Diaspora Dialogues

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Diaspora Dialogues

Author of the Month: Ian Williams

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Tell us about yourself.

I’m here. I’m known for writing poetry and fiction, but I have an active, if somewhat secret, non-fiction life. The notebook beside my bed is full of dreams. I record the events of each day on a calendar. I could tell you, for example, what I did a year ago today. (I went to my goddaughter’s sixth birthday party. According to the entry, it was “pleasant, lovely.”)

When did you realize you had a passion for writing?

I liked paper as a child, whether that meant drawing on it, writing on it, or folding it into marvels of engineering. I liked writing, too, the actual formation of letters during Penmanship class. I had two excellent teachers in grade 6 who made us free-write daily, and in grade 7 I wrote a magical, slippery thing that turned out to be a poem. It was like an icicle, so perfect, surprising, otherworldly, and slightly dangerous in the mystery of its formation.

What pieces of writing/authors have had the greatest impact on you?

The first collection of poetry I bought with my own money was Margaret Atwood’s The Circle Game. I read it until the pages came loose. Someday, if someone asks me to compile a best-of-the-19th-20th-and 21st centuries, greatest hits album, I’d include tracks by Hopkins, Dickinson, Woolf, Eliot, Sexton, Beckett, Atwood, David Foster Wallace, Zadie Smith. Once you start naming names, you’re bound to forget someone. Nabokov.

How and when do you find time to write?

I don’t have a sophisticated theory of how and when anymore. I need a mixture of silence, solitude, and stimulation—none of those very literally, but more like an attitude or mental scape. Periods of editing, especially near the end of a project, require more discipline and a sustained block of time, often months.

What has been some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced as a writer?

This present novel is proving itself a challenge because it requires an enlargement of mind, much like the enlargement of lung during a deep inhalation, and true to lung, there’s only so much air one can hold and only for so long.

How have you changed as a writer over the years?

The voice is clearer. Whose? I suspect that phenomenon has more to do with years than with writing. A less cryptic answer would be, I feel free to calculate risks, to solve a technical problem in a wholly unconventional way. In my mind, readers are no longer strangers, but friends, meaning I have a constant hum of affection for them even when we’re out of touch.

Writers from the Underground

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Photo by Beautiful Blackbirds Photography

Join us to explore the secret Heritage Room, a crypt-like space underneath the Metropolitan United Church where few Torontonians have ventured. As part of this special Doors Open Toronto presented by Great Gulf celebration, we’re allowing you access, and we’ve invited our own crew of writers and poets to haunt it with underground-themed readings and talks throughout the day.

Look for appearances by acclaimed authors Lillian Allen, David Bezmozgis,Wayson Choy, Karen Connelly, Anthony De Sa, Marina Nemat, Shyam Selvadurai,Ann Shin, Antanas Sileika, Farzana Doctor, as well as a roster of writers from Diaspora Dialogues’ mentorship programs. They’ll read excerpts from their works, as well as selections of works that have been censored or banned, both at home and abroad, and speak about underground writing. Gain access to this secret subterranean space in the Metropolitan United Church, and stop in for the aural unearthing of works—formerly or currently—buried by repressive governments, schools, and religious organizations the world over.

Emerging writers include: Sanjay Talreja (2012), Deepa Shankaran (2013), Mia Herrera (2013), Hawa Yusuf (2014), Alvis Choi (2014), James Papoutsis (2014),Pratap Reddy (2012), Jo Simalaya Alcampo (2014), and Mollie Coles Tonn.

When: Saturday, May 24
Time: 11 am–4 pm
Where: Metropolitan United Church, 56 Queen Street East
Cost: Free!

Author of the Month: Elizabeth Ruth

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Tell us about yourself.

I write fiction (mainly novels, but sometimes short stories) non-fiction, and I secretly write poems. I’ve published the novels, Matadora, Smoke, and Ten Good Seconds of Silence. I’ve also published a novella for adult literacy learners entitled, Love You to Death. I work freelance as an editor. The first book I edited was the collection Bent on Writing: Contemporary Queer Tales. I also mentor and teach aspiring creative writers across Canada.

When did you realize you had a passion for writing?

