Peter Behrens @ the Ottawa Public Library

I wish authors visited my library every day to do readings on my lunch hour.....

I was at my Bookmobile office this morning, but had to scurry back to Main Library for a meeting this afternoon. When I realised that if I left a bit early, I could get to Main in time for Peter Behrens' reading, I was thrilled. My office at Main is just on the other side of the back wall of the auditorium, by the way; knock in Morse code next time you're visiting.

With my crazy week last week (I am working on a couple of posts about it, including hearing Dr. Jeffrey Turnbull talk about the social determinants of health, RA in a day, as well as the International Festival of Authors!), I was happy to catch not one but two Writer's Fest events here in Ottawa on the last day of the Festival (right by the skin of my teeth, eh?). As this post auto-publishes, I will be on my way down the street for the Ottawa Book Awards Non-Fiction Roundtable with Tim Cook, Charlotte Gray, Roy MacGregor, Lawrence Martin and Eric Enno Tamm.

But Behrens... First, what can I say, he is completely captivating. Two lovely colleagues from Westmount Library had been trying to convince me to attend his talks there, and I couldn't quite grasp what the fuss was about, but he's a great, great speaker... and I say that as someone who has heard about a million introverted librarians and authors speak (badly) before! He's self-depracating (buy this book, and if my kid doesn't get into a Canadian university and we have to pay for an American one, the money will send him to university for one minute!), warm, thoughtful (to the point of being, frankly, intense) and has a wonderful deep voice.

Behrens explained that his desire to delve into family history was sparked when he thought about his relationship with his grandfather, and his relationship with his grandfather (upon whose life The O'Briens is based). As Behrens phrased it, that's only "two handclasps" away from history. He spoke about the tradition among earlier generations to keep their feelings and emotions private (they weren't "the Oprah generation"). As they understod it, your truest feelings were the ones you keep inside. Observed Behrens, "now, we hink we have found this new way of being warmly human," and that this privacy is unhealthy, when it is "more complicated than that."

Behrens spoke about the first time he saw the Black Rock in Montreal (I remember the first time I saw it, too: like Behrens, I was in a car, driven by my father, who explained what it was; Behrens observed his grandfather make a gesture to protect himself from the "juju" of the Rock). Behrens described how the "Irish established the template for how immigrants are received" in 20th century North America. The most interesting part of his talk, I felt, was his discussion of how history is treated in art (he talked about either books or films). "What bugs me about historical movies and books," he said, is how sometimes it seems as though "time happened with a different light around it." Artists portray the past in a fuzzy, rose-coloured light, as though it was "unclear," a sort of foreign country. Speaking about people in the past, he said, "I believe they were like us." He hopes historical novels, instead of placing the past at a distance, "take you by the hand and pull you into the world."

Talking about The Cat's Table with Michael Ondaatje: It "blossomed like a flower outward"

Yesterday, I was all over the map. You know those days that the expression "well, she really got out of bed on the wrong side" were just made for? I had one of those. At work, I made it through a Herculean pile of tasks with (alternating) panic, mood swings, exhaustion, dark humour and cookies. After work, it was like a cranky, argumentative jerk took over my body, as all the unexpressed frustration at my day came seeping out onto the poor unfortunates who crossed my path.

So, listening to Michael Ondaatje read from The Cat's Table at the Writers Festival last night was like a balm for the soul.

I am not really one to moon over authors (or anyone, for that matter). That being said, Ondaatje has always had a special place in my heart: those eyes! That voice! The sense that he is listening carefully to everything the audience says and actually cares about it! (Did I mention his eyes? Because those of you there last night didn't really get a chance to see them up close, but they are seriously intense).

A good friend of mine has a bit of a thing for Joseph Boyden, so the fact that he was interviewing Ondaatje was kind of oddly simpatico, in terms of dreamy authors, but alas my friend was unable to join me for the evening. I had actually never been to an event featuring Boyden. Apparently, Ondaatje had asked for him to be his interviewer, and I can see why: Boyden's questions were thoughtful and interesting, and were peppered with some humour and gentle ribbing ("So, another thing that pisses me off about you is....")

