slacks?

Change Your Font, Save the World

2009-07-29T21:21:00.000-07:00

I read an odd little front of the book article in a recent National Geographic magazine about the "ecofont"—a software tool that digitally "punches" holes in your existing fonts, so that when you print a document it uses 20% less ink (and, as some skeptics pointed out, gets at least that much less legible).

Brilliant idea or utter greenwash? You decide.

Cover Vote

2009-07-22T09:19:00.000-07:00

A number of magazines have been using website polls to let readers help to choose an upcoming issue's cover design. Mostly, the cover photos tend to be variations on a theme. Rarely are they as diverse as the three covers offered up for readers' eyes as the next issue of explore. I can't wait to see which cover that readers—and then staff members (and my former colleagues)—pick. I've had a sneak peek at a couple of the "true life tales", and it promises to be a great issue.

Eyes on the Road

2009-07-21T15:18:00.000-07:00

This Sunday's New York Times featured another excellent front page investigation, this one about the thwarted attempts by many states to enact laws against the use of cellphones by car drivers, despite the increasing evidence of the distracting dangers of both handheld and hands-free phones for people who should be paying attention to the road.

The story is fascinating for not being entirely black and white: some big businesses (cellular companies) are lobbying to halt cellphone laws, while others (auto insurers) want bans in place. Also, the family of the woman killed by a cellphone-using 20-year-old, who didn't even see the red light he blew through, admitted that she often talked on the phone while driving. That was one of the most interesting details: Most drivers recognize the dangers of driving and dialing—they just don't think it's dangerous when they do it. (Alas, it is.)

While it doesn't mention bikes, the story evokes every cyclist's worst nightmare—getting smeared from behind by someone too busy text-messaging to notice them—and I couldn't help but think of the Times report again when I read the news stories about the five road cyclists injured in Ottawa, at least one of them critically, by a driver who didn't even bother to stop at the scene. There's no indication yet that a cellphone played a part, but it was a clear day and a group ride, and the driver would seem to have no excuse beyond aggressive ignorance. Some good tips, for cyclists and drivers alike, on how to stay out of each other's ways in today's Globe and Mail.

Finally, it reminded me of a line from an excellent Sports Illustrated article recently, about the different attitudes towards cycling in Europe (where it's considered a blue-collar sport) versus North America (where it's the much-mocked realm of nerds with thick calves), and how Lance Armstrong bridged those two worlds for many years:

"In Europe a truck driver who sees cyclists out training invites them to grab hold of his rig for a tow; Armstrong could recount many times that pick-ups and semis in Texas literally ran him off the road. What made Armstrong different -- what would make him a seven-time winner of the Tour, when you get right down to it -- is that he would flip those truck drivers the bird."

It looks like this year Lance will be passing his crown onto the new master of the mountains, Alberto Contador. But you can bet that he'd still put his pump through the windshield of any text-messaging yahoo who tried to mess with his ride.

Krazy Kitchens and Other Motivations

2009-07-16T07:30:00.000-07:00

I forgot one of the other interesting storylines, at least for Canadian and B.C. cycling fans, at this year's Tour de France: the second appearance of Victoria racer (with the perfect cyclist's name) Ryder Hesjedal, who, despite two crashes in the first week, is still soldiering on on behalf of his team.

Also, when I was researching my profile of Simon Whitfield, I learned that he motivated himself for the final sprint at the Sydney Olympics by imagining a soccer ball bouncing down the final stretch and then madly chasing after it.

Last summer, at Beijing, he inspired himself to a comeback silver by reciting "Sing like Kreek!" in his head, thinking about Canadian rower Adam Kreek, who had won gold with the Canadian 8-man crew and then belted out the national anthem.

And then last month in Iowa, he came up with yet another unusual motivational technique. He told himself to "Run for the crooked playhouse!"

What's that? A backyard play toy for his toddler daughter. What makes it so inspiring? And why did even a successful athlete like Whitfield feel he needed to win a $200K race to justify its purchase?

Check out the cool designs—as well as the bank-busting list prices—of the Crooked Playhouse.

Amazing Races

2009-07-14T09:11:00.001-07:00

It's July, and that means only one thing for cycling fans: Tour de France time! Thank god for live Internet feeds, so that I don't have to shell out good money for another tier of cable stations simply to get a month of the most exciting sporting event in the world (tight Spandex edition).

This year's TdF has been well worth the early wake-ups, thanks to Lance Armstrong's un-retirement and a variety of related and unrelated storylines:

Lance vs. his aging body
Lance vs. his heir apparent and Astana teammate, Alberto Contador
Lance vs. his good friend and former teammate, George Hincapie
Lance vs. the skeptical French media
sprint demon Mark Cavendish
stage wins for French cyclists (and long-suffering French fans) on daring breakaways
plus, the best broadcast tandem in sports, Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen.

The Tour hasn't been the only race worth watching, though. On the last Saturday in June, in the heat of an Iowa summer, Victoria triathlete and Olympic gold and silver medallist Simon Whitfield pulled out another amazing come-from-behind and close-as-it-comes sprint finish to win the $200,000 grand prize at the richest race on the triathlon circuit. You can check out highlights here and get a signed edition of the says-it-all finish-line photo here. Yet another memorable performance from one of Canada's most inspiring athletes.

Review: The Lost City of Z

2009-07-13T14:18:00.000-07:00

Even in a semi-distracted state, I blew through David Grann's creative nonfiction bestseller The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon, a fascinating biography of British amateur explorer Percy Fawcett melded with Grann's own personal journey into the Amazon in search of answers for what happened to Fawcett, who disappeared with one of his sons and his son's friend in 1925, on his final quest for an ancient El Dorado in the rainforest.

Grann expanded a feature article in the New Yorker (which I somehow missed; must be somewhere in my backlog of still-to-be-read issues going back several years now) into a book built out of the historical record, Fawcett's detailed letters and journals, and Grann's own often comical travelogue. It's a great story, well told, and if the writing never ascends to the lyricism of the best travel and adventure narratives (like John Vaillant's The Golden Spruce or Jon Krakauer's Into the WIld), neither does it get lost in jungle-like verbiage or macho hyperbole. Grann writes in the lean (not "luminous"!), detail-thick, meticulously documented, and wry style of the magazine in which the story first appeared, and Fawcett—a single-minded explorer I knew next to nothing about—springs to life in this study of his flawed and fascinating character.

One of my favourite books of the year, for its propulsive narrative, compelling central character and a twist at the end that justifies the author's presence throughout the book.

Back from Summer Break!

2009-07-12T16:11:00.000-07:00

Okay, it hasn't been a "break" that has kept me from blogging—more a combination of busy-ness and laziness. More on the former, less on the latter in future posts. The summer began with some good news: my investigative feature for explore magazine ("A Deadly Crossing"), about the deaths of two sea kayakers in Howe Sound, on Thanksgiving 2007, won a Gold medal in the Sports & Recreation category at this year's National Magazine Awards. I'd hoped to attend the ceremony, but life (and a $2,000 plumber's bill) had other plans. Still, I was ecstatic to learn the good news, especially after having played the bridesmaid with nominated stories previous years.

More recently, I did a phone interview with a Ryerson student about my research for the story, which he then edited into am intriguing podcast he produces with other Toronto journalism students. They sit around, drink beer, trade tales, talk shop, and critique one long work of literary journalism every week, and then post their discussions on a website called Ms. Jamerson's Literary Saloon. It's a fun, loose and baggy production that I might encourage my UVic students to experiment with.

While I was disappointed to miss the Magazine Awards and the ASLE conference here in town the same weekend (which featured a wealth of sessions with eco-minded writers and academics), I did fill my notebooks and digital recorder with research for future articles (and maybe a book?) during a long weekend trip to hang out with archaeologists on the Broken Islands (where I got my hands dirty and indulged my Indiana Jones fantasies) and on a two-week return visit to Israel (after living there 20 years ago) to explore the many changes to the kibbutz movement over the past two decades.

Add to these trips a wonderful sun-filled six days up-Island with the family, for beachcombing on Miracle Beach, hikes in the subalpine of Strathcona Park and the rainforest of Quadra Island, and a chance to try out my new/old mountain bike on some sweet island singletrack.

Now, to find the free time and focused frame of mind to knock off a draft or two of this summer's stories before the tsunami of students overwhelms me in the first week of September. It's only July 12, and I can already feel the season ticking away...

Good News about a Sad Story

2009-04-22T09:42:00.000-07:00

The annual National Magazine Awards were announced yesterday afternoon, and I was thrilled to pick up a nomination (in the Sports & Recreation category) for my story "A Deadly Crossing", which appeared last May in explore magazine. It's good news but for a story that was based on a sad and tragic event—the death of two kayakers in Howe Sound during a training day gone horribly wrong—that should have never happened. The incident formed the Epilogue to Fatal Tide; it occurred just as I was sending the final draft of the manuscript to my publisher. Over the following months, I interviewed close to 40 people involved in the incident to reconstruct the chain of bad decisions and worse luck that led to two men dying from hypothermia—and two of their friends nearly perishing as well. It was a tough story to work on, and hopefully the honour of being nominated for an NMA will continue to raise awareness about the perils of cold water. An online version of the article can be read here.

Watch your shoulder

2009-04-16T10:44:00.000-07:00

Here's a funny picture that my father-in-law passed along to me, taken in Florida, that perfectly encapsulates how too many drivers and road engineers think about walkers and pedal-pushers sharing "their" pavement.

Cockpit readers

2009-04-15T11:30:00.000-07:00

I was down at Gyro Beach this weekend, taking our kids to the (rainy) Easter festivities there, when I bumped into my colleague, the prolific novelist / short-story writer / hockey memoirist Bill Gaston. We got to talking, and I remembered that Gyro Beach was the setting for an early scene in his novel Sointula. The main character—a suburban mayor's wife who goes off her meds and heads to the West Coast in search of her damaged son—slept on the beach (Bill pointed out the spot where he imagined it happening), hijacked a kayak and then headed up the east coast of Vancouver Island on her quest.

Bill retold a funny story related to the book. He recently sold a pair of kayaks, and the young guy who bought them—a local outfitter—asked who he should make the cheque out to.

"Bill Gaston," Bill said.

"Like the author?" the outfitter asked.

Bill's voice, needless to say, swelled with pride, as he said, "Well, in fact..."

It turns out the young guy had read at least two of Bill's novels, including Sointula. I suggested to Bill that he should have signed the kayak—how often does a writer get to do that?—as its connection to his novel made it an important artifact of Can Lit history.

Last week, I also acquired a funny little kayaking-related anecdote about my own book. My cousin Bernie and his wife had been visiting Victoria from Calgary. He mentioned that his mother—my aunt Karen—had been reading Fatal Tide at her home in Manitoba. When she got to the climactic storm scene on the Bay of Fundy (spoiler alert: the book doesn't end well), she actually climbed into the cockpit of the lake kayak she owns and finished reading the chapter there.

How cool is that? Every author dreams of writing a story that transports a reader so completely. Maybe if Penguin ever prints another edition of Fatal Tide (spoiler alert: highly unlikely!), it can be sold along with a small inflatable kayak, so other readers can share the same "immersive" reading experience.

Witness

2009-04-12T13:58:00.000-07:00

It was one of the moments that you can't believe what you just saw.

Near Oak Bay High School, I was waiting for the bus with my daughter, who was swilling a bottle of milk in her perambulator (yes, it's a stroller but definitely of retro rather than nouveau variety). Suddenly, across Cadboro Bay Road, I saw an SUV lurch through the crosswalk, suddenly stop, and then a woman's handbag land in the middle of the road.

The driver had just struck a pedestrian.

Fortunately, the woman who had been hit was all right: scratched and bruised, with a twisted ankle and in a great deal of shock. Other witnesses—as well as the driver of the SUV—quickly came to her aid. I called 911 and the police swept in.

But it all could have been much worse. And from my experience as a cyclist and especially as a pedestrian, it's getting all too common.

The problem seems to be the rising restlessness of drivers caught in traffic—as was that case that morning along Cadboro Bay Road, as a line of cars bottlenecked in both directions while students crossed to get to school—and their willingness to take chances with other people's lives. The Hippocratic Drivers Oath—first, do no harm—gets tossed out the window with the urge to make up minutes and even just seconds on an ever-longer commute. The perceived "right" to get where you're going as promptly as possible overrides the very real responsibility to not put other drivers, and especially cyclists or pedestrians, at risk. Sitting inside the airbagged box of a vehicle makes too many drivers (and I've been one of them) think, and behave, like they're president of the Republic of Me.

