​Yahtzee with you is no longer fun. Drunk and blinded by the stinging smoke from your cigarette, you make stupid choices.

I cry out, “Wait!” but you roll again.

“What?” You rub your forehead, study the dice.

“You had Yahtzee! Five fives. Jeez, Larry!”

You giggle-snort and collapse back onto the couch.

I shake my head, sling the dice into the box, shimmy the lid on. I like winning but not at the expense of watching you spiral into stupidity. Together for seven years and you drink more and more until you flake out, leaving me to stub your stinking cigarette out so our house doesn’t burn down.

Time after time, you remember nothing.

I remember everything.

You exhale. “Let’s play that other game.” Smoke coils towards me like a snake about to strike. “Lists.”

“Lists. Okay.” A game that originated from counselling, a way of sharing and learning about each other. On a deeper level, the counsellor suggested.

I’m delaying going to bed. Why I don’t know. You’ll fall asleep in no time, perhaps in the middle of an embrace so I have to push the weight of you off me, your hand slapping my stomach as you roll over. Not on purpose, of course. That’s a no-brainer for me. Never physical abuse, just a gradual withering of love and respect.

When you choose a list, your favourite, I know I can’t tell you the last thing on mine.

“Hhmmm, let me think. I need tea. I’ll make you coffee—”

“ ’Sokay.” You point to the half-full scotch glass.

“So not okay,” I mumble as I walk into the kitchen, considering my list. The first things are a given. The cats. Marmalade—he’d never make it out on his own with that lame hind leg—then Tinkers and Siam. My journals, photo albums … Once you were my first thing on “A List of Things I’d Rescue From Our Burning House”. You still assume you are.

 I know I’m top of your list. I am your list. You’ve never cared much for the cats.

I pour my tea, stir your coffee, my thoughts swirling with the dark liquid. How can I tell you that the last thing on my list is you? Until I can, all we’ll do is play games with each other.

In the living room, you’re sprawled on the couch, your lips strumming to snores. Drool glistens at the corner of your mouth. The cigarette has burned itself out in the ashtray. I watch you, know the peace a mother feels when her child is asleep at last. I cover you with the woollen throw scattered with blue hearts, your favourite from our Maritime trip. I tuck in your toes. You hate your feet to be cold. Leaving your coffee on the table, I carry my tea to bed where Marmalade will have warmed my pillow.

Tomorrow, I think, maybe tomorrow I can tell you the last thing on my list.

“There’s a reservoir in New Mexico,” she says, her eyes searching the harbour, watching the waves as they wrinkle under a heavy sky.  “They flooded the area a hundred years ago.  I think they were trying to irrigate the desert.  Anyways, it was there a long time, and people forgot how it came to be there in the first place.  Because really, why would it matter?  It was just there.”

I nod absently.  We are sitting on a bench at the Marina, watching sailboats tack gracefully out of the breakwater and into the open lake.  Against the slate blue of Superior, the sails are stark wings drifting effortlessly.  There’s no sense that they are struggling against the chop, even as they pass the lighthouse at the end of the breakwall.  It all seems too easy, I think. I shift on the bench, uncomfortable on the hard seat.

”A few years ago,” she continues after a pause, “there was a drought.  Not sure why, but it happened.  All this water, gone.  Must have terrified the locals.”

She pauses again; I wait. I know there’s a reason for this story.  The best I can do for her is wait and listen.  I am helpless to do otherwise.

“And you know what?” she asks, turning to me suddenly.  Her voice is choked with trapped emotion suddenly released, the edges raw and sharp.  “When the fucking thing dried up, guess what they found?”

I shake my head; I still don’t understand where this is going.  My throat is tight and sore.  I will not cry, I think.  I cannot cry.

“They found a fucking town!”  Her volume rises, her voice almost frantic.  “A whole bloody town!  No one knew it was there, not for a hundred years.  Who forgets a fucking town?  It even had a fucking church!”

I shift to face her, trying hard to meet her eyes.  All I see are tiny cells, moving slowly but relentlessly, shape-shifting, gathering, splitting, attaching themselves to any available surface.  For her, it is her pancreas.  Terminal, they said.  Treatment will prolong life, but not give any quality.  Time to make decisions.

The tears fall freely down her cheeks: she who remained calm in the doctor’s office, thanked the oncology team, walked with quiet poise as we left the hospital.  Now comes the wave of despair, and her words are gasps between sobs that grow louder.

“It’s not dying that scares me – I get that.  I just don’t want to be forgotten.  Promise you’ll never forget me.”

