Canadian Author's Association, West Coast Branch - Sam Hiyate

I love the Canadian Authors Association.  Each month a collection of writers gather to hear about the craft.  It’s a guild really.  Craftsmen and craftswomen participating in the ancient rites and ritual.  Tonight President Margot (grand wizard/authoress) introduced Past Pres, Robert Mackay who read an excerpt from his riveting submarine thriller, Terror on the Alert.  I couldn’t personally put the book down when I read it. He left the audience hanging  but I know the spoiler. It was all I could do not to shout out the next incredible moment in a story I so loved.
Then Sam Hiyate, Literary Agent took the stage.  He was Clint Eastwood in Lone Rider.  You could hear the music in the background.  His voice held a touch of Sam Steed as he told story after story.  I’d wanted to skip the evening, go home early, watch tv, sleep. I’d spent the exhausting day in a methadone clinic selling life without needles.  Yet here was this amazing story teller.  He’s an agent but really he’s a very special kind of  story teller. He sells the tales of writers to publishers.  He’s the pitch.
How would you like to make money doing what you love?
He explained just how he’d made this happen over and over again for one writer after another.
And I loved the story.  I bought the story. The man mesmerized me.  He was that good.  Really.
But then he is Sam Hiyate.  
“I like to think of my relationship with writers as a marriage and their books are our babies….It’s all about relationship….pick an agent you want a long term relationship with.”   And all the boys and girls unborn children cried in unison “pick me! pick me!"
He’s meeting next week with writers to review individually a sample of their work. He says it costs $75.  That’s the price of admission.  It excludes the uncommitted.
He teaches a writing workshop too. “I call it a workshop but everyone that attends calls it therapy.  Writers crying week after week.”
“You have to think of writing as taking your reader on a emotional journey. It’s got to make them feel something.”
He employs 5 editors at his agency.  Like agents they get paid down stream when the author does.  "I get a 15% for my work.”   He likes it when he get a book accepted by an editor in Canada then sell it in the UK  and US  then to 20 countries. after that.  “I know the editor’s personally. I know what they like.  They know me. "
He explained just how he did it.  We all leaned forward.   There was a hint of sandalwood, pine and just a touch of sulfur electrifying the air.  "Ah….so that's the alchemy the publisher wants".  "Who would have thought?"   "Interesting."  "Very interesting"
Harry Potter was rejected by 20 publishers.  The Hobbit was liked by just one.
"Mmmmm. I see now.  That’s what a literary agent does."
The editors don’t buy the books. It’s more what the salesman say.  The publisher more often than not doesn’t get to read since he’s caught up in politics  trying to get what's  best the company as a whole. He trusts the editors and salesman to work together. The salesman know what's already been sold.
It was over too soon.  The questions from the audience wouldn’t stop.  The meeting moved into the foyer.  
Stepping out into the rain I looked back to see one writer snip a locket of hair from the back of Hiyate’s head.  Another had distracted him with bright eyed brilliance.  Writers helping writers in the CAA tradition.

Canadian Authors Association - West Coast Branch

For some it was just another night.  Rainy Vancouver.  Dark and gloomy.  A night to get out from the dull and putrid  into the warmth and genius of the Vancouver Arts and Cultural Centre.

