Report on When Words Collide 2018

Back from When Words Collide writers' conference in Calgary. Always my favorite convention, this year's was the best one yet for me. Usually, I do too many panels and end up not being able to socialize or take in other people's presentations, but cut back by 50% this year, not having to do anything for the publisher I used to work with. So concentrated on meeting friends, listening to other panels, and thinking about my own fiction and editing.

Thursday night was the Fish Creek Library readings by the Guest of Honours, all of which were engaging. I actually already had one of the books featured but had never gotten around to reading it because the cover/blurb had turned me off, but hearing the excerpt read, I'll have to dig that out and give it a go--much more interesting than I would have thought.

The Guest of Honour speeches on the Saturday were excellent, starting with Arthur Slade's amusing account of his use of a treadmill desk to write, and ending with the single most moving speech I have ever heard at any convention in over 40 years of conference-going. Harold Johnson talked about the problems for indigenous within the criminal justice system, the subject of his upcoming book, and received the only standing ovation I can remember seeing at a writers convention. I approached conference organizer, Randy McCharles, immediately after to say what a brilliant choice Harold Johnson had been for the convention and found Randy in tears over the speech. As a sociologist, I was astounded at Harold Johnson's analysis, which was blindingly obvious once he had laid it out, but which had never occurred to me before--indeed, doesn't seem to have occurred to the public. Thank god we have the likes of Harold Johnson to articulate the issue with such clarity and to lobby for change through his book. No one expected such a hard-hitting moment at a writing conference, but it will likely remain the most memorable talk ever at what has always been a brilliant conference.

Speaking of conferences, I was very pleased by the positive reaction to our announcement of WordBridge, the Writers Conference we're planning for Lethbridge and area. We wore and distributed buttons at WWC and a lot more Calgary authors expressed interest in attending than I ever thought would be, and all the folks at WWC from Lethbridge were ecstatic. We are starting with a modest one-day event on Feb 9, 2019.

On the fiction front: I sat next to a NY agent at supper Thursday night before the readings, as he gave me the depressing run-down on how few books he could actually sell in a year: 8-10, though those were often 2-book deals so more than that sounds. But out of 1,800 submissions, that's pretty high odds against. Started to think of self-publishing... But then, on Saturday a major Canadian literary agent expressed interest in my novel, having read the submission package of the first two chapters and synopsis. He basically gave me until March to edit the whole over-sized manuscript (166,000 words) into a presentable (closer to 100,000 words) package. Then, the best editor in Canada--who theoretically isn't taking on new clients--agreed to take my novel on in November, so I can have it ready for the agent by March. And as I was about to leave the convention, one of my beta readers came up to visit with me and said, "Oh, by the way, I forgot to mention X about your book. You need to do X and Y." And my brain exploded because that was exactly the insight I needed at this precise moment as I start editing my current draft. I have great beta readers, all but one of them being authors themselves. I have a good feeling about this!

Went to Evil Alter Ego Press book launch of Finding Atlantis Friday night, then hung out with the authors and publisher for the rest of the evening, and part of Saturday, talking business plans and the possibility of their taking my book somewhere down the line if the above big time avenue doesn't work out. But made the 'mistake' of introducing one of the EssentialEdits.ca staffers to the publisher as someone who he should look at, and she promptly snagged (at least tentatively) the next spot in their publishing schedule. I love successful networking!

Went to another book launch: Rhonda Parrish's "Fire: Demons, Dragons, and Djinns". The readings were consistently excellent teasers, and I bought the book at once. Had to miss Krista Ball's 20th book launch for my own panel, but already had the book through pre-order, so good there.

On the editing front: I sat on several editing panels, including editor/writer speed mingle --speed dating for clients looking for editors. At one editing panel, when the moderator asked for questions or comments from the audience, Dave Duncan spontaneously stood up and gave me a rave testimonial! I was not expecting that, so that was a bit of a morale boost! And then, as a result of Duncan's comments, another of the editors on that panel approached me later about joining EssentialEdits.ca. Since I intend to focus on getting my novel in shape by March, I might actually need a new staffer to take some of the SF editing off my hands for a while...

I approached a publisher with a proposal for an anthology. . . and it wasn't rejected out of hand. I'll hear back in Sept about whether that's a go or not. I had started from the assumption another editorial team had already been assigned that slot, so 'maybe' still sounded pretty good to me.

So, all things considered, an excellent convention for me.

