M: What elevates a piece of writing beyond ordinary?

JV: A compelling, authentic narrative voice; brutal truth but restraint in calibrating it throughout the story. Humility. Wisdom. Complete mastery of the world of the story and finding the right way to tell it. The art of knowing what to leave out; the subtlety and the ability to express deep emotional moments without sentimentality, letting the details and characters speak for themselves. A less is more approach.

M: Your characters are beyond ordinary for the circumstances they find themselves in and for the way they react to the violence within themselves and in their environment. How does a character come to you first?

JV: Characters initially come to me from a sense of place, where they came from, where they currently inhabit space and time, and why. Reading Sherwood Anderson, William Faulkner, Flannery O’Connor and Cormac McCarthy, I am interested by how they created fictional, composite worlds from a landscape that left a great impression on them. For these writers, the sense of “my apocryphal country” is one that resonates with me when I think of the Elk Valley, where BULL HEAD is set.

The Elk Valley is a region founded on violence and betrayal against the harsh landscape of the Rocky Mountains. It was cursed in the late 1800s by a First Nations Chief’s wife, a curse that haunted the valley until it was ceremonially removed in the 1960s. Yet, during this time (and since), the valley has been the backdrop for dozens of man-made and natural disaster such as mining explosions, fires, floods, avalanches, murders, bizarre suicide attempts that ended up becoming second degree murders, pine beetle devastation, etc. It is this landscape, this history, this curse that shapes the people of the area, for better or worse – all of which I’m deeply interested in as I map my own Yoknapatawpha County called Bull Head. The fictional and composite version of this landscape will continue to be a strong character in my future work.

M: You are one of the most disciplined writers I know. How do you handle distractions and maintain focus on your work?

JV: I once read a great quote from someone whose name I’ve forgotten that went something like, “We must all suffer one of two things: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret and disappointment.”

Boom! I couldn’t have asked for a more devastating wake up call. By default, I’m someone who requires routine and as such I’ve trained myself to be a morning person. I’ve tried working at other times but I’ve found that the longer I left it in the day, the more likely I would create an excuse for not doing it. Once my work is done in the morning, the rest of the day is gravy.

Marcello Di Cintio is the author of three books of travelogue including Walls: Travels Along the Barricades. Walls won the 2013 Shaugnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing and the City of Calgary W.O. Mitchell Book Prize. Di Cintio plans to expand an essay about Palestinian literary culture titled Song of the Caged Bird: Words as Resistance in Palestine into a new book. Di Cintio’s magazine writing can be found in publications such as The Walrus, Canadian Geographic, The International New York Times, Condé Nast Traveller and Afar. He is a former writer-in-residence with the Calgary Distinguished Writers Program and the Palestine Writing Workshop, and will be a featured instructor at the 2015 Iceland Writers Workshop.

John Vigna is a graduate of the MFA creative writing program at UBC and alumni of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. His fiction and non-fiction has appeared in numerous newspapers, magazines and anthologies including Cabin Fever: The Best New Canadian Non-Fiction, The Dalhousie Review, Grain, Event, sub-Terrain, The Antigonish Review, and Exact Fare 2: Stories of Public Transportation.

He is the recipient of the Dave Greber Award for Freelance Writers, winner of the sub-Terrain Lush Triumphant fiction contest and finalist for a Western Magazine Award, the Event creative non-fiction contest, and the CBC literary non-fiction contest. John lives in Vancouver with his wife, the writer Nancy Lee. He is a Lecturer in the UBC Creative Writing Program.

http://www.johnvignaink.ca/

The post Marcello Di Cintio Interview with John Vigna, FreeFall’s Upcoming Contest Judge appeared first on FreeFall Magazine.

A review of

Bull Head

by John Vigna

Arsenal Pulp Press (2012)

ISBN: 978-1-55152-490-0

$15.95

The epigraph to John Vigna’s debut short story collection begins with Flannery O’Connor’s words, “. . . the man in the violent situation reveals those qualities least dispensable in his personality . . .” This is no epigraph. It is a warning, sure as the surgeon general’s on the cigarette pack.

With deft handling of character, imagery, and language, Vigna draws us to the men of logging country, B.C., their foibles, their weaknesses, their flaws, their inept dealings with love. The characters in the book reek of dysfunction. Each main character is unable to process or comprehend the situations they find themselves in.

Vigna’s portrayals are unflinching and real. While it would be easy to turn away, Vigna manages to compel and attract the reader with energetic prose and satisfactory development ~ enough to sate morbid curiosity. I am reminded of the words of Nietzsche, “and when you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.” These characters are full of emptiness, undefined longing, and strife. Vigna handles the question: what does a man do when he can’t make sense of his world? In “South Country,” Billy takes action.

I grabbed the scythe, clutched it tight. Hops had his back to me, his jeans were at his knees, and his belt flipped back and forth against the dirt. I raised the scythe above Hops; the girl’s eyes widened. The quad wailed closer, Harley’s voice screeched in the air. I wanted to tell her that it’s okay; it will all be okay, that it will pass and you’ll be fine. It might take some time, but you’ll learn to slash it out of you bit by bit, leave it behind until maybe there’s nothing left. Nothing left to do but survive (144).

Vigna’s ambiguous scene causes dry-mouth and heart palpitations. I read these stories wide-eyed.

Vigna’s ability to tell these hard stories, so effectively, is fascinating and a study in line-level craft. The prose takes processing time as each sentence is choreographed precisely. I had to walk away from the story to allow the imagery and desolation of the character’s circumstances and choices to settle before I could move to the next. Each man says something about the difficulty of expressing love, and the violence that comes because of it: Earl and his sex-shop blow up doll; Sonny and his dog called Bacon Face; Brian and his fighting dogs; even Maurice and his love for a lame horse lead to a violent but telling climax when it is time to put her down.

“I never miss. You should know that by now.”

Harold nodded, his head heavy in the crosshairs. Maurice steadied his finger on the trigger, wiped his eye against his shoulder, and restrained the rifle.

His first shot shattered the windshield; the sound tore open the morning. The second shot blew a hole in the grill. He reloaded and emptied again into the body of the truck, shooting and re-loading and shooting from different angles (84).

Vigna is an exceptional builder of suspense. He does not shy away from the darkness in characters, nor does he pull back. With an unflinching eye, he builds scene, dilemma, and character. There is no mistake that this collection has garnered much praise and attention, including nominations for the Danuta Gleed literary award, Salty Ink’s most dazzling debut, Steven Beattie’s book of the year list 2012. Vigna’s prose is unforgettable. But fairly warned, this is not a book for sissies.

This review appears in FreeFall Volume XXIII Number 3.

The post Book Review of John Vigna’s “Bull Head” appeared first on FreeFall Magazine.

John Vigna is a graduate of the MFA creative writing program at UBC and alumni of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. His fiction and non-fiction has appeared in numerous newspapers, magazines and anthologies including Cabin Fever: The Best New Canadian Non-Fiction, The Dalhousie Review, Grain, Event, sub-Terrain, The Antigonish Review, and Exact Fare 2: Stories of Public Transportation.

He is the recipient of the Dave Greber Award for Freelance Writers, winner of the sub-Terrain Lush Triumphant fiction contest and finalist for a Western Magazine Award, the Event creative non-fiction contest, and the CBC literary non-fiction contest. John lives in Vancouver with his wife, the writer Nancy Lee. He is a Lecturer in the UBC Creative Writing Program.

The post 25th Anniversary Contest Now Accepting Submissions! appeared first on FreeFall Magazine.