Case in point: Even after the injured pedestrian had been helped to the sidewalk. Even after two police cars parked with their flashing lights on. Even as other walkers gathered around what was obviously an accident scene. Even then, two cars approached Cadboro Bay Road from the nearest side street, and then the rear driver laid on the horn because the driver in front of her wasn't making the right turn (through the crosswalk / accident site) as fast as she would have liked. Once that car was goaded into motion, the rear driver then swerved into traffic with the same impatience that had bowled over the pedestrian just five minutes before.

It was one of those moments you can't believe what you just saw.

Crazy legs

2009-03-28T08:24:00.000-07:00

There was an interesting profile in yesterday's Globe about a Canadian who will be competing (for a second time) in the grueling Race Across America cross-continental, solo, virtually sleepless bike marathon. The RAAM is an extraordinary event, one that makes the efforts of Tour de France cyclists (with their teams of domestiques and days off between stages) seem like a Sunday ride through the park, and was recently rated the second toughest race (after the Badwater Ultramarathon) by National Geographic Adventure magazine.

After months and even years of training, the riders undergo an intensely transformative experience, both physiologically (in multi-day competitions like this, the body shifts from burning carbohydrates to fat reserves) and psychologically (I once spoke to another Canadian who had completed the RAAM and he described the out-of-body visions that accompanied his final few days of cycling). It's a secular spiritual practice in many ways—a modern version of the ancient ascetics who subjected their bodies to the most exquisite pain in order to bring themselves, however briefly, closer to the ineffable.

While I've got no interest in ever riding the RAAM myself (seven days of the much more manageable TransRockies Challenge brought me close enough to my Maker, thank you very much!), I do find the dedication and efforts of the handful of women and men who race across North America every year truly inspiring. They really emphasize the power of two of the most efficiently designed machines to traverse our planet: the bicycle and the human body. When anybody suggests they can't possibly bike to work a couple days a week because it's too hard or takes too long, I just think: There are other people who cycle across the breadth of our continent in just over eight freaking days! Amazing.

M, M, M good!

2009-03-22T11:05:00.000-07:00

A big thanks to everyone who voted for Fatal Tide in the balloting for the "M Awards" hosted by my journalistic alma mater Monday Magazine. My literary baby was one of three locally produced nonfiction books to make the short list in its category—and to beat back a shameless attempt at vote-stuffing by an out-of-town editor. (Hi, Bruce!)

The final winner will be announced at the M Awards gala on Tuesday, March 31. As I've learned to repeat from several experiences of being a bridesmaid at the National Magazine Awards, "It's an honour just to be nominated." And it is.

Times Colonist readers are morons

2009-03-14T12:27:00.000-07:00

Okay, maybe just the ones who comment on the newspaper's web discussion forums. An accident occurred on Lands End Road last weekend, near Sidney, in which a car rashly passed a pack of road cyclists (including two-time Olympic medallist Simon Whitfield) and then was knocked into the riders (putting two in the hospital) after it was struck by another car making a right turn (without actually stopping) onto Lands End. Whose fault? Well, it's complicated.... except in the mind of many T/C readers, who placed blame clearly on the "elitist" cyclists. The comment thread is long and depressingly familiar to anyone who reads the Colonist's Letters page after a cycling accident: Why aren't cyclists licensed, insured, they don't deserve to be on the road, etc. etc.?

Here is a classic reply, written by a reader I like to imagine is nicknamed "The Major" from the sherry-soaked comfort of his Oak Bay mansion:

When I was young (here in Victoria), we had to take a test to ride our bikes on the road. If we passed, we were given a small license plate that hung on the back of our seat. If we didn't have one of these plates, we were not allowed to ride on the road. If the police saw anyone riding a bike on the road without one of these plates, their bike was permanently confiscated. Then sold at a police bike auction. Which is where many of our parents got bikes for us when we were young. Why don't we still do that? Why do we make it so easy for people with no sense or regard for others to enter into traffic on a bike? I'm also a firm believer that bike riders should have to buy insurance to ride in traffic. Then, if they cause an accident, they can pay for it. On a daily basis, I witness bike riders blatantly breaking the rules of the road. Most of them act like they don't believe the rules pertain to them. My biggest beef is WHY DID WE START ALLOWING THEM TO RIDE ACROSS THE JOHNSTON STREET BRIDGE??!! What happened to the days when cyclists had to dismount and walk their bikes across the bridge on the footpath?? Also, what happened to the rule that cyclists had to dismount at an intersection and walk their bikes across in the crosswalk?? I constantly see cyclists ride across while the light is still red!! Why are they allowed to do that?? Cyclists are slower than cars; if they're riding more than two abreast, they are blocking traffic. People become impatient and try to pass. This is what caused this unfortunate accident. It had nothing to do with the fact that an Olympic hopeful was riding in the bunch. I don't know why the TC felt it necessary to make that the headline. Sensasionalism sells papers....so they say. I'm also happy to see that most of the people sticking up for the cyclists seem to have very poor spelling. That demonstrates their level of intelligence; so their opinion can pretty much be disregarded.

No wonder our planet is burning up...

Protect the Harbour

2009-03-06T10:02:00.000-08:00

Anyone who cares about people-powered paddling in Victoria will want to join tomorrow's protest in the Inner Harbour to voice dissent about a proposed large-scale marina for mega-yachts that would seriously disrupt kayakers and canoeists enjoyment of the area.

The good folks at Ocean River Sports are all over this issue and are coordinating the protests over a dumb, ugly proposal that will attract rich Americans' mega-yachts at the expense of everyone else.

Ride to the Reader Redux

2009-02-02T09:50:00.000-08:00

It's been a crazy busy January, so it was a relief to have the excuse (and the sunny afternoon) two weekends ago to go for a bike ride. Richard Pickard, UVic prof and lit blogger, invited me to ride up to his home and bring a copy of Fatal Tide for him to buy (and me to sign). That makes him reader #2 to take up my long-standing offer to ride and sign copies of my tome. Woo-hoo!

Hopefully, Richard and his family aren't too traumatized by the sight of me in my full Spandex pseudo-Lance outfit. (Thanks, Richard!) I had a great ride afterwards and was in such good humour that I stopped by Oak Bay Bikes and picked up a new pair of bike shoes and clipless pedals on sale—which means the $2 I made selling a book vanished beneath the $200 I spent on carbon-fibre shoes. Moral of the story: Don't quit my day job! Either that or curb my velociphilia.

Still, the offer stands, especially as the warmer months approach: You wanna book? Drop me a line at dleach@uvic.ca and—if you're in Victoria or Oak Bay—I'll ride to your house and sign one for you for a mere 30 bucks.

Back on the blog...

2009-01-12T14:37:00.000-08:00

...after a busy end of term and relaxing (if rather unadventurous—except for swimming with manta rays and jellyfish in Mexico) holiday.

When we got back, I was delighted to learn from a friend that Fatal Tide had been mentioned in the Xmas round-up of book picks selected by callers on Rex Murphy's Cross-Country Check-up. You can get the whole list here—mine was one of the few Canadian-authored books picked by Canadian listeners, which suggests some of the many challenges of the domestic publishing industry. It turned out that the caller was one of my students from a few years back, a talented writer named Wayne Potoroka based in the Yukon. But, honest, no money was exchanged or grades inflated for the plug!

The book also made at least one blogging reader's top ten list for the year.

Then, the new issue of Sea Kayaker magazine—the biggest kayaking publication in the world—ran a good review of the book (despite its lack of an American publisher), written by editor Chris Cunningham, no less (but not online). The kayaking community has really embraced the book and the lessons to be take from it about safety preparedness and the perils of cold water.

The adventure racing community? Less enthusiastic.

Finally, this weekend, the Vancouver Sun ran a fun little article by local author Barbara Julian about the ups and downs of self-marketing for Canadian authors. She mentions a couple of low points from my own oddball efforts to drum up interest for my book, which I'd described on this blog. Apparently, the Sun also ran a photo of me, but I've yet to see the article.

One of my vain efforts was the "Ride to the Readers" campaign last summer. So I thought, now that it has been mentioned again in the Sun, I'd resurrect my offer to bike to interested book buyers and sign their copies in person, with a few twists: 1) I'll limit the geographical range (at least until the weather improves) to Victoria, Oak Bay, and parts of Saanich not too far from the university; but 2) and I'll actually bring a copy of the book to your house (while supplies last) and sell it to you for $30- flat fee (a toonie off the list price, and w/o any tax).

Surely, with that kind of CRAZY GOOD offer, I can improve on my statistic of one reader ridden to....

Big News in Banff!

2008-11-07T20:17:00.000-08:00

For the past week, I had a secret that I had to keep lock-lipped about until the "embargo" passed last night at 8:30 pm (Mountain Time): Fatal Tide had been selected for a Special Jury Mention at the Banff Mountain Book Awards—the Oscars for us outdoor writers. To say I was excited would be a serious understatement. I'd been a judge at the awards a couple years back, and I knew the high quality of the submissions from English language writers around the world. Oh yeah, and my book had a dearth of mountains in it, too!

I got to share a stage with two legends of the outdoor writing community: Canadian Rocky Mountain troubadour Sid Marty (whose book The Black Grizzly of Whiskey Creek walked off with two awards—it's next on my must-read list) and former Outside columnist Mark Jenkins (who won the Adventure Travel category for an anthology). You can check out the run-down of awards, including one of the judge's blush-inducing description of my book here.

I've got more celebrating to do tonight, so I'll fill in the gaps of the past few days later. Thanks to the fine folks at the Banff Centre and the Mountain Culture Program for making a memory I won't soon forget.

Censorship and the Arts Podcast

2008-10-31T10:27:00.000-07:00

The Department of Continuing Studies has already mounted the podcast from last week's public forum on censorship and the arts. I'm not sure if you can download the Q&A, but you can definitely get the three individual talks. I haven't listened yet—I find it too excruciating to hear the recorded sound of my own voice—but for anyone looking to liven up the audio experience, my wife again recommends playing a podcast drinking game. Every time I mumble "sort of", you have to take a slug.

Skol!

In Da News

2008-10-28T13:25:00.001-07:00

There's been a few more reviews and articles about Fatal Tide in the past couple of weeks, including Lindsey Norris's profile in The Torch, UVic's alumni magazine; a review on Peter Darbyshire's blog CanCult.ca; a wonderfully thoughtful review by author Angie Abdou, published in The Fernie Fix and reprinted on her blog; a detailed look at the book from an expert's angle at the paddling blog Kayak Yak; and another blush-inducing review by poet/novelist Linda Rogers in the Pacific Rim Review of Books (sadly, not online).

Thanks to all these writers for taking the time to read the book and share their thoughts with the world.

And now if someone would only drop a copy on Martin Levin's head and knock a review out of him and into the Globe & Mail....

Censorship and the Arts (alternative ending)

2008-10-26T12:05:00.001-07:00

As I drafted my talk for the censorship and the arts forum, I originally had a different ending, in which I tried to extend my potentially controversial case "for" censorship—or at least for how it might, inadvertently, help to hone an artist's craft. I wasn't sure if this final section was fully making sense, especially after the material that preceded it, and I was near the limit of my allotted time anyway, so I decided to chop the ending out. Here it is. I think there may be something to the idea, but it still needs some work:

ALTERNATIVE ENDING:

Censorship also has something to teach us about creative method.

It’s worth considering a story told by the Italian novelist Italo Calvino about his own artistic apprenticeship. He talks about how when he started out “the categorical imperative of every young writer was to represent his (or her) own time”. Eventually though he got bogged down by what he describes as “the weight, the inertia, the opacity of the world”.

To rediscover the lightness—the play—in his art, Calvino turned for help to Greek mythology and in particular the tale of Medusa, whose stare turns men to stone, and Perseus, the hero who ultimately slays her. “To cut off Medusa's head without being turned to stone,” writes Calvino, “Perseus supports himself on the very lightest of things, the winds and the clouds, and fixes his gaze upon what can be revealed only by indirect vision, an image caught in a mirror... Here, certainly, the myth is telling us something… Perseus’s strength lies in a refusal to look directly, but not in a refusal of the reality in which he is fated to live.”

If the Medusa, then, is those corners of life and thought that censors would have us keep in shadow, then art that meets and overcomes that challenge is one that learns to still look into these shadow worlds but indirectly.

And that’s how art of every sort, of every genre, works best—through metaphor, allusion, reflection, cunning. One thinks of George Orwell’s famous allegories, whose targets went unnamed but not untouched. Or of the absurdist dramas of Czech playwright Vaclav Havel, who found subtle ways of poking holes in the illogic of a Communist regime. Or the late Risczard Kapusczinski, the globe-trotting author, part journalist, part myth-maker, whose reports from Africa and South America were also fables about his own repressed Polish homeland.