What can I say?  I will always remember her voice?  Her face will stay fresh in my mind?  As long as I live, I will tell her story?  It’s not enough.  In this moment, I can promise nothing, so I nod, my own tears uncontrollable.  Her head sinks as the sobs come harder, and I hold her, shaking with my grief, as we watch the water begin to rise slowly, steadily.
 

​Lisa N. Jones: ​Born and raised in Dorion, Lisa has been a teacher for 30 years. She currently teaches International Baccalaureate English and Philosophy at Churchill High School.  Along with four cats, three deer, and at least five raccoons, Lisa lives in Shuniah with her husband and daughter. Reservoir is the first piece of writing she has ever entered in a writing contest.

​
​How long have you been a member of NOWW?  
About three years. I was on the NOWW board for one year.

What do you normally write?
Young Adult – magical realism.



Do you have a favourite book or favourite author?
Don’t really have one – so many to choose from depending on my mood. Like everything from Ayn Rand to Calvin and Hobbes.

Tell us a bit about yourself and how you found your way to writing:
I started writing much in the same way I do anything in life – dive in and learn as you go! I threw myself into writing a YA magical realism trilogy having no experience in writing at all. Sure, I dabbled in writing here and there: Christmas letters, the odd children’s story for my kids. But nothing serious until I heard a story from a young child soldier in Uganda and felt very compelled—almost obligated—to share his story with the world. From then on, it has been writing and editing and learning ever since.

Tell us a bit about your writing and your writing style:
My Stones Trilogy (two are available now) are Young Adult magical realism novels suitable for anyone 12 and up. Although they’re considered YA, I have a lot of adults reading them too, which is nice because it means my stories are reaching a wide audience.
I do a great deal of research for my novels: I read whatever books I can find on the subject, make notes that I refer to time and time again, and I go to the places I’m writing about. You can’t write about a subject as intense as Joseph Kony, the Lord’s Resistance Army, and child soldiers and have not visited Uganda at least once. I travelled extensively throughout the northern region of Uganda, interviewed many former child soldiers, including one of Kony’s wives and one of his body guards, and listened and watched and recorded everything. It was difficult at times because the stories were horrific but I felt, and still feel, very drawn to sharing these stories simply because they need to be heard.

Right now, I’m finishing up book #3 in the Stones Trilogy and have a couple plans for another novel. I just came back from Malawi where I did some research on the child labour situation there and hope to put out a YA novel that will bring this dark subject to light for a teen audience. I would also like to return to Uganda to interview a woman I met who has an incredible story to share about her nine years of captivity with Kony and the LRA. Too many people gain recognition in the news for things that really aren’t newsworthy or admirable. I like to share stories about people who deserve to be heard, because of their courage and their actions, not because of their status or cruelty or stupidity. There’s enough of that in the world.

Who has inspired and impacted your writing?
My inspiration comes from the people I meet. When they have a story that needs to be shared I am compelled to write it. I’m not really inspired by any author. I like simplicity in stories though. Never been much of a descriptive writer or a poet, although I do enjoy it in other authors.

​My tip for writing? It comes from advice I gained from the ladies at Laughing Fox Writers, a local writing group I belong to: read five good quality books in the genre in which you wish to write. Read them again and study them with pen in hand. Make note of how things are done such as dialogue, description, action scenes etc. Absorb it all and then write. You’ll see a big change, a sort of “maturing” in your style. And you’ll like it.

Where can we learn more about you and your writing?  
You can check out my website at www.donnawhitebooks.com and visit me on Facebook: donnawhitebooks, and twitter: donnawhitewrite, and Instagram: donnawhitebooks. I post a blog, every two weeks or so, on my website about my travels and interviews.

My books, Bullets, Blood and Stones: The Journey of a Child Soldier and Arrows, Bones and Stones: The Shadow of a Child Soldier are available on Amazon as a paperback and as an ebook. You can also get them at Chapters/Indigo and Coles across Canada. Here in Thunder Bay you can also get them at Gallery 33 and The Bookshelf, and of course any author signing events during the year. You can see where and when I’ll be signing by visiting my author page on Amazon.

And to end things off, tell us something surprising about yourself!
I do a pretty mean turn on the barrels and can do a fine zig-zag through the poles during the local horse show gymkhana. However, I’ve had to put that part of my life on hold for a bit since I became busy with writing and teaching. Right now, the closest I get to barrel racing is riding my little black Arabian mare who is more or less shaped like a barrel due to lack of exercise. Oh well. Maybe next year. 

We hung on every word. Joe spoke in parables, most taken from his own life. His tapestry of tales gave us information about writing memoir, along with a context to help remember it.
 
