A-R International: Lee Gowan
Lee Gowan
Authors-Readers International
Lee Gowan is a Canadian novelist.
Gowan grew up on a farm near Swift Current, Saskatchewan, and studied at the University of British Columbia, where he received a Master of Fine Arts degree in creative writing. Gowan is presently based in Toronto where he heads the creative writing program at the School of Continuing Studies, University of Toronto.
At the 1996 Gemini Awards, Gowan was nominated for his screenplay Paris or Somewhere. In 2002 his novel Make Believe Love was nominated for the Trillium Award for Best Book in Ontario.
In 2006 his novel The Last Cowboy was published by Albin Michel in France as Jusqu’au bout du ciel.
Lee Gowan is the author of the novels Confession, The Last Cowboy, and Make Believe Love. He also published the critically acclaimed story collection Going to Cuba, and wrote the award-winning screenplay for Paris or Somewhere.
Also, you may read about his multimedia story, My Father’s House, on his website. Here’s an excerpt:
My Father’s House is a multimedia story that explores impermanence. What else can we count on in this life but change?
On the other hand, the house I grew up in was the house my father lived in his entire life, so it represented permanence for him.
It goes without saying, all of the writing is mine. What use would it be to you? If you do have some use for it, please ask my permission before using.
The photos are mostly mine too, though I have borrowed a few from family (Ray Gowan, Jessi Gowan) and friends (Laura Murray and Ranjini George Philip) and from the public domain.
Enjoy it while it lasts.
~
I was the southern Saskatchewan sales rep for Fifth House when Lee Gowan published his first book, Going to Cuba. But it wasn’t until decades later that we actually met in person, and in Toronto … I had arranged to meet with author Ranjini George who has already been featured in this Authors-Readers International series. Ranjini had recently married Lee, so it was my great pleasure to be able to chat with both of them over coffee!
~
Confession
Eight years since I’ve seen my parents’ graves, and if I haven’t visited it’s a safe bet that neither has anyone else. Maybe a few of the curious, assuming that anyone is still curious about such things. Not a week goes by that I don’t think of them there, under their shared granite slab. They died a day apart, my mother the one day and my father the next, so one stone seemed appropriate and more cost-effective. Not that I paid. I just mean that it must have seemed more appropriate and cost-effective to the man who did pay for the pretty pink rock and the engraving and had them buried side by side. They’re within reach, but they never touch. How so like the world of the living.
You don’t entirely appreciate how alone you are until you’ve lost your parents.
In the beginning, we piled stones on graves to stop wild animals from digging up the remains of our loved ones. I suppose those rough mounds served as markers as well, but the principal reason we piled them so high and wide was because we didn’t want to come back to find our parents’ bones strewn around like any other animal’s. Nowadays, with coffins and fancy fenced-off graveyards in the middle of the city, you don’t have to worry about anything eating your dead parents. We’ve almost run out of things to worry about.
I’m kidding. I wouldn’t even mention it, but down east here, people tend not to know when you’re kidding.
From this award-winning, acclaimed writer comes a searingly powerful novel that portrays how one fateful, brutal day in the life a young prairie man reverberates far beyond imagining – a brilliant portrayal of the struggle between fate and faith.
In the suffocating town of Broken Head, Saskatchewan, Dwight Froese confesses to having killed his father in a duel, maintaining that he was avenging the murder of his mother, whose body had been found floating in a nearby creek the day before. But when the coroner rules the woman’s death an accident, Dwight’s certainty is shattered. In the explosive tale that follows, he attempts to reconcile the violent legacy he has inherited with what it will take to forge a new life for himself – and the complicated relationships with the various townspeople that develop as a result.
What Lee Gowan is working on now: I’m working on a new novel, but it is still very much in progress.
For more information about Lee Gowan, his teaching, writing and books, please see his website.
A-R International … Self-Isolating Authors Edition: Part 4
This is the fourth part of a series in which Authors who I’ve promoted in the Authors-Readers International series tell Readers what they’ve been doing during these past few months of self-isolating … See the introduction to Part 1 for a further explanation. Here are links to Part 2 and Part 3. (All links on the authors’ names will take you to their A-RI promotion.)
David Poulsen created a YouTube video for his reading of his book, I Wish I Could Be Like Tommy Blake. As David says on his website: Because it’s written for the little guys, we always have a lot of fun with the character (who like me) wants to be like the cool kid in the school, and, of course, Ron Desnoyers’ amazing illustrations are hugely popular as well. I thought that with kids forced to miss school, sports and a whole lot of other activities, this might be a good time to have some fun with me reading the book exactly like I do in schools.
