By the time Idmon had been pushed away from twenty three houses, he suffered a broken leg, four eye pokes, a burnt scalp and more scrapes and scratches than he cared to count.  His back ached."Get out!" they would shout at him, when they had words at all, but most often they simply screamed and struck out, trying to rid him from their spaces, even the planet. He knew their hospitality so he was usually prepared, but sometimes he wasn't quite quick enough. A warm space, that's all he wanted. Somewhere in from the wind, somewhere that wouldn't make him too tired to move and freeze his skeleton to the sidewalk. A little food, too. That would be nice.
 
He knew he was intimidating. For his size, he was stronger than anyone ought to be, and they didn't much like his cunning, either. They didn't see that he could be of great help, a vigilant night watchman, and keep order in the depths of their households. His very survival depended on watching, but here he was again, broken. 
 
His entire body throbbed and he had to drag himself onward after an old woman in hair rollers went after him with an umbrella all the way until the end of her driveway, where a man then tried to run him over with his car.  Still, he never fought back. What was the point? So here he was, on the doorstep of house number twenty four. Idmon looked up, hopeful. Please have mercy on my soul. Take me in and let me be of service. I promise I will make you happy until I die. 
 
Firelight glowed through the windowpanes and Idmon yearned to be within. He took a few painful steps, winced, and drug his broken body toward the front door when a small boy leapt out of the house, scarf and hat falling away as he chased a restless dog onto the lawn. "Help me. Please. Angel of heaven!" Idmon begged the child. The boy bent over to retrieve his hat and regarded Idmon for the first time, slumped there, spasming in pain. Like the others, the boy was wary, too, but little boys were good at seeing past ugly exteriors. They knew ugly could be useful. 
The dog sniffed Idmon's face, but the boy held the dog away, patting its rump back up the stairs. "Go. Go in!" Then the boy reached out to Idmon, leading him with gentle hands into the safety of the house and away from the crippling cold.  "Merciful God! Thank you for this boy!" Idmon cried with happiness as the boy smiled down upon him, carried him upstairs, and deposited him into a glass box. Then Idmon was quickly swallowed by a lizard.  Spiders were useful after all. 

​I’m writing to introduce you to my newest novel, Greenwood, which is a saga that follows four generations of one Canadian family over 130 years. The narrative sprawls across Canada from its east to the west coast (with an important interlude in the Lakehead!), and ventures to 1930s Japan as well as contemporary Brooklyn. It was by far the most demanding book I’ve ever attempted, and required an enormous amount of research to complete.
 
Why did I choose this subject? The short answer is my love of trees. I live with my family on a little forested island just off the coast of Vancouver. It’s where my wife grew up (her name is Cedar, naturally) and I draw great inspiration and comfort from the tall Douglas fir and red cedar that surround and envelop our house.
 
And the common thread that unites all the members of the Greenwood family is their interdependence with trees: whether through environmental activism, carpentry, biological research, or building a massive timber empire, the Greenwoods are truly people of the forest. Growing up in Thunder Bay, I was acutely aware from an early age of not only the great wonder of forests, but also the importance of resource extraction (or resource development, depending on how you look at it) to the local economy. So in a broader sense, I suppose I wanted to write a nuanced and complicated exploration of the human being’s reliance upon (and dominance of) the tree. Many have described it as an environmental novel, and I wouldn’t disagree.
 
But most of all Greenwood is about time and greed and generosity and mistakes and sacrifices that resonate through generations. It’s about family, which has been a subject that I find myself returning to in my work again and again.

I’m very much looking forward to the conversation that I’ll be having with my friend Professor Scott Pound at Chapters in Thunder Bay on September 29th, and I hope to see you there. Strangely enough, this very Chapters is where I first filled out my application to the Creative Writing Department at UBC, many years ago. So it’s going to feel like coming home.
 
Michael Christie

Write-In Wednesdays
Start Next Week!
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Looking for inspiration, camaraderie, or just a really good excuse to write?



​Next week, NOWW is launching a new program designed to help new and experienced writers get in the writing groove. Write-In Wednesdays is an informal group of NOWW writers who gather at a local coffee shop to write together. Bring along any piece of work you like: your novel, screenplay, short story, play, creative nonfiction – whatever you’re working on. You can also bring along a friend. And, of course, bring your notepad, laptop, or whatever you write with!

Our first Write-In Wednesday is on Wednesday, September 18th from 7pm to 9pm at Seattle Coffeehouse (on Arthur St. – click here for a map: 

https://goo.gl/maps/Qikz3mVkCrno6QbUA).

We’ll give a few minutes for everyone to grab a coffee and make short introductions, and then we’ll get right to it. Writing prompts will be available for those who want them. We don’t read our work out loud, so no worries about having to speak in front of the others! The time is social, but your writing is all your own.

Other Scheduled Write-In Wednesdays:   
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​October 23
November 13
December 11
January 8
February 12
March 11
April 8
May 13
 
Feel free to contact us with any questions (admin@nowwwriters.ca). Hope to see you there!