Some gems from the evening:

• Boyden admitting he would be hesitant to set a novel on a boat (The characters would do "one lap around and then what?"). He then admitted that the enclosed setting of the novel didn't hinder Ondaatje's work: rather than becoming confined, it "blossomed like a flower outward."
• Many reviews I have read have mentioned that this is Ondaatje's most accessible work, a choice of words that made me snort with derision a little, I must admit. Boyden touched on this, asking Ondaatje if he felt this was his most approachable work. Ondaatje hedged a bit, suggesting this word might be coming up simply by virtue of the fact that the novel has an 11 year-old protagonist. Boyden added that he has never seen Ondaatje's writing as unapproachable; he said that, as a poet, Ondaatje "grounds his language so specifically" that his words have a certain clarity.
• Ondaatje on being a poet writing a (longer) novel: "Part of the book is, you know, how do I get out of it?"
• Ondaatje on the structure of a novel: he described a novel as a sort of collage: this blue goes over here with this green, for instance, in the editing process. In his opinion, character "is the central machine in a book," followed by setting (location and time). I would say that's a good assessment of the two main appeal factors of his work.

As always, a pleasure just to hear Ondaatje's voice. He can read to me any evening.

Captives with Mellissa Fung and James Loney @ The Ottawa International Writers Festival

I finally dragged my sorry behind out to a Writers Fest event last night; I was terribly sad to miss much of this spring's programme (bad timing with new job, training, and generalised exhaustion).

The Citizen's Kate Heartfield moderated readings by and discussion with Mellissa Fung (CBC reporter kidnapped in Afghanistan, author of Under an Afghan Sky) and James Loney (peace activist, writer and member of Christian Peacemaker Teams kidnapped in Iraq, author of Captivity). The readings were gripping, and the discussion was really interesting. I was saying to The Husband that it was nice to have two different perspectives on some of the issues that came up relating to Canada's role in combat and peacekeeping in both countries.

Here are some quotes I really enjoyed:

• James, speaking about working on his memoir, Captivity: "It felt like every day I was getting up to go to work at the kidnapping."
• Mellissa, speaking about religion versus education: "War is not so much about knowledge as ideology."
• James, speaking about the Canadian government's role in Afghanistan and the importance of peacekeeping efforts: "Taking those F-35 planes and using them for something else!"
• Mellissa, speaking abouther evening rituals: She found herself and her captor "praying to different gods on opposite sides of the room." She said she still wasn't sure how to reconcile that.
  
• James, speaking about Canada's combat role: "We cannot build democratic societies through the barrel of a gun. We need to move away from this and work together so that soldiers don't have to do what they do."
• Mellissa, speaking about her assaut, recovery, and return to Canada: "I'm here; I'm OK. It's something that is happening every day to women who don't have the freedoms I do."

James, also, especially talked about his struggle with the paradox of his being in Iraq "for peace and being rescued through violence." While his time in captivity confirmed his belief in non-violence, he was rescued by combat soldiers, and owes his life to them. Speaking briefly about the sacrifice that his American co-captive, Tom Fox, made (Fox was killed two weeks prior to James' release), James said simply, "I wasn't asked to do that."

Kate also encouraged an interesting discussion about two kinds of faith: the spiritual beliefs that got Mellissa and James through their captivity, and the faith in their convictions that were the reasons they were in Afghanistan and Iraq in the first place.

On a complete side note, my derrière was utterly, completely numb after sitting on a pew for 2 hours straight. Guess I have lost my talent for that.

Also, I am sort of embarrassed to say that I think it's totally adorable that Mellissa Fung and Paul Workman are a couple.

