Anita's Other Space

Momentous

2009-06-23T08:26:00.000-07:00

Yellowknife was amaazzzzing. As it always is :-) I loved getting to know and mixing it up with fellow out-of-towners and new friends Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm, Jay Ingram, John Green, Hayden Trenholm and Joseph Boyden (who is every bit as nice as he is handsome, btw), as well as dear friends Richard Van Camp (an in-towner and out...adored by me and all who know him), Cathy Jewison, Doris McCann, Annelies Pool, Judith Drinnen, Ian Drinnen, Jamie Bastido, David Malcolm, Erica Tesar, Mildred Wilke, Steve Lacey...oh-my-gosh, ALL the NorthWords festival committee, and so many others.

There was an additional, lovely surprise...just after I arrived in Yellowknife, walking across the tarmac to the terminal building, I tapped a woman on the shoulder. "Excuse me...are you Jo?"

"Anita!" she said. "I was going to surprise you!"

It was Saskatchewan children's book author Jo Bannatyne-Cugnet. She was up with her friend, Yvette Moore (also the artist for some of her picture books) for another event. It was SO nice to see her! Jo had toured La Ronge years ago when I still lived there. I was at the very beginnings of my writing career, and after reading a story I'd written Jo encouraged me to hang in there. She said that I was close. And so I did...and so I was :-)

Oh...Yellowknife. Home of my heart. Here is a pic snapped by the lovely and talented Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm, poet and publisher, at Bullocks' Bistro:

Later this week I will be North-bound again as I will join the Junior Canadian Rangers 1 Group at their summer camp just south of Whitehorse, Yukon. The JCRs will make an honest woman of me, as I will rock-climb, kayak, horse-back ride, and do all the things I usually write my characters doing. During the evenings I won't just be resting aching muscles and nursing bruised shins. Okay, I WILL be doing that, but also leading fun and interactive story-telling/writing workshops.

On my last day North I will spend some time back in Whitehorse, leading workshops at the Whitehorse Public library: one for teens, and one for adults.

The title of this blog entry is "Momentous." Yes, it refers to my time North, past and soon to be, but also something else. If you know me you know what it is...but it is personal and so very special, and so I will leave it off the page :-)

NorthWords, ho!

2009-06-08T07:12:00.000-07:00

In a few days I head to Yellowknife for a soul booster...otherwise known as the 2009 NorthWords Writers Festival. I was honoured to have been invited last year, and over the moon when they organizing committee invited me back for a second year. As I've had two new (northern) books released since last year's festival, I have plenty to celebrate and present. Also, I cannot WAIT to meet up with the organizing committee again, dear people, all...and soak up that special something that feeds me the moment I set foot on the tarmac.

There will be lunch time and evening events, mentoring sessions, workshops, and plenty of time for writers to mix and mingle with each other. This year's writers are (from the web site): "Winner of the 2008 Giller, Novelist Joseph Boyden; host of the Discovery Channel's Daily Planet and popular science writer Jay Ingram; Teen fiction author whose heart is always in the North Anita Daher; First Nations poet, publisher and arts activist Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm; Fort Smith, NWT, poet, humourist and storyteller Jim Green; Yellowknife Short Story Writer Cathy Jewison; Dogrib Author Richard Van Camp; Young People's Author and Photographer Fran Hurcomb; Northern columnist Annelies Pool; Yellowknife Poet Doris McCann; Northern Children's Book Author Mindy Willett; Broadcaster Carol Morin; Yellowknife History Writer Randy Freeman; Northern Novelist and Science Writer Jamie Bastedo; Science Fiction Author Hayden Trenholm; Yellowknife Singer/Songwriter John Tees."

Added bonus: my friend Cathy Jewison will have her just released collection of short stories, The Ugly Truck and Dog Contest and Other Tales of Northern Life. Yay, Cathy!!

Workshop This Saturday

2009-05-26T06:54:00.000-07:00

From the e-newsletter of the Manitoba Writers' Guild:

MWG WRITING WORKSHOPS ARE BACK!
***************************************
THE END. WHAT NEXT?
So. You've written your manuscript. What happens next? How do you take it from paper to print? Author and editor ANITA DAHER will provide vital information on self-editing, manuscript preparation, and how to find the best publisher for you and your work.