Hazel Hutchins has also created a video in which she reads from her new book, The Truth About Wind. Publisher Annick Press says of the book: Co-author Hazel Hutchins reads her new picture book The Truth About Wind. A story filled with imagination and the importance of telling the truth even if that means letting go of something you love. And Hazel says: I love the way the new book turned out! But it’s a difficult time everywhere and please know that the globe in the background is placed there purposefully, just as a small note of acknowledgment and support.
I have handed in my new manuscript. It’s fiction, entitled DECEPTIONS but that may change as we go along the editing process. It’s scheduled to be published next March but, as you know, there are very few certainties in today’s Covid-ridden world. I have been reading a great deal, doing some reviewing, and serving on the jury for the National Business Book Awards (more reading). Yes, some ZOOM meetings and FaceTime – not sure which app I hate the most. I am also doing some interviews still with Hungarian media for the Forbes edition of Buying a Better World, my book about George Soros and his foundations. I find that speaking relatively intelligent Hungarian is a huge challenge. I also give some editorial and publishing advice online but do not charge for it because I don’t want it to become a professional service (been there, done that). Love your posts about Bequia! (Thanks, Anna!)
Thanks so much for all you do. You really are a dynamo.
I spent the first few weeks of the pandemic adrift. My thoughts scattered to the wind. The only thing I could grasp onto was the endless loop of bad news, which only compounded the feeling of helplessness. People dying and sickened, people losing their livelihoods, companies failing. Writing felt inconsequential in comparison. My creativity flagged along with my energy. It wasn’t until I saw pictures of the skies clearing over the Great Wall of China and dolphins returning to Italy’s waterways that I was finally able to break free of the negative hold the pandemic had on me. That silver lining, fragile as it might be, helped me find shore again and anchored me.
But I didn’t get back to writing immediately. First I got busy in the garden. There’s something primal about digging in the soil and nurturing plants that soothes me. I also got busy cleaning. The house and yard have never looked so good, and that too, soothes me. And then I tackled a few projects that had been on my to-do list for a couple of years. It took all of that to make me feel like I was in control again. Best of all, my energy came back online and my imaginator kicked in.
I’m still not writing anything more substantial than blog posts, but I’m back to working on the outline for my next book. In addition, I’m scribbling out ideas for a short Christmas story. I’ve taken our local writers’ group of twenty + members online with ZOOM, and my volunteer work on the board of our local Activity Centre, Gym, and Museum has also gone online.
I’m loving ZOOM. Even after this pandemic is over, I won’t be giving it up. In fact, I’ve joined two other authors in a weekly share and brainstorming session. My critique group, also three authors, are local and we’re planning a proper socially-distant meeting on my deck with a glass of wine in the very near future.
I’m reading more and tuning into webinars and live training sessions and learning new skills. Our small island community has pulled together. We’re buying as much as we can locally, but when one of us has to go off island, we shop for as many other people as we can manage. I shopped for six of us at Costco a few weeks ago – could barely push the cart up to the till. In that sense, COVID19 has brought us closer.
This pandemic has been difficult, and it’s not over yet. The future is unsteady for all of us. It takes effort every day to stay positive. Keeping the news loop at bay helps, as does this super supportive writing community. So thank you all, and especially Susan, who’s a ray of sunshine on the darkest days. XO (Thanks, Jo-Anne!)
Please join me for two programmes:
In the third week of July for a one-week online Meditation and Writing Retreat at the Summer Writing School, University of Toronto.
A two-week intensive on Mindfulness and Writing for Discipline & Productivity this July. Time=Life. Learn to master time and live life in accordance with your values and aspirations.
I hate to admit how much work I’ve done these past weeks. But the time has been good, and writing is a distraction from any anxiety… it makes the time feel to have some worth.
So here is my update:
I have been WRITING!
Of course, my teaching moved to being online, but I have taught online before…so it really was about switching modes, and being there to support the students…many of whom have not worked online before. And then grades went in.