​Challenge yourself with a little writing exercise, and you could win cash! The NOWW Flash Fiction Challenge is now accepting short short story entries of 500 words max. Quick and to the point! The top three stories will earn cash prizes and publication in our blog this fall.

Contest Rules
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• Free entry (you have to be a NOWW member—sign up here, if you’re not a member: http://www.nowwwriters.ca/join-noww.html)

 

• One submission per person

 

• Your story must be 500 words maximum, not including title. Stories that go over the word count max will be disqualified.

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• Stories can be submitted in Word format using 12-point font or Text format (such as with Microsoft Notepad). Please do not submit in PDF format.

 

• At the top of your entry, please include your name, email, phone number, title of your story, and word count (not including title). Then, include your title again and the story

​. You can view a sample entry below:


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• Please do not include anything within your story like your name that would make you identifiable. 

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• Email to admin@nowwwriters.ca with “Flash Fiction Contest” in the subject line (mailed submissions will not be accepted)

 

• NEW STORIES ONLY, please. Your submission must be:
  • Your own work
  • Unpublished

 

• Deadline is Sunday, September 22 at 11:59pm (Eastern Time)

Two members of the NOWW board will judge the contest.

What’s Flash Fiction? 

Flash fiction stories are, well, short. Sometimes called ‘micro-stories’, ‘postcard stories’ (if a postcard is part of the contest) or ‘short short stories’, flash fiction challenges the writer to fit a complete story into very few words. While there isn’t a paint-by-numbers formula for flash fiction, there is a certain art to it. It’s not about trying to squish a 3,000-word story into 500 words.

Here are a few links to help you get a better idea of the craft—and to get the creative juices flowing:

How To: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/may/14/how-to-write-flash-fiction(Another how-to written by David Gaffney)

More Tips:https://www.hysteriauk.co.uk/2017/04/07/starting-flash-alex-reece-abbott/ (A UK contest with tips from the judges about how to write flash fiction)

Some Examples:http://flashfictiononline.com/main/(Example pieces)
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NOWW’s Flash Fiction Challenge is a great way to challenge yourself and get the creative juices flowing. 

By the way, this blog post is 379 words, so you have a little more room than this to write your beginning, middle, and end. Think you can do it? Let’s find out! Start writing today!

​​I quite enjoy poetry, but it took a heck of a lot of reading to begin to get a sense of the styles I prefer within the form. And there’s something elusive about poetry. Even after years of active reading, I feel that I’m barely able to scratch the surface of understanding why certain passages speak to me. I believe that this is part of the explanation as to why the form can seem a bit daunting or even inaccessible.
 
But every so often something comes along that allows a glimpse into the underlying techniques that make poems sing. In my recent poetry binge, Kayla Czaga’s Dunk Tankclearly showed me how sound repetition can be used to influence rhythm, pacing, and flow. And this specific aspect greatly interests me because it allows for subtle direction and structure that can be felt without jumping out at you, like more overt techniques employed to similar ends, such as tight rhyming or alliteration. I’ll illustrate what I mean and how this can be used with a handful of passages. In order to maintain specificity in the discussion, I’ll be using International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) symbols to describe various sounds, but I’ll give examples where possible for the sake of clarity.
 
I want to start off with a passage that stood out to me on my first read-through. From the poem “Girl Like”:

 
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​Try reading it in your head and again aloud. Listen to the ebb and flow of the passage. Now look at it once more, with three common sounds highlighted:

​In this verse, aɪ and ɜ:rform a structural backbone, while ɪ is one of the driving sounds of the overall passage. The ɜ:rsound, specifically, punctuates the passage, while the overlap of sounds creates a blending effect that smoothes the flow.
 
This technique can also be used to dictate pacing. For instance, refer to a passage from “Fun and Games”:
 

I want to end with an entire poem with multiple repeating sounds highlighted, “Sleeping is the Only Love”:

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​The eɪ sound never greatly builds up at any point in the poem, but it occasionally recurs, acting as a soft, cohesive point throughout, while the repetition of the sound in the first and final lines effectively underlines the common idea. The remaining four sounds are ever-present, heavily overlapping, but each increases in frequency at different times, each being the main driver of a subtle rhythm when this occurs. These, of course, aren’t the only recurring sounds within this poem. I invite you to consider the effect the frequently repeated ɪ sound creates with regard to the rhythm and pacing, or to look into consonant use throughout. (What does the strong use of the harsher S sounds at the start evoke compared with an increase in rolling Ls shortly thereafter?)
 
The next time a poem stands out to you for reasons that aren’t readily apparent, try to look for repeated sounds and their relation to one another. And consider these sounds when writing your own poetry; you may end up with something musical.
 

​Alexander Kosoris is a book reviewer who regularly contributes to The Walleye, Thunder Bay’s arts and culture magazine.
 
“Girl Like,” “Fun and Games,” and “Sleeping is the Only Love” are taken from Dunk Tank, copyright © 2019 by Kayla Czaga. Reproduced with permission from House of Anansi Press, Toronto. www.houseofanansi.com.

