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Writer Q & As on the new VMI website
We’re introducing a series of posts on the new Vancouver Manuscript Intensive website called Writer Q & As. Look for 2 to 3 questions from writers answered by Betsy, VMI mentors or guest writers every month under the News & Missives section. Here are this month’s selections:
I’m a poet who writes sixty or seventy poems and THEN tries to group them into a manuscript. This is a difficult way to find a through line or order as I don’t automatically have a beautiful way to group the poems. I pick the title from my favourite poem and hope for the best. Any advice would be appreciated. [Jude Neale]
What is the best way to go about ordering a manuscript of poetry? [Tina Biello]
This vexing question arises again and again no matter how many books you have published. Occasionally, a collection is written with a clear narrative structure but more often it is not. The standard approach of grouping poems in predictable subject categories weakens the collection, in my opinion. It’s antithetical to how life and perception actually is experienced. The more closely you create the quirky flow of experience the more your reader will be drawn in.
A Book A Month Giveaway for August
Every month until the end of December 2015, we are giving away one incribed book by Betsy Warland.* This month, we are giving away only this blue.
When faced with a life-threatening experience, one expects to be confronted with the big questions. What, however, can prove to have far more impact, is the disorientation and re-vision that alters not only our sensations but perceptions of the normally unremarkable bits of the everyday. Warland evokes these startling moments and enlists her reader in the intrigue of this changed state of consciousness. Written like a poetic symphony in four colour movements, Nicole Brossard described it as: “A book of colours brought back to beauty and meaning, which stays with us as an embrace.”
Memoir of Inquiry: Writing Class
A memoir recreates a pivotal experience in, or aspect of, one’s life. Memoir is comprised of a story we know yet it is a story we do not fully understand. This is the inquiry part of the writing process and this is what actually compels us to write it. If you are considering writing a memoir, or have begun writing one, this course will help you understand how to explore and evoke your story instead of simply summarizing it.
“Writing the Between” Sunshine Coast Writing Workshop
Although the between is something we most often try to steer away from, writers working in all genres need to engage with forms of between-ness.
Whether it’s between doubt and confidence, what it’s about or seems not to be about; whether it’s between forms/genres, languages, time frames, cultures/race, identities, art forms or what’s true and isn’t true, between-ness is a dynamic site for writing and for art that involves the written word.
A Book A Month Giveaway for July
Every month until the end of December 2015, we are giving away one incribed book by Betsy Warland.* This month, we are giving away serpent (w)rite: (a reader’s gloss), now out of print.
Vancouver Manuscript Intensive Reading this Sunday
Join us for our Vancouver Manuscript Intensive 2015 Reading on June 7th at 3PM at the Havana Café theatre at the back of the café. Audiences have commented that this is one of the most enjoyable readings they’ve attended so do mark it on your calendar.
A Book A Month Giveaway for June
Every month until the end of December 2015, we are giving away one incribed book by Betsy Warland.* This month, we are giving away Two Women in a Birth, co-written by Daphne Marlatt.
A Book A Month Giveaway for May
Every month until the end of December 2015, we are giving away one incribed book by Betsy Warland.* This month, we are giving away Breathing the Page: Reading the Act of Writing.
Twelve years in the making, Breathing the Page: Reading the Act of Writing is a must-read for students of creative writing. This collection is comprised of two sets of twelve essays each. “Materials” reflects on the history and animate nature of the objects we use in the act of writing, from computers, to pens and pencils, right down to paper.
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