The Writers' Federation of New Brunswick

Well I've gone and done it--I've joined WFNB...I've been reluctant to join any sort of writers' union, wanting to remain on the outside of things. But I figure at this point in my career it will be nice to be part of a community of writers, especially since it is based in New Brunswick. I've chatted a bit with Director Lee Thompson and under his guidance it sounds like WFNB is heading in the right direction in its efforts to promote the NB Lit scene. Could there possibly be New Brunswick Literary Awards in the near future? Let's only hope so. I use the model of Newfoundland and how wonderful a job this province does with promoting its writers; I'm hopeful NB gets there one day too.

The brilliance of Ken Follett

I recently finished reading World Without End, the 1,000 page follow-up to The Pillars of the Earth, and it has changed me. I've blogged on here already about The Pillars of the Earth and how magnificent it is. The second one isn't quite as good as the first, but it's still amazing.

 

I must confess that I was somewhat of a book snob--I wouldn't go near mass market books (exception: Frederick Forsyth), thinking they were below the more literary titles out there. Man, was I wrong. Ken Follett is a genius storyteller. While I couldn't get past the first 30 pages of Life of Pi (sorry Yann Martel) which won the Booker Prize, Follett has held me for 2,000 pages in two books. There's something to be said about that. It was the most fun I've had reading. I went out last night and bought a few mystery titles for some more fun.

 

So why do we read? Is it to learn something new? Is it to lose ourselves? I think it's both. And let me say that there are many literary books that put me to sleep, while their so-called lesser mass market cousins have me gripped from beginning to end.  

So Ken Follett has made me realize what a fool I've been as both a reader and a writer. As a reader he has opened my eyes to a whole new world. As a writer, I could only dream of telling a story with characters as vivid as his; or of a plot that keeps me up late at night, turning page after page wondering what will happen next.

 

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I'm a better writer for having read Ken Follett. If you're a writer, make him part of your essential reading list.

The Moon is Real update

I've submitted my new novel The Moon is Real to my editor at Oberon Press and will now wait to see what she has to say. It is the third book in a trilogy that includes The Dirty Milkman (2005) and A Place of Pretty Flowers (2007). If Oberon accepts the manuscript it would likely be released in the fall of 2013. If it's rejected then it's back to work...

"One of the leading literary publishers in Canada."
-The Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature

Visit Oberon's website HERE.

***UPDATE***
I've decided to try for a press in Atlantic Canada...Oberon has been gracious enough to give me a chance to try this out, and if I can't find a suitor, they will allow me to resubmit it...

Stephen King in New Brunswick...

Master Storyteller Stephen King made a surprise visit to Sussex High School last week to speak to students about writing. How cool would that be?

Check out the full story HERE.

A quote for writers

"A good story can educate as it entertains, certainly, but that is not the reason that I write. I write because I find it personally fulfilling. I write for me. Don’t get me wrong, I find it very rewarding that readers seem to enjoy my work and find some meaning in it for themselves, but I would be doing this even if no one bought one of my books ever again."

-David Adams Richards

David Adams Richards wins Thomas Raddall

David Adams Richards has won the 2012 Thomas Head Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award for his novel Incidents in the Life of Marcus Paul. He also won the award in 1994 for For Those Who Hunt the Wounded Down.

Richards has won the Giller Prize, the Governor General's Award (twice), two Geminis, the Commonwealth Writers Prize, the Canadian Authors Association Prize, and is named to the Order of Canada. 

But the sad truth is, he is still unknown to many Canadians (the majority of whom live west of New Brunswick). I've talked to many supposedly well-read people who read everything under the sun it seems, yet when I mention David Adams Richards they all frown and say they've never heard of him. I tell them they're missing something special. It's like saying you're a hockey fan but have never heard of Sidney Crosby.