Margot Bates, "PS Don't Tell Your Mother", President of the CAA - West Coast Branch had organized a panel of writers to share there experience and writing tips with an illustrious audience of the truly dedicated. By some act of God I was on the panel.  I felt like it must have felt to be on the Woodstock Stage without all the drugs. It had the Kennedy Centre feel, there among the greats.  Maybe Ravi Shankar felt this way playing in Albert Hall.  Alice Munro had just won the Nobel Prize for Writing.
The event was being filmed.  Maybe Spielberg would be consulted. I looked around for a comb.
I was here, next to Margaret Hume,  author of Just Mary.  Where Margot Bates is like Shania Twain, Margaret Hume is maritimes own Anne Murray.  I felt the music in their voices.  Margaret talked about the organization of research for her novels and how she kept detail on cards,  how she used timed writing  exercises repeatedly to find her own voice.  She wanted to write in a way that would be original and appeal.
Elvis Presley was in the audience, talking to Marilyn Munroe.  Einstein, Martin Luther, Shakespeare and DH Lawrence were there too. I glimpsed Jane Eyre. Rawlings flew by on a hat.  Steven Harper and Obama were taking notes. Colonel Hatfield played  back up   with the Bare Naked Ladies.  David Bowie harmonized with Sarah MacLaughlan and Bryan Adams.
Grant Brandson sat on the other side of me. Very martial.  A military memoir writer he shared writing from his experience in the military to writing stories inspired by the questions of his little children. Taps and Bagpipes and Nursery Rhyme.
Next to him Robert Mackay, author of  "Soldier of the Horse". He was also a military fiction writer.  He received a gold award for the story he'd written based on his father's experience of WWI.  His next story will be of submarines.More bagpipes. The fife and drum.  Whistle up the Captain. Bob talked about actually getting published. He shared about "writing circles" and an amateur first novel that sat in the attic  before he learned to be as professional about writing as he'd been about law..
Monty, Rommel and Patton stood up to applause.  Ghengis, Atilla and Alexander seemed pleased.
Dennis Bolen aka the Bob Dylan/ Leonard Cohen/Thomas Hardy spoke of his many novels and his willingness to experiment, pushing the limits. There's a freedom about Dennis after his years in helping men in prisons. His creativity and originality had produced many novels. His poetry book, Black Liquor is a must.  A journalist as well, he is much admired for  helping writers,  inspiring so many in the arts with his generosity and passion.
A Greek Chorus joined the Tenors,  a Louisiana Jazz Band and  Christy Clark.  Ali McGraw waved Queen Elizabeth style while the Canucks banged their skates with sticks.
Kate Schmidt spoke of grammar. There was a pregnant pause.  Simon and Garfunckel played Wednesday Morning, 3 am.  Soft spoken, Kate  spoke nuclear missile words on the subject of writing, editing and precision perioding.   Commas were her forte.  She shared her experience of editing, the importance to her of just the right phrase.  She liked adverbs and the adjectives were jealous.
Salvador Dali, Joni Mitchell,  Lightfoot and Stuart McLean pushed at the back of crowd.
Jean Kay, Poet, shared her 20 year history of morning wiring, 16 years  of daily poetry writing.  One poem earned her $1200.  Website:Poetrytoinspire.
Sonnets, haikus, iambic pentameter, rhyme, free verse, all floated in and out of  melodies of verse and passing thought
Joyce Goodwin, her Irish origins dancing leprechauns on her tongue shared the thrill she found in writing and the inspirations for her stories.  Each thought was a pot of gold.
Patrick Taylor, our local favourite, had just published another Irish Doctor tale.
A scent of peat and sea.
Bernice Lever, shared of her early years with  Layton and  Livesley. She'd been editor of Waves , had countless books of poetry. Sensuous and divine,  hot reading that inspired body, heart and mind.
Picasso  painted as she spoke. Wordsworth and Thomas Jefferson talked with Whitman of the body electric.
The evening ended too soon.  Freight trains, explosions, brass bands and perfume.
A rabbit sprang from a hat as  doves flew and roses fell on  stage.
Friends  plied me with money for my writing.   I almost feinted.  Love between the Sacred and Profane.
Others huddled like writers do, in scrum circles, slapping each other on the butt, then  screaming 'oorah'!    Soon the fight with pens, pencils, computers and keyboards would once again begin.

National Voices

I've just been reading "National Voices", the 2012 Anthology of the Canadian Authors Association, Vancouver. As a member of the Canadian Authors Association, knowing well most of these extraordinary and talented writers in person, I'm especially grateful to read their works in this delicious smorgasbord of sizzling poetry and prose. I've concluded , that hanging out with writers is like hanging out with a marvellous bunch of underwear models. In their street clothes they're delightful enough, but when they disrobe they're downright titillating with these shocking, exotic and surprisingly colourful undergarments. Sometimes too, when they strut the author catwalk, the band playing, "I'm too sexy for my words!", I hear the hallelujah choir ever so faintly in the silences of periods, commas and semi colons. How I love that well placed exclamation mark! It's good to be a writer among writers, especially writers helping writers.

