The post Kayleigh Cline Reads “American Robin” appeared first on FreeFall Magazine.

The post Dave Gregory Reads an Excerpt from “This Monarch Can Fly” | FreeFall Magazine Issue 31-1 appeared first on FreeFall Magazine.

The post FreeFall Magazine Launch | Issue 31-1 appeared first on FreeFall Magazine.

The post Mark Johnston Reads an Excerpt from “The Thief, The Crier, and those Damned Dark Ages” appeared first on FreeFall Magazine.

1st Prize (Poetry and Fiction) $500 Sponsored by Frontenac House and AWCS
2nd Prize (Poetry and Fiction) $250. Sponsored by Freehand Books
3rd Prize (Poetry and Fiction) $75.00 Sponsored by FreeFall Literary Society
Honourable Mention (Poetry and Fiction) $25.00 Sponsored by Freehand Books

All entries are automatically entered into the Lynn C. Fraser Memorial Prize and the Micheline Maylor Prize for Poetic Excellence

The post The FreeFall Annual Prose and Poetry Contest appeared first on FreeFall Magazine.

Shelley McAneeley

Do You Think This is Strange?
Aaron Cully Drake
Brindle and Glass Publishing
ISBN 978-1-927366-387

Having just completed my usual morning talk with my aged mother, I notice that I panic, and mentally search for meaning during the conversation with her.  I hope to respond at the right moment, which requires knowing what we are talking about. I think I am listening, I try to listen, but I am often challenged to even know what the topic is. It seems to be skipped over, assumed perhaps, and I have to solve the puzzle quickly before the test question comes. Are you listening? What are you thinking about? I wonder if the conversation includes me, as she will often hang up mid-sentence. I wonder if the difficulty arises from age, or if communicating has always been this way, and I chose to ignore the problem? I wonder if youth has its own focus and finds most conversations irrelevant enough to ignore. But here, too, is Freddy’s problem.

Drake’s plot focuses on the strange world of Freddy, a high functioning autistic. I laughed often when reading this book at the weird dilemmas caused by miscommunications. Freddy’s dilemma below illustrates the issue. He is resisting his mother’s efforts to take him to meet a stranger called Jesus, who he is not sure he really wants to meet.

At the time, I had not yet met Jesus. Many people recommended that I get to know Him, but I had yet to be introduced, and my mother decided it was time for me to make His acquaintance. I remember struggling with my mother, who held my mask in the air as I jumped frantically, trying to snatch it back… “You can’t go to church with a mask on,” my father told me as he watched from my bedroom door. “Jesus might think you’re a mugger.” (Pg. 25)

Freddy’s world is logical, and in his mind everything proceeds without the emotional investment that plagues most humans. Literal translations are typical of his understanding of language. His worldview lands him in difficult situations where his meaning and the perception of the listener are at odds. Another event occurs for Freddy on a cold winter day.

This was the state of my thread when it was interrupted. If allowed to continue, I would have reasoned that people preface remarks with other common words, such as “Jesus Christ,” but I shouldn’t infer that the person is Jesus. Proof of this it that my father frequently addresses me, as Jesus Christ, but we both understand that my name is Freddy. “Jesus Christ!” he will shout. “I swear, the next time you spit toothpaste all over your shirt, I’m going to make you wear the damned thing all day!” (Pg. 93)

The book is not about religion. Above are delightful examples of how we assume meaning in our quick-paced daily discourse. Our social experience is tied to our ability to make giant leaps in our understanding through language. Freddy’s internal dialogue yields an interesting and heart-warming journey into his adulthood. The absurd is part of Freddy’s life, just as it is for my aged mother. The gap between two people is bridged through communication.  The richness of the world is embedded in the magic of words, words that embody emotion, but for Freddy, this is missing. Freddy’s world is a mystery to most others, understanding him and his understanding of the world are at odds. And, perhaps through the elderly, we get a first hand glimpse of that gap. Words can trigger memories, allow extrapolation, grant conceptualization and share reporting, only if the mind does its job. Do You Think This Is Strange explores a new language, and if you make the effort to discover Freddy’s world, you will be amazed. The book is a delightful read full of laugh-out-loud moments.

This book review is exclusive FreeFall Blog content.

The post Book Review of Aaron Cully Drake’s “Do You Think This Is Strange?” appeared first on FreeFall Magazine.