The question for Canadian artists, I suppose, when we’re allowed to say anything, is how do we learn to say it well, to adopt the indirect vision that lets us see even the darkest parts of our world the most clearly?

Don't Fear the Censor Man

2008-10-24T13:57:00.000-07:00

I gave a talk last night for a Continuing Studies' community forum on "Censorship and the Arts: Current Issues and Controversies". I was joined by Alain Pineau, the director of the Canadian Conference for the Arts, who gave an excellent survey of recent Canadian incidents of arts censorship, and Allan Antliff, of UVic's History in Art Department, who offered a visually engaging tour of "extra-judicial censorship" of protest art in Canada and especially the U.S.

I agreed to be a sort of agent provocateur for the evening and argue (perhaps against my best interests!) for arts censorship—or at least look at the issue from a slightly different perspective. It was a thoroughly engaging evening, especially the audience Q&A that followed. I figured I ought to post my notes before they get filed away. I believe Continuing Studies is planning to podcast the whole evening in the next week.

TALK NOTES:

I wanted to begin my talk with a Zen riddle. It goes something like this: If an artist creates a work of art in the forest, and nobody is there who wants to censor it, does it really make a sound?

I ask this question only half jokingly.

When I was invited to join this forum on censorship and the arts, I thought I knew what I wanted to say. I’ve long been a hardcore Freedom of Speecher and an admirer of Americans’ first amendment rights. I figured I’d defend artists against the last redoubts of censorship in Canadian society—whether they be film boards or customs agents, human rights tribunals or even copyright lawmakers—those legal and bureaucratic obstacles to freedom of expression.

But that seemed a little too easy. And I’m hardly an expert on the topic. Instead I began to wonder why in the age of the Internet—when artists can create almost any type of cultural content and distribute it digitally and globally (unless perhaps you’re living in China and type the words “Falun Gong” or “democracy”). Why, in this borderless new world order, does censorship maintain such an iron grip on Canadian artists’ fears and imaginations, even as its influence shrivels in our daily lives and work?

That’s when I stumbled across the Introduction to a new anthology of creative writing from and about British Columbia. In it, an author describes meeting a famous Palestinian poet at a literary event. He writes: “[O]ne of the things that intrigued me about [the poet] was a rumour that he might be reduced to chopped liver by a Mossad hit squad at any time. I found it invigorating to think that I was sharing the planet with people who cared enough about poetry to shoot anybody over it.”

The author tries to picture this situation “in Canadian terms” and imagines Prime Minister Harper ordering the Canadian Forces to combat experimental poets who have “declared war on conventional imperialist grammar. I want our fighting men to spare no effort until this sinister challenge is stamped out to the last slash and hyphen!” Finally, the author throws up his hands and admits: “It didn’t quite click.”

It’s a funny passage, and it struck me for two reasons. One, the author uses the story about the Palestinian poet to argue that our own government doesn’t want to censor Canadian writers because it doesn’t need to—that “literature in industrialized society is elitist and contemptuous of common people,” so it poses little danger of inspiring citizen-readers to actions or attitudes that might upset the status quo. The same might be said for much of the arts.

Secondly, I detected a certain nostalgia for censorship—an envy of those artists in other nations who still threaten the powers that be, and are threatened in turn by the apparatus of state repression. A nostalgia for a time and a place when art really mattered.

By contrast, the only thing in Canadian culture retreating faster than the shadow of censorship is serious public discussion about the arts. Pick up a paper or turn on the TV, and if you’re lucky enough to stumble across coverage of the arts, it’s usually reduced to the form of a top-ten list or a dollar figure. Which movie opened to the biggest box office? Which painting set a new sales record at auction? Which author signed the biggest advance? Which contestant got voted off the latest reality-TV show?

It’s the great paradox of the Internet era. More people are publishing more stories and poems and memoirs, composing more music, producing more films, YouTubing more performances around the world—creating in unprecedented quantities. And yet who would argue that an appreciation or an understanding of the arts has increased with all this creation? That public discussion of culture has expanded rather than contracted?

That’s where this nostalgia comes from, I think. For most censors at least, art matters. Censors care enough to pay attention, to look beyond the price tag and sales figures to the possible meaning and impact of a work of art. Even if they only want to hide it away from the public eye. Even if they’re hunting for Satanic verses in song lyrics or spotting smut in the corners of an otherwise innocent canvas.

A decade or so ago, Canadian artists had to defend their creations more often against the censors, while public controversy focused on institutional acquisitions and exhibitions such as The Voice of Fire or The Flesh Dress. Then the debate was often (if not always) about “What is art?” rather than “Who’s number one?”

That nostalgia for such battles between artists and censors appeared again in the lead-up to the federal election. When Stephen Harper quietly tried to unplug a number of funding programs, artists across the country got red in the Facebook and the Internet lit up with charges of censorship. The Conservatives’ cultural cutbacks were a lot of things—underhanded, undemocratic, ideological, and, as it turned out, an act of political hari-kari in Quebec.

But to describe the elimination of travel grants or funding for digital projects as “censorship” probably seems odd from the international perspective of, say, an artist under house arrest in Burma, or a novelist with a fatwa against his life, or any creator whose computer has been confiscated or printing press smashed or gallery shuttered. Canadian artists are not the Champagne-swilling elites of the Conservative-sold stereotype. But our situation is more comfortable than our rhetoric often lets on. More comfortable, and yet also more compromised.

The truly “independent” artist in this country is perhaps more endangered than the polar bear. Few do their creative work untethered to the public purse strings. Almost all of us depend, in ways sometimes obvious and sometimes not, on the kindness of strangers—and by strangers, I mean taxpayers.

In a democratic society, how we spend public money should be up for debate: no taxation without representation, and all that. But amongst cultural observers, that debate tends to be framed in a narrative of imminent disaster and looming censorship. After top-ten lists, the most popular plotline used to discuss the arts is “The Sky is Falling”. Columnist Andrew Coyne has described such coverage as “a kind of ritual theatre in which the same lament is endlessly repeated: Canadian culture is dying, defeated, doomed, and all for the want of a few government dollars.” Any opinion to the contrary is intellectual heresy.

Eventually, however, that lament starts to fall on deaf ears.

Part of the problem may be the poverty of our language to describe subtle distinctions between interference and neglect. And part of the solution may be coming up with new words to do so.

I grew up Catholic, and while I’ve since fallen far from the tree, one thing Catholics know about is censorship. The Church turned censorship into its own “ritual theatre”, most infamously in what became known as the Index—which was the Oprah’s Book Club of the Inquisition. If your manuscript made the Index, it was bad news for you, but great news for your book—everybody wanted to read it on the sly.

Catholics are also very good at devising categories, especially when it comes to acting badly and paying penance for it. Catholic doctrine distinguishes between “mortal” and “venial” sins. Mortal sins are grave matters committed knowingly and deliberately—stuff that will get you sent to Hell. I think that censorship as it has been traditionally understood and practiced—as active interference by instruments of the State—is a mortal sin against freedom of expression.

Within the borders of our country, the fight against that mortal sin has largely been won, despite a few holdouts. No politician is keen to be caught sinning in this way. We saw the Conservatives retreat from Bill C-10, which would have allowed the government to revoke tax credits for film productions they didn’t like.

However, the silencing by a thousand cuts that artists in Canada feel they’re experiencing today, in which it’s not one artist or one work of art or even one artistic genre (like rap music or conceptual art) or one type of offensive subject matter that’s targeted, but rather individual threads removed from the greater fabric of cultural funding—that’s more of a venial sin.

Venial sins are less grave actions done without full knowledge of their ultimate consequences and often only semi-deliberately—and therefore they’re easier to commit and to forgive...a fact that can make them doubly dangerous, or at least especially hard to resist. “We’ve got nothing against the arts per se,” say politicians and bureaucrats. “We’re just balancing the budget.”

Maybe this venial sin deserves a new name, not censorship but censor-schism: a slow, subtle separation of Canadian artists from their accustomed means of patronage, of their ability to forge a living through creative practice. Artists still have the right to make art. They’re not harassed by legal and bureaucratic entities for their creativity. They’re just a little less able to afford to produce it or market it or distribute it or talk about it in any meaningful way.

Another way of thinking of it might be the famous distinction made by philosopher Isaiah Berlin between negative and positive liberty. Censorship is an assault on our negative liberty—on our freedom from interference and oppression. Censor-schism, on the other hand, affects our positive liberty—our freedom to live a certain way, to pursue our artistic goals and visions, to realize our full human and creative potential.

All my dithering about mortal versus venial sins, censorship versus censor-schism, freedom from and freedom to, might seem like hair-splitting. But I think it’s an important distinction. One that addresses the particular challenges of publicly funded Canadian artists during a political moment in which they can say and do almost anything—but shouldn’t expect anyone to pay for it, let alone pay attention.

Finally, I wanted to take a longer, more historical view of what could be described as the ecological relationship between the arts and censorship. The two impulses—to create and to repress—have always co-existed in the same cultural environment. It would be surprising, then, from a purely evolutionary perspective, if the censor and the artist hadn’t moved from predator and prey to some sort of uneasy accommodation. A symbiosis, you might say.

You can see some Canadian artists and aspiring censors settling into such a mutually beneficial relationship. It’s like the wolf and the sheepdog from the old Looney Tunes cartoon. If you remember, Ralph and Sam, as they’re known, are friends until they punch the clock and then they perform their conflicting duties with great gusto, before punching out again.

I’m not quite sure who is Ralph and who is Sam in the artists-versus-censors equation. However you cast them, they both need each other to sustain their identities—one as the guardian of public taste and social decency, the other as the rebel of Romantic myth willing to speak truth to power whatever the cost. Together, they have a social role to play. Separated, though, they are only two tiny voices shouted down by the barkers of the free market.

Again, we saw that complex relationship in the recent cutback controversy. First step: an artist—say, a rock band or a movie producer—chooses a name or a title or a topic designed to offend the easily offended, politicians, bureaucrats, and social conservatives of all sorts. Step two: the expected outrage ensues and angry calls are made, if not to censor the offending work, then at least to wonder loudly why it received public funding in the first place—a call for censor-schism, in other words.

Step three: Headlines are made, letters to the editor are written, Internet petitions are launched to lament about censorship and the death of Canadian culture. Finally, once the hubbub peaks and subsides, the two camps retreat to their corners to cool down. Sam and Ralph have performed their jobs—to offend and to be offended—and both may have gotten a brief moment of attention from the otherwise fickle eye of the media.

In Canada, getting censored—or nearly censored—can be a great marketing opportunity. In fact, it’s sometimes the only way for the question of “What is art?” to interrupt the superficial hype of the entertainment-industrial complex.

More historically—and perhaps less cynically—I think censorship has also played a role, not entirely negative, in the shaping of the artistic imagination.

Censorship acts as a litmus test of creative integrity, a sort of rite of passage. The prime directive of any artist is: Be curious. And then follow that curiosity wherever it leads. Sometimes it means poking one’s imagination into taboo corners of society, going where you’ve been told not to go. Breaking these taboos and asking those awkward questions, rather than bending to fit conventions, can separate artists truly dedicated to their creative vision from those who prefer to walk a safer, usually more lucrative path.

These safer paths of “political correctness” have taken many forms, from Academic painting of 19th-century France, to the “socialist realism” of Soviet Russia, to the “capitalist realism” of contemporary North America, to the subtle, even unconscious pressures to conform that artists must feel within their own peer groups. And let’s face facts: an awards jury or a grant committee or even a cocktail party of Canadian artists can be as narrow-minded and self-certain as a Conservative party caucus—they just happen to be on the opposite end of the political spectrum.

So, it’s sometimes a question of overt censorship, yes, but more often of peer pressure and self-censorship. Avoiding the temptation to adopt conventional wisdom of any sort adds a vital creative tension into the life and the work of the artist. Censorship, you might say, sharpens the instincts.

The poet Robert Frost once said that writing free verse was like playing tennis with the net down. Why bother, in other words?

Making art without the specter of censorship, without the possibility of offending or disturbing someone somewhere, must feel the same way — really, where’s the challenge? How will you know if what you do really matters? If there’s no temptation to sell out or to conform or to play safe, how can you be sure that you’ve passed the test of integrity or not?

And beyond the faulty measures of purely commercial success—those top-ten lists and gate receipts—how do you know if your art really makes a sound?

It’s no wonder then, in our cultural age of attention deficit disorder and instant amnesia, that artists might feel a pang of nostalgia for the obsessive and impassioned attention of that ultimate audience member, that all-too-careful reader, that shadow patron who stalks our dreams — the censor.

Show Me the Monkeys!