More Writers' Fest reports

I devoted my energies this aft to writing up my notes from the Andrea Levy talk I attended on Wednesday. Alas, dear readers, they went up on the OPL blog. Sorry; you got shafted this time.

Clearly I need to clone myself to get enough blogging done....

Between that, and filling the holes in the Rockcliffe Library schedule, listening to the Divas this morning (amazing, as always) and, oh yeah, serving the public, it was a crazy day. One patron called me "his favourite person," another told me in no uncertain terms that I was "unhelpful," (I told him he could come back when he calmed down) and one patron, um, emitted gas in front of me... But hey, the windows are finished, and this weekend our furniture and carpets are getting cleaned!

Looking forward to resting over the weekend. Oh wait. I have 46 midterms to grade. Crap.

Writing: "It's sort of like a mental illness and then there's a party!"

Anchee Min, Emma Donoghue, Alexander MacLeod and moderator Michael Blouin

The above statement was made by Alexander MacLeod (I think? Or was it Emma Donoghue? Argh... damn notes!) last night at Writers' Fest, during an interesting panel discussion with the theme of "Outsiders." The panel featured Chinese-American memorist and novelist Anchee Min, Irish-Canadian novelist Emma Donoghue, and Cape Bretoner Alexander MacLeod, and was moderated by Canadian poet and novelist Michael Blouin. The idea was to bring together three authors "whose characters inhabit the fringes of their respective cultures, spotlighting the isolation, fear, and love that define their lives." Min's latest novel, Pearl in China, is based on the life of Pearl S. Buck, who grew up in China with her missionary parents, and later taught (along with her husband) at Nanjing University, publishing her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Good Earth, about life in a small Chinese village. Donoghue's latest, Room , has received a great deal of press (and was up for the Booker, the Writers' Trust, and the GG); it describes the life of a young woman and her five-year-old son in a one-room prison. MacLeod's first collection of short stories, Light lifting, described in a National Post review as "cerebral," "emotionally intense," with a "diversity of characters" and a "variety of tones" is up for the Scotiabank Giller Prize.

Each author read excerpts from their work, in turn, and then they sat together with Blouin and discussed their work, and answered questions.

I was thrilled to hear Emma Donoghue read from Room (although, you know, I haven't quite forgiven her for killing off that lovely Italian greyhound in Life mask, my favourite of her novels). Donoghue read from a scene in the first part of the book, when Ma has explained a bit more about the outside world to Jack, who is looking out the room's skylight. Anchee Min read three sections (beginning, middle, and end) from Pearl in China, and Alexander MacLeod read from the darkly funny story, "Adult Beginner I." In fact, I remarked to the husband, interestingly, that all three of the writers present had wickedly irreverent senses of humour... It made for a lively evening!

I know far more about Donoghue than the other two writers; when Michael Blouin introduced Anchee Min, he touched on her background, and I was deeply moved by her story. When she came up to read, she admitted this was her first time at a Canadian event, a statement which garnered much applause from the audience. She read several excerpts from her latest novel, Pearl in China, and then told us a bit more about her life, opening with the statement "I denounced Pearl S. Buck when I was 18. It was 1971...." She went on to describe the jealousy, essentially, that Madame Mao had for Buck, who was invited to stand between Nixon and Mao during their 1972 meeting, and interpret during their conversations. "The next time [Buck's] name came up," Min continued, it was 1996, and Min was in a Chicago bookstore for a reading. A women attending the reading presented Min with a copy of The Good Earth, saying "Pearl Buck taught me to love the Chinese people." Min read it on the plane returning home, and, as she says in an interview for NPR, "I broke down and sobbed because I have never seen anyone, including our Chinese authors, who wrote our peasants the way Pearl Buck did, with such love, affection and humanity. And it was at that very moment Pearl of China was conceived."

Min also talked about her own experience arriving in America: terrified she wouldn't get a visa because she didn't speak English, she was given six months upon arrival to take an English test. She studied by watching Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers; the latter taught her that "the best gift you can give is to be your honest self," a statement that she found especially emotional, having been raised in a society that dehumanised its populace and was founded on deceptions.