Here’s an article I wrote for The Writing Cooperative: Optimal Writing Time: Making time — micro and macro — work for you
In addition to working on a novel for adults, I have been writing short pieces, articles—for Medium—something I’ve not done before—and also for a small number of calls for submissions. I was so pleased to have a story win Sub-Terrain’s Lush Triumphant fiction prize this year, and have been enjoying “writing short” while working on the novel. While I can’t imagine working on more than one long (deep!) project at a time, I feel a need to work long and short simultaneously. It’s an old habit, to deal with writer’s block, and to make use of time (an urge borne of the busy time of raising three children). In the midst of this pandemic time, I have also had another book for young children accepted—a book of sacred texts, a “lectio divina” for children. The research for this project was an amazing journey into so many faiths. As I age, I am finding even more pleasure in setting myself down self-chosen research paths
After having a number of readings and presentations cancelled—as have we all—I have been busy with ZOOM promotion, most recently for All Lit Up, and a woman from the ALS Society in Texas, who has put together an amazing book club every Thursday evening for ALS Awareness Month. I am also taking part in a written Q&A for the Vancouver Writers’ Fest Newsletter. I am so grateful for these opportunities to share my work. And most grateful for this opportunity too, Susan!
It’s wonderful to have you doing this work on our behalf. I am truly grateful.
Here’s what I’ve been doing during the last eight weeks of self-isolation:
First, I’ve been sorting my papers and tossing them by the ton, or else piling them for shredding, whenever I can make that happen, or putting them in neat piles with labels for the millions of hungry scholars who will descend on them – hah hah – for what, I don’t actually know except that throwing them out is just not in me. I’m leaving that up to my son and heir.
Second, I discovered that the difficult and unusual (for me) novel I’d been researching and had begun writing when COVID-19 hit does not respond to my efforts to woo it into compliance. I have had to put it on hold for now. The reason, or the additional reason for this, is that almost at once a great idea for a COVID-19 novel hit me, and like a wood tick, burrowed in, would not let go, until I finally wrote a hundred pages of it. Then I had to stop to gather my thoughts, such as they are, and try to find a way to put the next hundred or so pages into my computer. I hope to start writing Part Two tomorrow. In the meantime, I have written a short magazine piece about the pandemic (500 words) and an essay to go at the end of my as yet unpublished essay collection: This Strange Visible Air.
Third, I have had four literary engagements cancelled or postponed, three of which will (eventually one hopes) still take place in the fall and that will earn me in total a couple of thousand, maybe. I haven’t really been worrying about my writing income because I get OAS and CPP and have a bit of money otherwise – a sadly diminishing pile, though. My heart bleeds for anybody whose entire income is from writing. It’s criminal what’s been done to Canadian writers in terms of income. And just today I got myself a judging gig for summer – one literary competition – with some financial compensation.
Fourth, my agent, Marilyn Biderman at TLA, Freehand Books and I have signed an agreement and I am now a Freehand author. This had to be done because my previous publisher, Coteau Books of Regina went bankrupt in late February. Season of Fury and Wonder will be back in print shortly. In the meantime, copies of it must be floating around in bookstores and libraries. I’m very happy about this, and have always been a big admirer of Freehand and I count myself lucky. That collection, by the way, was shortlisted for the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, the W.O. Mitchell City of Calgary Prize and the Georges Bugnet Fiction prize. With the bankruptcy I was afraid it was simply dead in the water, but nope, Butala rises again, like the phoenix! (Definitely a joke.)
And, finally for this 4th post of updates, this is the way I like to see things work with all the authors I promote …
Mike Robbins, on his blog, had reviewed the latest novel, Eternity Began Tomorrow, by Kevin Brennan. Then Kevin returned the favour on his blog with a shout-out and a review of Mike’s collection of novellas, Three Seasons.
Now Kevin has just announced that the paperback edition of Eternity Began Tomorrow is available to purchase!
I asked Kevin if he would send me a calming and peaceful photo from one of his walks that I could post here and he said: You could show the nice people this pic of a hiking destination Sue and I made it to recently. Didn’t see another soul, and it was utterly gratifying. Now that they’ve reopened the parks, places like this are packed. (Below is the Middle Fork of the American River, just a stone’s throw from our house.)
A-R International: Ranjini George
Ranjini George
Authors-Readers International
Ranjini George holds a PhD in English Literature from Northern Illinois University, USA, an MA in English Literature from St. Stephen’s College, New Delhi, and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia, Canada. More recently, she won the first place in Canada’s inaugural Coffee Shop Author Contest for her travel memoir, a work-in-progress, Miracle of Flowers. She was a Georges and Anne Bochardt Fiction Scholar at the Sewannee Writers’ Conference and a recipient of the Arnold B. Fox Award in Research Writing.