Word on the Street 2012, Vancouver, Canada

Word on the Street, Vancouver Book and Magazine Festival, 2012 was a big hit this year with thousands attending and hundreds of participants. Tents surrounded the Vancouver Central Library, a fitting venue for a world class festival. Readings from local and international authors ranged all day. Booths for writers, editors, schools and just about anything related to writing were represented. There were even reading glasses on sale.
I was impressed by the volunteers at the Canadian Authors Association booth. I'd just missed Anthony Dalton, I heard, but was delighted to chat with Margot Bates, Robert Mackay, Jean Kay and Bernice Lever. I actually met Bernice's adult children who ,no doubt because of Bernice's poetry, turned out themselves to be highly creative. It's part of the fascination of the Canadian Author's Assocation and festivals like this that one actually meets the genius behind the books we so enjoy. Patrick Taylor, author of the Irish Country Doctor series was on site, there for a reading later in the day.
I walked about and heard several readings going on in tents. A couple of musical poetic events were truly avante garde. The crowds certainly spoke to the ever increasing appreciation for this event. Despite or because of digital we all are reading more.
While I bought a t shirt for the event, I did come away with the 'feel good in the hand real old fashioned paper version of the book Gas! The Battle for Ypress 1915 by James L McWilliams and R. James Steel, recalling the Canadian soldiers in the WWI encounters with mustard gas and other neural toxins.
A great day for readers and writers alike!
































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Canadian Authors Association - West Coast Branch - AGM 2011

President Bob Mackay chaired the event with aplomb.  Of course he was surrounded by many beautiful and talented women, not the least of who was his wife.  Jean Kay, Margaret Hume, Bernice Lever, Perry Wilson,  and Margot Bates just to name a few.  They've all got great character and write remarkably so are far more than just another pretty face.  Bob would be that if his novel Soldiers of the Horse wasn't doing so well at the bookstore.
I forgot to bring home a program. And for the life of me now can't even remember the name of  the gorgeous sexy authoress who reads with a definitely lilting voice.  I can't even remember the name of the slyly brilliant thing who won the 'letter to Santa' contest.  Usually I take notes.
But Anthony Dalton, having published four books this year,  wasn't there.  I heard early that he was off working for the Smithsonian Institute lecturing on cruise ships.  Makes a writer like me literally want to throw in the towel.  Meanwhile,Patrick Taylor 's Irish Country Doctor series is now on the New York Best seller list.   Ben Nuttall Smith, having just won a Surrey Writer's Society prize for his book, Blood, Feathers and Holy Men was in fine form as usual.  Seeing his muse kicking the butt of my muse I at least thought to pull out the iPhone and make some record of the genius company I was in.  Without proof,  no one would believe a mere blogger such as I could hobnob with the likes of these celebrated and very real 'authors'.
I loved sitting beside the Mumfords having read his stories of living through rebellions and sea adventures.There was actually a fellow at our table who was publishing a book about bag pipe music.
I listened with interest to Margot Bates tell of her time as a young Telkwa beauty queen. Telkwa is a northern BC town of some 800.   Her latest book is  PS, Don't Tell Your Mother.   I talked to the man beside her,  a weathered intelligent working journalist,  who told me  motorcycle tales of a RUSH band member.  As a result I think his name is Russ but it may  well have been Charley. He was so astute in conversation that he might also  have won a Pulitzer Prize.  I was lifted out of my normal self absorption by his words and ideas.  But the turkey arrived.  I have reached an age where chowing down takes precedence over conversation.
I remember that some time later he didn't want his pumpkin pie and the waitress thought I was kidding when I said "I'll take his too then."  When she only gave me my pumpkin pie I thought immediately of consulting Perry Wilson. Perry has just published  a female detective e book series.  "Perry, what do you think of a waitress as your next victim."
There was the book draw after that. To stop ugly stampedes that have occurred in other years they call us up one at a time.  Laura was thrilled to get a book by the author of "Water for Elephants. "She lives here in Vancouver" Laura told me.  That left me wondering why she wrote about elephants.
Then we were all hugging and kissing and saying Merry Christmas and such. I still can't get over them all being some of the finest people I know personally.  I love their writing but who would guess that writers would actually be human.  It surely must be a trick of the Christmas season. Humbug.