When: THIS Saturday, May 30, 1 pm to 4 pm
Where: The Burns Family Classroom, 218-100 Arthur Street, Winnipeg MB
Cost: $50, MWG members will receive a $20 donation receipt.

Register by email at anita(dot)daher(at)shaw(dot)ca, and mail registration cheque to:
218-100 Arthur Street Winnipeg Manitoba R3B 1H3

ALSO

ALL UP IN THE KOOL-AID: THE 411 ON WRITING FOR TEENS

The teen years are arguably the most complex any of us stumble through during our lives, but stories, really great ones, can provide connection and exploration for readers during these often-turbulent times. Anita Daher offers her guidance as author and as teen book editor during a session looking at the types of stories you might turn your pen towards, as well as tips to increase your chances of success, and pitfalls to avoid. Bring a pen and paper for short exercises. Participants may submit two pages of a WIP prior to the workshop for private evaluation and comment.

When: Saturday, June 20, 1 pm to 4 pm.
Where: The Burns Family Classroom, 218-100 Arthur Street, Winnipeg MB
Cost: $50, MWG members will receive a $20 donation receipt.

Register by email at anita(dot)daher(at)shaw(dot)ca, and mail registration cheque to:
218-100 Arthur Street Winnipeg Manitoba R3B 1H3

All proceeds to go toward the Manitoba Writers' Guild. Bring paper and a writing stick. Coffee, water, and Anita's world-famous cookies and cake-bread will be provided.

Link to Shaw TV Interview

2009-05-23T09:01:00.000-07:00

Here it is!

Shaw TV's Joanne Kelly interviews Anita Daher (and Wager) about On the Trail of the Bushman

Scroll down to the correct video link, and click. Best viewed with Internet Explorer.

Not sure if this direct link will work, but maybe :-)

Wager (and I) on Shaw TV!

2009-05-20T07:14:00.000-07:00

Hey Duckies,
If you would like to see online the interview that Shaw TV's Joanne Kelly did with me (and Wager) at WW Stable, you can get in touch with the Shaw folk as per their directions:

"The stories and videos you the viewer love the most. To see your favourite video contact us via email shawtvwinnipeg@shaw.ca or call us at 480-3500"

Joanne was interviewing me about my most recent middle grade adventure novel, On the Trail of the Bushman, but she was so charmed byWager that she stayed and filmed a couple of additional spots. You can see them all this week on Shaw's local cable access channel in Manitoba.

These are the days

2009-05-14T08:04:00.000-07:00

Despite the threat of snow on this, the 14th day of May, it is a lovely day. Wonderful when you are crazy busy, but you feel you are neck-in-neck heading toward the finish line. The goal isn't winning, not exactly, but to finish in a respectable sort of way. Um...not that you are in a hurry to actually get to the finish line. Okay, this analogy has totally gotten away from me. Whoa, Baby!

Speaking of "Whoa," the lovely Joanne Kelly will be meeting me at the barn in a few hours for an "on location" interview about the release of my latest book, On the Trail of the Bushman. The book is actually set in the Yukon, however as much of it takes place on horseback it seemed a good reason to include our lovely boy, Wager. I don't expect I will be riding him, but he is a very pretty face. If you are in Manitoba you can watch for that over the next few, or see it online.

Last night Aqua Books hosted night one of the MB Writers' Guild fundraising event "Three Days in May: Kelly Hughes Live." It was so much fun! Like Letterman, Kelly is a natural. He can make what a person had for lunch sound funny. Even better, he can make a guest (authors, visual artist, and musical guest) sound funny as they detail their salad, bread, drink, etc. Not that last night's guests talked about lunch. Anyhow, part two runs tonight!

"Host Kelly Hughes interviews writers Kate Bitney, Rob Keough, Bruce McManus, Christina Penner and Barbara Romanik with music by Todd Hunter"

If you are in Winnipeg, please join us, 7 pm at Aqua Books, 274 Garry St. Entry donation $10.

(Yes, "donation." In other words, we won't shame you if you don't pay, but we would really appreciate it if you do).

Three evenings of very fun writer events!