During the discussion, some interesting points were touched upon: Donoghue confessed that she, identified a bit with Old Nick, the kidnapper and abuser in Room, in that she controlled the fates of Jack and Ma, as an author. She described how the questions she contemplated while planning the novel ("will I give them vitamin pills?" "will I give them a TV?") were very reminiscent of Old Nick to her. This observation led to a discussion about planning novels generally, which was rather interesting, actually (often, I find this type of debate: how do you write? Do you like a window to look out on? What kind of pen do you use? - facile). Donoghue feels she is stronger at dialogue and character than plot, and plans out each chapter in notes, deciding how many "reveals" there will be in each section, and re-arranging as needed. MacLeod, whom Donoghue teased for being "Proustian," struggles over each sentence and emerges with a story that is "90% finished" from its first draft (however, he also talks to himself); Min says her books are "90% garbage" on the first draft.

A lively discussion about e-books, and reading in the 21st century, ensued. None of the three authors seemed particularly disturbed by the rise of e-books in general, or seemed to want to comment on the implications for publishers and authors' rights; both Donoghue and MacLeod, however, had some great words about the book-as-object and the decline of thoughtful, in-depth reading. Donoghue worried that time spent online was time not spent engrossed entirely in a book. She compared Facebook to a Victorian lady's social life; observing students multi-tasking in class, commenting on photos on FB while taking notes on lectures, she realised that FB was elaborately Victorian: "you drive around and leave your calling card," she explained, "but it's not exactly reading."MacLeod was reminded of his love of the physical book when reading with his children: the gesture of taking hold of a book with each hand to read aloud, with a child sitting beside you, forms a reading "circle".

An evening filled with entertaining reading, compelling personal stories, and spirited debate!

Ayaan Hirsi Ali @ Ottawa Writers Fest

So last night the husband and I trekked out to the (lovely) Mayfair Theatre (I know, hard life, eh?) to see and hear Ayaan Hirsi Ali speak as part of the Ottawa International Writers Festival. She was articulate, passionate and certainly controversial; security was tight. I was disappointed to see a mainly white, 50+ audience - my disappointment from a writers fest point of view (as Kris said, "who's going to go to all the literary events from the next generation?"), and from a cultural/religious point of view. Kris is reading Nomad now, and he told me that she talks about being lonely; I can see why. While she certainly has good reason to avoid her own family and many of her former tribe, it must be very lonely sometimes to be her. On the other hand, of course, she is the definition of an internationalist; she warmly greeted the host of the evening, Lucy van Oldenbarneveld, by remarking how lovely it was to be speaking Dutch with someone in Ottawa, to have come upon a "member of her tribe" here.

Ayaan talked mainly about two of the three differences between the West and the Islamic world that she identifies in her book: sexuality, aggression, and wealth/money. She read Chapter 12 of Nomad, which talks mainly about her arrival in the Netherlands in the early 1990s and her struggle to become financially literate. Her adventures in loans and credit were meant to both amusing and thought-provoking, and they were certainly the latter, but I found they made me less amused than anxious on behalf of 1992 Ayaan; she receives a standard loan of 5000 fl., and she and her room-mate spend all but 400 fl. of it on hideous wall-to-wall carpeting. She very eloquently describes the feeling of information overload she and other immigrants feel upon arrival in the West; when speaking to a counsellor, she carefully explains how the phrase "furnish my apartment" actually meant that three huge concepts were being "thrust at me at once."

I did find some of her observations very funny; she was fascinated by wallpaper because it reminded her of covering her textbooks in school back home. She was captivated by words like "brocade" and "upholstery:" "these were words from Jane Austen, and I was living in an Alice in Wonderland world." Eventually, Ayaan's room-mate defaults on some payments for furnishings, runs up a long distance phone bill, and takes off on Ayaan, leaving her deeply in debt; Ayaan speaks highly of the Dutch friends she had who helped her get back on her feet during this time.

