Hello Everyone…. Welcome to my new home… Lovely isn’t it. This is just phase one of the many changes that will be coming to The Millions, so please stay tuned….
Hello Everyone
Toronto’s fall festivals showcase authors and artists
Another weekend, another festival in Toronto.Millions readers in Toronto take note: Undaunted after a summer of festivals piled on top of festivals (Film, Fringe, Pride, Caribana, Jazz, NXNE, Luminato, and others that I’m sure I’m forgetting), Toronto grabs a few winks, splashes on some water, and bounces back with a few more festivals for the literary and art crowd.First of all, I would be remiss if I didn’t throw out a shameless plug for one of my favourite events in Toronto: Nuit Blanche. Beginning at 7pm Saturday September 29th, downtown Toronto turns into an art lover’s paradise with an all-night, all-free, art extravaganza. Meet friends at the nearest outdoor art installation as the clock strikes midnight, stroll through tiny galleries at three in the morning, or just marvel until the sun comes up at the latest crazy thing to burst from an artist’s imagination.Then grab a nap and head over to Queen’s Park for the Word on the Street festival. Sunday, September 30: Word on the Street is back, nestled in leafy Queen’s Park, with readings and workshops spotlighting the best and most anticipated in Canadian literature.Finally, beginning Wednesday, October 17, and continuing until Saturday, October 27th, Toronto’s Harbourfront hosts the International Festival of Authors with ten days of readings and round tables by a few dozen of the best and biggest authors in the world. This year, you can hear the likes of Margaret Atwood, Ian Rankin, M.G. Vassanji, Michael Ondaatje, Tracy Chevalier, Jasper Fforde, Will Self, and J. K. Rowling. I went to a few readings and round-tables last year, and was lucky enough to hear Deborah Eisenberg, Edward P. Jones, Alberto Manguel and Ralph Steadman. I even met Wallace Shawn!
Spring Break
You may have noticed that I haven’t posted for a few days. I’m busy finishing up my work for the quarter, and I still have some more to go. But when I’m finished, I promise to share my spring break – via this blog – with all of you. See you then!
Dispatches from Vilnius
Three flights and twenty hours after departing New York, I arrived in Vilnius, Lithuania, the land of potato pancakes, sour cream, and Baltas beer, where “thank you” is pronounced “achoo,” like a sneeze. Vilnius is the city closest to the geographical center of Europe, and because it’s also at a cultural crossroads, the city has been hit hard by the forces of history. Napoleon’s army liberated Lithuania from the Russians in 1812, and during their later retreat through Vilnius, forty thousand men died. The twentieth century saw both German and Soviet rule and genocides at the hands of the Nazis and the KGB. Independence came less than twenty years ago, when Lithuania was the first of the Baltic States to throw off Soviet rule. Even now, landlocked Vilnius is the hardest of the Baltic capital cities to travel to.I came to Vilnius by way of the Summer Literary Seminars, which is currently holding its first ever Lithuanian conference. Poets and writers have traveled from as far as Australia and South Africa to take classes with writers like Lynne Tillman, Phillip Lopate, Mac Wellman, and Peter Cole. Class days are interspersed with lecture days, and all days usually end with readings. The Lithuanian stage director Gytis Padegimas spoke about the state of contemporary Lithuanian drama and how critical resistance to new playwrights keep many of them from writing. Almantas Samalaviciu, the editor of Lithunia’s largest cultural journal, traced the developments in twentieth century Lithuanian literature, from Soviet rule through the liberation. But not all of the focus is on Lithuanian literature. Catherine Tice of the New York Review of Books gave a lecture on the contemporary essay and its provinces. Max Winter of Fence and Mike Spry of Montreal’s Matrix offered guidance on publishing with North American literary magazines.With Vilnius as our campus, the history of place, as well the new sights and sounds play a large role in the conference, too. Over a handful of entries, I plan to guide you through some of the more interesting discussions and events of the conference, and intersperse some Vilnius culture as well. If you want a head start, Open Letter recently published a translation of Ričardas Gavelis’s Vilnius Poker, the preeminent postmodern Lithuanian novel. Or for more of a historical background, turn to Laimonas Briedis’s City of Strangers. I’m on Lithuanian time, which is notorious for lagging behind, but more dispatches will be coming soon.