Donna White is the author of the Stones trilogy. An avid traveler, she enjoys visiting other countries and experiencing everything each culture has to offer. From interviewing former child soldiers in Gulu, Uganda, to celebrating Shubho Noboborsho in Chittagong, Bangladesh, and sitting amongst a troop of chimpanzees in the rainforest, Donna embraces every experience to the maximum. Her writing takes on a very serious role: to reveal situations in the world that aren’t regarded as newsworthy but should be.
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She resides in Canada with her husband, children, dogs, cats and horses on their hobby farm in Northwestern Ontario. You can visit her website at www.donnawhitebooks.com to find photo galleries, teaching resources, and much more. 

Here is a link to information on NaNoWriMo
​nanowrimo.org

​
​Tessa Soderberg 

I hate bios. I write novels and have been doing so since high school. I have about a dozen rough drafts covering subjects from time travel, nuclear war, and historical fiction. 

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​By Cathi Winslow
 
No one is born with the ability to write well. We learn to write by writing. Toronto theatre artist Jeff Ho will visit Thunder Bay on October 12 and 13 to share excerpts of his own work and help us learn new ways to approach our writing. 
 

When Jeff Ho began writing his first play, it took him a long time to realize what he had been missing—not only in his work, but in his life. He graduated from the National Theatre School in Montreal with an impressive résumé of acting credits. However his training was devoted to how to interpret a play, not how to write one.
 
“It took quite a little while,” says Ho, “to believe that writing was something I needed.” 
 
He didn’t feel equipped for it and had to muster the confidence that he could succeed. He worried that no one would think his writing was any good. “That need to work, be affirmed, make a name—all those fresh grad things felt very high stakes.” Ho learned to write by doing it, discovering along the way how much tenacity, perseverance, and sheer faith is required to move a play from page to stage. 
 
Before theatre school, Ho studied classical piano, and so he decided to incorporate his own compositions as well as those of Chopin and Rachmaninoff into his play. He says, “Learning to marry all the different artistic facets of my upbringing—music, writing, and acting—to create a unified and cohesive piece of theatre was an enormous experiment.” He established rules for how piano music would speak in place of the male characters. His journey was sometimes daunting and humbling as he discovered new ways to combine his creative skills. The process required patience. “It was a lot of trying things, till something theatrical and potent revealed itself.” 
 
Ho created his play as a way to honour the matriarchs who had held his family together through dire circumstances over three generations. He created characters based on his mother and grandmother, and discovered how deeply they were ingrained in him. “I learned how the way I love, laugh, and live have all been informed by what my mother and grandmother faced while they were loving, laughing, and living.” 
 
Ho’s experience as a performer helped to inform his play. He used acting techniques to develop each of the characters, then sat down to transcribe his improvisations. He wrote scenes that he would love to dig into as a performer, such as a fight scene or “something really juicy”. If the words felt “clunky” or unwieldy in his mouth, then he knew a rewrite was needed. Sometimes a scene looked like it might need more work, but performing helped to reveal its strengths. Ho learned that “if something felt underdeveloped on the page, but left lots of room for silence and stillness in performance, that was actually a gem to keep.” 
 
As he worked with a dramaturge to develop his play, he uncovered many subtleties around creating text for himself to perform. He says they all stem from the same core: to share a story on stage that is full of power and beauty. 
 
“Whether we acknowledge it or not, like it or not, see it or not, theatre is all around us:  the courtship of young folks at a club, dancing around each other trying to catch each other's attention. Our politicians and their speeches. Teachers in front of their students. A chef presenting a dish. A driver trying to get out of a speeding ticket from the officer. We are constantly shifting our personalities within each specific encounter in our days, and that is theatre.”
 
Ho’s advice to writers: 
 
"Learn to be patient with yourself, because not everything will come at the speed you'd like it to. And be open to learning, every day, everywhere: curate your curiosity, as artistic inspiration can flow in from a walk, an encounter with a stranger, a thought in the shower, a song that won't leave you alone. And then, create with all of your being. Don't compare yourself to others; there will be younger, hotter artists every year. Do your work, and love your work, that's your prime responsibility." 
 
Jeff Ho will share excerpts from his first play, as well as his most recent play, on Friday October 12 at 7:00 pm, in the Jean McNulty Recital Hall at Lakehead University, presented by 10x10, NOWW, and the Playwrights’ Guild of Canada. (Free admission)
 
On Saturday, October 13, you are welcome to participate in playwriting workshops at Urban Abbey: Monologue Boot Camp at 10:00 am (free admission) and Playwriting Master Class at 2:00 pm ($10 registration). More information at www.10x10tbay.ca/workshops

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​Cathi Winslow is a playwright and musician with an extensive background in theatre, music, dance and creative writing. Her original plays have been produced in New York, Los Angeles and Thunder Bay. Cathi is the Artistic Director of the 10x10 Play Showcase. She is delighted to represent Northern Ontario at the Playwrights’ Guild of Canada.