Joan Thomas' blog
From the Commonwealth Writers' Prize final programme
in New Zealand,Joan Thomas is
blogging throughout the week.
Joan Thomas is a Winnipeg writer and editor and formerly a teacher, whose teaching experience included summer programs in Grenada and St. Kitts. Thomas's first novel, Reading by Lightning, was published in 2008 by Goose Lane Editions to critical praise and was named to the Globe Best 100 list. Joan has won the 2009 Commonwealth Writers' Prize Best First Book in the Canada and Caribbean region.
Joan Thomas was a contributing book reviewer for The Globe and Mail from 1993 to 2002 and for two years wrote a biweekly feature review in the Globe. Her short stories and creative non-fiction have been published in Canadian Fiction Magazine and Prairie Fire, and her interview-based features with writers in the Winnipeg Free Press and Prairie Fire. She's the winner of a National Magazine Award (Silver) for Personal Journalism (1996). Joan Thomas was co-editor (with Heidi Harms) of Turn of the Story: Canadian Short Fiction on the Eve of the Millennium (House of Anansi Press, 1999), an anthology of new work.
Thomas continues to live on the Canadian prairies and is working on a second novel, about the 19th century fossilist Mary Anning. It will be published in 2010.
Monday 18 May
I knew from the get-go that I didn't have the blogging gene, but now that I'm back in
This whole event was fantastic while I was there, and looks even more fantastic from a distance. The trip home went as well as it could go—except for insane security checks in my 90 minute transit in LA. Everyone on the Auckland-LA leg was scoffing down a NZ invention with the cryptic name of NO JET LAG and so was I. You chew what tastes like a mint every two hours, and, in the tradition of all good placebos, it seems to be working! I feel pretty normal today, considering that I was 23 hours in transit door-to-door. Staying with good friends in
So, what stands out... I guess the great companionship with the other writers and the unbelievably lovely responsive audiences, but I've gone on about that in my other blogs. The final night I had an hour to get ready for the awards ceremony and hadn't eaten, so I opened a bottle of NZ red from the minibar (a first time for that - I'm always too cheap to use the minibar) and ordered a meal of NZ lamb from room service (never used room service before either!). It was my own private celebration - I'm still feeling it! I took the public readings and interviews in stride - yeah, way to go, Joan - and I did sing in my last reading - the “I'll fly away” passage - that whole reading to a crowd of people sitting on the floor around the seating area, which was a great note to end on for all of us Best Firsters, with an incredibly good on-stage interviewer. I felt fine about Mohammed's win, which sounds insanely self-deprecating, but I was blown away by his book, so smart and funny and original, and the whole trip was such a prize. I also felt very gratified by conversations with the judges, by the insightful way they read my book and their enthusiasm for it. So grateful to Jenny and Brian for a tour of
Friday 15 May
Last night a rich discussion about writing with the 5 writers who read at the opening of the festival. David Malouf quoted Thomas Mann's definition of a writer: Someone for whom writing is difficult. Loved it--I must be a writer . . . I'll never really be a blogger.
The Commonwealth Foundation hosted a working lunch with New Zealand writers and others involved in culture, the unriversity, community development, etc. Fantastic salmon and banana tarts . . . lots of interesting and articulate people. . . a bit of a skim over so many huge issues--but what a lot of parallels between the publishing situation here and in Canada! Andrew's observation that culture is a human rights issue struck a cord with me and a lot of people.
Tomorrow morning we all read at the Festival. I've chosen a new passage and wonder if I have the guts to sing the 2 lines of song in it. Tonight Zhi Hong is taking us around Auckland for a couple of hours, and then I'm going to go to a screening and discussion of a film on Richard Dawkins. Had a couple of free hours this morning and walked down to the harbour, and then up to the beautiful city park and art gallery. Apparently I missed a fantastic visit to the Mauri--but didn't foresee any other free time in the next few days...
Ciao.
Thursday, 14 May, Auckland
I had the goal of writing a short blog every day from New Zealand--what a dreamer! This is Day 5 and I can't hope to do more than jaunt down a few impressions. We're back in Aukland after a 3 day trip to the Hawkes Bay area. A shining, beautiful country--perfect rainbows on both the mornings I've flown into Auckland.
Yesterday I did 3 readings with Q&A components and 2 radio interviews, followed by a reception at the Canadian High Commission. Galloping from one venue to the next, trying to take in the gorgeous harbour, grabbing sandwiches on the fly, grabbing a minute's conversation with my warm, brilliant, witty, thoughtful and resourceful fellow writers. I've sometimes complained that writers tend to say the same things over and over about their books, but really, I was grateful for any coherent sentence that came out of my mouth!
Don't know how to convey how amazing and gratifying this is. Our audiences have been wonderful; I'm moved by how books are honoured through this program. Hearing 10 minute snatches of the other writers' work, I feel so privileged to be sharing this experience with them. Yesterday Beryl, Uwem and I spoke to creative writing students at a girls school. Beryl is from New Zealand, and I'm from a country that is uncannily similar in many ways, but it was Uwem, talking about street children in Nairobi, who had the most to say to the students. He acknowledged the terrible misery and challenge street children face, and yet, he said, none of them consider suicide. Never. They are resilient--and he challenged these girls to find their resilience. Still surprised and moved by that moment.
Now we're at the Festival, and I think the pace will slow down--or rather, we'll be in the position of doing fewer presentations and taking in more. Got to run, though, for one last radio interview!