He spoke about his time in the arctic, his early days at Lakehead University, his loves, his heartbreaks, all so personal and revealing that we, the listeners, just sat there, forgetting to take notes, our mouths hanging open. Soon we understood we were learning about memoir from Joe’s spoken memoirs.
 
Joe related stories about his childhood in Westfort, his family, his early writing days, his column in the Toronto Star, his books, his first publisher.
 
Joe told us about the career criminal, Ricky Atkinson, the leader of the Dirty Tricks Gang. Atkinson’s rough memoir became a book with Joe as co-author.
                         
Joe went round the circle asking the participants about their writing.  Many were writers or poets or playwrights. Others planned to be. The woman who sat beside me was a painter with a good idea. She wanted to write the story of each painting. What a book that would make!
 
Joe used these introductions to set up questions to answer later.  Joe speaks slowly, softly, thoughtfully and also bluntly. The Westfort kid is still as tough as ever. When it was my turn, I said I wrote a few short memoir pieces, but to do so, I had to open a vein. He agreed. For him, it felt like slashing open an old sore on his arm, over and over. Joe rolled up his sleeve and pointed to the place where the ghost sore festered.
 
Memoir is not for the faint of heart.
 
I cannot retell his stories here. Too personal. They remain in that room. But I did make a few notes that I’ve tried to put in some kind of order.  Of course, each participant in a workshop picks up what is personally relevant to them. I admit I spent a lot of my time jotting down side ideas that related to stuff I’m working on now. No doubt, others have a quite different set of notes from mine.
 
Become an observer. Carry a notebook all the time. Go to places where people hang out and take notes. Go to the mall and watch. The patterns change over time. Annie Proulx hangs around her local bus station. You can too. There’s lots to see for a sharp observer. Hone your observation skills. Joe described spending an entire day on a Toronto street corner just observing. That day became a book, Rust is a Form of Fire.
 
As a child, Joe was the watcher. Luckily for him, he came from a family of storytellers and became a storyteller himself. I believe he was a story collector from a young age. As a columnist, he talked to people to tease out their stories. He reads the obituaries, hunting for those true-life vignettes that stand out from the banal sweetness and obvious flim-flam of many death notices. (My note. In my opinion, the Winnipeg Free Press has the best obituaries.) Certain obituaries capture one’s imagination. You wonder what it felt like to be that person. Analyze why you’re attracted. What details move you?
 
There is no such thing as writers’ block, says Joe. If you feel blocked go for a walk or go to the mall and observe deeply. Or write yourself a letter. Describe the problem. And most importantly, if you are blocked, you probably need more research.
 
Writing. Keep the sentences short, one thought per sentence. Use clear, simple language. It must have cadence. Read it out loud. Read it out loud with a finger in your ear. (Why this works, I have no idea, but try it anyway.). You can teach yourself to recognize cadence just as you can teach yourself many elements of the craft. Read the King James’ Bible, a book swimming in cadence. Read or write poetry. Poets are a step ahead here because they are well acquainted with the beat and pulse of language.
           
Start your piece with your best shot, the incident that you remember the strongest, the item that is the most memorable, that has the greatest punch.
 
Joe says the New Yorker magazine taught him to give information clearly. He also likes cooking memoirs. A recipe is a model of concise and accurate writing. His goal is always accuracy and precision with laser-sharp details.
 
Joe mentioned a technique called “squeeze and release.” You cannot keep the writing at a high pitch all the time. You must slow down, ease off, to give the reader a pause or a break. A reader can’t take too much power writing for long stretches.  
 
The question of dialogue came up. If you can remember it, use it. If it is in your notebook, all the better. If you can’t remember it, don’t make it up. It’ll sound phony. Never put modern phrases into the mouth of a historical character. Dialogue must be authentic to the times.
 
Readers. What happens when we read? We follow the story by making pictures in our minds using out imagination.  Therefore, as writers, we must aim to capture our reader’s imagination. Why do we read memoir specifically?  Many reasons. Perhaps because we want a good story, or to learn something. Maybe to find out, “what it was like.”

But readers can be our enemy. They get bored easily. They’re faithless. They sense when the writer is holding back, fudging the truth, skipping over information. The writer has to be fearless. The reader expects a point to the memoir. Otherwise they say to themselves, “Who cares?” There has to be a purpose that is clear and a resolution.
 
