Writers’ bliss
THIN AIR 2005: A review of the Winnipeg International Writers Festival
Vince Teetaert
Photo by Andrea Dubois.
“What may be true for some may not be true for others,” my pappy always said after listening to a drawn-out generalization. So I will not say this for all, but when I read a book, poem or short story, my imagination does not stop at the imagery of the words, but also stretches to the writer’s personality. “What makes the writer write?” and “Who is the writer?” are questions I have often when reading. I want to see the writer, hear the words read. With the completion of THIN AIR 2005, readers had the opportunity to see, hear and meet their favourite writers, including some of Manitoba’s up-and-comers.
So it is usually the writers’ personalities that pique my interest. The poet, novelist, librettist and playwright George Elliott Clarke is a reader whose writing spirit comes from his spoken voice. Having seen Clarke two summers ago at the Saskatchewan Festival of Words, a writers festival in Moose Jaw, I wanted to attend one of his readings at THIN AIR. Part of the mainstage panel of “Lovers and Strangers,” Clarke read with Sandra Birdsell, Tamas Dobozy, Katherine Govier, Joel Hynes and Shani Mootoo.
While all the writers readings were enjoyable, it was really the personalities of Clarke and Hynes, a Newfoundland writer and actor, that stood out. In Clarke’s case, it is not just his performance, but how he reads his work. He spoke the words on the pages of his book with romance and clarity.
With reading being the bridge connecting the writer and the audience, I have always found “Writers’ Festival” to be a misnomer. The event is closer to a readers’ festival, and not just because, if the event is well-attended, readers outnumber the writers, but also because the writing is to be read out loud by the writer. This action plays heavily on the writer’s personality and how well the calibre is of a given performance. It is personality and performance that make the festival enjoyable; the written mastery of words will need to be determined later.
What can be lost is the expression that the written words represent. The writer may not have a strong performance style, and this must weigh heavily on some of the writers’ shoulders, because not only will they make comparisons to other writers’ performances, so will the audience.
So while Clarke and Hynes read their works with flare, the characters created by Birdsell and Govier, who on the page come to life in your imagination, get burned off by the floodlights above the stage.
Here we must come to the economy of writers’ festivals. Writers whose work is better read than spoken still attend festivals for a reason. While, like the mission statement of the Winnipeg International Writers Festival states, “[the festival] exists to foster literacy in Manitoba; educate and engage Manitobans in the literary arts,” festivals are also part of the “book tour,” where writers travel to promote their most recent book.
This book peddling is not left out of the mission statement: “[The festival] exists to . . . encourage Manitoban and Canadian authors in their vocation,” and is an essential part of developing writers’ work so that they can live off their craft. Publishers submit their writers’ works to artistic directors of the festivals in order to promote their merchandise. Writers travel the tour not only to interact with their peers and readers, but also to promote their most recent book.
This aspect of the festival was more apparent in the second mainstage I attended –– “The Poetry Bash,” which featured poets Clive Holden, Lorna Crozier, Brenda Leifso, Sherwin Tjia, David Seymour and Karen Solie. At this event Charlene Diehl, the festival’s artistic director and MC, was more candid with her conversations with publishers, who were submitting material for the festival to consider.
Crozier’s admitted that she would not read from her new collection, edited and selected by Catherine Hunter, because it was not being sold by the book table, which brought the “book tour” element of festivals to the audience’s attention.
Multi-media experimentation, such as Clive Holden’s performance, and the introduction of new writers, like pseudo-haiku poet Sherwin Tjia, and the fun of it all are important, but the fact remains that writers are here to sell their work.
THIN AIR, as well as other writers’ festivals, are intimate displays of the relationship between reader and writer. They satiate the reader’s need to find out from where and whom the writing comes.