Word on the Street (Lethbridge) coming Sept 23

Essential Edits will be engaged at Word on the Street Lethbridge in three ways:

• We'll have a table in the display area where you'll be able to meet Essential Edits staff (Dr. Runté, Elizabeth McLachlan, and Lesley Little) and view some of the titles they've edited, find out about free online resources for all types of writers, sign up for a free consultation (first come, first served), and ask questions about writing, editing, and publishing.
• Dr. Runté will be participating on the 12:00–1:00 PM panel, "Writing Nuts and Bolts: Editors and Publishers Talk about Submissions"
• Dr. Runté will be participating in the Blue Pencil Café (along with authors Barb Greiger and Paul Butler, and poet Richard Stevenson) from 3:00–5:00PM.

There's lots going on, and it's all free.

Lethbridge Food Show (Review)

The 1st Annual Lethbridge Food Show: the food wars arena

Well, that was good.

The first Lethbridge Food Show was not the first of its kind in Lethbridge--in fact, the field is getting a little crowded. 5th on 5th has been running a Taste of Lethbridge as a fund-raiser for several years, and it has been a huge success--it runs in April. More recently, the Galt Museum has been running A Taste of Downtown, which also runs in May. It was sufficiently successful that it sold out before I could get tickets. So hoping that this new commercial version doesn't compete to the point where it hurts either of those charities, but there's probably room for this one too. But maybe a little coordination to spread themselves out across the calendar wouldn't hurt.

This one was reasonably well organized, and had a number of added features that appeal.

First, the venue allowed for actual food trucks to participate, in addition to the usual spread of tables. Nice to know Lethbridge has some food trucks these days!

Second, the food was really good. That's kind of important. We spent $60 for the two of us which is roughly what a good meal costs, and we feel we got our money's worth sampling this and that till stuffed. What I like about sampling is the opportunity to discover new places in town. Who knew that there was an excellent chef (Chef Express) renting the kitchen at the Legion? I loved his butter chicken fusion dish--butter chicken adapted, he said, for white guys. (*Laughs*) But I have to confess I am less interested in authentic than in yummy, and his butter chicken was creamy goodness! The chocolate coated bacon also dangerously good, though obviously a gimmick. Other food highlight: deep fried pumpkin pie. Seriously amazing. But a number of really good resturants were featured, though I didn't bother sampling those from places we eat regularly. I could see the food show growing much larger, given the success of this initial outing, and can think of several places that weren't represented that might well do well (like our Korean place) were they to participate. So lots of room for growth there, but already worth the price of admission.

Third, having a big name guest Chef -- in this instance, David Adjey-- was kind of cool idea. Comes across a little different in person, so that was interesting.

Fourth, Lethbridge Chef Wars was good idea, though implementation needs to be refined a bit. The idea of doing a live, local version of Chopped TV show has definite potential, and the set up was excellent - photo shows the large arena space dedicated to it, with three quite generous cooking stations laid out, judges table, and etc., and a camera guy running from table to table, projecting cooks and their dishes up on two giant screens. That was handled quite well. The tiny problems were the sound system was echo-y so that it was often difficult to make out what the judges were saying, and there were very long periods were contestants were cooking without any commentary...TV generates excitement by having a host narrating the battle, constantly commenting on chef's choices, progress and techniques, etc., so long silent stretches sapped a lot of the energy out of the thing. Not sure if that was inexperience on part of MC/host, or whether they'd given up on the sound system. Minor fixes, though, so we'll see what happens next time.

Fifth, looked like a good size beer garden, but being a non-drinker I didn't check out the displays there.

Sixth, child-friendly! Kids under 12 free admission, so that allows for some families to get out, parents to participate, that might not otherwise be able to get to the 'Taste of' events. Ice sculpting events and food likely to appeal to kids too.

Overall, I'm a satisfied customer, saying congratulations to the chef from the Italian Canadian Club who organized it all, and hope it really does become an annual event.

Word on the Street (Lethbridge)

Today was the Word on the Street Festival, the first iteration for Lethbridge. On the upside, it was nice to see some version of this national event in the city; on the downside, organization left something to be desired.

My primary complaint is that the contracted organizer seemed to miss that this was supposed to be about the written word. Three quarters of the booths and activities had some other focus: ethnic food, a roller derby booth, blood donors, jazz and country musicians, ethnic dancers, face painting, and so on. I get that the organizer was trying for a festive atmosphere with lots of interesting things happening, but it did rather end up feeling more like the random collection of tables/tents one gets at the weekly farmer's market than anything remotely related to the written word.

