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TWUC

Salt Spring

I travelled to Salt Spring Island at the start of November for a couple of reasons: but mostly to take a turn as featured reader at the Poetry Open Mic series, at the Salt Spring Library. Mercifully arrived between rainstorms and enjoyed a couple of sunny days along with the rainy evenings. I was in town the week after the Saturday market ended and there was a distinctly autumnal feel to the farm stands, where squash and apples and firewood had taken the place of summer vegetables and berries.

Once I’d firmed up my travel dates, I scheduled a Salt Spring social for local Writers Union of Canada members while I was there, because the night of my reading was also the union’s 50th anniversary, and I thought we might toast its continued success, armed with our 50th anniversary TWUC cookies and a glass of bubbly.

So on the first of November, nine of us met in local writer and artist Briony Penn‘s beautiful home. Writers had come from Nanaimo, Sidney and Victoria as well as Salt Spring. Conversation swiftly broke out, with discussion ranging from difficulties of getting published, to the looming intrusion of Artificial Intelligence in the writing life, whether through books being used without permission to train AI, through the use of AI for editing our writing, or through AI’s replacing live writers for the kind of stock writing – ad copy, product descriptions, copy editing – that pays the bills for so many writers. We talked about copyright and the dramatic decline in payments to authors for use of their works, and about the origins of the union in 1973, and the ‘good old days’ of in-person AGMs where motions were thrashed out, debated, reversed and revised in the pub after hours – and how to carry this spirit on with today’s challenges: much larger membership (2,600), members scattered across the country, carbon footprints, availability of virtual meetings, and questions of time, expense and accessibility.

A heavy rainfall overnight gave way to a sunny afternoon, and an opportunity to browse the food shops, galleries and oddities in Ganges. My reading was gratifyingly well attended, given the dark and dribbly weather. Half a dozen local poets kicked off the evening by reading at the open mic, and only one of these fled the scene before my reading (over the years, I promise you I have been at many readings where the room virtually emptied after the open mic!). I read then, mostly from Larder, and then braced myself for resounding silence at the utterance of “any questions for our reader?” But was surprised at the animated and interesting questions that came up… anything from whether there were subjects I couldn’t write about, to whether writers can make money selling books?

On departure day, I couldn’t resist stopping in at the annual monster book sale which raises funds for literacy on Salt Spring. Books and Bling attracts a lot of readers – early arrivers were  lined up around the barn at the Farmers Institute when I got there shortly before the 10am start, armed with shopping bags and boxes that predicted lively sales. It takes a team of volunteers to run these things, and I was impressed by the efficiency and patience of all concerned, as I trundled off to the ferry with my 3 books and 1 bit of bling!

 

Word Vancouver 2023

I hadn’t been to Word Vancouver for several years. This year exhibitors were in the ice rink and readings and panels took place in the adjoining UBC classrooms and on the pavement level above.

Here we see a typically Vancouver spin, with tai chi practice at the edge of the literary exhibitor area.

And on my way to the venue I’d passed an outdoor yoga class in the courtyard of the former Nordstrom’s department store. But my main business at the event was overseeing the volunteers who had kindly offered to sit at the table and answer questions about the Writers Union of Canada, for which I am currently BC/Yukon representative.

We shared a table with Joy Kogawa House; good neighbours to have! And luckily for me, almost all the volunteers arrived on time, and I was able to catch a few of the readings and panels, including one featuring two Victoria writers, Lorna Crozier and Eve Joseph, who with Vancouver writer Tara McGuire were discussing Life After Loss, with Vancouver poet Rob Taylor presiding. At the end of the day, I managed to catch the very end of a panel I’d wanted to hear, featuring Hilary Peach and Kate Braid, with Heidi Greco, discussing their writings about working in trades as women.

Author Esmeralda Cabral works a shift at the TWUC table
4 people at conference table
Life After Loss – Rob Taylor, Lorna Crozier, Eve Joseph, Tara McGuire
womans face between two turned heads
Lorna Crozier speaks on loss
5 women seated beneath canopy
Hilary Peach reads; Heidi Greco, Kate Braid. Vancouver poet laureate Fiona Tinwei Lam listens

 

Wychwood & more TWUC

Managed to fit a flying visit to the Wychwood BarnsFarmers Market in before the Writers Union meeting plenary on Saturday. It opens at 8 for the summer season. Another misty morning

but enough vendors and a steady stream of custom that showed it to be a healthy neighbourhood market. Lots of variety: local honey, wool, assorted wild foods from around the country – including maple syrup, dried wild mushrooms (from BC), saskatoons (from Saskatchewan), wild rice, ocal fresh ramps (wild leeks)

and exotic pickles (like spruce tips and cattail hearts). And produce of course, including some spectacular Ontario apples,

sweet potatoes (I think he said the variety was Bordeaux, not the Georgia Jet I’m growing in 5 gallon pails this year),

asparagus,

and some fine vegetables

including a couple of beautiful winter roots, both of which I’ll be planting again this year myself:

It’s a well organized market, which operates year round thanks to the shelter of the barns. There’s a sensible scheme for the bakers, which keeps them well under cover while the other vendors are under tents:

Then I sprinted off to catch a streetcar and a subway and settle in to a good day’s politicking with the writers. Copyright was the most active topic. Passion on both sides of the discussion, which had to do with the manner in which copyright fees are distributed to creative artists. It could have been a long-winded and ugly discussion, but chair Alan Cumyn managed to guide the concise and respectful speakers through to the vote with a firm and friendly hand. It was a great meeting, after which the writers passed a couple of free hours gearing up for the banquet and short readings and presentation of the Danuta Gleed award (to Billie Livingston for Greedy Little Eyes). And then it was time for 3 Chord Johnny

to bring it on home: great stuff, not least because the musicians are all writers. We danced our feets off and then were regaled for an hour or so by a rogue fire alarm which attracted a swarm of fire engines and slowed the ascent to the after party.