She talked about other Somalis, for whom she provided translation services after she had learned Dutch, who had taken out the same 5000 fl. loan as her, and had sent the entire amount back home to Somalia to smuggle their relatives out of Africa. With no concept of money, loans or interest, and no idea of the contributions made by ordinary Dutch in order that asylum-seekers might have these advantages, many of her former countrypeople ran up insurmountable debts, defaulted on loans, fled the country to other parts of Europe, and called it "Allah's will." She underlined how many immigrants she spoke to and grew to know had no idea of the obligations of citizenship or the concept of a welfare state, and how the differences between citizenship and tribal membership caused problems when Africans moved to the West.

Lucy (btw, I love Lucy, but that's another story. Let me just say she made a great host, and I have seen some crap hosts in my day) asked Ayaan after the reading was over was about turning points in Ayaan's life. Ayaan explained that one would be the fact that her father sent her to school, over the objections of her mother, who thought it would make her talk back when she got older. Her father threatened to "curse my mother in the hereafter" if she didn't let him send them to school; this sufficiently frightened her mother that Ayaan and her sister went to (and finished) school. Another turning point Ayaan spoke about was a time when she was in a camp on the Somali - Kenyan border, when she was 21, and she observed the camp shunning a dying woman who had been raped by the Kenyan police. Everyone knew she had been raped, but she was nonetheless left to die in a tent with no water, because the religious beliefs of the people around her dictated that she was "filthy, with no honour." Ayaan thought seriously about Islam at that point, and asked, "where is compassion? Where is mercy? Where is God?" The final turning point she referred to was when she was at Leiden University, and she bagan to approach questions of individuality versus collectivity and religious belief from a critical point of view. She said this gave her a certain distance from which to approach the events of September 11th and thereafter; she was able to "step back" from Islam and "scrutinise it as theory."

Ayaan spoke about her fundamental "problem" with Islam, in the literal meaning of the word, "submission to God." She questioned what type of God would want unconditional surrender, and what type of follower would want this "freedom from responsibility" for their actions. She also identified the "division of the world into believers / non-believers" as something she had a problem with, and the idea (in all religions, she pointed out) that this life is (I would qualify this as sometimes) seen as being merely a prelude to the afterlife. She called this type of belief the idea that "you're just getting marks" for the real life hereafter, a kind of cult of death.

She spared no kind words for self-identified moderate Muslims who champion change within the religion; she dismissed them as women who only "organise" in order to defend the idea of Islam (as a non-violent religion) rather than defend the rights of Muslims. She called them out as being uninterested in human rights; counting off issues such as female genital mutilation and honour killings, Ayaan said "they don't dig too deep into the mud of what it means to live in Islam." She exclaimed, "the Universal Declaration of Human Rights wasn't for nothing!" and rhymed off the historical events it was a response to: the Holocaust, violence against women and children, and so on. She underlined the importance of taking the Koran in context, as a historical document.

Addressing some of the tension in the room (well, I felt some tension, but it could have been me being nervous with all the police, security, and hyped-up audience members!), Lucy asked Ayaan what she would say about those who say she is just making "white liberals" feel comfortable in their prejudicial beliefs about Muslims, that Ayaan is just "excusing" their behaviour. Ayaan had a rather thought-provoking answer: that, instead of her providing an excuse for prejudicial beliefs, she is in fact saying that we are ignoring what is happening because of religion, and this makes people uncomfortable. She added that it is in fact the "moderates" who say that Islam is not violent who are providing "white liberals" with an excuse to ignore human rights violations.