Observation while reading. Everything you read, whether it be newspapers, advertising or books, is a teaching object. Be aware of how the piece affects you. Pause. Note your own reactions. Why did you get interested here, bored there?  Mark the place where it happens. Analyze the section. Note the emotion or lack of emotion the writing evoked in you? Perhaps you sensed the author was  faking it? If something works, try to figure out how it was done. If it doesn’t work, figure that out too and, as an exercise, rewrite it to make it better. Joe said he often rewrote the poems in the New Yorker to teach himself to be a poet.
 
Detail, precise detail, is important but you can’t overload your work. There has to be space for the reader to imagine.
 
By studying writing, you can become your own editor. It is hard to judge your own material but you can learn to do it. Do not surrender the task to anyone else. Do not give away your power.
 
Getting to the Truth. You have to use journalistic methods. You must know that one person’s  experience of the past may be different from your experience. Nevertheless, that does not invalidate your experience. You can use old photographs, diaries, cards such as condolence cards, and family letters. You can interview those who were present at the time. You can learn about the historical period. You can go back to the old house or visit the cemetery. Go to the sources.
 
You are the Narrator. But who are you?  You are the point of view in the story, the “I.” You are the focus. You have to be shameless, put yourself out there. The reader wants to connect with you. The reader will soon sense an inauthentic persona.  You have to know yourself. Not always easy. You have to show your emotion. You cannot hide. When Joan Didion writes, she is the chief character in her book. Joe, as child and adult, is the main character in his award winning memoir, The Closer We are to Dying. He admits it was not an easy book to write.
 
Joe’s Suggested Reading
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion. (in Brodie and Waverley libraries)
Toast by Nigel Slater.
Stet by Diana Athill. (in Waverley Library)
The Way of a Boy: A Memoir of Java by Ernest Hillen. (in Brodie Library)
Night of the Gun: a reporter investigates the darkest story of his life. (Brodie Library)
The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. and E. B. White. (get the recent edition)
The New Yorker magazine. (available at Chapters and in the libraries)
 
Books by Joe Fiorito
The Closer We Are to Dying (memoir)
Rust is a Form of Fire
The Song Beneath the Ice (fiction)
Comfort Me with Apples: Considering the Pleasures of the Table.
Union Station: Love, Madness, Sex and Survival on the Streets of the New Toronto
The Life and Hard Times of Ricky Atkinson; Leader of the Dirty Tricks Gang by Ricky Atkinson and Joe Fiorito.
 
First published in Joan Baril's blog : literarythunderbay.blogspot.ca

​Joan M. Baril, is a short story writer who has had fifty-three fiction and nonfiction pieces published in literary magazines including Prairie Fire, Room, Northword, Anitgonish Review, Other Voices, CanadianWomen's Studies, Canadian Forum, Herizons, Ten Stories High, The New Orphic Review.
She won several awards for her work including taking first place for short fiction in 2015 and 2016 in the North-western Ontario Writers annual contest. Her story, "The Yegg Boy' was nominated for the Journey Prize by the Antigonish Review. For several years, her columns on women's and immigrant issues appeared in the Thunder Bay Post and Northern Woman's Journal. In 1992 the Canadian government honoured her for her work with immigrants and for her column on immigrant issues. She has published articles in national magazines mainly Herizons and Canadian Forumn.

                                                                                                 
I think I’m pretty safe in suggesting that writers want to improve their writing. That’s probably the biggest reason why I joined NOWW and started attending writing workshops, although that’s only a small part of training yourself to write better pieces. Practicing writing is the number one thing you can do, but it can be argued that reading is almost as important. If you read a lot, the act of reading as a casual observer will do wonders in and of itself, but I find value in taking things a step further. I try to delve deeper to find out why I feel this way as a reader, to hit on what the author did to lead me to a certain feeling or conclusion.  If you make a point of at least trying this in your reading, you start to notice common techniques emerging across vastly different work, and it becomes easier to understand what an author did to make you feel a certain way – or what went wrong when you started to dislike a piece.
 
Authors can take advantage of focused reading to improve a specific part of their writing. This can involve reading from a specific topic to ensure you aren’t writing over your head, or a specific genre in order to both understand what works within that style of writing and to ensure you don’t retread ground already familiar to fans of the genre. When submitting work to literary magazines and writing contests, it’s helpful to read previous winning entries to get an understanding of the makings of successful writing in order to direct the shape and feel of your writing for submission.  NOWW has collected some of the winners from the annual writing contest in Twenty Years on Snowshoes, making it much easier for us to compare and contrast techniques.