Furthermore, the logic of setting up a bandstand and installing a country singer at one end of the block while setting up poetry readings and meet-the-author events downwind along the same block of his city-blasting sound system escapes me. At one point Tigana and I walked past a choir of 20 or more singers whose lips appeared to be moving but from whom we could detect no sound, given the banshee wail of the country performer. What was the point of this arrangement? If I were the choir, I would have been supremely pissed to have been asked to perform under such inappropriate conditions. I know that we certainly didn't bother even trying to listen to the various author readings, for it was clearly a hopeless endeavour. Giving priority to the bandstand over the authors seems to rather severely miss the whole point of the exercise! Why weren't the authors given the bandstand sound system, and the musicians off in the corners, instead of the other way around?

And where were the literary activities? Face paint for the kids is all well and good, but where is the instant poetry booth, the magnetic poetry board, the graffiti wall, the improve group, the word-oriented kids activities? Or adult activities, for that matter? There was nothing to involve, engage the passerby that had anything to do with writing or reading -- clearly, the organizer didn't believe words would be enough and opted for Festival Filler instead.

And Tigana burst into laughter at the sight of the heavily advertized 'bouncy house for the kids' -- it was smaller by half than our own family's backyard version, purchased from Costco; it wasn't even the size of the entrance to the bouncy house at the house party we had attended the night before. For a city-wide event, advertizing a bouncy house as the main attraction for the kids, I think we imagined something bigger than a toddler's wading pool. It was embarrassing.

I have to give some credit for organizing skype conferences with various authors; but I know it embarrassed Mary to live in a community with so few writers we had to skype in speakers. And when I talked to a couple of writers I knew forlornly manning the autograph table and asked how sales of their books had been, one Edmonton author confessed she'd only sold one book, and that to the out of town author sitting next to her.

The University bookstore did an excellent job of profiling itself as somewhere to buy books other than texts, and they were good to have copies of all the featured authors available for sale. But I can't help wondering if they broke even on the deal....

I hope the event goes again next year...but I hope the organization is a little better.

April in Lethbridge

The morning of April 14th, in Lethbridge.

See applicable Zach Hill commentary here

On Air Travel

Flew up to Edmonton to check on my Mom (I was worried about her having been relocated within the nursing home) and to check on the renovations done to Doug's place, and to arrange for renovations to begin on the next condo, and so on.

On the plane up from Calgary the flight attendant asked if I would be willing to switch places with the guy sitting next to the emergency exit because he didn't want to be responsible for opening the door if it came to that. (He looked sick, so maybe he felt he was too weak to do the job.) "There's more leg room in that row" the Stewardess told me, by way of providing me with an incentive. I shrugged and moved rows because, what the hey. So she does her training spiel, which I've heard maybe 12 times this year, and on the Dashes, the emergency door really is not that complicated. But I'm feeling put out about having to go up to Edmonton in the first place, so when she asks if there are any questions, I reply by asking, "Is there a discount for sitting in the exit row?" Without missing the beat, the Stewardess leans in close and whispers, "Only if we have to use it."

Which seemed pretty funny until I got to the apartment and saw footage of the jet in the Hudson river.

Especially when a commentator pointed out that one reason that everyone survived is that no one panicked and opened the emergency exits prematurely. "They followed procedure for that kind of plane and only opened the forward door – if any of the rear emergency exits had been opened, the plane would have sunk much faster." Which made me wince, since I had spent half the flight up to Edmonton telling myself, "If something happens, I not going to freeze up like I usually do, I'm going to pull that lever like she showed me and shove that door out the plane before it even stops rolling!" Apparently you're supposed to await instructions before opening that sucker. (The other half of the flight up, I'd been thinking, "If it is just that easy to open this emergency door, what's to prevent some drunken idiot or sacrificial terrorist from opening it mid-flight? That can't be good!)

But it raises the question: when your plane goes down, do you get a full refund? It's the sort of question Larry King never gets around to asking the survivors. So did they give them just another flight to that destination, or do they throw in a couple of freebies to make up for the trauma of it all? At least an up grade to 1st class? (With Air Canada's recent attitude, I'd suspect they might say "Well, you can't expect a full refund! After all, we got you half way there!") Personally, if it were me on a flight like the Hudson river ditching or the Gimely Glider incident, I'm thinking Greyhound vouchers might be the way to go.

Still, I appreciate that my flight attendant had kept her sense of humuor when this has not been a good couple of months for Air Canada. I'd spent five hours in the Lethbridge airport last Thursday, for example, waiting for a flight that never arrived. When it became obvious that I wasn't going to make the last possible connection in Calgary and I had asked that my flight be switched to this week instead, the desk clerk had said "Certainly! I'm sure there'll be no problems next week at all!" with such hysterical enthusiasm you knew she was being facetious. Clearly, she considered booking any flight out of my local airport during Dec - Feb an act of pointless optimism.