Lucy asked Ayaan about Theo van Gogh's murder. Ayaan is clearly still quite angry with the Dutch parliament for, in her opinion, not saying clearly enough that the murder was inexcusable, and for going immediately to the Moroccan community in the Netherlands to "accommodate them." Lucy pointed out that sending the murderer to prison sent a clear message that the Dutch did not condone or excuse what happened, but Ayaan kept insisting that the Dutch government had "rewarded" the murderer by not clearly saying he had crossed a line. Her opinion was that the Dutch government failed to convey to the Dutch Muslim minority that this was a horrible act for which there was no "but;" she said many Dutch Muslim groups released statements beginning, "It is terrible that Theo van Gogh was killed, but..." and Ayaan's anger came from the position that there is no "but" in this situation.

There was a great deal of debate during the question period over the niqab. To be honest, I have no desire to go on about this issue here myself (basically, I guess if women "want" to wear it, fine, but it should come off when it's a security issue), but I will summarise what was said. When Ayaan was in the Dutch parliament, she said her caucus was frequently discussing Muslim women's dress. At this time, the Netherlands was installing CCTV cameras in public places; Ayaan's argument was that while every woman had the right to choose her clothing, no one had the right to say, in a world of CCTVs and terrorism, "scrutinise everyone except me."

Someone raised the recent case of a Canadian woman who is asking to wear the niqab in court while testifying in her own rape case. Ayaan maintained that this woman could not be making the request to wear the niqab out of religious motivation; if she was so religious, Ayaan reasoned, she would not recognise or seek justice in an "infidel" court. Ayaan thus interpreted this woman's act as an act of aggression.

All in all, some of Ayaan's views are pretty hard-line, and I think her anger sometimes makes her more inflexible than necessary, but she was an utterly engrossing speaker. I would pay big bucks to see her talk with Irshad Manji, whose writings about reform in Islam she mentioned briefly. I should look today for my notes from Irshad's speech at OLA a few years ago....

The evening was not all heavy: Sean made a good joke about the delicious smell of Mayfair popcorn ("Nothing goes with political debate like popcorn!") and Ayaan hilariously explained how attractive Christianity is by describing Jesus as "cuddly, long hair, nice sandals."

Kris and I came home with much to debate about. As we walked into the apartment, we agreed that, whatever happened tonight, Holland was a pretty amazing place to have given such an individual the opportunity to develop into the woman we heard speak tonight. At the end of the day, it's still really amazing that investing in a girl's education means you may end up with someone like Ayaan. As Kris says, sometimes we hear more negative stories about immigrants in the West; ultimately, Ayaan's story is certainly at times tragic, but her bravery is inspiring.

I was just trolling CBC's Ottawa video feed looking for Lucy's full interview with Ayaan, which is supposed be up today, but it's not up yet, so no link for you.

Like "watching Avatar without the glasses"

I got through my last day at St-Laurent. It was strangely quiet: well, the usual suspects showed up (the cranky teacher who thinks I hate her because I refuse to be her minion and pick out every single book about Easter for her STAT, the befuddled teacher who can't figure out how to reserve her own books, the teens wanting manga at 5:58 - we close at 6, the little boy crying when he has to leave, the girl wanting books about Paddington because she saw our stuffed Bear) but overall, it could have been far crazier. The comparative quiet meant I actually got my work done - done, done, done, as in "going to Rideau with a clear head and a (mostly) blank slate." Hooray!

This evening I went to a book launch for The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag: A Flavia de Luce Mystery, by Alan Bradley. I previously wrote here about The Sweetness At The Bottom of The Pie, which I loved. Maybe it was the emotional up and down of this week, but I walked into Nicholas Hoare with a feeling of almost homesickness, remembering the many, many launches I had attended at Nic Ho on Greene, and remembering working in the Ogilvy store myself for three years. Three wonderful years, actually - I got a nice discount, got to read at work, and was surrounded by the smell of new books and a diverse cast of characters who were lively, creative and passionate about literature and art (Dan hand-sold the most Ishiguro one summer; Miriam introduced me to Dusty Springfield; Luca taught me how to pronounce Paul Auster - um, don't ask...).