Today’s meeting, in which the gavel was handed over to incoming chair Greg Hollingshead,

was a peaceable wrap-up with elections and farewells.. until next year in Vancouver.

TWUC 2011

Like anyone with that ominous birthday on the horizon, I’d say the Writers Union of Canada approaches its fortieth (2012) with a year-before do in Toronto that combines about the right mix of congeniality, information overload, anxiety and a drop or a bite too much to drink or eat.

Today was the day of workshops, also known of the day of impossible choices. The sessions were recorded, so it should be possible to catch up later with what I missed. We had the relative novelty of a book table this year

for the first time in several years. It seems to be going well.

The Public Lending Right session offered some ominous rumblings about the fate of this 25 year old institution that’s put a few bucks in the pockets of Canadian writers whose books are in the holdings of Canadian libraries. It’s at risk now because of digital publishing – which could drain the system dry if it tries to compensate authors of with new or repurposed electronic titles (not currently included) at a time when PLR funds have already ebbed away to half the per capita amounts enjoyed 25 years ago, due to lack of new moneys to meet the influx of new print titles to the funding pool. Though its cheques are shrinking, they’re incredibly valuable to writers living on marginal incomes; but its future, like other federal spending initiatives, could well be at risk with promised funding cuts coming from a government whose commitment to culture is, shall we say, unclear. And the whole digital rights question is, in the words of panelist Michael Elcock, the “kind of thing that turns your brain to porridge”.

We replenished ours with a break and then returned to porridge country in the New Gatekeepers session, which was more about epublishing and emarketing. Much of the discussion batted around the relevance of publishers (which pay about 10% in conventional royalties, or if you’re lucky some 25% in erights) versus self-publishing or self-representation through the likes of Kobo or Smashwords (where you’d get as much as 70% – but potentially then have to shell out for the kinds of services publishers usually handle: editorial and marketing and administrative). Mention was made of interesting innovations like Cellstories, which publishes short fiction, or Kickstarter, which allows artists to pitch ideas and raise money to carry their projects out; and publisher ECW was there talking about its digital arm, Joyland, which takes only erights, leaving writers free to seek out print publishers separately (or not at all) and is looking into subscription publishing which would allow it to publish up to three such titles a year.

Thus boggled, we briefly emerged to lunch on bi-bim-bap and returned to hear about The New Realities of Book Publishing, which were – you guessed it – largely about epublishing and emarketing. One independent bookseller held out against the flow of chat about blogging and tweeting and social networking to argue that there was still a place for a good bookstore owned and staffed by people who read and love books and can serve customers who do likewise. In support of this, one of the few under-forties writers at the meeting -a teacher – described bibliomania days where her grade 5 and 6 students wore pyjamas to school and lay around reading books all day – a wildly popular program!

Some seriously calorific treats helped us leap the mid-afternoon slump and make it through The Writer as Promoter (Or, Who Has Time to Write) (or, as a panelist quipped, Shouldn’t My Publisher Be Doing This). Wherein there was more chat about blogging and tweeting and social networks. Cassandra Sadek, the director of online marketing for Random House, said that publishers should be guiding authors in building their online presence, and using that to allow readers to be their “brand ambassadors”. Author Cathy Marie Buchanan features a little tutorial about skyping on her website so that she can use it to speak virtually to book club meetings, and also gives live chats on GoodReads (a good place for fiction writers, apparently). Resident curmudgeon Russell Smith was left to object to the idea of thinking like a marketer which he said would mean commoditizing one’s own writing and aiming it to please a target audience rather than writing for writing’s sake: “I also don’t like the idea of “brand”” he said: “I don’t want ‘brand ambassadors for a product’ I want ‘readers for my novel’.”

Then after a swift round of regional meetings it was time to forage for supper. The Pilot pub

may have literary cred, but it was full and noisy on a Friday night so we opted for the quieter confines of the Coffee Mill, which Myrna says is a long-lived Hungarian restaurant, which offered a fair spinach pie

that fueled me for the Margaret Laurence Lecture, introduced by outgoing union chair Alan Cumyn

in which Graeme Gibson

spoke on A Writer’s Life. It was an entertaining tour through his travels in Europe and his beginnings as a novelist, which were as bumbling as any, but distinguished by dedication that still sees him writing some 40 years after his first novel was published. He was also one of the founders of the union, so a description of its humble beginnings rounded out his talk.

And more there will be tomorrow.

Party statements about issues affecting writers, in advance of Monday’s Canadian election

Interesting to see the party that didn’t respond to pre-election questions posed by The Writers’ Union of Canada…

Party Responses to TWUC Election Questions-1