Alex was born and raised in Thunder Bay, Ontario. Between 2006 and 2010, he lived in residence in Toronto, Ontario while attending the Faculty of Pharmacy at the University of Toronto . In that period he discovered his love of writing, spending much of his free time writing short stories. Alexander expanded one of these stories into his first novel, Lucifer,  Alexander posts reviews on the books he reads on kosoris.com, and regularly contributes to the Thunder Bay arts and culture magazine, The Walleye.

​ I have just retired from a 36-year career in journalism; some of that time was spent as a CBC manager and radio producer; most of the time, I was a newspaper columnist. During those years, I managed to write a memoir and a novel and several other books; my latest is a collaborative effort, the memoir of one of Canada’s most notorious bank robbers.
But whether I was writing for radio or for the newspapers, or trying to make literature, all my work involved a reliance on the basic principles of narrative: give me a character, give me the details, let there be something at stake in the story, and if I have these things then I will take responsibility for laying all of it out with a beginning, a middle and an end.
The point of any writing, regardless of the form, is to show who we are, where we are, and how we are; but because there are only a few different kinds of story, each one of them depends for its singularity on an underpinning of close observation.
Because it’s all in the details; that’s what distinguishes one work from another, and it is what will make your own memoir stand out. 
As for observation, and for what passes as truth, I remind you that if a dozen people see a thing, you will get a dozen versions of what happened; this is one of the hard realities of the memoir, and it is just one of the many things we will discuss in the workshop.
I’m looking forward to coming home.


If you are interested in registering for the Joe Fiorito workshop on Memoir, sponsored by NOWW on Saturday, November 4 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., follow this link: https://www.nowwwriters.ca/workshops.html
​

Joe Fiorito is a journalist who has worked a city columnist for the Montreal Gazette, The Globe&Mail, The National Post and the Toronto Star newspapers. He won the National Newspaper Award for Columns in 1995; the Brassani Prize for Short Fiction in 2000; and the City of Toronto Book Award in 2003.

He is the author of seven books:
Comfort Me With Apples (collection of columns)
Tango On The Main (collection of columns)
The Closer We Are To Dying (memoir)
The Song Beneath The Ice (novel)
Union Station (non-fiction)
Rust Is A Form Of Fire (non-fiction)
 
His most recent book, The Life Crimes and Hard Times of Ricky Atkinson, Leader of the Dirty Tricks Gang, has just been published.
 
He is married, lives in Toronto and is currently at work on his first collection of poetry.

​Write what you know. This is the advice you get. From editors and writers, in classrooms and email dispatches, in magazine articles, and on websites.
 
You say what you really know is lost love and regret, but this is not all you know.
 
You know the restlessness of young adulthood, complacency of job and workplace, unrealized dreams. You know the state of apathy. A long-held position. You know that, too.
 
If you were to write what you know about work life, it would be about the monotony, the tedium of working at a job filled with routine. Your protagonist would work on the line in a factory, at a desk job, or as a night janitor. She could be a traffic cop, or a toll-booth operator. You would apply what you know about the dissatisfaction of doing unfulfilling work. You would write about job loss. About being outsourced, restructured, eliminated.
 
You know relationships. You recall successes and failures. You know the relentless hope of dishonest friendship, of hurtful words by teachers, of unkind remarks by pastors and priests. You remember what it felt like to be deceived — by a salesperson, an estranged sibling, a stranger on the street. Anyone on the job site. Everyone in authority.
 
You know what it is to be an outsider. To feel like the ugliest person in the room, the dullard at a party, the least successful person in your social circle.
 
And you know what it feels like to be discarded, unwanted, rejected.
 
You know people: Annoying co-workers, unloving spouses, saucy dependents, secretive neighbours, like-minded board members, political foes.
 
You know romantic love, and write about hook-ups between social workers and single bar owners, between artists and best friends, and affairs among co-workers. You know about first love, parental love, unrequited love. Self-love. Write about it.
 
You think of your love for animals and make your main character a zoologist, a veterinarian, a dog-walker. A pet owner.
 
You know what it is like to lose a child, a brother, a sister, a transgendered friend. You know loss. You know sleepless nights and the truest definitions of “tragedy” and “aftermath”. You know the struggles associated with “survivor” and “suicide,” but you can deal with those words later.
 
You know emotion: fear, joy, guilt; hostility, curiosity, gratitude. Put your characters in situations you are familiar with: friendships, marriages, divorces, motor vehicle collisions, drug deals, funerals. How they behave in these situations is their business.
 
You create specific experiences from general ones. That’s what makes your characters—and you— come alive.
 
Inner life is what you know; it adds to the depth of your characters. You apply the emotion of your experiences and your characters become what you are not: plucky, daring, outspoken; empathetic,  trusting. Fearless.
 
