Malarky on Cortes

Thanks a million to everyone who came out last Sunday for the reading event at Mansons. It was so much fun reading outdoors, beside the tree swing to such a warm response.

I especially enjoyed the questions and discussion including Liz Magor’s (Visual Artist) incredible take on my book. I wish I could have transcribed what she said about subjectivity. I was also so happy to see many familiar Cortes and Refuge Cove faces, people whose company I’ve delighted in over the years of making annual summer journeys up to Cortes.

A million and a half thanks to Suzu for organizing the event, Marnie’s Books for selling and stocking Malarky.

Also nice to meet writers Ruth Ozeki and Dennison Smith both of whom have new novels coming out in Spring 2013 which I look forward to reading.

Pics to follow.

Georges Perec’s Work-table

Last night I was reading (slowly) Georges Perec’s Notes Concerning the Objects that are on my Work-table. Even though the objects that Perec reports on are static, I was most struck by the movement in his piece.

When I arrived at this paragraph it was like putting my thumb beneath a granite paperweight.  It sat like a big stone, the paragraph, and I could not argue with it.

“Thus a certain history of my tastes (their permanence, their evolution, their phases) will come to be inscribed in this project. More precisely, it will be, once again, a way of marking out my space, a somewhat oblique approach to my daily practice, a way of talking about my work, about my history and my preoccupations, an attempt to grasp something pertaining to my experience, not at the level of its remote reflections, but at the very point where it emerges.”

(Species of Spaces and Other Pieces Georges Perec translated by John Sturrock Penguin Books.)

Quill & Quire front cover interview is live

This week the cover story interview I did for June’s Quill and Quire became available online.  Thank you to Q&Q for showing such faith in me and to Cheri Hanson for such a thoughtful article. Click on the photo below to read it.

Golden Thursday

Thursday was a fantastic day. Katie Taylor took the Olympic gold medal in Women’s Boxing for Ireland and Seán Bán Breathnach expressed it like no other. Invoking the poets and presidents. Go hiontach ar fad!

The same day I learned I was on P22 of the Irish Echo talking about Malarky — a great day. Very special. I grew up on diaspora newspapers and the Readers Digest. (The Readers Digest in the US also wrote a lovely review of Malarky) Some years ago I traveled to the NYPL to look up the Irish Echo from 1963 specifically to read some community listings in the back of it. Why did I go that far? Because the paper was not available on microfiche or obtainable so if I wanted to see it, I had to go to NY. So it’s lovely to think that things have come the full circle. There’s something very Gertrude Stein about circles. More of them please!

I leave it to SBB.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgMicT1GFaY&w=560&h=315]

Last Night of the Proms weather updates

I am shockingly behind with weather events, of which there have been several.

The Last Night of The Proms style Thunderstorm immediately comes to mind. Very dramatic thunder and lightning, which myself and the small male (who’s taller than me now) delighted in. We love storms because we speculate the power will go out (it rarely does) and if we’re truly speculative we make flasks of water and boil the kettle. Once we even purchased storm friendly sushi! The Last Night of The Proms thunder event was followed by the Last Night of Proms monsoon rain event. Fantastic — have not seen monsoon rain like that since nearly 20 years ago in a monsoon rain event in Jakarta. It was so thrilling I may have to bring forward my plan to have the Japanese weather symbols tattooed upon me. I need my own personal forecast and thunder and rain seem apt.

Overall we are in a wonderful batch of long hot days that make for working outside and eating truckloads of blueberries and cherries.

I am hoping to build a balcony garden, gardening at the community garden (nothing hectic to report, except peas — this year I am merely gardening to make the bees happy),

Summer is wonderful. Amen.

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New collaboration goes live: “Rooms” in Boulderpavement

I am very pleased to share this. In June I was commissioned to write an original flash fiction piece for Boulderpavement I was given the theme dream.  In addtion I opted to collaborate with visual artist Jeremy Isao Speier on the piece.

I wanted the text to be completed or extended or responded to through images. It was a fascinating process.

Yesterday the piece went live and I am thrilled with the result. I was surprised at how lifted I was when I first saw the piece but I think in part it came from the sensation of creating work again and seeing it realize itself and the wider scope that’s possible with collaboration.

To read “Rooms” please visit http://boulderpavement.ca/issue007/rooms/

I thank Boulderpavement and the Banff Centre Press for this opportunity.