Canadian Author's Association - West Coast Branch - March 9, 2011

I stepped out of my ORDINARY WORLD into the Art Alliance Building on Howe Street.  The Canadian Author's Association meeting is always a CALL TO ADVENTURE. I am RELUCTANT to join the creativity and genius, thinking I'd rather go home to watch another television episode of CBC's Insecurity or" barf out anotherblog" (as Perry Wilson so aptly describes it). But no ! (sorry Patrick for laughing at my own jokes, and Ed) But No!!!!.  I REFUSE THE CALL!  But I am encouraged by my MENTORS.

Bob  (ROBERT W. MACKAY)  branch president,  has a new book, "Soldier of the Horse" published by Touchwood.  I have to get a copy  before it's sold out.  I am already tasked to get   another copy of Ben Nuttall Smith's, new historical novel, Blood, Feather's and Holy Men too.  Perry Wilson has had her book "Closing the Circle" just released  through Amazon. At least  I can download a Kindle copy. Bernice Lever has had more poetry published.  Jean Kay and Margaret Hume are there.  They're all MENTORS. I was hardly through the door before I was discussing Churchill guide Mike Macri with Anthony Dalton, the president of CAA. I'd just finished his fascinatingly book called, Polar Bears.  I think I recognised, from his detailed descriptions and tales, the very Polar Bear that chased me when I was in Churchill"!"
Patrick Taylor, An Irish Country Doctor, arrived, only to be thronged.  He shared that 50,000 copies of one of his many books had just been printed from the old draft galley without maps and all the typos.  With characteristic wit and humor he described his news  "mixed".
I was at last  in a SPECIAL WORLD.  Worries and cares about'reality' simply slipped away.  "Characters" were all around me.  Genius and entertainment. Writers, authors, poets. The whole circus of story tellers.  A barb here and an eulogy there. Reparte coupled with hyphen, colon and question mark.  Discussions about exlamation marks, for God's sake! The English language sparred with French. Norwegian popped out of somewhere.  A syllable danced with a paragraph.  Hyperbole silenced the period.

Then Ed Griffin was introduced by Perry Wilson.

Ed was a Roman Catholic priest who marched in Selma with Martin Luther King.  Leaving the clergy he married, had 2 children and was a councillman in Wisconsin for years before coming to Canada. He had found creative writing at 47 and began teaching creative writing in jails.  Today he is the writer in residence at the Newton Cultural Centre in Surrey, where he began the Surrey International Writers Conference.   As a volunteer he teaches creative writing in Matsqui prison.  His own books include novels, Prisoners of Williwaw and Veto.  Dystopia written by Ed ,with former prisoner and writing class attendee Mike Oulton tells of the jail experience from inside and outside writer's perspective. It was published 2007 by Trafford Publishing.
Ed's talk was first about the Writer's Journey taken from the Christopher Vogler book of the Mythic Structure for Writer's.  Ed called it the Hero's Journey and shared how he started a book club at the institution and the prisoners, now reading Satannic Verses had just finished Joseph Campbell's , Power of Myth. In his talk he shared Jean Bryant's seven laws of writing which include 'write is an active verb. Thinking is not writing. Creativity follows passion. Originality equals vulnerability. Write for fun. Pleasure precedes profit. Write alot" and more.
I struggle with plot . Ed shared how  the 12 steps of the Hero's journey served to order plot.  . This structure could be found everywhere. It was just good story telling. Describing it in movies like Star Wars and Wizard of Oz we learned that  Margaret Hume knew a surprising amount about the Yellow Brick Road.
Ed went on to talk about the ORDEAL of prisons and the experience of the waste and failure of the system. He offered instead the alternative of  "restorative justice", describing how victim assistance and restitution worked.
The REWARD  was amazing in the question and answer period that followed. Among the writers present there were a former parole officer, a prison guard, a corrections officer and a lawyer.  I was surprised they admitted this after Ed had described the "US and Them" mentality that so permeated the prison system.   Being writers we had committed every criminal act in our minds so naturally identified with  the "US" and began breaking down chairs to make Shivs to attack "Them." Soon everyone was loudly dragging pens back and forth,  back and forth, across our computer keyboards. We were plotting  riot when Ed dragged us BACK to the ORDINARY WORLD , describing  the TRANSFORMATIVE EXPERIENCE of several prisoners who had taken his classes.
One is now a writer for the newspaper, The Province, having contributed a piece called "writing changed my life".Now he has the  regular column called the Incarcerated Inkwell.  Ed described how art and faith had helped the DEATH of the criminal past and lead to a RESURRECTION of self for so many.