I began writing when I could read in English, around the age of 6 or 7. I started with poems, and with creating a library in my bedroom, including using my own cataloguing system for organization. I committed to writing for the first time when I was in grade 4 and there was a competition for the grade 4, 5 and 6 students. When I didn’t win, I was determined to write until someone agreed it was worth reading.

What pieces of writing/authors have had the greatest impact on you?

Writers influence me profoundly, but that influence is mitigated by whatever stage I’m at with my writing and whatever is going on in my stage of life. Right now, I am on a non-fiction bender, and can’t get enough. I’m currently reading a memoir: I Await the Devil’s Coming by Mary MacLane. Before that, I loved An Arab Melancholia. What moves me most is an author’s passion for their subject, and a fresh look at life or the world around them. In my life, the following books have had a major effect on my sense of what is possible on the page: The Little Prince, A Prayer for Owen Meany, the poetry of Garcia Lorca, stories by Edgar Allan Poe, the work of Jeanette Winterson, Wild Dogs by Helen Humphreys, Headhunter by Timothy Findley, and others.

How and when do you find time to write?

Before my daughter was born I wrote every day 9-5, 7 days/week. Some evenings too. For the first 5 years of my daughter’s life, while I was at home with her, I began my writing “day” at 7:30 pm and wrote until 2 am. Now that she’s in school full days, I write for several hours in the middle of the day.

What has been some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced as a writer?

After 15 years living full time as a writer, I would say the two biggest challenges are time and money. They are, of course, related. Finding enough of both to keep going with a project and with paying the bills. After that, it’s isolation. Novels require years behind a desk, on the other side of a window, watching the world go by.

How have you changed as a writer over the years?

When I began my first novel, I had no idea about the hell that could be a writing process. I was fresh, energized and nicely naïve. All good things. Now, I know better so I am pickier about projects going forward, have to know that I will live within them for years, because that’s how long it will take me. Also, now I know each project gets harder, not easier, funnily enough. You’re always chasing your talent, and ambition regardless of how many books are under your belt.

Emerging Author of the Month: Jane Bao

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Tell us about yourself.

I lived in China and the U.S. before moving to Canada. I was a freelance journalist for a few years, and recently got a 9-5 job. Even so, I have a constant sense of impermanence, of life in transition.

Tell us about the piece you’ve decided to share.

I wrote this feature on commuter students for The Varsity, my campus newspaper at the University of Toronto. Most at U of T are commuters, and this daily grind often carries over to work life as well. It was so different from how I imagined university growing up. I wondered how this experience was shaping our generation.

When and why did you realize you had a passion for writing?

University is when I really started writing. It was a time when I couldn’t study everything anymore; I had to choose. I originally chose engineering, then decided to quit and major in English and French literature.

What pieces of writing/authors have had the greatest impact on you?

I have many answers to this question, depending on when you catch me.

I often recall the books I read in early childhood. Chinese stories by authors unknown (to me) have stuck. I respect that they don’t hold back on loss, death, or the cruelty of circumstance, or maybe I just remember the most tragic ones.

One of the first English stories I read was “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.” I was nine. I can’t remember whether I took to it so keenly because it reflected my reality or whether it subsequently shaped the way I live.

The writings of Zhuangzi, so fluid and so dense, are a later discovery.

What kind of writer do you aspire to be?

When I find writing that is apt, open, seeking, I am transformed. That is the kind of writing I aspire to do.

How and when do you find time to write?

Weekend mornings are the best time to sit down and work. I do write in my head all the time, during commutes or when I’m waiting in line. It’s a good way to feel things out without the pressure of a blank screen.

Emerging Playwright’s Residency Program

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DD’s inaugural Emerging Playwright’s Residency Program is currently under way. In partnership with select Toronto theatre companies and under the guidance of experienced dramaturges, emerging playwrights from diverse backgrounds will develop a full-length play over the course of one year, at the end of which there will be workshop readings of each playwright’s script at their respective host theatres. Congratulations to the playwrights who have been chosen to participate in our free residency!

Photo by Mayo Buenafe Jo Simalaya Alcampo plant whispering at the University of the Philippines—Baguio City

The 2014–15 Diaspora Dialogues’ Emerging Playwrights-in-Residence are:

Let the dialogue begin!

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