2008-10-22T11:00:00.000-07:00

It's been an exhausting month trying to keep up with my teaching duties, while squeezing a few talks and events in between. And the essay marking hasn't even begun in earnest!

I haven't found much time for my own creative writing, not even to blog, which is never good for my overall frame of mind. If I haven't been working on a story for a while, I start to feel the same sluggish anxiety—as though life were rushing past, while I was stuck waiting at a bus stop—that I do after a week of no or little exercise. A spin on the bike or a half-hour in the pool usually clears my muddled mind and addled body. But it's harder to recapture the creative energy of writing from a cold start.

So, it was good to see a feature article I'd written for Canadian Geographic, about a trip Jenny and I had done to Costa Rica several years ago, finally wend its way into publication. The story reminded me of two wonderful weeks in a country whose natural splendour (and monkeys!) remains keenly impressed in my imagination. And it will hopefully motivate me to knock off the last pressing items on my To Do list and get back to my much-neglected creative projects.

Paying Your Dues (Rainy Day Blues)

2008-09-23T16:21:00.000-07:00

I had a fun long weekend with the family on the mainland. The excuse: I'd been invited to give a reading from Fatal Tide at the grand opening of the new North Vancouver Civic Library, an event that I'd be looking forward to for months. The weather forecast for the weekend was a little iffy—especially after the spectacularly sunny weekend before. And the festivities were mostly outdoors, although the readings would be under tents.

We had a grand time on the ferry ride over, at the aquarium (although A.J. insisted on seeing an octopus and I couldn't find one anywhere) and at the Lonsdale Quay Hotel, which overlooks the tugboat berths and drydock cranes: i.e., toddler heaven! It looked briefly like we might have luck for Saturday's weather: cloudy but no rain. But when we woke up that morning, the wet stuff started falling, as it can only in North Van. Foolishly, we thought we might walk the 14 blocks to the library—most of them up-hill, of course—and arrived pretty sodden. (A.J. at least had acquired new Thomas the Tank Engine galoshes that morning.) I felt bad for the organizers, who had gone to such efforts to put on a great day for their community, only to be thwarted by the worst of weather. The silver lining on the all-day clouds was that more people got a look at the new library, as many took cover from the downpour in the packed building. The music was great (local bands Mimosa and The Renegades), and Hollywood actor turned author Meg Tilly did a reading before mine.

Worse than having to follow Meg Tilly was following the arrival of the cupcakes. A swarm gobbled up the free treats and then quickly dispersed. My reading tent was left virtually empty. I begged Jenny to stick around (A.J. had soiled his diaper, Briar was screaming) for fear of not having any audience whatsoever. Finally, a couple of St. John's ambulance attendants came by and joined a few other people escaping from the now-monsoon-like downpour.

I'd written enough rock and roll profiles during my years at Monday Magazine to know all about paying your dues as an artist with low-attendance gigs The show had to go on, and I think I still gave the same performance I would have done to a packed auditorium. The drum of the rain at least added an audio component to the excerpts about the stormy Bay of Fundy.

I sold and signed three copies and had a good chat to a few of the people who stuck around. Hopefully, I made a few converts. Three o'clock hit, the show was done, and the rain abruptly stopped. The next day was gorgeously sunny, a perfect afternoon for an outdoor event. Maybe next time.

Lookin' Sharp

2008-09-09T15:01:00.000-07:00

Well, I've been neglecting my blog (and much else) to get prepped to go back to teaching for the first time in 16 months. The first week of classes has definitely been an adventure—just not a very outdoorsy one... which has been painful, given what a gorgeously sunny September we've been having here in Mile Zero!

It feels like I've been wrapping up my promo work for Fatal Tide. There's been a few enjoyable moments: a wonderful interview / review in this month's Focus Magazine (sadly, not online) by Sara Cassidy, one of our country's most attentive and perceptive writers about literature and the writing life; an excerpt from my book on the website of Sharp Magazine, a new Canadian men's publication (check out the Flash graphics: you'll find me squeezed between two cheesecake shots!); and invitations to read and talk at 1) the opening of the new North Vancouver Civic Library on September 20 and 2) at a meeting of the South Island Sea Kayaking Association on September 24.

Alas, the highs and lows of becoming a published book author will soon give way to weeks of marking essays. Still, I look forward to being immersed in my students' stories after more than a year of being absorbed—perhaps self-absorbed?—in my own tale-telling.

Vote for Sacred Rides

2008-08-20T10:33:00.000-07:00

Mountain Equipment Coop is running a contest for homemade adventure videos, and I make a guest appearance in one of the entries. Mike Brcic, the tireless principle behind Sacred Rides Adventures and the Bikes Without Borders charity, has uploaded a 10-minute video of a scouting trip (which I wrote about for Financial Post Business Magazine) looking for the "El Dorado" of singletrack in Chile's Atacama Desert.

You can watch the video here. Be sure to vote for Mike and tell your friends to,as well, because he plans to donate any prize money if he wins to Bikes Without Borders, which refurbishes and supplies used bicycles to needy communities around the world. A great video and a great cause.

Review: The Adventure Blog

2008-08-10T10:46:00.000-07:00

I was thrilled to get a long and appreciative review of Fatal Tide on The Adventure Blog, one of my favourite online stops, where I get my daily fix of updates about adventure news around the planet. Hopefully, that positive mention will get a little viral marketing buzz going south of the border among readers interested in adventure racing and outdoor topics.

As the book pages of major newspapers wither and die, blogs have stepped up as both a way for authors to update readers about their work and also to get reviews and other mentions of their books out into the world. Other blogs I check regularly include:

D.B. Scott's Canadian Magazines Blog, which keeps me and other magaholics in the loop about industry news and gossip
Book Addiction, whose mystery author (hi, Richard!) lists his recent book-buying sprees (guided by his taste in environmental literature) with handy mini-reviews and annotations
Leeward Press, home to Chad Fraser, a kayak enthusiast and fellow author out East
Green Tenant, a great idea for a blog by a buddy in Toronto: ecological resources for renters
And last but not least, Life with Two, the blog on TodaysParent.com written by my wife...to find out what I most recently did wrong, plus remind myself how cute our kids are when I'm travelling.

The Simonator

2008-08-05T09:12:00.000-07:00

I'll be the first to admit it: I'm a byline junkie.

As an aspiring creative writer years ago, seeing my name in print (in campus and community newspapers) was what ultimately teased me over to the "dark side", from the high, lonely peaks of capital-L Literature to the muck-raking, deadline-thick valleys of lower-j journalism. It's a fast and dirty fix. Hammer off a 800-word news article or a 2,500-word magazine piece. Wait a couple weeks or months. And—budda-bing, budda-bang!—there it is: your work and (better still) your name in print.

I still don't get tired of it. And now, as a magazine writer, there is a special thrill on those rare occasions when a feature story I've written gets prominently displayed on the publication's cover. Such was the case recently, as I was wandering through Ottawa International Airport, and I stepped past the magazine stand and saw Canadian triathlete Simon Whitfield staring back at me.

It was the cover of the new issue of explore magazine. And it was my long feature profile of Simon that had made the cover (which was news to me). I was lucky enough to get to spend several mornings and afternoons hanging out with Whitfield and members of Canada's high-performance triathlon team as they geared up for the Beijing Olympics, and then interview a number of triathlon experts and past coaches who understand what makes Canada's top triathlete (and former gold-medal winner) tick. I was also lucky enough that my editor at explore gave me plenty of room (5,500 words, in fact) to dig into Whitfield's background, training regimen, and prospects for the 2008 Olympics.

Can he retake gold in Beijing in three days? Hard to call. There are about a dozen elite male triathletes who could podium: Tim Don of the U.K., Andy Potts of the U.S., Greg Bennett of Australia, several Kiwis and Germans and Russians... and of course Javier Gomez, the Spanish wunderkind who has been tearing up the sport for the last two years. He's anyone's top pick for gold.

But I'll definitely be watching and cheering Simon on (as well as Canada's Paul Tichelaar and Colin Jenkins). Researching the story only deepened my respect for the sacrifices and physical punishment that our amateur athletes endure. Sure, it was my story on the cover of the magazine. But it's Simon's amazing accomplishments and athletic efforts—past, present, and future—that make the story worth reading.

Travel Wanking

2008-08-04T13:45:00.000-07:00

Here's a hilarious blog post from the Sydney Morning Herald's website about "travel wanking". Anyone who has accumulated a few rare visa stamps in their passport or kipped in fleabag hostels around the world has likely been a victim of—and probably an indulger in—travel wanking: the unselfconscious one-upmanship of dueling road tales, travel as an accumulation of arcane experiences with which globe-trotters can bully fellow travelers with their superior tastes.

Of course, it's always travel not tourism—the latter is what other, less sophisticated people do. (Full disclosure: I've surely wanked about my own travels more than a few times; apologies to anyone who has ever suffered from the vanity of my past voyages.) One of my favourite postcards, given to me by a colleague, sketches a man in a suit riding a camel past the pyramids. He declares to his companion: "I'm a traveler, not a tourist." Beside him a thought bubble rises from the head of an ambulatory Egyptian: "Another cultural imperialist!"

That's a distinction that the true travel wanker has uttered at some point in his or her post-trip recollections: "I'm a traveler, not a tourist."

Hah!

And be sure to read the comments thread that follows the blog for further evidence that travel wanking, to paraphrase Jonathan Swift, is a mirror in which the wanker sees everyone but himself.

Extreme Do-Gooding

2008-08-01T13:45:00.000-07:00

I got a fun assignment from the Life section of the Globe and Mail (thanks, Pat!) to write about "extreme do-gooders": Canadian adventurers who tackle epic outdoor challenges to raise awareness or money or both for environmental and other noble causes.

I'm glad the editors had space not just for the main profile of Benjamin Jordan and Leonardo Silveira of the Above + Beyond expedition (and Kevin Thomson of Creative Crossings Society of Canada), but also list some of my favourite outdoor altruists: Rob Dyke, Karsten Heuer and Leanne Allison, Sébastien Sasseville, Greg Kolodziejzyk, and the tireless Ray Zahab.

All of them inspiring folks.

B.C. Almanac

2008-07-31T13:34:00.000-07:00

Monday afternoon, Mark Forsythe, the host of B.C. Almanac on CBC Radio, had me on his show to talk about Fatal Tide and the issues around risk, reward and outdoor adventure. It was great to chat with such a radio pro as Mark, who had read my book and was able to draw the story and opinions out of me with a clear line of questioning, and engage his phone-in listeners (all of them guys, curiously) in the debate, too.

If you have RealPlayer on your computer, you can listen to the interview for a couple days longer right here. (It's about halfway in, after the mayor of Williams Lake complaining about a street person.)

My wife likes to joke that I must feel guilty every time I go on CBC Radio (this is my fourth interview, for stations across the country) because I often complain when she has it playing in the house. (I can't read or write with talk radio in the background, and we also own the world's tinniest-sounding kitchen radio.) It's true: CBC (and radio in general) has been very generous in supporting my book.

Given how paltry (and poor-paying) the book review sections (where they still exist) of major newspapers have become, I don't know what Canadian writers would do without their radio fix. That has been one of the loudest lessons I've learned from my first four months as a novice nonfiction novelist.

Arctic Reads

2008-07-30T15:28:00.000-07:00

The toughest part about any backpacking trip is deciding on that single paperback you can justify wedging into your already all-too-heavy pack. What if it sucks, and you're tent-bound for days with nothing worth reading except the washing instructions on your Gore-Tex jacket?

On my trip into Auyuittuq National Park and up past the Arctic Circle, I managed to pack the perfect literary match for the land we traveled through. Granted, it didn't take a lot of head-scratching on my part. A cheap paperback copy of Barry Lopez's well-known Arctic Dreams: Imagination and Desire in a Northern Landscape had been sitting on my bookshelf for a couple years now, unread despite the other essays by the author that I'd enjoyed (and even taught), mostly because the book's subject seemed so distant (figuratively and geographically) from my own immediate concerns (could it teach me how to change a diaper? grade a paper?).

Now I had no excuse. But would it live up to its reputation?

It did and then some. What a wonderful marriage of science and travelogue, of memoir and poetry, of the history of exploration and the anguish of exploitation. What a glimpse into the lives of the Inuit who have lived in the region for four millennia and the strange, ethereal creatures who have stalked the Arctic's desert plains and unfathomed waters for even longer.

There are so many memorable passages:

This is a land where airplanes track icebergs the size of Cleveland and polar bears fly down out of the stars. It is a region, like the desert, rich with metaphor, with adumbration.

And:

If we are to devise an enlightened plan for human activity in the Arctic, we need a more particularized understanding of the land itself—not a more refined mathematical knowledge but a deeper understanding of its nature, as if it were, itself, another sort of civilization we had to reach some agreement with.