He read from Dystopia. We all heard the rich creativity of an author whose sole former outlet of expression had been crime. It was a moving night.

By the end of evening we'd all  experienced the ELIXIR of Ed's enthusiasm and committment to writing.

WEB Griffin

I just finished WEB Griffin's Vigillantes. This was one of his Badge of Honor series about Philadelphia cops. The writing is fast and naked. A lot of WEB Griffin is characterization. I've read a half dozen of these Badge of Honor books over the years so have come to enjoy Payne the bright young cop "who could have been lawyer but stayed with the force" and Law the doctor who loves him. They're a bit of a soap opera with some action and a lot of intrigue. Good detective novels. What makes them most interesting is that WEB Griffin is truly a favorite writer of police forces. I appreciate this. This is either how cops see themselves or ideally how they see themselves. There's a real 'truthfulness' in these accounts that is so clearly at variance with the way police are so commonly misrepresented. I can't help but come away from WEB Griffin Badge of Honor novel without thinking these guys are trying despite the system. It's a tough job but normal guys are doing their best in difficult times. They're dealing with the corruption and drugs. It's a jungle out there but thanks to the police mostly its safe for society to get on with more than just defending themselves.

In contrast WEB Griffin's other series Brotherhood of War has been for me a mixed bag. The truth is I've read a half dozen of those too so obviously keep coming back to them as a kind of guys beach book. WEB Griffin is a fast raw writer in the popular Tom Clancy form. It's hard to criticize such a giant and such a true success story. The trouble is that the last Brotherhood of War series I read just had too much drinking and men playing war with 50's upper class girls to be that entertaining. Perhaps I've talked to too many vets and am a bit too jaded on the continual wars of our times to be able to remove myself from the suffering to appreciate these novels which army recruiters must truly love.

They are historical fiction and probably reflect the archetypes that were dominant at the time and explain to some degree a similar Hollywood take post WWII on the types of characters and the very thinking that won the war. Maybe it's the American take too. John Wayne half cut. Maybe war is mostly about drinking and girls, at least the only parts one wants to remember other than the camaraderie.

I prefer the Badge of Honor series. Policing is a whole lot different with greater complexity and depth and everyday people going to work and wanting friends and family. There's also big questions and ideas in Vigillantes. What is wrong with the justice system and what needs to be done before it's too late.

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CanWrite 2010 – Julie and Colin Angus

I have had the privilege of meeting prime ministers, Nobel Prize Winners, Olympic Athletes and World Religious leaders. I really can't recall being as moved by anyone as much as by Julie and Colin Angus, two thoughtful young adventurers with a baby on the way after hurricanes and Siberian snow storms couldn't come between them.
http://www.angusadventures.com/

Colin circumnavigated the world under human power. Julie accompanied him much of the way but especially for the crossing of the Atlantic in which they encountered 2 hurricanes. Julie became the first woman to row from mainland to mainland across the Atlantic. Their epic 2 year journey began at the Maritime Museum in Vancouver and ended there.

I had read Julie Angus' book, Rowboat in a Hurricane, after Phil a retired oceanographer and sea captain, thrust it into my hand last winter saying, "You've got to read this. There's nothing like it." Later at the Canadian Author's Association I would hear Julie's publisher singing her praise as one of the most enjoyable writer's she'd ever had the opportunity to work with. Colin's book of his 2 year, 43,000 km trek Beyond the Horizon is my next must read book.

Waiting to hear them speak at the CAA Literary Awards Banquet, sitting at a table of learned and accomplished writers and genius, the topic was of the devastation of the British Petroleum oil catastrophe. It was so apropos coming spontaneously before these two shining lights of ecology celebrating human energy and renewable resource. Julie and Colin Angus, two spiritually gifted writers and visionaries gave hope by their action and the gift of their presentation and words.

What a priviledge to be in the same room with such humble and humorous superhumans.

Their latest book Rowed Trip described their journey by oar from Scotland to Syria, through 13 countries, across the waterways and lands. For now Julie pats her bulging belly and says "this is our next adventure."