The recent air travel problems are particularly aggrevating for folks like us in the smaller airports. When Toronto and Vancouver had their respective storms/problems, the airlines' solution was to give priority to long haul passengers, because they could bring in a couple of 747s and fly a 1000 folks out at a time. Which works okay if you're going Toronto to Vancouver, or Toronto to Halifax, but if you're like us and have to connect through Calgary, you're always the lowest priority, because Calgary to Vancouver is always considered a short haul connection, even if you are making a connection there to somewhere else entirely. Indeed, almost by definition, anyone living on the Pariries or Atlantic Canada is screwed by this policy, since going from your home airport to your hub connection is necessarily 'short haul', while going from Toronto to anywhere is, well, a long haul priority. Hmmm. Does this pattern look familiar to anyone? So no wonder that paririe assengers were often left stranded in airports for days at a time -- unless they were on WestJet, of course.

And what, the consumer may ask, has been Air Canada's response to the debacle of the last two months? Has it relented on the downsizing that left Air Canada so thinly staffed that if a plane misses its connection, there's no aircrew available to man the next leg? Has it hired sufficient staff to man the desks and telephones to keep people informed and to help them rebook? To hand out hotel bookings and meal tickets? Nnoooo! It's to introduce a new service called "On My Way", which -- for an extra $35 per travel segment -- will provide you with the all stuff the Transportation Ministry says is every passenger's by right. In one fell swoop, Air Canada simultaneously pockets a bunch more cash and shifts the blame from themselves to the consumer. "Well I'd like to help you re-book your arbitrarily canceled flight, but you chose not to purchase our "On My Way" protection, so I can't." By paying the $35, the folks at the airport still won't help you, but they'll give you the number of a call center that will actually answer the phone. "Priority access to our team of specially-trained Air Canada On My Way agents who are available around the clock to assist you with all your unexpected travel needs." And, get this, "Automatic flight information notification/updates sent to you by email or SMS." They'll actually tell you that your flight is delayed or canceled, if you've paid the extra extortion fee. In contrast to what we observed the last few months where the Air Canada staff would simply turn off the flight announcement monitors and leave their desks so people couldn't complain to them or ask them questions.

So the rich and the desperate can pay what amounts to a third-world-style kick-back to Air Canada for them to actually supply the services for which we contracted, while the rest of us schleps are left to just cross our fingers and hope for the best.

Or, take WestJet.

Back to Lethbridge, and Winter in Alberta

We left Lethbridge in a week when it was -40, so we really appreciated Hawaii. Unfortunately, the return home was correspondingly traumatic. We went from this:
Sunset at our condo on Maui

to this:
Our patio furniture in Lethbridge


But we quickly discovered that there is no sympathy available for "jet lag climate syndrome".

"You had two weeks in Hawaii?! We were stuck here in 40 below and 3 feet of snow the whole time! I had to shovel for three hours to clear my driveway, and I still couldn't go anywhere because the streets weren't plowed." And so on. One of the worst winters in Lethbridge in a long time...so a good time for us to have been gone.

But we've discovered that our kids don't really understand cold. In my generation (I'm old, so think two generations ago), kids walked to school. (Okay, okay, I lived across the street from my school, but other kids walked up to 15 blocks to school). Today, we drive our kids to school, even though Tigana's school is only two blocks away. And since Mary and I pretty much hate cold and winter sports, we haven't exactly encouraged tobogganing or etc. So my kids don't really get that -40 is not just a number, it's a death sentence if you're out there too long. We found Tigana and Kasia out in the backyard one evening in their pjs. "What the H___ are you doing?!" Mary shouted out at them (having no intention of going out there herself). "What?" Tigana asked innocently enough. "We put on our socks!" There followed a round of hot chocolate and a two hour discussion of what would have happened if Mom hadn't discovered them within 30 seconds of their setting out. "Flesh freezes in 2 minutes at that temperature. People die at that temperature. It's different than 20 below."