2009-05-13T11:05:00.000-07:00

Like Letterman, but not: Manitoba Writers Take the Stage Like Never Before

In celebration of books, authors, spring, and an invigorated organization, the Manitoba Writers Guild has partnered with Winnipeg’s self-proclaimed “Cultural City Hall” to bring three evenings of TV talk show like interviews and entertainment to Winnipeg. The events are collectively known as “Three Days In May: Kelly Hughes Live!” and will take place at Aqua Books, 274 Garry St, on May 13, 14, and 15 at 7 pm.

The last year was a difficult one for the Manitoba Writers Guild as it dealt with rumours of a crumbling organization, and administrative difficulties some in the writing community felt should have remained confidential. With a new Board of Directors up for election and the annual general meeting set for May 20th at 7 pm, Guild members are looking toward this new era with hope, and renewed interest.

As out-going vice-president Maurice Mierau said at a recent special meeting of members, "This organization is about more than a Board, or an office. It is about our community of writers." The Guild is currently operating 100% through volunteer efforts, and a virtual office."

Fifteen Manitoba writers will take the stage on May 13, 14, and 15, which will also feature visual artists, and musical guests, for interviews led by local arts community personality and bookstore owner Kelly Hughes.

Scheduled guests are:

Wednesday, May 13th
Authors David Annandale, Clarise Foster, Tim Higgins, Anna LaPointe, and Mike McIntyre, with musical guest Lyle E Style

Thursday, May 14th
Authors Kate Bitney, Rob Keough, Christina Penner, Bruce McManus, and Barbara Romanik, with musical guest Todd Hunter

Friday, May 15th
Authors Brenda Hasiuk, Armin Wiebe, Chandra Mayor, Duncan Thornton, and Struan Sinclair, with and musical guest Manitoba Classical Guitar Duo (Michael Daher and Skender Sefa)

Visual artists GMB Chomichuk, Linda Drosdowech, and Matt Bernard will be featured over all three evenings. Admission will be $10 at the door, with all funds to be applied to MWG debt repayment.

For additional information contact:
Kelly Hughes/Aqua Books at 943-7555

Carpentaria

2009-05-11T06:34:00.000-07:00

Holy cow, it's been a while, huh? How've you been? I've been on the go-go-go for weeks, but loving everything I am doing. Tomorrow I will post details about three big nights of events happening later this week at Aqua Books in Winnipeg called Three Days in May: Kelly Hughes Live! But for now...

Here is my review of Carpentaria from the May 10 edition of the Winnipeg Free Press:

Carpentaria

By Alexis Wright

Atria Books, 516 pages, $34

The very best novels are like dreams we can lose ourselves in. They become full body and mind experiences capable of keeping reality, with all its deadlines, dishes, and need to chauffeur the kids here, there, to the movies or the moon, a hard nudge away.

Carpentaria is just such an experience.

Though she is new to North America, this fifth book and second novel by Australian author Alexis Wright has already been in the world for three years, and subject to great fanfare and awards.

Difficult to define by genre, it mixes social commentary with elements of magical realism and traditional storytelling. Wright, from the Waanyi nation in the real-world Gulf of Carpentaria region of northern Australia, has been celebrated as an important voice for aboriginal people in her country.

Carpentaria unfolds through dream-like narration with language as epic as the land it describes. It is the story of legendary fisherman Normal Phantom, who sees waves like widows, rising to "majestic heights, showering him with teary froth."

He is a Pricklebush man, a "blackfella," living beside the Gulf of Carpentaria in a place created, so the old people say, by a giant serpent that carved rivers this way and that before finally settling in limestone caverns deep beneath the stretch of clay that became Desperance.

The people who live on top of the snake are aware of its breath. It infects many of them with magic, some good, some not.

It makes them feel special, and they like that quite a lot despite their deep resentments and overall unhappiness. These are a people at war: with each other, with the dead, with the past, and the future.

They are at war with the land and with the sea. There are conflicts in Desperance, but almost no law to speak of. It is clearly a community ruled by "might is right." Which brings up an interesting parallel with the movie The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.

Early on we meet a character named "Libby Valance," which may cause the reader to question, "Huh... is the author doing something here?" Maybe.

As in that classic western movie, this is a town gone wild with only a figurehead lawmaker, mostly ineffectual. But, the bully is not Libby, a town clerk, but the Gurfurritt mine, which is portrayed as a monster threatening life, social welfare and traditional beliefs.

