tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-53126742437054831282011-07-31T02:44:38.408-06:00Edmonton Public Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13639395810455444435noreply@blogger.comBlogger131100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5312674243705483128.post-55749120556363650222010-04-15T10:35:00.002-06:002010-04-15T10:38:27.216-06:00

Q: Can you share an anecdote around the publishing process for Buying Cigarettes for the Dog?A: In Key West, Florida in the late 1930s, Ernest Hemingway arrived at his book launches in a 1929 Phantom II Short Coupled Saloon Rolls-Royce, driven by Toby Otto Bruce. In Alberta in 2009, Stuart Ross arrived at his book launches in a dusty, beat-up 1997 GMC Jimmy with poorly-functioning

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Q: What motivated you to publish Bomb Canada?A: One of our editorial committee members heard Chantal present a paper on images of Canada in American media. Chantal was asked after the session whether she would make this into a book because we would be interested. Being a journalist, she said she would find the time to take on this project and within a short period was able to take the time to

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Q: What inspired you to write about the topic in Fishing for Bacon?A: I’m always fascinated by how people respond to life’s challenges without the resources, skills or support systems to lean on that perhaps most others possess. Do they accept their fates? Do they adapt? Do they take a hold of their own destiny? In Bacon’s case, he casts himself out into the world and into adulthood without any

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Q: What are the merits of The Forgotten Explorer, and why should people vote for it?A: Albertans should vote for The Forgotten Explorer because it uncovers aspects Alberta's history that many people have never even considered. These journals represent Alberta in its infancy, when the territory was still relatively free of any urban development, industrial plans or tourist traps. If ever there was

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Q: Who or what particularly influenced you in writing The Frog Lake Reader?A: I didn’t so much write it as compose it, arranging in a dramatic narrative all the different – and contradictory – voices that have told the story from eye-witnesses to today’s poets and fiction writers. I was influenced by all their voices but behind them lay the reading I had already done along the way: Rudy Wiebe’s

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Q: What do you think this new award means for the literary industry in Alberta?A: I think, already, that the ARC Award has made people across Canada aware that there is a vital and growing and exciting publishing industry in Alberta. And that it's not wholly a regional industry: there are books published in Alberta that would appeal to readers in Nova Scotia, in Ontario, in the Northwest

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Q: Give us your thoughts of being in the Top 5 of the Alberta Readers’ Choice Award.A: When Charles Helm and I started on this journey ten years ago we could never, in our wildest dreams, have imagined an outcome like this. There were times when we wondered if there would be much interest in Fay's story, or whether we were part of an eccentric fringe, so to see it in the top five for an award

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Q: Is there a part of Buying Cigarettes for the Dog that is your favourite and why?A: My favourite parts are probably the stories that are most recent ("Aphids," "So Sue Me…," and the one about Howie and Mr. Cage), but I also have a soft spot for some of the older stories, particularly "The President's Cold Legs," because I love the narrator of that piece. I love his naivety and his earnestness.

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Q: What kind of effect do you hope Bomb Canada will have?A: For readers who may regard Canadian history as being “boring” or “dry,” I hope Bomb Canada will provide a fun, informative introduction to our country’s past and its relations with the U.S. I also hope that by reading the book, everyone who picks up Bomb Canada will gain a greater appreciation and understanding of the complexities that

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Q: Who or what particularly influenced you in writing/editing The Forgotten Explorer?A: Compared to other accounts - by explorers/writers such as Coleman, Collie, Outram, Wilcox, Schaffer - Fay's is presented as his original journal, not a later retrospective. Consequently it has an immediacy not found in the others. This is Fay around the evening campfire, recalling that day's events, wondering

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Q: Are there any elements in The Frog Lake Reader that come from your own personal experience?A: I was well into the book when I realized what was really driving it: the fact that a mere 15 years separate 1885 and 1900, the year my paternal grandfather took out title on a homestead near Vegreville, not so far from Frog Lake, and yet I never recall my grandparents speaking of Native people or of

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Q: What inspired you to write about the topic in Bomb Canada?A: In 2005, I came across an article in the Winnipeg Free Press while I was home in Manitoba for the Christmas holidays. The article's headline, “We're slow and ‘stalking’ America,” grabbed my attention. MSNBC host Tucker Carlson had just made his infamous “Canada is like your retarded cousin” comment and the Canadian press was

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Q: What was the hardest part to write in Fishing for Bacon and why?A: The love scenes. There are a couple love scenes. They are written humorously so that made it easier but I couldn’t help but keep thinking, “Oh God, my mother’s going to read this … oh God, my mother’s going to read this…”I attended an Alberta Writer’s Guild event on Writing the Uncomfortable. Suzette Mayr and Rosemary Nixon

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