And:

Lying flat on your back on Ellesmere Island on rolling tundra without animals, without human trace, you can feel the silence stretching all the way to Asia. The winter face of a muskox, its unperturbed eye glistening in the halo of a snow-crusted hair, looks at you over a cataract of time, an image that has endured through all the pulsations of ice.

You can sit for a long time with the history of man like a stone in your hand. The stillness, the pure light, encourage it.

Lying flat on your back in a tent, amid the endless light of the Arctic summer, reading Barry Lopez can inspire a similar (if less eloquent) state of contemplation even in a trail-worn, toxic-smelling, slightly over-the-hill trekker. I couldn't imagine a better guide to lead me through that landscape and back again.

Back From Baffin

2008-07-17T10:03:00.000-07:00

I'm back from two weeks on Baffin Island (and my longest email quarantine since the dawn of the Internet...it felt surprisingly refreshing!) and am now spending a week with family in Toronto.

Auyuittuq National Park was spectacular: a wild river valley surrounded by glaciers and moraines and a massive ice cap the size of PEI. I intend to blog more about our trekking trip through the pass and the fascinating people we met along the way, but for now (as I pay off my paternal karmic debt for two weeks away from diaper duty), I'll have to leave off instead with this photo of Summit Lake (taken by Photo Solution editor Xavier Bonacorsi) from a ridge near Tyr Peak, with our campsite far, far below. It was tough slogging some days, but I miss it already.

P.S., For anyone in Toronto, this Monday, I'll be reading from Fatal Tide at the Harbord House pub at 7:00 pm.

Yippee Tyee!

2008-06-23T13:52:00.000-07:00

I was surprised and delighted to stumble upon a glowing pocket review of Fatal Tide in the "Summer Reads" special on TheTyee.ca, my favourite online magazine. Thanks for the plug!

Then on Sunday, the North Shore News ran a Q&A with me about the book. Coincidentally, the author/interviewer had gone to the same high school in Rothesay, New Brunswick, as René Arseneault, the young man whose death from hypothermia precipitated my whole investigation into the 2002 Fund Multisport Race. Small world.

And next Saturday, the National Post's books section will be running an interview with me about adventure-travel and writing, as a tie in to the book and the long excerpt that will be running in the summer issue of Financial Post Business.

It feels great to get some national coverage and articles in North Vancouver and the Lower Mainland, where outdoor adventure and other "lifestyle sports" are especially popular. (I'm still hoping for a review in the Vancouver Sun, Terminal City's paper of record.)

I'm not quite sure what it takes to get mentioned in The Globe and Mail, however. An offer to ride across the country and hand deliver a copy myself? Writing a quasi-autobiographical novel about a 20-something style columnist who nearly dies kayaking across the Atlantic on a quest for the perfect pair of Manolo Blahniks? Inquiring authors want to know...

Doing Stuff Outdoors

2008-06-19T10:30:00.000-07:00

That's the name of a great podcast put together and hosted by Gary Mittelholtz out in New Brunswick. Gary had me on his show and interviewed me about the kayaking fatality at the heart of Fatal Tide and the larger consequences of the accident. It's no surprise that Gary works at the CBC for his day job, as he has one of those warm and resonant radio voices and a real passion for telling stories from across the country. I'd never heard of his podcast before, but I'll definitely flag it now and make sure I download the weekly episodes. He fills each with a variety of personal reflections, interviews with other outdoor travellers, and "podsafe" music from various artists. Just the sort of thing to load into your iPod for the drive to the trailhead or those quiet moments after nightfall in your tent.

Thanks for your interest in my book, Gary, and all the best with your program!

A Bestseller!

2008-06-13T14:17:00.000-07:00

I'm quite excited that Fatal Tide has made its first bestseller list. Granted, it's not the New York Times' list, or The Globe and Mail's, or Amazon.com's. Rather, it's one put together by the wonderful folks at Café Books in Canmore, Alberta, where I read in April. My tome comes in at #7, just behind one of Eckhart Tolle's new-age hot properties. (Sadly, the list doesn't capture the real disparity in our books' sales!)

Hopefully, Fatal Tide will experience a similar mini sales spike in Whistler, B.C., after the great review that appeared in the Pique Newsmagazine. I loved the balance between humorous personal flair, plot summary and critical analysis that the reviewer brought to the article. My editor will be pleased to hear that the Cast of Characters list—her suggestion—was appreciated, and my wife will agree that the Introduction is a bit dry and not representative of the book's style as a whole.

Finally, I'm still waiting to hear from more readers who want to be ridden to (if that doesn't sound too crude) for an autographed copy of the book. It looks like a gorgeously sunny weekend, a perfect two days to saddle up for a cycle trip (at last). As a friend suggested yesterday, this mobile offer is the anti-Atwood: no distant and disembodied LongPen; instead a real, live, very sweaty author right on your doorstep!

And for all those with Spandex-phobia or a fear of authors in general, I did cycle down to Munro's yesterday and inked a few more copies for the store's supply.

Cross-Country Coverage

2008-06-10T10:13:00.000-07:00

Despite all the column inches devoted recently to the controversy over CBC losing the Hockey Night in Canada jingle, a couple of newspapers across the country found space in their pages to cover Fatal Tide. The Halifax Chronicle Herald ran a great long article that combined the author's attentive reading of the book, an email interview with me and several photos; I can't wait to see the actual spread. The Winnipeg Free Press ran a short review by a local lawyer that gave a decent summary of the Fundy Race and its aftermath (and may get picked up by other newspapers through the Canadian Press syndicate). And the Times Colonist, the Sooke Mirror, and QuillandQuire.com all ran short news pieces about my Ride to the Readers campaign... I'm still waiting to hear from Reader # 2, however. I know you're out there! Thanks again to all these writers for taking an interest in—and the time to write about—my book.

Medal Haul

2008-06-09T11:00:00.000-07:00

My old employer, explore magazine, had a fantastic night this past Friday at the annual National Magazine Awards. James Little (editor in chief), Gary Davidson (art director), and explore's coast-to-coast cadre of freelancers (led by former Canadian Alpine Journal editor Geoff Powter) brought home two gold medals, five silvers, and seven honourable mentions, including clean sweeps of the Travel and Sports & Recreation categories. Not too bad for a publication that has a tenth the editorial staff of larger magazines and only comes out six times a year.

Of course, CBC.ca didn't bother to mention explore's results in its NMA round-up. Somehow, three golds and a silver each (for ROB Magazine and L'actualité) add up higher in the "medal haul". Call it Olympic math. I hope the CBC can learn to add by the time they cover the Beijing Games.

Congrats again to James and his team at explore!

Ride to the Readers #1

2008-06-06T13:56:00.001-07:00

I rode to my first reader this morning. Okay, it wasn't exactly an epic journey: let's say two minutes, three tops, across campus.

I met with Don Bailey, the head of the Humanities, Fine Arts and Professional Writing Cooperative Education Program at UVic. (He's the less reflective one in the photo.) Don has a new thriller novel out—The Good Lie—and we had missed each other's respective book launches, so it was a good opportunity to connect and exchange autographs.

While Don has written a fictional novel and I've described Fatal Tide as a "nonfiction novel", they do share similar content and themes: The Good Lie (so I understand) hinges around the moral conflict in the aftermath of a kayaking accident, while my book culminates in a controversial paddling death and its fallout. Don and I have talked about doing a kayak-themed reading in the near future, perhaps with fellow authors Lorna Jackson (who imagines interviewing Markus Naslund while kayaking in her new book Flirt) and Bill Gaston (whose novel Sointula has a kayak journey up the Inside Passage as the central plot device).

I'm not sure if a kayaking store would necessarily want to host the event, however, given how several of these literary trips turn out... And I'm certainly not going to offer to paddle to potential book buyers as my next ill-advised self-marketing idea!

From Readers Like You

2008-06-03T09:49:00.000-07:00

I got a lovely, confidence-stoking phone call and then email from someone who had attended my recent talk to the Victoria Writers' Society and then read Fatal Tide:

I recently read your book and found I could not put it down. It's a real page-turner! The complex story of the kayaker's death, seen from many angles, is woven together seamlessly. I did not expect to find the book that interesting (not being an outdoor adventure enthusiast), but it sucked me in right from the start.

The writing itself is superb throughout and, in places, absolutely dazzling.

Congratulations on such a fine first book.

Susan Scott, Victoria

Thanks, Susan! As a longtime magazine writer, I've rarely received such detailed and attentive feedback from readers. Yes, there are occasional letters to the editor, but they tend to focus on the subject matter rather than the writing. One of the pleasures of publishing a book is entering into such correspondence with readers. Book lovers, an increasingly endangered species, tend to be a passionate, opinionated lot. I suppose it comes from the commitment required, in our otherwise busy lives, to inhabit for many hours and even days or weeks the new world created between two covers.

I'm always interested in hearing feedback of any kind from readers who have chanced upon my book. Feel free to drop me a line at dleach[at]uvic.ca. Writing a book can be a long, lonely, often frustrating journey. But it all feels worthwhile—no matter how many copies an author sells or how bankrupt one goes researching and marketing it—when a writer hears that the storytelling at the heart of the book truly connected with readers like you.

Hot! Live! Author!

2008-05-29T09:50:00.000-07:00

A couple weeks ago, I gave a talk to the Victoria Writers' Society in James Bay about the rollercoaster ride of publishing my first book: from conception to proposal to signing the contract to writing the first draft to editing the final draft and now my ongoing attempts to flog the beast like an old mule, with digressions into the vagaries of working with agents and publishers and copy editors and publicists.

The group had lots of great questions, some of which I even had answers for, and one of their queries was: "Do you have any books to sell tonight?"

Alas, my answer was no—still is, in fact—as I've blown through the 10 free copies I got from my publisher and have yet to order another box at my author's discount. Not wanting to miss a marketing opportunity, I made a rash, spur-of-the-moment offer: If anyone from the VWS bought a copy of Fatal Tide and wanted it autographed, I would come to her or his home and sign the book.

My response generated a laugh but so far no takers, so I've decided to extend the promise to anyone in the Greater Victoria area: If you buy a book from a local bookseller and drop me a line (email me at dleach[at]uvic.ca), I will personally cycle to your abode (or meet you downtown or on campus) and inscribe the title page with my John Hancock (at a time and date that weather and my wife both permit).

Copies should be available at the better independent bookstores in Victoria and Sidney. I know Munro's has several, Bolen Books has stocked a healthy supply, and the UVic Bookstore (who graciously hosted my launch) still has enough hardbacks left over to build an addition to the Great Wall of China.

Sorry, Internet orders don't qualify, so save your proof of purchase. You've got to do a little leg work and support the local booksellers who support local authors, and then I'll be happy to saddle up and ink my thanks in person.

IMPORTANT RULE UPDATE:

To avoid Internet pranksters sending me on wild goose pedals to non-existent addresses in Metchosin—which likely counts as "lesser" not "greater Victoria" anyway (joking, Lorna!)—I'm asking for a little verification. Book-buyers who want an authorial visit and an autograph must snap a quick digital pic of themselves holding Fatal Tide and email it to me, along with how they heard about the book, when and where they bought it, and what they think of it so far (be nice!). After that, we can set up your signing-by-cycle.

Monday, Monday

2008-05-22T14:47:00.000-07:00

The good folks at Monday Magazine didn't have to do anything more to promote Fatal Tide, considering that John Threlfall had already run a Q&A with me about writing the book. So I was surprised and thrilled to learn that there is a full-on review (again by John) in this week's issue.

I was delighted, of course, that it is a positive and enthusiastic review—especially from a reviewer, who (as I already knew and John admits) "really has no interest in the subject matter."

I was even more delighted to have such an attentive reading of the book in a concise and informative article. John gives a better summary of the book's action and background than I've managed to (on the dustjacket copy and in many interviews), and he also manages to convey how (as I'd hoped) the various elements of the book tie together, like the narrative strands of a novel rather than the chunky, stand-alone chapters of a conventional nonfiction book.

I really did try to write the manuscript (and struggle immensely with the challenge) in a way that draws even those readers with little interest in adventure racing or extreme sports into the setting, the characters, the issues, and the drama of the action. In John's case, at least, it seems to have worked.

Adoption Papers

2008-05-18T12:41:00.000-07:00

One of the more embarrassing habits—nay, obsessions—of first-time authors (and likely many publishing veterans, too) is Google-stalking their own books, in search of any mention of their "baby" in the deeper reaches of cyberspace.

Last night, I was committing another such act of literary onanism, when I came across unexpected news: I've been adopted!