Bradley himself was more or less exactly who I expected: a regular guy (doesn't look his age, which is 71 if you're wondering), somewhat quiet, likeable. He talked about how Flavia came into his life (she intruded on another story, where a major character came across her and inquired what she was doing. When she replied she was taking down license plate numbers, he observed, can't be getting very far, can you? To which she replied, well, I have yours).

He then read from the new book (photo below) and took questions, which ranged from the ridiculous (is a certain character going to cook better in the new book?) to the fascinating (apparently two members of the audience have a young poisoner at home, rather like our Flavia). Every so often, I ask something (not very often). Tonight I asked Bradley about the setting: I had read that he had never visited England, although the novels are so steeped in small-town English life it's unreal. He replied that yes, he had never been there, but was raised in a house full of English expats, and he "grew up reading Punch, and The Strand," and "dreamed of England at night." Then, "minutes after winning the Daggar," he was on the plane to London. Upon arrival, he felt like he was "watching Avatar without the glasses," walking around a city at once familiar and utterly different, as though the London of literature was superimposed upon the modern one. He walked around lost for a bit, and then suddenly it came together, and he says he visited all the literary haunts, wandering streets (he says he didn't go underground once).

A lovely evening, shared with the affable Sean from Writer's Fest, and a fellow librarian re-discovered serendipitously in the audience.

Urban bunnies

So, my week has so far sucked, quite profoundly. But this is Not That Kind of Blog, so, instead, I would like to point out the following: Ottawa has urban bunnies. In fact, it's one of the three things that keeps me from swallowing my own gun in this city (the other two would be Culinary Conspiracy and The Ottawa Writer's Festival).

Ce soir, I was out with a visiting friend, trying to restrain myself from trashing Ottawa too much while appreciating having a conversation with another educated, progressive-thinking, sympathetic-to-the-arts, human being, and on the way home, I wondered - crap, did I trash Ottawa too much? It's like going out for drinks with girlfriends wondering if you talked too much smack about your boyfriend.

And then this appeared in a driveway on my street, and I was utterly charmed.



And yes, the only nice thing I have to contribute this week is rabbits. They're not even calico, like yours, Bec. Alas.

Best. Literary. Event. Ever.

I have nothing but praise for Chris Cleave and Priscila Uppal, who I saw last night at the Ottawa Writers Festival. They both read amazing sections of their novels, engaged in a witty, intelligent, fascinating and mutually-respectful conversation about their work, and (here's the best part) I got to go out for a drink with them afterwards.

Long story short. Chris Cleave went to university with my cousin, Sim, so we were catching up on the bizarreness of this, and my husband and I got caught up in the right crowd and were invited out with Chris, Priscila and Sean Wilson from the Festival. It was amazing: it was so inspiring to sit down and have a drink with people who are truly passionate about their work, about literature, about literacy, about politics.... It was a totally rejuvenating experience for me as a librarian, and also just as a person who loves books (can't turn that off when I leave work...). It's also just great to meet truly kind, lovely, funny, real people. There aren't enough out there.

As a sidebar, I would strongly urge you to watch Chris talk about his new book (did I mention it blew me away? Because it BLEW ME AWAY) on YouTube. I can't say it any better.

Book launch tonight in Ottawa!

A free event put on by the Ottawa Writers Festival tonight at St Brigid's! From the Writers Fest website:

Thursday, February 19th @ 7:00 PM
Chris Cleave and Priscila Uppal
Somerset Maugham Award-winner Chris Cleave's latest novel, Little Bee, was shortlisted for the Costa Best Novel Award. The Library Journal says: “Book clubs in search of the next Kite Runner need look no further than this astonishing, flawless novel.” Priscila Uppal's novel To Whom It May Concern is a modern, multicultural re-telling of King Lear, which explores the vulnerability and complexity of family and inheritance.

I can tell you that I read an ARC of Little Bee and it is absolutely amazing.

I'll be there!