You write what you know, and this makes your telling memorable. That’s when it becomes a story.
 

​​Valerie Poulin is an internationally published poet and author of features, profiles, and general-interest articles for a variety of publications. She works as a freelance technical writer. Valerie also self-publishes chapbooks of poetry and small story collections. The Lakehead appears frequently in her work. 

 
How long have you been a member of NOWW?
As a member of NOWW for 15 years, I’ve enjoyed writing workshops in the Kenora area.  Charles Wilkins inspired a large group at the Kenora Library by reminding us that stories tell who we are, give us identity and contain our morals, beliefs and what is important to us.   Mike Laverty gave a workshop in Dryden that served writers from Kenora, Sioux Lookout and Atikokan.  The writing exercises revealed how many of us are inspired by the rich and exotic landscape we writers draw on in northwestern Ontario. 
​ 
I served on the NOWW board as regional representative from 2015 to 2017.  It was wonderful to work with this dynamic group of writers and to get to know all about the different kinds of writing happening from Marathon to Kenora.

What do you normally write?
I write creative nonfiction and short stories.  I’ve also completed a script for a play.  This was prompted by an eight-week playwriting course led by Mark St. Germain in Sarasota, Florida last winter.

Do you have a favourite book or favourite author?
I have many favourite authors: Elizabeth Strout, Ian McEwan, Anne Tyler and Carol Shields.  There are two books I like to reread: Swann, my favourite Carol Shields novel, and Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky.  In Swann, I enjoy the humour and the respect accorded to all the characters and the structure.  Dostoevsky’s portrayal of Raskolnikov’s moral anguish as he contemplates murder is riveting and profound.

Let’s get to know you a bit better. Tell us a bit about yourself and how you found your way to writing:
I turned to writing after I stopped playing the flute.  I’d finished a tour of Northwestern Ontario and Manitoba with a chamber music trio.  Though the concerts had been well received, I decided that the number of hours needed for practice and rehearsal didn’t match the market demand.  I began writing after I was accepted into a class led by Carol Shields at the University of Manitoba.  I am strongly committed to the power of story and to that end, I’m involved with a storytelling initiative in Kenora where community members are given the opportunity to share their personal journeys publically.

Tell us a bit about what interests you now:
Currently I’m interested in the ways marine biologists are saving coral.  Over the past 15 years, my husband and I have witnessed first-hand how coral is bleaching in the Caribbean.  There are marine biologists who’ve made the decision to be hopeful and are propelling their hope towards solutions.  I’d like to explore this subject in fiction.
 
Who has inspired and impacted your writing?
Here are two writing quotes that inspire me.  Amelia Gray says, “writing seems to work best when it’s fighting to get at some truth.”  Well over 100 years ago Dostoevsky said, “the main idea of the novel is to depict the positively good man.  There is nothing more difficult than this in the world, especially nowadays.”

Will we see you at any upcoming NOWW events?
I look forward to participating in NOWW workshops and submitting to the NOWW writing contest, if I can keep my word count down!

Where can we learn more about you and your writing?
I don’t have a website or any social media platforms yet.  It’s on my to-do list!  I graduated from the University of Toronto with a bachelor’s degree majoring in music and minoring in English. I’ve published nonfiction in magazines and anthologies on a wide range of subjects including travel, music, parenting and perspectives unique to where I live.  I'm a past CBC literary award winner in the creative nonfiction category and have been short-listed for the Writers Union of Canada Short Prose Competition for Developing Writers twice. After a twenty-five year career as a music teacher, I continue to share music-making on a volunteer basis with adults who struggle with mental illness. I've been married for thirty-four years and have two grown sons.

And to end things off, tell us something surprising about yourself!
I took up golf two years ago.  I resisted for many years because I thought it would take up time better spent reading and writing.   Not only am I hooked on the game, my writing has benefited! There isn’t time to overthink your swing because you’re playing with a group and each group needs to move along.  I find that forward moving flow, from one fairway to the next, has transferred to my writing practice.  My daily word count has gone up!

 
​What do fish-gutting, trap-lines, and cross-country skiing have to do with crime-writing?
 
They’re all ways to think structurally when creating good stories.
 
A good crime story is, first and foremost, a good story. One of the above is specific to crime writing. During The Crime Writer’s Toolkit workshop on October 3, we’ll talk about all of them, and how they interact for the best possible story dynamics.
 