The announcement appeared in an edition of the Kings County Record in Sussex, New Brunswick (east of Saint John). Apparently, the regional library is running an "adopt a book" campaign to raise money for new titles for its collection. I don't fully understand the logistical details, but a "tag tree" of books will be erected in a local mall for potential philanthropists to choose from. The first two books have been adopted already to kick start the campaign, and one—selected by the mayor of Sussex, no less—is Fatal Tide. (The other is Extraordinary Canadians: Lord Beaverbrook by David Adams Richards, so I'm in esteemed company.)

The news is both an honour and a surprise. Despite the book's maritime focus, there hasn't been much media attention about the book on the East Coast yet, beyond my memorable foray into talk radio. So I have to thank the honorable Ralph Carr (photo: centre) for spreading the word in New Brunswick. It feels good to be adopted.

Keeping Up

2008-05-15T09:47:00.001-07:00

I've been busy the last few weeks trying to keep up with Simon Whitfield, the Canadian triathlete who won the sport's first gold medal in Sydney in 2000. He lives and trains in Victoria, and I've been researching a profile of him for explore magazine. I've been hanging out and watching him train for the world championships in Vancouver next month and ultimately the Summer Games in Beijing in August.

Last Saturday morning, I joined Simon, coach Joel Filliol (who took the photo) and the rest of Team BAMF (Google it to discover the essence of this very un-Canadian acronym) near Beacon Hill Park for a running session. I felt proud of myself as I kept up with the group on their 2K warm-up loop through the park.

Ha! Then, after Simon tutored me in "dynamic stretching" techniques—basically, showing me how to kick my own ass before he kicked mine—we all dashed off for a set of "interval" runs around the same grassy loop. Or rather, they all dashed off and I chugged behind in the fading distance, eventually getting lost in the scrub around the petting zoo, and arriving back to the start line so late and so ragged that Simon and the fastest runners had already set off again for interval #2 after a two and a half minute rest. Simon did four more intervals at the same relentless pace. I was near cardiac arrest after my one.

I'd heard a lot about The Kick—the impressive sprinting power that Simon used to win gold in the most dramatic fashion at the Sydney Games. But to witness it in person, up close (however briefly), is another thing entirely. To watch Simon Whitfield run is to realize the sheer animal potential that lies dormant, largely vestigial in most of our ObusFormed, cubicle-farmed bodies—the essence of our savanna heritage that still hums deep within our genes.

We were made to run. And a few of us still can.

Making Radio Waves

2008-05-06T13:00:00.000-07:00

I woke up early this morning to steel my nerves for a live radio interview that—because it was with a morning show in Halifax, four time zones away—was set to begin at 6:30 am. My publicist at Penguin had set it up, and I was thrilled, as it was the first bit of East Coast media attention for a book that's based on the Bay of Fundy. The show was called "Maritime Morning", and for some reason (the homey name, my failure to do basic fact-checking), I had assumed it was on CBC Radio, and had told different friends and family members as much.

I anticipated a laidback, touchy-feely CBC-style interview. You know, the host asking me to describe my writing process or the "emotional arc of the book's tragedy". That kind of thing.

I realized something was up, however, once the show's producer got me on the phone and then put me on hold to await the host. Over the tinny line, I could discern advertisements—on the CBC? that didn't seem right—including one for a company that promised to help people break their leases. Definitely not the Mother Corp. I quickly Googled "Andrew Krystal", and realized that my interviewer was the morning host at a Halifax talk-radio station, broadcast in Moncton and Saint John, too, and one with a controversial reputation for confrontation. A shock jock, if you will, although one of a less crass, more Canuck bent than notorious U.S. radio personalities.

And then he introduced me and we were off and running. I immediately wished I'd brewed myself a pre-interview pot of coffee, as I didn't feel caffeinated enough to keep up at first with the Gatling Gun line of questioning and opinionating. But I soon got the hang of it. Krystal wanted to have a go at "extreme sports" and the people who participate in them: "Isn't this just Darwin's way of weeding out the morons?" he said at one point, or words to that effect.

I was accustomed to the standard dance of the radio interview, the gentle back and forth between interviewer and interviewee, the softball Q returned with a languorous A. That wasn't going to work on News 95.7. So after the break, I took a different tack and disagreed with Krystal at every opportunity, defending outdoor adventurers and describing the psychological benefits of organized wilderness competitions—the experience of "flow", the harmony of mind and body, like a runner's high.

"Wouldn't it be safer just to spark up a reefer?" countered Krystal, which made me laugh, but at least I had the presence of mind to reply, "But not as healthy."

In the end, after a final flurry, we agreed to disagree. He thanked me for coming on and said he had enjoyed Fatal Tide—in his introduction, he had even read aloud from an early chapter.

My radio experience wasn't what I'd expected when I'd gotten up this morning, but it was challenging and fun. In fact, for a good half hour afterwards I was buzzing from the after effects: more adrenaline rush than pot high for sure. Just like in outdoor sports, there is a flow to a radio interview—especially a fast-paced debate—that can feel almost as exhilarating. And you don't even have to wear pants.

In the News

2008-05-04T09:02:00.001-07:00

There is a nice mention in today's Ottawa Citizen of my cover article for explore magazine about the Howe Sound kayaking deaths, with a passing mention of Fatal Tide. The Citizen runs a weekly "Magazine Stand" section that looks at two or three current magazines and their contents; the Globe and Mail does the same, but the Citizen, I find, tends to focus more on Canadian publications and writers... which can always use an extra leg up in an intensely competitive industry. The Citizen is also one of the last remaining daily city papers to run truly comprehensive book coverage: i.e., not filled with wire-service reviews.

The Toronto Star is one of the others. Interestingly, my book recently got mentioned not in the newspaper's Book section but by one of the columnists in the Sports pages. I was thrilled for coverage (especially when someone uses the phrase "excellent writing") wherever it appears, of course, but I'm still awaiting (nervously!) the first kids-gloves-off review in the Books pages of a newspaper or magazine.

The Tour So Far...

2008-04-23T14:19:00.000-07:00

I've been back from my Alberta sojourn for a week but I am only now getting a chance to catch a breath. After nearly missing my first reading in Calgary, I gave myself plenty of time to drive to Banff, where I was giving a talk on the Saturday to the Creative Nonfiction Collective's annual conference. It was a lively affair in general and my workshop (titled "Who's Afraid of the Nonfiction Novel?") generated plenty of debate. I made the mistake of slipping out to the bathroom during the annual general meeting, however, and when I returned, I'd been nominated vice president! Gotta work on bladder control...

My next stop, on Sunday afternoon, was a reading and talk at Cafe Books, a gorgeous little shop on Canmore's main strip. Joy, the owner, had organized a sumptuous spread of food and drinks and set up an eye-catching display of my books. One of the wonderful things about publishing a book is meeting so many people, like Joy, who love everything about books (despite the grim economics that shadow every part of the industry) and who love helping authors. I gave another reading, signed a few copies, and then enjoyed pizza and wine at the home of a real adventurer rather than a weekend poseur like myself: author, photographer and arctic explorer Jerry Kobalenko.

Back in Calgary, the next morning I had a seven-minute spot on Breakfast TV, my first live on-air televised interview of the book. All very surreal for someone with a face and the fashion sense made for radio or blogging. I think the interview went well (all I know was that at least I didn't barf from nerves), although at one point I did blurt out (in response to a discussion of "flow experiences") "And SEX!!!" a little too enthusiastically.

After my TV escapade, I raced south on Highway 22 (a gorgeous drive through the Alberta foothills) to Fernie, BC, where I stayed with good friends and did another reading at Polar Peek Books. Keith, the producer of a local writers conference, had whipped up an enthusiastic crowd for me and the reading went fantastically: the best yet. We nearly sold out the 15 copies that Laura, the hospitable owner of Polar Peek, had ordered, and I left the store in high spirits. (Note to self: two pints of beer before a reading isn't necessarily bad prep.) As I told the audience, in my Literary Atlas of Canada, Fernie is a capital city.

The weather started deteriorating the next morning, and I worried that my rented Yaris wouldn't get me to the airport in time or that my plane would be grounded again. With relief, I arrived back in Victoria, and the next night I had my official hometown launch at the UVic bookstore. Again, the staff had set out a wonderful spread, and it was great to see so many familiar faces: friends, colleagues, students, neighbours, my own family (my parents came from Ottawa, my father-in-law from Toronto) and even members of the extended Arseneault clan. It was a special night...although the bookstore still has plenty of copies to go around, for anyone who couldn't be there! Get a copy and I'll be happy to sign it any time...

Snow Day in Cowtown

2008-04-11T14:03:00.000-07:00

The Fatal Tide World Tour (aka, As Far As I Can Travel Before My Visa Card Implodes) began inauspiciously yesterday morning. I'd been booked to do a 7pm reading—my first for my book—in Calgary at the McNally Robinson bookstore (sadly, due to close in July), so I had checked through security at Victoria at 8 am to catch my 9:05 am flight. All was well... until a Westjet employee announced that flights to Calgary and Edmonton had been canceled due to a freak snowstorm. We trundled back through security, collected our baggage, and chaos ensued as several ill-formed lines tried to muscle their way to the Westjet counter to get rebooked.

When it was my turn, I learned the earliest they could get me to Calgary—assuming the snow stopped—was 8 pm. Uh oh. I pleaded my case: first-time author, book launch, yadda yadda. All they could do was suggest that I try Air Canada. The AC rep had a seat for me that (the weather gods willing) could get me to Calgary for 6:00 pm. That was tight, but my only option—even at $160 extra.

Bruce, my buddy in Calgary, confirmed that a blizzard had blown through town but seemed to be clearing. He was hopeful when I was nearly despondent. He promised to let the bookstore know I might be late. I asked him, if it was necessary, to read something to the restless hordes as my "opening act". (I was half-joking, but Bruce did turn up with one of his articles in tow just in case: semper paratus.)

I had an eight-hour wait in Victoria International Airport. Not as bad as it sounds (except for the Starbucks sandwich), as I was able to write the hour-and-a-half conference paper I have to deliver (on the nonfiction novel) this Saturday in Banff. Still, my heart sank when—an hour before take-off—I glanced up and saw that my new AC flight had been delayed 25 minutes.

Getting to the bookstore in time was now impossible. Getting there not so late as to be embarrassing was barely within the realm of possibility...assuming there were no more delays. The plane arrived on time, the AC crew (god luv 'em) did a NASCAR fast turnaround, and we were in the air by 5:15 pm Calgary time. I settled into my seat, turned on a little trancey Sufi music on my iPod to calm down, and then, just before she passed out from exhaustion, the woman beside me announced, "I heard it's snowing in Calgary again."

Aaaaaah!!!

In the end, the afternoon flurries passed and the plane touched down at 6:40pm. I sprinted through the airport, decided to forget about my luggage (I could return for it later), grabbed a rental car and sped toward downtown Calgary—where I'd never been before. Thankfully, the Flames were playing that night, so the streets were barren and I made good time. At 7:15 pm, Bruce was standing outside McNally Robinson to catch my car keys and find a parking spot. I dashed up the stairs (of what's a gorgeous and soon to be much-missed bookstore) to greet my adoring crowd of... well, four. (Five once Bruce returned.) All except one were friends that I had guilted into attending. And the last attendee was a friend of one these friends. So much for the power of an advertisement (two weeks in a row!) in the Globe Books section.

Still, I was ecstatic to have made it against the odds. I gave a brief reading. I think it went well. (Who knows: it was a blur.) I sold and signed four books. I signed six more for the folks at McNally Robinson (the world's coolest bookstore! buy all your books there!) Then a bunch of us went out to a James Joyce Pub for a Guinness in the neutron-bomb quiet of downtown Calgary.

Of course, if my reading tour continues this way I'll bankrupt myself long before I get further east than Manitoba. If my Cowtown experience were one of those MasterCard commercials, here's how it would read:

Extra cost to make sure I got to Calgary on time: $160

Number of books sold: 4

Total revenue on sales: $120

My take on those sales: $18

(Not entirely true: I only get royalties once I sell the first 5,000 books, for which I got paid my advance. So actually I made nothing.)

Economics of my book tour so far: idiotic

Good karma from not missing the first reading for my first book: priceless

(P.S., Thanks to Bruce, Ken, Nic, Janice and Emilie, as well as Tyson and Thomas at McNally—you guys made my night! As the old saying goes: a man will always remember his first book reading...)

Everything I Needed to Know, I Learned From Reality TV

2008-04-04T23:08:00.000-07:00

Okay, not quite.

But I thought this story from CBC Manitoba proved that not all reality TV makes you stupider (just most of it): "Snowmobiler credits Survivorman for his own survival".