CanWrite 2010 –Blue Pencil Sessions

At this year's Canadian Author's Association, "blue pencil" sessions were held in the lobby. Due to complaints by other hotel guests about the 'noise and shameful carrying on" these 'blue pencil' sessions will in future be held off site, in padded rooms.

Through out the conference writers heard their fellows chanting "Not my bon mot! Not my bon mot!" as authors staged rallies in groups hoping vainly political action might influence editors.

One petite white haired woman cried desperately to no avail 'that scene defined my grandmother, I simply can't remove it from her memoirs." Senior writers, ever available to criticize, wielded Luke Skywalker Blue Pencils with great flair. Others ganged up on the unpublished, two on one ,while the third operated the chain saw.

A veritable tug of war went on for hours with kc dyer on one end of a paragraph and a budding author at the other. By her utter deviousness, Bernice Lever, demonstrated that she'd been at this editing business a very long time. "Whose that behind you," she'd say and then whole chapters would disappear into thin air. "I could have sworn I included my 60's recipes for mushrooms in my cookbook for wholesome childen's food…I just don't know what's become of it." said the long haired author. Bernice smiled coyly like the proverbial cat.

Listening to Anthony Dalton you'd have thought he was a grief counselor, "it's gone, learn to live with it. We all move on with time."

However gentle the published authors were the newcomers just kept thrashing about on the floor and gnashing their teeth. At times the keening interrupted keynote speakers. Bob Mackay, his own novel just accepted for publication wanted to offer solace to one particularly forlorn writer but Rodger Cove stopped him. "He's got to face the loss of that one comma!" Rodger said.

It didn't matter that all the authors told the new writers, the editors and publishers were even more brutal. "We're doing this for your own good," fell on deaf ears.

CANWRITE 2010 – Richard Wagamese

http://www.richardwagamese.com/

R.L introduced Richard Wagamese, the Friday evening keynote speaker. Richard received the Canadian Authors Association award for fiction for his 3^rd novel Dream Wheels in 2007. He was the first native Canadian to win a National Newspaper Award for Column Writing in 1991. His debut novel Keeper'n Me won the Alberta Writer's Guild Best Novel award in 1994. His other books include: The Terrible Summer; A Quality of Light; For Joshua, An Ojibway Father Teaches His Son; Ragged Company; One Native Life, his memoir. He has also received an Honorary Doctorate of Letters making him Dr. Richard Wagamese.

R.L having introduced him said, "Please take the podium, Dr. Wagamese" To this he responded, "Wrong thing to tell an Indian to take something, I'm already imagining how I'm going to carry it home on my back". After that he spoke of street life as a young man, leaving school and finding 'at 16 my idea of safety was the library." He described reading stacks of books there and 'when creator came I was ready."

He was out of work at 17 and saw an ad "Native writer wanted" so "I thought I'm half way there, I'm native." When he was asked what training and experience he had, he said, "I lied." Asked for transcripts, he said, "they'd all been lost in a fire." He was told to come back and show his work so he went to the library to read up on how to write 'journalism' and got the job. Since then he has worked as a professional writer.

"I allow myself to be all for Creator and the creative process, to be the vessel."

"Each time we face an empty screen it is a spiritual experience." He shared. "The thing we are called upon to do is fill that empty space with spirit and spirituality……we are conjurers……we pull rabbits out of the hat…..we arrange words in ways they have never been arranged before…it's magic."

"I spoke to the Ojibway elders and they told me that I was supposed to create stories for the story's sake."

"You have to hear it, feel it, smell it, taste it so you can put it on paper so someone else can hear it, feel it, smell it, taste it."

"We're all tribal people, " he said," We have a desire to hear the one voice speaking and we lean closer around the campfire to hear that voice. Regardless of your background we all have oral tradition in common."

Then he created the most amazing complex and beautiful story as a game, receiving three words and a sentence, the sentence being the one that would end the story. Then he told us all a wonderful story and the whole room of authors stood en mass applauding at the wonder he shared.

In closing he said, "When people encouraged me to be the best I could be spiritually, I thought the acronym FAITH meant , Find Another Indian To Hassle, but now I know the acronym for FAITH is Find Another Insight That Heals."

It was an honor to be in the room with and hear this great man say, "It's an honor to come to a room of my peers who face that same paper." When he stepped down from the podium there were tears in the eyes of a few.