It reminded me of my life growing up in Edmonton. At least once each winter, somebody would be found frozen to death because they'd just worn a 'car coat' from their heated house to their heated garage, and the car had broken down on some deserted road before they got to their heated destination. People forget how cold -40 really is, and that you can't take chances in this climate. I know my brother twice saved people's lives because he stopped and picked them up when they got themselves in trouble. One was a native man whose car had broken down on Connor's Hill, and no one would stop for him -- perhaps 'cause they thought he looked menacing, though how menacing is a guy shivering to death? I doubt he would have made it to the top of the hill if Doug hadn't picked him up when he had. Another time we were half way across the High Level Bridge when we saw a guy stumble on the sidewalk. Doug stopped and we pulled him in. He was a grad student I knew vaguely from UofA. He had crossed the bridge dozens of time on the 'short' walk from his apartment to campus during the fall, and hadn't fully appreciated what -40 meant. He'd worn a light fall coat, but being from Nigeria, he thought that was a winter coat. Walking that distance in Nigeria, piece of cake. Walking across the High Level Bridge in the middle of a blizzard -- exposed to the wind blowing full force down the North Saskatchewan -- pretty much suicide.

And my own story: My first Christmas in Lethbridge I was still working on my dissertation, so going into work on campus over Christmas. Winter, I had been told, was much milder in Lethbridge, but it turned out to be a particularly bad one -- worst I can remember until this year. I had been working late, and came out to find that my car had frozen solid. I'd forgotten they'd turned the plug ins off over Christmas holiday, since no one was supposed to be working that day. I tried to go back into my office to phone for a cab or tow truck (this was before cell phones), but the building's outside door was now locked, it being after hours on a day campus was officially closed. So I started the long walk up the hill towards home. About a quarter-way to the main road I knew there was no way I could make it all the way home in this cold. So I changed course for the gas station or the Dairy Queen on the corner -- slightly out of my way, but a lot closer than home. Even getting there was going to be touch and go, but I made a determined, tough Northerner heroic effort. When I finally got close enough to see the buildings through the blizzard, I realized that they were closed -- because of the blizzard. So I turned around and set for home again. There are no houses on that road until I would be almost home, but I'd already decided I would knock on the first door I got to, if I made it that far. I was sure I had lost my feet for good when a car finally drove by -- and fortunately for me -- pulled up and offered me a lift. The guy earned my undying gratitude (I still shop at the store whose logo was on the car) and the moment I got home I immediately put myself in the bath, so in the end, only had mild frostbite. I was very lucky. But another man died that same evening trying to walk across the bridge leading to the road I had been on.

I'd been in full winter regalia at that. So finding the kids had ventured out in night gowns, pretty much blew our minds. "Don't you know how cold this is?!" But how could they? Aside from recess, they're never outside, and they don't go out for recess any more once it hits -20 C. If you've never experienced -20, how can you possibly imagine -40?

We'd tell people in Hawaii that it had been -40 when we left Alberta, and they'd look at you as if you were insane. "What's that in Fahrenheit?" is the inevitable question.
"It's the same -- the scales cross at -40."
"Then why would you -- why would anyone -- live there?"
A question my five year old keeps asking us, and one we're having a hard time answering. I'd move to Hawaii tomorrow if it weren't that (a) we're Canadian and Hawaii is American (why we didn't think to buy it from the British when we had the chance, I'll never know) and (b) the salaries at UofHawaii are about 1/3 what I currently make. (Supply and demand, I guess, and there is pretty much a steady supply of profs wanting to work in Hawaii.)

We like Hawaii so much we thought we might see about going in the off season when it would be cheaper -- only there is no off season. We had assumed that summer would be cheaper, since who wants to leave Canada in the summer? But of course, our summer is exactly when people from Texas and Arizona go to Hawaii to escape the heat....
I hear +40 is hot enough it can kill you if you're not prepared.

Wind

Tigana and Kasia inside their tent, enjoying being blown across the yard.

We're all sleep deprived today, because in addition to switching to daylight saving time early this year (insert standard commentary on American cultural imperialism) there have been exceptionally high winds last couple of nights, which in Lethbridge is really saying something. The noise of the wind buffetting our house was bad enough, but of course it also woke up the kids and drove them up to our room, to ensure that no one slept soundly.

I took the kids into the backyard after work to pick up our castiron garden furniture, which had been tossed about the place, and watched tiny Kasia trying to walk against the wind. It brought back the memory of Tigana at this age, playing in the playground at Montessori, when the wind literally picked her up and deposited her a couple of feet away. If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I might not have believed it. But as Mary and I rushed over to see if she was okay, Tigana looked up at us mournfully and asked, "Mommy, why does the wind hate me?"

A couple of days later I was putting Tigana's jeans in the wash when out of her pants pocket pours a collection of rocks and sand. "What's this?" I demanded, having previously warned her about leaving stuff in her pockets. "I'm sorry, Daddy, but I was trying to keep the wind from picking me up." What could I say to that?

Lethbridge -- the city that blows you away!