What I learned about performing from Ivan Coyote:

Ryan and I attended the Wordfest Workshop: “Writing for Performance with Ivan Coyote” back in October 2014. Ivan is one of Ryan’s favourite performing artists, so as soon as we realized that Thomas King and Ivan Coyote would be in Banff Friday night and Saturday afternoon respectively, there was no discussion as to what we would be doing that weekend.

Full disclosure: I’m a social klutz. The thought of speaking in front of a crowd doesn’t actually scare me like it once did, but I bumble like I’m twelve years old none-the-less. I remember being terrified when I had to participate in a mock parliamentary debate in high school. I nailed my argument in a way no one else had but I shook the whole time. It’s frustrating to be so confident and still trip over my own tongue, or worse, to have my systematic mind start circling mid-sentence (think of standing in a circle of people at a party, arguing with yourself under your breath, when mid-argument you get very very loud). Being painfully aware of all this I thought “writing for performing” is just what I need. I envy those who get up and share their work, but, “ack,” no way am I doing THAT!

Ivan was fantastic – confident and honest. Ivan had tips I never would have thought of and yet they were practical and simple. The kinds of things I can’t believe I didn’t think of. This is what I learned from Ivan Coyote (this is not an exhausted list of everything Ivan taught that day. Ivan worked hard at this workshop and I feel it would be unfair, without permission, to share it all for free. Most of what’s written here are my thoughts that came out of Ivan’s lessons):

1. The stage is an exchange – powerful and vulnerable at the same time:

 What’s that old saying? You get back what you put in.
 

2. Why do you remember the performances you remember:

Energy is probably one of the number one aspects that creates a memorable performance for me, that and audience engagement. Not stand-up comic style engagement, but the subtle body movement a dancer directs towards the crowd. Most observers have no conscious idea it just happened and yet they are pulled into the performance just that little bit deeper. Great burlesque, Rufus Wainwright’s cover of “Chelsea Hotel,” or Ivan Coyote’s story telling voice do this.
 

3. Always remember the tech’s name:

Did I not say there was some simply practical advice coming? As the daughter of a floor layer, I know to appreciate the work of the person behind the scenes (or under your feet), and still this was probably the best advice I got that day.
 

4. Get to your performance early – fires that need to be extinguished won’t happen in 5 minutes. But with time, everything is fixable:

I have this weird, deep, psychological pull to never get too ahead of any task. I am the worst procrastinator. I know how bad leaving things to the last minute can be for the stress level of anyone and everyone and I do it all the time.
 

5. Before a performance, take some time for yourself:

Don’t be that tornado that whirls in the door straight from work, downing a fruit smoothie, heart racing, and mind pounding because you are sure you’ve forgotten something in your other bag…oh no, you wanted to wear the red shoes and they’re in the car three blocks away.
 

6. Eat two or three hours before your performance:

Nothing’s worse than debating what excuse will allow you an extra five minutes in the bathroom without suspicion. I can’t think of anything that creates indigestions faster than nerves and a full belly.
 

7. Drink water all day:

You know that person who’s talking to you at work and all you can hear is the saliva in his mouth. The slapping, clicking, thick, slick sound? Don’t be “that guy.”
 

8. Be kind to the staff. Be the example you want others to be:

P.S. that sound guy from earlier, he’s your co-worker not your subordinate.

9. Prepare less time then asked. You’ll always go over your prepared time:

And if you’re as nervous as me, prepare half the time.

10. Read the other readers, what did they do? Be ready to possibly change your idea:

Ivan spoke of a time they were part of a line of performers and realized the mood of what they had prepared was drastically different than the atmosphere the crowd was absorbed in, so they changed the performance to fit the mood of the show.

11. Know and respect your equipment:

Need to loosen or tighten a boom stand? Righty tighty, lefty loosey. Even the technical stuff is simple if you just get there early enough to be relaxed to think about it for a second.

12. Make performance copies that are easy for you to read without flipping pages all the time. A music stand is a great set up:

Going back to that be early and respectful of the staff. It’s very easy to get a music stand if people have the time to get one for you. Rushing in last minute and demanding a music stand because no way are you using that podium, may get you the crappiest music stand in the building. You’ll know there were better ones available when you hear the staff snickering every time the stand slides down on you causing you to stop, pull it back up, and righty tighty it into place.

Now I just need a workshop titled “print off your stories, put a stamp on an envelope, and mail out your work so you can be invited to make a public appearance in which you can use all you learned from Ivan Coyote.”  But kidding aside, Ivan’s workshop was more impactful than I expected it to be. Ivan made what is simple, simple. And as cliché as it may sound, it emphasized the fact that the people I admire performing are artists like me. They also get nervous but they don’t let it stop them from sharing their art with others.

