Miscellaneous

Tonight was the awards ceremony for the UW English Department Awards. I received the English Society Creative Writing Award for Prose, and read the first three and a half pages of my short story, “A Story With No Title Whatever.” It’s the same story for which I won the Tom York Memorial Award. I wasn’t sure how well it would go over; it was never intended to be read aloud. Perhaps I shouldn’t have been so concerned. The reading went extremely well, and everyone laughed in all the right places, and were more boisterous than I could have hoped for. You know, of course, that this is only going to encourage me.

Every year, and lately every term, UW‘s English Society has a student/faculty mixer. It features a pretty good spread of food and an open bar. This term the budget was tight so the open bar became a cash bar near the end, but still: liquor flowed. Not many professors showed up this term, which was a bit of a surprise, but many of those who regularly attend have been rather busy lately. All the same, it was a wonderful event. I met some new and interesting people, and connected with a few of my peers whom I knew, but only vaguely. Several friends who are no longer students came. After the event a number of us wandered to a local pub called Ethel’s, and the good time followed us. I have posted a number of photos from the evening. I did not take them all.

I was informed today that I won the UW English Society Creative Writing Award for prose. I submitted the same story for which I won the Tom York award. The awards ceremony is on Monday afternoon.

I should have posted about this on the fourth, when it happened, but I’ve been having difficulty organizing my thoughts. I think everything’s straight in my mind now. I met Guy Gavriel Kay recently when he was guest lecturer for a Forms of Fantasy class here at UW. The lecture was meant to be on the tools of the fantasy writer, and to a certain extent it was, but he spent most of the lecture discussing his book, Tigana. I had not read the book (and I still haven’t finished it), but I did have a question in mind. Since it’s well-known that Kay’s books are thinly veiled historical fictions, I asked him to comment on the ethics of using historical facts as source material for literature. I was rewarded with a long and confident answer. Kay once gave a lecture (later printed in issue 108 of Queen’s Quarterly—you can… Continue Reading →

Author and former editor of Broken Pencil Hal Niedzviecki gave a reading on campus this afternoon. Professor Gary Draper, who organizes the Canada Council-funded readings, had a class to teach, and could not meet Niedzviecki at the front entrance. Since I was loitering about doing not much of anything, Professor Draper asked if I would meet Niedzviecki and show him around/keep him amused for twenty minutes or so before the reading. St. Jerome’s, the associate college where the reading was held, is pretty dull as far as buildings go, so there wasn’t much to see. The three of us (Niedzviecki brought a friend) talked about reading habits, current affairs on campus, and Concrete Forest, the anthology of fiction by young Canadian authors Niedzviecki edited a few years ago. He was very polite, funny, and all around seemed like a really nice guy. He was also an excellent reader and a… Continue Reading →

Last night UW‘s English Society held a Bawdy House at the Walper Pub in Kitchener. It was the first reading I’ve attended in which I’ve actually read rather than simply been read to. I read two poems, “Jessica” and “A Portrait of the Poet’s Birthing-Bed,” and a newly completed short story called “Love in the Age of Insecurity,” which was very much in keeping with the spirit of the Bawdy House, and went over quite well. The audience laughed in all the right places, and gave me a very flattering amount of applause and post-reading kudos. I hope to attend more of these in the future.