Consider how many stories you read that are driven by the pursuit of something—an answer, an object, a person—pulling you through with the gradual revelation of long-kept secrets, or luring you into expecting one ending and then switching it up in the final paragraph. Would you keep reading if there was nothing you wanted to find out? Those are all standard tropes of crime writing, even in the hands of authors who aren’t writing what you might think of as a typical crime novel.
 
First, for those whose exposure to crime writing begins and ends with Poirot on Netflix, some background on what crime fiction is:
 
Crime fiction embraces a wide field. It encompasses mystery, suspense, and thriller sub-genres, each with their own sub-genres such as cosy, hard-boiled, political, police-procedural, or slasher/serial killer. Each sub-genre (except the last) might be written for any age group. There might be paranormal elements or a science-fiction setting. It’s a big tent, even without considering another very popular arena of crime writing: true crime, which may be biographical or auto-biographical, strictly factual or verging into creative non-fiction. My quarter-century of published crime writing—and all my awards—are for crime fiction; I’ll be leaving discussions of crime non-fiction to those more skilled in that sub-genre.
 
Like any other genre, crime fiction has its conventions, the concepts that devoted readers expect to find and will feel cheated if those aren’t presented, or are presented poorly. These conventions include clear victims, villains, and sleuths, the Hook, clues and red herrings, turning points, black moments, and more. Fair Play is the Prime Directive: the reader should be able to arrive at the answer to the central story question through a close reading of the text, and if they are surprised by the solution, they should be able to spot all the well-buried clues on a re-read.
 
Romantic suspense might fall under crime writing or under romance, depending on which tropes carry more of the story. Romance readers will overlook a lot of improbable crime solving if the journey toward true love is holding their interest, while readers of crime fiction will throw a book across the room if the police detective prematurely reveals the progress of an investigation to the adorable love interest. Crime readers may lose patience with the ‘kissing bits’ and want to get on with the mystery. The romantics may baulk at a convoluted plot that makes the crime reader’s heart sing. Getting the balance right is very much a matter of becoming familiar with the conventions of both genres and then choosing which of those to include, ignore, or turn on their heads.
 
Unlike in pure romance and much of romantic suspense where the central story question is always the same (How will the two protagonists end up together?), the story questions in crime fiction vary by their sub-genre and spread across the full spectrum from frivolous to deadly. Mystery questions might be anything from “Where’s the missing pet?’ through “Who stole the queen’s jewels?” to “Who killed Mr. (or Ms.) Boddy and why?” In a suspense novel, the question is often “Who is behind this peril to me and those I hold dear?” In a thriller we often know who the villain is and the question has become “Can our protagonist evade this clear danger and outwit the villain?” Elements of all three might be combined in a single piece of crime writing.
 
The elements of mystery are everywhere, almost invisibly underpinning fiction and non-fiction alike. Learning what they are and how to use them effectively allows you to not only write crime fiction, but to shape any piece of writing for maximum reader engagement.
 
In the October 3rd workshop we’ll develop the main components of a joint crime plot, using easy-to-recall diagrams to shape our story like we’d prepare a fresh-caught fish for the pan, stringing out our clues and red herrings like traps on a line to ensure Fair Play, and pacing the reader’s journey through our story as if they were on a cross-country ski over the knolls and gullies around Thunder Bay.
 
Join Jayne Barnard on October 3rd, 7–9:00p.m. at the Mary J.L. Black Library in Thunder Bay for The Crime Writer’s Toolkit, a free NOWW workshop.
 

​JE Barnard is a Calgary-based crime writer with 25 years of award-winning short fiction and children’s literature behind her. Author of the popular Maddie Hatter Adventures, she has won the Dundurn Unhanged Arthur, the Bony Pete, and the SWG Award for Children’s Literature. Her works have been shortlisted for the Prix Aurora, the Debut Dagger, the Book Publishing in Alberta Award, and three Great Canadian Story prizes.
Jayne attended high school first on a NATO base in Germany and then in Kapuskasing, Ontario, where her Air Force father was posted next. Her childhood of camping, boating and fishing fostered a love for the wilderness and a passionate respect for the environment. When the Flood Falls, the novel that won the Unhanged in 2016, will be released by Dundurn Press on July 14, 2018. Two more titles in The Falls Mysteries are scheduled for the following years, each rooted in the society, politics, and geography of Alberta’s Eastern Slopes. Jayne is a past VP of Crime Writers of Canada, a founder of Calgary Crime Writers, and a member of Sisters In Crime. She is represented by Olga Filina of The Rights Agency.