I met Les Stroud, the solo star of Survivorman, when I was working at explore magazine in Toronto and he was just setting out as a reality-TV producer. He's an interesting guy with a great sense of humour, which frees his show from the paleolithic macho chest-beating of other prime-time survivalists. Here's what I wrote about him in my book, for a background chapter on the rise of reality TV:

At least one reality-TV show tried to out-Survivor the popular series. By the time Burnett’s show went supernova, Les Stroud, a music-video producer from Toronto turned survival guru, had won several awards for his first film, Snowshoes and Solitude, an intimate video diary of his year living alone with his wife in the boreal forest of northern Ontario. He figured the hour was right for his own reality-TV concoction. Stranded first appeared on the Discovery Channel in 2001, and Stroud later appeared as Survivorman in Canada and the United States. In each series, he ventured into exotic wilderness locations to live off the land for a week and tell the story of his travails. He separated his methods from those of other reality shows by doing all the filmwork himself. Viewers no longer had to suspend their disbelief and ignore the fact that the on-screen survivors were being monitored round the clock by Big Brother-like teams of cameramen and boom-mike operators. In Survivorman, Stroud had to wrest nourishment and shelter from desert canyons, tropical jungles, or blackfly-infested bogs while simultaneously worrying about light readings, battery charges, and picture compositions. Watching a savvy outdoorsman like Les Stroud struggle to light a fire, catch a fish, or find anything remotely palatable to eat destroyed the delusion of many urban viewers that getting by in the wild was as easy as they might imagine.

I saw the rough cuts from his first season but have since only caught the occasional episode of Stroud's show while staying at motels. I've always enjoyed it—his approach is about as "real" as reality TV gets... at least within the current "ethics" of the contemporary entertainment biz.

Of course, network execs would be happy to feed their American gladiators and Big Brother contestants to real lions if they could get away with it... and get good Nielsen ratings.

We're #573,271!

2008-04-02T09:12:00.000-07:00

Well, now that my book is officially out in the world. I can begin to—as all authors apparently do in the Online Age—obsessively monitor my Amazon.com (or .ca in my case) ranking. And we're hot out of the gates, racing up the bestseller lists to #573,271. Eckhart Tolle, we've got you in our sights!

(I use the first person plural not as a grandeur-deluded royal we but as the more schizophrenic authorial pronoun: My Book & I. I've spent so much time along mulling over the manuscript over the lasts five years that it has become welded to my identity, much like the carbuncular second head that grows atop Richard E. Grant's shoulder in How To Get Ahead in Advertising.)

Seriously, though, I got the first "review" of my book yesterday. I put the word in quotes because it appears in a magazine, and one that I've written for in the past, so it was always bound to be a soft-touch description of the book rather than a hard-hitting analysis. (If the reviewer truly hated the book, the editors would have likely just not run the review.) Still, it appears in the April issue of Canadian Geographic (read by over a million Canucks, according to recent industry stats), and so I am thrilled with the coverage and promotion. It runs as follows:

David Leach presents a vivid look at what happens when adventure races turn deadly. Sharp and descriptive writing plunges the reader into the icy waters of the Bay of Fundy on June 1, 2002, when crashing waves and stormy winds claimed the life of René Arseneault, a 22-year-old amateur athlete from Rothesay, N.B. Drawing on dozens of interviews and years of painstaking research, Leach provides a nail-biting account of the fateful day and explores the science of hypothermia in minute detail. Along the way, he asks tough questions about what drives people to compete in extreme sports, whether true adventure can be bought and sold and how much responsibility organizers of adventure races should bear when nature triumphs over humans.

—Geoff Dembicki, Canadian Geographic, April 2008

I'm hoping that the review will be the push that helps me—or rather, us—climb the rungs on Amazon.ca and get over the #570,000 mark.

First Reactions

2008-04-01T06:03:00.000-07:00

I got my first reaction to the book last night. While an advanced copy arrived by courier last Thursday, I hadn't even realized the book was available to the general public yet, either via online sellers or at bookstores. Of course, over the past few months, I've gotten feedback from people who read—either as hired professionals or knowledgeable friends—earlier versions of the manuscript. But the email I received last night came from the first person to crack open an actual copy of the finished book and read it cover to cover and tell me what he thought—i.e., a genuine, honest-to-goodness, paid-out-of-his-pocket book reader.

It wasn't a critic but rather one of the participants of the race that forms the central subject of Fatal Tide. This is what he had to say:

David:

Well done & thank you.

Why well done?

Your ability to deliver the story with every emotion I can think of. Having been in the race & so involved, it was easy to be captivated by your story telling. The science behind hypothermia was very interesting & the research was outstanding. Your accounts of the people involved had me consumed from the beginning.

Why Thank you?

You have given an honest account of the events on that day & the trials & tribulations of the aftermath to the athletes & theirs families.

My wife & I were so interested in the book that I read the complete contents to her out loud …….it was a first for us …..& we both laughed & cried.

So…..thank you & well done

It might not have the same effect on book sales as a positive notice in the Globe & Mail or a mention on the CBC, but it's this kind of reaction—especially from the people I wrote about—that matters most to me in the end. The people swept up by the events of the tragic Fundy Multisport Race and its aftermath entrusted me with their stories, so it feels good to hear that, for at least one person who was there that day, my version of that narrative, woven together from all their various threads, rings true.

Radio Gaga

2008-03-31T10:59:00.000-07:00

I'll be joining guest host Dave Lennam to talk about my book again, this time on CFAX 1070 AM, at 3:30 to 4:00 pm today. My wife suggests that listeners can play a drinking game. Ever time I mumble "sort of" (my verbal tic of choice), you have to take a slug. I'd recommend something not too alcoholic!

Live... On the Island

2008-03-26T13:26:00.000-07:00

I'll be appearing on CBC Radio Victoria's "On the Island" at 8:15 am tomorrow (Thursday, March 26th) to chat with guest host Dave Lennam for five or six minutes about my book. Tune in at 90.5 FM Victoria or listen via the internet.

My nerves are a rattlin' already, but there's at least one thing I love about radio: nobody knows if you're wearing any pants! (Keep that image in your mind if you're listening...)

Seven Deadly Review Words

2008-03-25T11:03:00.001-07:00

There was a funny little post on one of the New York Times blogs about overused (and creatively lazy) words in book reviews. The author picked seven particularly egregious nouns and adjectives:

poignant
compelling
intriguing
eschew
craft
muse
lyrical

I've been guilty over-using nearly all these review standbys in my own writing... except perhaps "lyrical", which I've always considered in the same faux-poetic family as lambent, luminous, etc. etc. And even though I've dropped it into sentences dozens of times, I'm not sure if I even know how to pronounce "eschew" properly!

Judging a Book (see under: cover)

2008-03-18T07:17:00.000-07:00

Sadly, most of my adventures in the past three weeks have been both indoors and prosaic, rather than outdoors and/or literary: preparing to move house, moving house, swearing as we punched a too-large sofa through the freshly painted wall of our reno'd house. (I guess we were trying to make our indoors outdoors.)

I did find a little time to begin a campaign of shameless self-promotion in the hopes of getting a little media attention (a whisper, if not a buzz) when my book finally appears. Even at this stage—as I'm dealing with a publicist, a publisher, an agent, various booksellers, event planners, conference organizers, newspaper reporters, magazine editors, and TV and radio producers—the fact of the book's imminent publication doesn't feel real, and won't, I suppose, until I actually hold a physical copy in my hands, feel its heft (or lack thereof), the same tactile bibliophilia one experiences while browsing a good bookstore and that can't be reproduced by surfing Amazon.com.

What does convince me—more than five years of research and writing—that a book really will emerge at the end of this long, dark, nearly soul-destroying tunnel is the fact that I know (and have known since last summer) what the actual cover will look like. When I first saw it, I was a little taken aback by the cover design's (quite literal) in-your-face-ness. The book is about a kayaking tragedy on the stormy Bay of Fundy, and I'd always imagined a cover image (rather clichéed, I'll admit) with a distant paddler riding a mammoth wave: Paddle-to-the-Sea meets The Perfect Storm.

The one produced by the Penguin design team is far more dramatic. At first I worried: Is this too over the top for a true-life story of a young man's tragic death (several young men, in fact)?

The image quickly grew on me, however. I like the stark, graphic-novel-like quality of the photo-illustration (if that's what it is). And the close-up immediacy of the image better suits the style and point of view of my "nonfiction novel", in the sense that I've tried, as much as possible, to get inside the heads of the various participants of the Fundy Multisport Race, rather than view them from the pseudo-objective distance of traditional news reporting.

Most of all, I like the ambiguity of the person's expression on the cover. It could be an image of pain and panic—the look of someone in trouble, in desperate straits. But it could also depict an athlete in a moment of extreme effort, of pushing himself (or herself, even the gender isn't 100% clear) to the physical limits. And that ultimately is the border region that Fatal Tide explores: the desire of endurance athletes to experience moments of psychological exhilaration through physical suffering...and the sometimes fatal consequences of pushing themselves too far.

A cover, in the end, is intended not simply as a reflection of a book's themes, but mostly as a marketing device: people do judge a book by its cover, or at least whether to buy it, borrow it, and read it or not. With that goal in mind, the cover for Fatal Tide has worked so far. Last week, I sent out a few batches of emails to PR people and newspaper editors, inquiring if they'd like to do a story or a mention of the book.

The first emailing included just my written pitch and description of the book: I batted about .250 in the number of answers I got back. Then, for the next inquiry, I attached a small jpeg of the cover: suddenly, my average shot up—I got several immediate replies, and a good three-quarters of people I sent the message to said they wanted to read the book and likely do an article.

Did they judge the book by its cover? Who knows. But I think it definitely made them wonder what was inside.

Blinded by the Light Metaphors

2008-02-26T11:48:00.000-08:00

Okay, now the Globe is really starting to bug me! A week after I complained about the fondness of its book reviewers for vague, pretentious light-emitting adjectives, what happens in this weekend's Books section? Let me quote from from the final paragraph of a review of Mary Swan's new book on page 3:

...the ripples Swan crafts in The Boys in the Trees reveal layers of darkness as textured and shaded—even luminous—to anyone familiar with looking deeply into shadows.

It's bad enough that the word is foregrounded between em-dashes, but the editors had to rub my nose in it with the following headline for the review:

Dark, horrific, gripping, luminous

Ack! If I were paranoid (and I'm not saying I'm not), I'd start to worry that someone was reading my blog and baiting me on purpose. Please, please, let Martin Levin know. Please, please, join my desperate petition: No more luminous prose. Nor more lustrous writing. Or lambent. Or incandescent or radiant.

Maybe, in our age of climate change, if a reviewer wants to praise someone's "compact, fluorescent new novel", I'll accept that low-wattage alternative. But I remain blind to all the other light-minded review-writing clichés.

A Three-Hour Tour...

2008-02-23T06:43:00.000-08:00

Over the last five years, as I've worked on my book and (most recently) an explore article about the Thanksgiving Howe Sound kayaking tragedy, I've had the good fortune to chat with many of the men and women from Canada's Coast Guard and Coast Guard Auxiliary, and a few south of the border, too. I've learned a lot about their training, their equipment, their rescue strategies and tactics, and their personalities. These are folks who put themselves into seriously precarious weather conditions to rescue mariners gone astray—and do it on a volunteer basis, in the case of Auxiliary units. Brave stuff, in other words.

They've also got a sense of humour, too, as this recent safety reminder from the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary shows:

MINNOW SKIPPER FAILED TO TAKE SIMPLE STEPS BEFORE GETTING UNDERWAY

Most of us remember the S.S. Minnow from the 1960’s sitcom Gilligan’s Island. That voyage was crewed by a mighty sailing man (Gilligan) and a sure and brave skipper. They were only going to be out for a three-hour tour but ran into some bad weather. What most people don’t know is that the brave and sure skipper never filed a Float Plan, failed to check the weather forecast and did not carry an Emergency Position Indicating Radiobeacon or EPIRB thereby delaying search efforts for weeks and making locating them on an uncharted deserted island almost impossible.

The United States Coast Guard Auxiliary strongly suggests that all recreational boaters, regardless of the size of their boat, carry with them not only the federal and local mandated safety equipment, but also a VHF Radio and a EPIRB, which are not mandated. If the Minnow carried an EPIRB there never would have been a series since the five passengers and crew would have been located very quickly.

The filing of a Float Plan with friends, relatives and your marina enables these people to inform the Coast Guard when you don't arrive at the point your are supposed to when are expected to arrive. When properly completed the Float Plan contains information to make the search faster and easier. In the case of the Minnow no one knew they were overdue for several weeks.

