Gatherings | Issue 10
Recommended readings, films, podcasts, events
Hi friends,
This month in the Send My Love to Anyone Recommendations Issue 10, I offer some recommended reads, films, podcasts, events, and newsletters as well as two blurbs I wrote for two amazing poetry books.
ICYMI check out Issue 9 of Send My Love to Anyone where I interview Lee Henderson, share an excerpt from Dawn Dumont’s new novel, and present two short prose pieces from my Past and Future series. d
I hope you enjoy!
Kathryn
Recommended Tweets
Recommended Reading
Scientists identify key conditions to set up a creative ‘hot streak’
Whether it is the director Márta Mészáros or the artist Jackson Pollock, those in creative careers often experience a particular burst of success.
Now researchers have used artificial intelligence to reveal such “hot streaks” are commonly preceded by an experimental phase followed by a focus on one particular approach once the winning period has begun.
Read more.
Opinion: The demise of #OwnVoices by Sarah Raughley in Quill and Quire
Come around the campfire and let me tell you the tragic tale of what befell #OwnVoices.
Read more.
I’m Tired of Kindness Gaslighting by Jillian Horton in The Globe & Mail
Jillian Horton is a physician and the author of We Are All Perfectly Fine: A Memoir of Love, Medicine and Healing.
Let me assure you – my fatigue isn’t with kindness itself. I believe unequivocally that kindness matters. One of the reasons I engage in mindfulness practice is that research has shown it can lead us to become kinder. What I’m sick of is kindness gaslighting: talk about kindness followed by public policy that leads to unnecessary sickness and death or inadvertently silences conversations about the range of emotions that are normal in a pandemic.
Read more here.
Two Blurbs
Bearmen Descent Upon Gimli
I had the pleasure of writing a blurb for D.A. Lockhart’s new book of poetry!
Here’s my blurb:
In D.A. Lockhart’s stunning novel-in-verse, Bearmen Descend Upon Gimli, readers become spectators of an epic curling bonspiel where the prize is not just a trophy but a reclamation and a reckoning: “Treaty I land is leased land / and the landlords have returned / to move stone, carve their ways / again into ice and stories to come.” In this brilliantly-crafted narrative, there’s comedy alongside the starkly serious from an homage to Dudley George to dreams of wildlife in Murder She Wrote to Jesus getting kicked out of Swiss Chalet. With biting humour and arresting images, Lockhart creates an unforgettable world of dreams, visions, songs, and pop culture—and eviscerates colonialism in the process.
Frontenac House is now taking pre-orders for Bearmen Descend Upon Gimli.
Mouthfuls of Space by Tom Prime
And I wrote a blurb for Tom Prime’s new book coming from Feed Dog Books
‘I died a few years ago/since then, I’ve been/smoking cheaper cigarettes,’ begins Tom Prime’s brilliant collection Mouthfuls of Space, setting the stage for the wry humour in these dreamlike and sometimes devastating poems. From a London, Ontario, factory to a soup kitchen in Nanaimo to the back of a baseball diamond in Sacramento, the harsh realities of manual labour, addiction, trauma, and poverty are presented alongside aching beauty—even joy. Despite monotony and despair, Prime’s speaker reminds us: ‘this life’s all I have.’
Pre-order Mouthfuls of Space here.
Recommended Viewing
I can’t stop thinking about this movie!
Little Murders (1971) with Elliot Gould.
Directed by Alan Arkin • 1971 • United States
Starring Elliott Gould, Marcia Rodd, Vincent Gardenia
From Criterion:
“A surreal satire of urban alienation and the senseless chaos of life in the big city. Unfolding in a paranoid, hysterical nightmare vision of early-1970s New York where muggings, random shootings, and obscene telephone calls are part of everyday life, LITTLE MURDERS traces the unlikely romance that develops between emotionally numb photographer Alfred (Elliott Gould) and stubbornly optimistic interior designer Patsy (Marcia Rodd)—until the mayhem that surrounds them pushes Alfred over the edge.”