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​How long have you been a member of NOWW? Describe your experience serving on the NOWW board.
I’ve been a NOWW member since 2000, the same time I joined the Thunder Bay Writers Guild. I was a board member of NOWW for two years then served as president for three years. I will continue to serve next year as a non-intrusive and hopefully helpful past president. The experience as president came at a perfect time for me because I’d just retired after a 34-year career at Lakehead University and I wanted to do volunteer work. When the NOWW executive asked me to become president, it was an easy decision. NOWW has given me the opportunity to connect with many intelligent and wonderful people both inside and outside of the organization. The board members’ and member volunteers’ willingness to get involved has been exceptional. Had I not joined the Writers Guild and NOWW, I would not have made the friendships that I value so much.

What do you normally write?
That’s a loaded question because right now I consider myself a Jane of all trades and a master of none. My favourite genre to write is creative non-fiction incorporating humour. I also dabble in fiction, i.e., short stories. I have written three novels but they all need work and so if I get the courage, I may rewrite them. This year I decided to enter a play in the local 10X10 contest. My play Golf Lessons (I have a love/hate relationship with golf) was selected for the 2017 Showcase and the actors and director did a terrific job staging it. Ironically, I may be best known in Thunder Bay for the poem I wrote that is etched in granite at the Spirit Garden at the Marina although I don’t consider myself a poet.

Do you have a favourite book or favourite author?
Just one? My favourite book is Stone Diaries by the late Carol Shields set in my favourite city, Ottawa. Years ago I read almost everything James Herriot wrote and even named my last dog, Alfie, after him (Herriot’s real name was Alf Wight). When I lived in England I read everything Angela Huth wrote and had the opportunity to bring her to Exeter to our writers circle to do a workshop. I love to read the work of authors whom I personally know including Charlie Wilkins, Elizabeth Hay, John Pringle and more recently, Jean E. Pendziwol.

Tell us a bit about yourself and how you found your way to writing:
Thirty or so years ago I read a book by Robert Fulghum called All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. That book inspired me to want to write personal essays about every day things. I moved to England for four years and while there took a fiction writing course at Oxford University. When I returned to Thunder Bay I joined the Thunder Bay Writers Guild and the feedback I’ve received from the members has been second to none. Guilders are truly a talented, generous and insightful group of writers. They seem to enjoy my creative non-fiction pieces the most and I enjoy writing them to make people laugh. Before becoming president, I entered the NOWW Writing Contest and in 2012 placed 1st and 3rd in the fiction category. I’ve published stories in local anthologies such as Twenty Years on Snowshoes, Fuel and Fireflies and some literary journals based in England. I often set stories in places I’ve lived such as Ireland or Arizona. Writing is what I do when I’m not being NOWW president, at my exercise class, golfing, connecting with friends or cutting the grass.
 
Tell us a bit about your writing:
The past three years, my writing has amounted to a piece every four months for the Writers Guild. My last personal essay was entitled The Idiot Box about my life history with television and I had loads of fun writing this piece. A short story I recently wrote was set in Ireland about a Catholic girl who wants to join a Orange Order, i.e., Protestant, marching band. My partner is from Northern Ireland and so I am quite familiar with the relationship and history between the Catholics and Protestants. When I write fiction or non-fiction pieces I always do research, usually via the Internet. 

Who has inspired and impacted your writing?
Recently, I’ve read the work of David Sedaris and love how he writes a humorous story about every day happenings. I also enjoy the humour column on the last page of the UK’s edition of Good Housekeeping magazine by Sandy Toksvig who again, writes about everyday things. Because the state of the world right now is not so funny, if what I write makes someone smile or even laugh, I feel as if I am doing a good thing.  

Will we see you at any upcoming NOWW events?
I attended the launch of Twenty Years on Snowshoes on September 5th.  Also, I will be organizing and attending the upcoming memoir workshop with Joe Fiorito on November 4th. I participated in his workshop years ago at the Sleeping Giant Writers Festival and it was terrific. I enjoy his writing and if you haven’t read, The Closer We are To Dying, I highly recommend it.

Where can we learn more about you and your writing?
I have a story in the NOWW anthology, Twenty Years on Snowshoes. I am not particularly savvy when it comes to having a platform, i.e., website or Twitter and my Facebook page is more personal than writing-related. Every year I attend the Tucson Festival of Books and all the presenters keep stating that to make it in the world of writing you must have a platform. Not there yet. Maybe this year as I segue from president to past president. 

And to end things off, tell us something surprising about yourself!
​In 1997 I attended the Queen’s Garden Party at Buckingham Palace and in 1998, ran the London Marathon. That is two. Never been very good with numbers and that is why I’m a writer. J