A Float Plan asks such questions as what type of boat, what is your proposed itinerary, do you have a radio, how many people on board, etc. The answers can shorten the process of locating a missing boater.

Although we have made a little light out of the voyage of the Minnow, safe boating and seamanship is no joke. For more information about safe boating, check out the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary.

Of course, if the Minnow did have an EPIRB, I wouldn't have whiled away so many after-school afternoons in front of the boob tube, enjoying the fine tradition of desert-island fantasies: a plot line that has led from The Tempest and Robinson Crusoe, through Gilligan and friends, to Survivor and Lost, with hundreds of New Yorker cartoons in between. But gripping adventure lit (as well as cheesy sitcoms) is often the description of what happens when things go wrong—and sometimes that includes some pretty bad judgements in safety planning.

Reviewing the Reviewers

2008-02-17T21:53:00.000-08:00

This weekend's edition of the Globe and Mail didn't send me into the apoplexy of rage that it often does, especially the Book Review section, which actually included several well-reasoned critiques, including one by my colleague Lorna Jackson. (I suck up to her not simply because she wields power over whether I keep my present job but also because she has spent a lot of creative energy wrestling with the art and duty of the book reviewer.)

Still, a word choice in one review stuck in my craw. Because of my generous mood, I'll leave the writer anonymous. Instead, I'll indulge in a frequent daydream fantasy that I call "Words I'd Ban if I Were Made Dictionary Deity":

From all book reviews: lambent, lustrous, luminous... in fact, any light-emitting diction to describe someone else's prose or poetry. These adjectives are as vague as the equally galling modifier nuanced, although perhaps they serve a role as code words to warn that the book under study is yet another of the faux-poetic, over-written CanLit melodramas that make me want to take my eyes out with a fork.

From the style sections of newspapers and magazines: I know, having written plenty of trends fluff and home porn myself, that "lifestyle journalism" is an oxymoron. Still, I think we can finally fumigate the following literary tics: fashionista, foodie, boite (for a restaurant rather than a box of takeaway in France), and bling (unless, of course, you have gold teeth, diamond-encrusted brass knuckles, and did a nickel in Sing Sing before recording your first multi-platinum gangsta rap album).

And, mea culpa, my own over-fondness for cutesy dialogue tags. No one should muse, opine, or marvel about anything. Stop me before I opine again.

It is Finished!

2008-02-08T20:37:00.000-08:00

I had a beer last night and a couple of glasses of wine to celebrate signing off on the final final final final page proofs of my new / first book—i.e., the point of no return—catching a few minor formatting errors and resisting the urge for any minute-before-midnight tinkering (always a bad idea). The electronic file is off to the printer some time next week... although I still haven't seen the last version of the dustjacket text.

It's a good feeling, although it still all won't seem really real until I have the physical object in my sweaty palms. Bruce Kirkby, the author/adventurer/TV host, wrote a blurb of advance praise for me and had some welcome words about basking in this pre-production moment:

And my only piece of advice, whatever fate holds for the life of this book you are about to birth, always remember how you feel about it - your work - right now. I really, really think that is what counts. Because PR nightmares and unattended signings and mean-spirited reviews can grind you down - which I suppose is fine, you ask for that as an author - but they should never grind down your pride in what you created.

Amen!

My wife has already promised to pre-read any reviews when they come out to try to head off mood swings before they strike. I already know how much I already obsess over a single negative or even just ambivalent word on a teacher evaluation. Someone saying nasty things about my "baby" is going sting that much more...

The Hyphenated Writer

2008-02-02T13:39:00.000-08:00

I consider it a dedication to my craft that I pulled myself out of bed early last Saturday, shook a screaming toddler off my pant leg, and drove out to Sidney for a 8:30 am conference session called "Grammar Boot Camp". But really, the topic that writers most like to discuss—after moaning about editors/publishers/reviewers and speculating about other authors' advances—is the fine arcana of English grammar and prose style.

And my bleary commute was well worth it, as Frances Peck of the Editors' Association of Canada gave an informative and engaging rundown of the most common grammatical boo-boos she encounters in her work:

Agreement (pronoun-antecedent, subject-verb)
Pronoun Case (esp. the use and misuse of myself)
Dangling modifiers (which she considers the most common blunder)
Commas
And more commas

In the discussion after her talk, someone asked a series of questions that all had to do with hyphenation. Before she answered, Frances cautioned the interrogator with a quote from John Benbow, a former editor of the OED: "If you take hyphens seriously, you will surely go mad." It's a quote I wish I'd heard before, because it could have saved me many stressful debates with fellow magazine editors, as we tried to formulate strict rules for when and when not to hyphenate.

One example from a press release I recently got: "The keynote presenter is a high energy particle theorist." Ah, the possibilities:

a high energy-particle theorist (i.e., a physicist gone to pot?)
a high-energy particle theorist (i.e., an over-caffeinated scientist?)
a high-energy-particle theorist OR high-energy-particle-theorist (more correct perhaps, but starting to look like one of those block-long, throat-stopping German proper nouns)
or, as it was, a high energy particle theorist (leave it hyphen-free and trust readers to figure it out from the context)

My own question had to do with em-dashes—long dashes, like these ones—and how they seem to have proliferated (perhaps thanks to quick keys in MS Word) in the writing of nearly every author, good and bad, mine included. They've become the catch-all replacement for nearly every other form of punctuation: commas, semi-colons, colons, even periods and parentheses.

Frances admitted to suffering the same fondness for em-dashes, but told us that after her first draft, she goes back in and removes about 75% of them, especially those that don't convey an abrupt transition or strong emphasis. Good advice.

She also offered a pair of useful online grammatical resources:

I can always tell which of my own students really care about the hard-learned craft of writing (and which simply have airy fantasies of being a capital-W Writer) by how much they care about the comma and other essential grammatical minutiae. And, yes, how seriously they take the hyphen--even if it might drive them mad.

Magaholics Anonymous

2008-01-28T09:16:00.000-08:00

I had an enjoyable Friday night and Saturday at the B.C. Association of Magazine Publishers annual conference near Sidney, B.C. It's always fun to talk about the art and business of my favourite medium with other magaholics and periodical print junkies.

The keynote address was an inspiring talk by Bryan Welch, publisher of Mother Earth News and the UTNE Reader, who gave a few tips on trying to balance a sense of mission with a successful business model -- to make a living at writing, editing and publishing what you love.

One of the great things about magazine conferences is the reminder of all the publications, new and old, that are out there that even someone with an acute publication detector often misses. A few of my faves who were up at Dunsmuir Lodge this weekend:

Color Magazine: a super-hip skateboard culture magazine out of Vancouver that has to be one of the most inventively conceived and designed publications in Canada.
subTERRAIN Magazine: I probably offended the editors of a few literary quarterlies when I mentioned at the conference that I thought subTERRAIN (another Vancouver publication) was one of the only literary offerings in Canada to have an original focus (a sort of gritty urban surrealism) and a clear sense of its niche readership. Too many other lit-mags tend to have such a broad CanLit focus that they try to be everything to everyone and never distinguish themselves from each other (perhaps because most are published from the safety of a university).
Momentum: The magazine for self-propelled people: a fabulous little Van-City publication, distributed around North America, that promotes the virtues and possibilities of pedal power.
Unlimited: a new magazine out of Edmonton, aimed at young business types and other "social entrepreneurs" -- i.e., not another old boyz biz mag.
YES and KNOW magazines: science publications for young minds, based here in Victoria. I can't wait till my own ankle-biters are old enough to read these great mags.

Now, I only wish I had more time to indulge my magaholism.... Feel free to let me know of any other great new mags to gorge upon.

The Truth about Non-Fiction

2008-01-25T09:38:00.000-08:00

Maybe I’m just an over-sensitive “ink-stained wretch” whose writing usually appears in such ephemeral fish wrap as magazines and newspapers. Or maybe my paranoia has been inflamed now that my own first book of non-fiction will be launched, in less than three months, like a clay pigeon into the gunsights of reviewers. Whatever the case, I’ve noticed every other week or so yet another literary commentator—usually a novelist I’ve never heard of before (there are so many!), most often in the Globe and Mail—making the case for the artistic superiority of fiction over non-fiction.

The latest drive-by shooting comes courtesy of a review of People of the Book, Geraldine Brooks’ latest novel, which tells a fictional history of a historical object, the Sarajevo Haggadah (a bit, I imagine, like Annie Proulx’s Accordion Crimes or the film The Red Violin). In last weekend’s Globe books section, the reviewer opined in her opening paragraph:

The craze for memoirs and reality shows suggests a contemporary addiction to what really happened—the private made public before our very eyes—and, perhaps, a failure of the imagination. Wrestling with truth in all of its contradictions and complexities demands active imagining, even the creation and transformation of a world: the province of a novelist. Novel, after all, means new.

Let’s leave aside the various logical fallacies in the paragraph’s central syllogism: Truth = new. Novel = “new”. Ergo, novel = truth.

And let’s try to ignore the loaded language with which the author stacks the emotional odds in favour of her preferred genre. Non-fiction = craze, addiction, failure. Fiction = complexities, active imagining, creation and transformation.

And don’t even tempt me to point out that yoking literary memoirs with reality-TV is a stroke as broad as suggesting Alice Munro shares the same creative stage as the writers of, say, Two and a Half Men.

Instead, ask yourselves: why are so many novelists hyperventilating of late about the failings of non-fiction? Of course, they can’t make the case on purely aesthetic grounds, given the range of literary talent among memoirists, biographers, travel writers and other creative non-fiction authors—and the fact that so many of their colleagues seem to be genre-swapping switch-hitters these days. Nor can they appeal to the tastes of readers, who—as any agent, publisher, or bookstore owner will tell you—are increasingly gravitating toward the “literature of fact”.

Instead, critics of non-fiction retreat to that last bastion of fundamentalist illogic—the appeal to “Truth”. And they don’t mean the messy realm of small-T “truths”—what journalists otherwise know as “getting your facts right.” No, they mean big-T subjective Truth, emotional Truth, psychological Truth…which all sounds suspiciously like what Stephen Colbert famously dubbed “truthiness”.

Of course, what fiction really provides is not truth but verisimilitude—the feel of truth. The power of a novelist is the sleight of hand to convince you that characters and situations with little reality beyond black ink on dead trees are alive enough in your mind to care about for the next 300 pages. That's no mean feat.

To insist, however, that fiction by its essential nature provides the clearest window into a person’s soul or into a moral situation is bunkum. Few novels in the past few years have offered up anti-heroes as complex, as contradictory and as tragically fascinating as logger-turned-eco-crusader Grant Hadwin in John Vaillant’s masterful The Golden Spruce or the anguished teenage murder-accomplice Warren Glowatski in Rebecca Godfrey’s meticulously researched Under the Bridge. And knowing that both these individuals once walked among us only deepens the effect of reading these books.

That’s why I get annoyed when reviewers of creative non-fiction seem to wish they were reading a novel instead. Take, for instance, the otherwise positive notice (again in Globe Books, again by a novelist) for Heather Robertson’s recent biography of Joseph Tyrrell, Measuring Mother Earth, which concludes:

Heather Robertson has done a commendable amount of research and produced a significant contribution to our knowledge of an important Canadian figure. It has also resulted in a quotation-heavy book that might discourage the casual reader. Robertson attempts to overcome this difficulty by enlivening the narrative with occasional short imaginings. Unfortunately, these jar with their sudden leaps into the present tense, yet they might point a way through the tangled web that this self-interested man wove around himself. Perhaps one day, Joe Tyrrell will live again -- in a novel.

Sigh.

In the end, I think there’s a bit of special pleading at work here. The novel had a pretty good run as the top gun of western literary culture – give it a 100 years, from 1850 to 1950, what Ursula K. Le Guin has called "the century of the book”. But fiction writers have (reluctantly) had to learn to share the love with screenwriters and movie-makers, as cinema has come to overshadow fiction in the popular consciousness. Even television, that longtime whipping boy of literary taste-makers, can boast collective creations (such as Six Feet Under and The Wire) as narratively complex, as richly characterized and as thematically dense as any novel.

Now it seems that fiction writers have drawn a line in the sand and are reluctant to grant the same pride of place to a genre so similar to their own (like a novel, but without the made-up bits). And it’s not just fiction writers. As Le Guin noted in her recent Harper’s essay, the latest NEA report that lamented the decline of book reading in America didn’t actually count non-fiction as “literature”.

Isn’t it time to see past this prejudice? To judge a book not by the genre advertised on its cover (eg, “A Novel” or “A True Story”) but by the depth of its content and the quality of its prose? To understand that “truth” can arrive in many different forms?

I certainly hope so… at least before my own book is thrown to the literary lions.