In life Wright is known as an aboriginal activist. In this fiction, Will Phantom, son of the fisherman Norm, is a land-rights activist who becomes a focus of fury and hatred for the mine, his community, and perhaps most of all, his father.

Norm, however, is not angry about his son's activism. What he finds unforgivable is his son's love for the daughter of his mortal enemy, Joseph Midnight, leader of the "Westside Gang" -- a portion of the Pricklebush community that broke away some years earlier.

The name of Joseph Midnight's daughter is Hope.

The core of this story is not drawn in the sand, however. It takes some time to uncover as it pulses like the breath of the legendary serpent, or perhaps like a sea tide, going forward, and then backward, and then forward again.

As we gorge ourselves on vibrant landscape and textured characters -- like the pub owner besotted with the mermaid he believes lives in the wood of his bar counter -- we come to see and fully understand the battle lines.

We see a community and a family divided and we wonder: Will these rifts be healed?

Carpentaria unfolds at a luxurious pace, full of rhythms, flavours, and sounds like "tick-ee-tock." It swings between modern and traditional, real-time and dreamtime, and in the end, like a dream, leaves us lingering in it.

Winnipegger Anita Daher's seventh novel for young readers, On the Trail of the Bushman, has just been released.

Well launched!

2009-05-01T08:14:00.000-07:00

On the Trail of the Bushman is out in the world!

It was well launched at McNally Robinson Booksellers in Winnipeg on Wednesday evening amongst family and dear friends.

Special thanks to celebrated storyteller and Manitoba Book Award winner Joe McLellan who spoke about the windigo spirit, and told a story about the time Nanabosho and a squirrel landed in the belly of a windigo.

No thank you, I'm full

2009-04-26T07:48:00.000-07:00

Oh golly, I am the white rabbit these days: "No time to say hello goodbye. I'm late! I'm late! I'm late!" Actually, I'm not late yet, but I must make the most of every minute in order to complete everything I have committed to doing.

But I have news...

I am thrilled to tell you that my seventh book, and third in my Junior Canadian Rangers series for middle grade readers, On the Trail of the Bushman will be launched on Wednesday, April 29 at McNally Robinson Grant Park, 8 pm. As the book features a windigo spirit, I have asked Manitoba storyteller and author Joe McLellan to speak on the windigo, and storytell a little. He has said yes, and I'm thrilled. I will have pictures, and will chat, then sign and give away tastes of baked cinnamon-raisin bannock. If you are in the neighbourhood, please join us.

Incidentally, Joe McLellan has just won the McNally Robinson Book of the Year for Young People award in the younger reader category. Yay, Joe! Goose Girl is a wonderful book :-)

Speaking of the Book Awards, they were last night, and I cannot remember when I had such a good time. Shelagh Rogers hosted, and was warm and wonderful, as expected. Also fun was a sort of "thing" she and Kelly Hughes had going on. Kelly "lobbied" long and hard to host this year's awards, but as he took the podium to present three awards graciously acknowledged that he was happy to give a young, up-an-coming broadcaster a chance. He then sang a show tune, giving us a taste of what he would have done had he hosted the awards. I laughed so hard I cried. So fun.

Spider's Song did not win the McNally Robinson Book of the Year for Young People, older category--that went to a very deserving Colleen Sydor for My Mother is a French Fry and Other Proof of my Fuzzed Up Life--but the jurors, Sabrina Bernardo, Margaret Eaton, and Tololwa Mollel said some really nice things about it:

"Spider's Song is a suspenseful tale narrated beautifully in language that doesn't get in the way. It is rich with mysteries and questions tantalizingly answered only partly. Character relationships are compelling, and the troubled mother-daughter conflict at the heart of the book rings true. The main character in the tale, a teenage female, is a credible sympathetic protagonist trapped in a web of past unfortunate actions and choices by her mother and others, and of silent unspoken things."

THIS fuels me to finish another YA I have on the go for Penguin. It is almost there, but...I have been having so much trouble finding time.

There is more I could tell you, about a fantastic two-day natural horsemanship clinic with Glenn Stewart I have just completed (I am SO glad I participated in spite of a sore foot...it is research for a next project, btw), and about a library conference I will be speaking at in two weeks, but right now I must get reading. I promised a review for the Free Press next week, and I am still reading the book...