Recommended Reading
25 Essential Notes on Craft from Matthew Salesses
Excerpt from Craft in the Real World: Rethinking Fiction Writing and Workshopping
To really engage with craft is to engage with how we know each other. Craft is inseparable from identity. Craft does not exist outside of society, outside of culture, outside of power. In the world we live in, and write in, craft must reckon with the implications of our expectations for what stories should be—with, as Lorde says, what our ideas really mean.
Read more here.
Recommended Workshops
Generative Workshop with Chen Chen: Repetition, Variation, Migration: A Virtual Generative Workshop
In this generative workshop we’ll discuss how contemporary immigrant and refugee poets use various kinds of repetition and variation to articulate their lived experiences. Between talking about model poems by Tarfia Faizullah, Li-Young Lee, Aracelis Girmay, and others, we’ll try to use repetition and variation in our own ways. We’ll play and fail and try again. We’ll leap.
Register here.
Craft Seminar: What Do People See When They Read You? with Sheila Heti
2 Sessions: Sunday, November 7+ 14
1:00-3:30PM ET
Sheila Heti
This two-part class will focus on two things: What do you most want to write? (you may not even know it yet) and, What thoughts are going through the minds of other people as they read your writing? We will be working individually and in groups to work our way through these related questions. In addition, students will be able to join with other students to form smaller writing groups (ideally in their cities) that they can continue to be part of once the workshop is done. Writers with any level of experience are welcome — published writers as well as those who are just beginning. These are separate, linked classes. It is necessary to take both.
Full and partial scholarships available. For information, contact Cassie Archdeacon, cassie@theshipmanagency.com
Register here.
Recommended Writing Podcasts
Fence Podcasts
Issue 37/38 contributors were invited to read their work for the Fence Podcast. I have three poems in this issue.
Soundtrack: Suzette Mayr w/ The Sugarcubes' album It's It, Hosted by Michael V. Smith
I Read Somewhere That
ireadsomewherethat is a new writing podcast from Lisa de Nikolits
I read somewhere that… Isn’t that always the way? You read a thing and you can’t remember where you read it but it made you think – or it annoyed you or upset you or delighted you. Generally, the news tends to err on the side of the former descriptions not the latter and this podcast will have random snippets that jumped out at me. I’m not going to get bogged down by where I read it or who said it or why they said it – this isn’t a bibliography or essay that requires footnotes, this is just a collection of crazy stuff that I read somewhere. Because life is so crazy and random, right? Right!
Parallel Careers
Parallel Careers is a monthly podcast about the dual lives of writers who teach. Few writers make their living from publication alone; many fill the gaps with teaching in both academic and community settings. Much of the work is precarious, and there are few opportunities for professional development. Parallel Careers features writers with diverse practices and points of view—writers who are at the top of their game in both craft and pedagogy. Tune in to hear the big ideas and practical tips they take into their classrooms. Take their insights into your own class or craft. Available on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you find your podcasts.
Parallel Careers is produced by Claire Tacon, in partnership with The New Quarterly.
Read more.
Recommended Events
Writers Read at Concordia
Concordia’s Writers Read series has released their line up for the 2021-2022 season. All events have a virtual component. Curated by Sina Queyras.
Recommended Newsletters
By the River Reading Series - Issue #1
Welcome to the first By the River Reading Series Newsletter. You can expect to find these newsletters towards month’s end during our season. In these you will find additional writings and work by our feature writers as well as exclusive promos and content from them and their publishers. Consider these newsletters to be the literary tributaries to our literary river.
Sign up here.
The Art of Flash Fiction
For Concentration
Contributor News
Congratulations to Hoa Nguyen on being longlisted for the US National Book Awards!
Chelene Knight is on Parallel Careers Podcast Episode 8
Weekly Writing Prompts
The Watch Your Head Dispatch
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