Tag Archives: Caroline Adderson

Off the Record

Robert Weirsema reviews Off the Record in the Toronto Star

“Metcalf’s latest project, the anthology OFF THE RECORD brings together six of the writers with whom Metcalf has worked, in what becomes a dazzling collection of memoir and fiction. If Caroline Adderson, Kristyn Dunnion, Cynthia Flood, Shaena Lambert, Elise Levine, and Kathy Page aren’t quite household names, OFF THE RECORD is a powerful argument for just what a mistake that oversight is.

John Metcalf, who celebrated his 85th birthday on November 12, is the rarest of commodities: an editor who has gained fame in a position which, usually, goes unremarked and unheralded. Also a noted writer in his own right, Metcalf worked for more than fifteen years at publishers Porcupine’s Quill, and twenty years at Biblioasis; in that time he has helped shape Canadian literature for successive generations.

Metcalf’s latest project, the anthology “Off the Record,” brings together six of the writers with whom Metcalf has worked, in what becomes a dazzling collection of memoir and fiction. If Caroline Adderson, Kristyn Dunnion, Cynthia Flood, Shaena Lambert, Elise Levine, and Kathy Page aren’t quite household names, “Off the Record” is a powerful argument for just what a mistake that oversight is.

Each section begins with an autobiographical essay, of sorts, from the featured writer. Shaped by Metcalf’s “continuing questions,” the editor has stepped in to remove any evidence of those interviews. “To leave in the questions once they’d been answered,” he writes in the book’s foreword, “seemed to me rather like leaving up unsightly scaffolding when the building was finished so I removed them all enabling the responses to flow as seemingly unprompted narrative.

That decision, to strip away the artifice and leave the author’s voice to stand on its own, is a hallmark of Metcalf’s editorial approach. Here, it results in a succession of powerful personal narratives, ranging from each writer’s childhood experiences (generally unhappy, often powerfully conflicted, which likely doesn’t come as too much of a surprise) to their early successes (often with a nod to Metcalf’s role as editor), and including insights into their processes, their perspectives on writing, and their interpretation of their role as writers.

The experience of reading each of these stories after reading their paired essay offers a uniquely insightful experience, as one can trace the impact of each writer’s recounted histories and insights within the fiction itself (“death of the author” be damned). Kathy Page’s unprepared immigration from England to Canada, for example, accounts for what she refers to, in her essay, as why it has taken her “a while to get to the point of tackling Canadian settings and characters” in her fiction. “Low Tide,” the story which follows, demonstrates a bridging of those two worlds: it’s a story set, largely, on the sea and in a light-keeper’s cottage, its setting bringing to mind Canada’s west coast while its concerns and voice resonate with Page’s English upbringing…”

Full text https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/books/in-their-own-voices-six-canadian-woman-writers-on-the-stories-that-shaped-them/article_aacc8e12-906c-11ee-801e-9f7b581abe3d.html

A Secret Garden, with Hollyhock

Sept 17-22 at Hollyhock on Cortes Island, I’ll be co-facilitating A Secret Garden: Writing Childhood Memories with the wonderful Caroline Adderson. It’s a workshop/retreat that focuses on accessing childhood material and points of view and how to use them in your writing, whether that be memoir, fiction, writing for children, or purely personal.  Participants will be in all stages of their writing journey. The purpose of the workshop is to generate the material, so you don’t have to come with anything already written, but you can.  We’ll spend about an hour on guided writing in the morning, then everyone goes off to write.  One on one sessions are available in the afternoon. We’ll meet again after dinner to share, discuss, and consider.  To prepare, try to gather as much childhood material as you can — photos, memories, etc.  Reread the books you loved at that time. We’ll give more specific instructions closer to the time. Time travel is possible! NB Early bird discount runs until 18 June.

Link to Hollyhock page