She was an Associate Professor of English at Zayed University, Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates. She currently teaches in the Creative Writing Program, SCS, University of Toronto; among other classes on mindfulness and writing, she teaches a Meditation and Writing Intensive at their Summer Writing School (St. George Campus) and No Mud, No Lotus: Writing and Breathing Your Way to Transformation and Healing (Mississauga Campus). In 2019 she won the Excellence in Teaching Award at the School of Continuing Studies, University of Toronto. (Here’s the link to the university’s announcement about the award.)
A Shambhala Guide Meditation Instructor, she has studied with teachers such as Thich Nhat Hanh, Lama Tsultrim, Shri Shri Ravi Shankar, Pema Chodron, Hari Nam Singh Khalsa and Lama Pema Dorje. Raised in the Christian wisdom tradition, she draws from Sufism, Sikhism, Hinduism, Stoicism, Mystic Christianity, and Buddhism in her writing and teachings.
She ran the Teaching with the Mind of Mindfulness series at Zayed University; she was the founder and editor of Studies in TESOL and Literature and The Arabia Review and the founder and Chair of the Literature Special Interest Group of TESOL Arabia. She has published literary criticism, stories, poetry and nonfiction in journals such as AGNI, The Ontario Review, WRITE, The Victorian Newsletter, Hamlet Studies and A Room of One’s Own. Her book, Through My Mother’s Window: Emirati Women Tell their Stories and Recipes, was published in December 2016.
~
Ranjini George was the first-place winner in the inaugural Coffee Shop Author Contest I created in 2010 when I was promoting authors and living in Calgary. This was an idea that came to me while I was spending a great deal of time in a particular coffee shop in Toronto writing my own novel. I had looked around the shop and noticed there were many others just like me, sitting alone and either writing on a pad of paper with a pen, as I was doing, or tapping away on their computers. And I wondered how many of them were writing creatively, penning the next great novel or non-fiction, and wouldn’t it be great to find a way to encourage writers to write in public so readers could actually see them working at their writing … So, with the help of Randal Macnair of Oolichan Books, we set up the contest and ran it nationally. Ranjini George entered with a travel memoir, Miracle of Flowers, and that submission was so exquisitely written that she was the favourite of the judges to win, hands-down! As first-prize winner, Ranjini was flown from Toronto out to Fernie, BC, for the Fernie Writers’ Conference, and was enrolled in Stephen Heighton’s classes for the duration of the conference. Since that time, Ranjini and I have met several times in person, the most recent being Oct. 2018, when we got together, along with her husband, author Lee Gowan, at the original shop in Toronto where the seeds of The Coffee Shop Author Contest were sown, The Remarkable Bean in my old childhood ‘hood – The Beach in Toronto!
Another author friend, Amy MacDonald, wrote an article in The Missisauga News about Ranjini winning the Coffee Shop Author Contest. And I previously promoted Cristy Watson in this A-RI series. Cristy won Honorable Mention in the same first year of this contest. Here’s a complete list of the winners in 2010: Coffee Shop Author – The Winners! Leslie Scrivener also wrote an excellent article that was published in the Toronto Star in June, 2010, titled “Got writer’s block? Try your local coffee shop.”
All this reminiscing lately about Coffee Shop Author and the great authors I’ve met has got me thinking about bringing back the contest … All I need is a sponsor and a few helping hands. WATCH THIS SPACE!
~
Through My Mother’s Window: Emirati Women Tell Their Stories and Recipes
Through My Mother’s Window: Emirati Women Tell their Stories and Recipes celebrates the voices of Emirati women and retells the stories of their mothers and grandmothers. Through narratives, photographs and recipes, this book offers a poignant, celebratory and wistful window into the landscape and culture of the Emirates–its past and its present, its food, weddings and important festivals. Through My Mother’s Window showcases the beautiful and vibrant city of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.
Through My Mother’s Window takes readers into the heart of Emirati culture through its most essential ingredient — food. I savoured stories about mom’s cooking and memories of family traditions and cultural celebrations that nearly always revolve around food. Delightfully, this book opens a culture to us through relatively easy and accessible recipes that range from everyday to fancy feast. ~ Margaret Webb, author of Apples to Oysters: A Food Lover’s Tour of Canadian Farms
Here’s the link to a podcast of an interview with Ranjini George about “Mindfulness, meditation, creative writing and the art of coming home …”
For more information about Ranjini George, her writing and teaching, the UofT Workshops, and Tara Mandala Retreats, please see her website.
Books: Publishing, Reading, Writing 