Born and raised in Calgary, Crystal has been writing for over fifteen years. She studied creative writing in both fiction and poetry at Mount Royal University. She writes out of her childhood home where a postcard view of downtown and the Rocky Mountains often distracts her. Other welcomed distractions in her life are her daughter’s ever evolving views on humanity, listening to her talented partner Ryan read drafts of his own work, and wine. Crystal is most inspired in her own writing when exploring the Rocky Mountains or the banks of the Bow River.

The post Writing for Performance appeared first on FreeFall Magazine.

The post Our 2015 Chapbook Contest appeared first on FreeFall Magazine.

The post The Winners of The FreeFall Annual Prose and Poetry Contest are… appeared first on FreeFall Magazine.

All My Puny Sorrows
by Miriam Toews
Alfred A. Knopf Canada
ISBN 978-0-345-80800-4
$29.95

The title of Miriam Toews’s latest novel was taken from a line in a poem by 18th Century poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, a portion of which I quote (my emphasis):

To A Friend, With An Unfinished Poem
Thus far my scanty brain hath built the rhyme
Elaborate and swelling; ­ yet the heart
Not owns it. From thy spirit-breathing powers
I ask not now, my friend! the aiding verse
Tedious to thee, and from thy anxious thought
Of dissonant mood. In fancy (well I know)
From business wand’ring far and local cares,
Thou creepest round a dear-loved sister’s bed
With noiseless step, and watchest the faint look,
Soothing each pang with fond solicitude,
And tenderest tones medicinal of love.
I, too, a sister had, an only sister —
She loved me dearly, and I doted on her;
To her I pour’d forth all my puny sorrows;
(As a sick patient in a nurse’s arms,)
And of the heart those hidden maladies ­
That e’en from friendship’s eye will shrink ashamed.

The characters are unforgettable. Elfrieda (Elf) and Yolanda (Yoli), sisters. Elfrieda is beautiful, wealthy, sophisticated, happily married, and an internationally acclaimed pianist; yet, she wants to die. Yolanda is opposite, divorced, broke, looking for love with all the wrong partners, reckless: a mess. She bumbles along, with best intentions trying to keep her teenage kids happy–also her mother. And she wants so much to help her sister live. She loves her sister. How much does she love her? What kind of love can save her? How can she reduce her suffering? She’s willing to do anything. Assisted suicide? Their Mennonite family has had its share of suicides. Their father was assisted to his death by a train on the tracks. Their cousin Lina took her life three years after their father, now seven years ago. “Where does this violence go, if not directly back into our blood and bones?” (271)

“Are Mennonites a depressed people or is it just us? We’ve been here before. Everything is a repeat, another take” (135).

“Canada” plays an integral role in the novel. Yoli’s dream of having Margaret Laurence’s stone angel lying beside her; her father’s love and admiration of Lester B. Pearson; their mother’s love of the Winnipeg Jets; various landmarks in both Winnipeg and Toronto where the story takes place; Elf’s reference to Nellie McClung.

It is a story of life versus death. Life is funny, it’s ridiculous and absurd, and Toews deals with the tragic events with humour and almost entire disclosure. Her biographical novel–tragic and personal though it is–needed to be told because people who cope with mental illness suffer great pain and despair, and sometimes they are not heard and sometimes they become isolated and silent. Toews gives them a voice:

She’s a human being, my mother whispered.
[My mother] couldn’t bear to see Elf in the psych ward.. That prison, she said. They do nothing. If she doesn’t take the pills they won’t talk to her. They wait and they badger and they badger and they wait and they badger
(205).

Despite all of these tragedies, when narrator Yoli reminisces, she exposes a tightly knit family, replete with their joys and silliness, and a brave mother who pulled herself together to attend university to study social work, and thereafter to work as a therapist, helping the Mennonite women deal with their problems, paid with sides of beef, chickens and eggs, and other bartered services. Yoli asks how brave must she be? “Well, said my mom, at least as brave as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn” (249).

Miriam Toews is the author of five previous novels: Summer of My Amazing Luck, A Boy of Good Breeding, A Complicated Kindness (winner of the 2004 Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction), The Flying Troutmans (winner of the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize) and Irma Voth, and one work of non-fiction, Swing Low: A Life. She lives in Toronto.

The post Book Review of “All My Puny Sorrows” appeared first on FreeFall Magazine.