How prolific is too prolific?
There’s a very entertaining article at the CBC Web site about the pros and cons of being prolific as a writer. It leads with a discussion of the output of Alexander McCall Smith of No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency fame, who regularly churns out 3,000 words at a sitting. Prolific authors are often envied, but if they happen to be genre writers they are likely to be derided as well, even as publishers covet them and count on them to bankroll riskier publishing endeavors: The dream of most publishers is to have at least one “house author,” a writer with a robust fan base who can dependably churn out one title a year – giving the publisher the financial solidity to take the occasional flyer on more challenging (read: less gainful) authors.The article also includes a great quote from DFW: Musing on the seemingly inexhaustible John Updike, David Foster Wallace once asked, “Has the son-of-a-bitch ever had one unpublished thought?” Updike’s absurdly prodigious output – in the form of novels, as well as short stories, travel writing and literary criticism – has undermined his stature in the eyes of Foster Wallace, as well as many fiction readers. I would tend to agree that volume can degrade one’s reputation in the eyes of the reader. The article goes on to mention Joyce Carol Oates whose level of output many seem to take as a personal insult, and closes with an amusing comparison of Oates and Stephen King courtesy George Murray, proprietor of Bookninja.Curious about the output of different writers? This search returns lots of interesting numbers.
Books As Newsmakers
My travels to the East coast last weekend swept away any doubt about the importance of the current wave of bestselling books about the Bush administration. In airport lounges, on planes, and in the New York City subways people everywhere are getting their news, not from the Times or from the weekly newsmagazines, but from a handful of books by people who enjoyed unfettered access to the current administration. I especially noticed an abundance of copies of Bob Woodward’s Plan of Attack as well as a handful of copies of Richard Clarke’s Against All Enemies, (which, at the moment, come in at number one and number six respectively on Amazon’s Top 100). The content of these books is interesting, but so is the phenomenon behind them. According to many who have been following this trend, we are in uncharted territory. In the Times, David K. Kirkpatrick explains why all of this is unprecedented and suggests that the administration’s vigilance over the information that ends up in newspapers and magazines has caused a spillover into books. Here is the article.
“I’ll Have the Moveable Feast, To Go”
From the WSJ, a story of how the Cuban government has licensed franchises of La Bodeguita del Medio, a watering hole where Ernest Hemingway supposedly once hung out. “The concept clicked, and La Bodeguita outlets spread across Latin America and European cities including Paris and Berlin. Even in former communist capitals like Prague — where some locals call the restaurants ‘McCastro’s’ — the Hemingway link attracts business.” It sounds like a Cuban Hard Rock Cafe that’s Hemingway-themed rather than aging rocker-themed. My favorite part of the story is the lead paragraph:A life-size likeness of Ernest Hemingway greets diners entering La Bodeguita del Medio bistro near Stanford University here. Patrons at La Bodeguita del Medio in Prague order The Old Man and the Seafood plate. And in London’s new version of the same restaurant, which opened last month, the owner says Hemingway novels will be available for perusal in the men’s room.Separately, and more seriously, an article about how The Nature Conservancy came to own Hemingway’s last house, in Ketchum, Idaho.
TV book club goes farther afield
As TV book clubs fall by the wayside in terms of the public’s interest, the “Today Show” club appears willing to make some more off-beat, interesting selections. The most recent pick, chosen for the club by Walter Mosley, is Graceland by the Nigerian Chris Abani. The book, about a Nigerian Elvis impersonator trying to survive in the urban desolation of Lagos, has been out nearly a year – it was well-reviewed but not a big seller – yet it will get a second life thanks to this selection. Here’s an excerpt.