It's about time we start talking more about Richards and his work. Atwood gets a headline for waking up in the morning. If the world ever does anything right, we'll see him win the Nobel Prize someday. When and if that time comes, then maybe this country will finally recognize him for what he is -- far and away the best writer Canada has ever produced.

At the movies...

The other day a friend of mine asked me to name my three favourite film performances of all time, and while I realize this is a blog about literary things (I'm smack in the middle of a new novel so I don't have much to say about my work these days), the three films below all have literary connections, and so here they are: 

1-Richard Harris in Wrestling Ernest Hemingway (1993). Harris plays a washed up sea captain living out his days in Florida. His claim to fame is that he once beat up Hemingway. Teamed up with Robert Duvall, it really doesn't get any better than this.

2-Robert Shaw in Jaws (1975). I loved Peter Benchley's novel about the greatest rogue shark of all time, but it was Shaw's performance as Quint that made the movie (dare I say it) better than the book. It's also my favourite movie, cheesy mechanical shark and all.

3-Mickey Rourke in Barfly (1987). Charles Bukowski's autobiographical screenplay comes to life with Rourke playing Henry Chinaski, a rough, tough and crude eccentric poet living in L.A's Skid Row. Playing opposite Faye Dunaway, it's Rourke's best performance.

What’s my writing style?

Simple.

“Hemingway's simple style appealed to Edson and had a profound influence on his own developing aesthetic.”

-The New Brunswick Literary Encyclopedia, 2012

“Edson's prose is straight-up, deceptively simple in its style. Likely, it took a lot of hard work to arrive at his pared-down narrative.”

-HERE Weekly, 2011 (review of The Goon)

“The Dirty Milkman is simply and beautifully written. Every page is an example of this.”

-New Brunswick Reader, 2006

“Edson's simple, straightforward style, which looks easy but is really hard to achieve, is one of this book's most important features.”

-PEI Guardian, 2006 (review of The Dirty Milkman)

“Remarkable in its simplicity...”

-Ottawa Xpress, 2005 (review of The Dirty Milkman)

“Milkman’s narrative voice is frugal and unobtrusive; not terse, a la Hemingway--freighted, heavy--but just direct and unaccoutred, almost wholly free of writerly wankery, and so immensely easy to read.”

-The Danforth Review, 2006

“It’s easy to see that Jerrod Edson is a disciple of Ernest Hemingway in his controlled, compelling prose…”

-The New Brunswick Reader, 2000 (review of The Making of Harry Cossaboom)

DOGS IN HEAT

 "Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

I've just officially started writing Dogs in Heat again, and plan to keep at it till it's finished. I've got a 90-page skeleton of the story already completed. I've created a bit of a safe haven with my Saint John novels and it's time to take a chance and try something new. It's a wild ride with Satan, Ernest Hemingway, and Vincent van Gogh, and it's either going to be the best thing I ever write, or the worst. Either way, it's a fun new direction that scares and excites me, so that can only be a good thing.

New Brunswick Literary Encyclopedia

I've recently been added to the New Brunswick Literary Encyclopedia. The piece was written by Michael VanTassell. Check out the link below:

New Brunswick Literary Encyclopedia

The Moon is Real

After a year of rewriting I'm happy to say that I'm now finished my fifth novel, The Moon is Real. I've printed a copy of the manuscript and will give it one final reading to fix any minor errors. It sits at just 47,000 words -- my shortest work since The Making of Harry Cossaboom, but I think it's the best I've done. (But isn't every new book supposed to feel that way?) The story revisits The Dirty Milkman's Charlie and Prin, A Place of Pretty Flowers' Jeremy Wiggins and Jimmy S., and for those who paid extra close attention to The Goon, the once-mentioned tollbooth operator, Walter Stephens.  

David Adams Richards on New Brunswick

There's no better place than New Brunswick and no better writer to tell you about it. Here's a recent piece by David Adams Richards:

http://www.thestar.com/news/insight/article/1219526--my-favourite-place-finding-one-s-soul-in-the-beauty-of-new-brunswick