Home Again
I'm back home again after what turned out to be an
excellent conference in Halifax. A lot of good people
from across the country and some excellent
presentations.
I didn't get any writing done, however. Too much to do at the conference, too much to do in Halifax.
So I've come home exhausted and looking forward to a quiet (apparently rainy) weekend to recover in time to get back to the office on Monday.
I am still trying to think of ideas for an Abigail Massey novel. My visit to Halifax prompted me to wonder if perhaps that's the direction I should go: have Abigail and her pals go to 1943 Halifax for some reason, perhaps to greet a war brides ship or a hospital ship. I'd like to get them into Pier 21 since my mother's family arrived there about 10 years later and I find it an interesting and quite dramatic place.
As usual, I'm worried about the research but there does seem to be a massive amount of information on Halifax available so I hope it would not be too hard.
While in Halifax, I had the chance to see and hear both Lawrence Hill, highly respected author whose most recent novel, The Book of Negroes, was recently named winner of the Canada Reads competition for 2009, and Halifax poet and singer Shauntay Grant, a performance artist whose poem "Up Home" is now a highly successful children's book by the same title.
As any of you who have read this blog in the past will know, I was not overly impressed with one of Hill's earlier efforts — Some Great Thing. My review of that book appears in an earlier post. Hill in person, however, is exceptional. A warm and welcoming man, his presentation proved a wonderful kick off to the conference. And he read an abbreviated version of the first chapter of The Book of Negroes during that presentation, prompting me to go out and buy the novel. I've just started reading it and am very impressed.
Grant, on the other hand, closed the conference
with an energetic, passionate performance of several
of her poems, including "Up Home", a memoir of her
childhood in North Preston, one of several Black
communities in and around Halifax. Grant's
performance was entrancing and her poetry has a
lovely quality to it that I find hard to put into
words. I don't know if the book, Up Home, is
available widely across the country but it is worth
looking for. It's published by Nimbus Publishing in
Halifax and includes some truly spectacular artwork
by Halifax artist Susan Tooke, much of which was on
exhibition at the Nova Scotia Art Gallery when we
were there.
Meanwhile, my garden is showing very healthy rows of green now, all of which popped up while I was away. Exciting times!
I didn't get any writing done, however. Too much to do at the conference, too much to do in Halifax.
So I've come home exhausted and looking forward to a quiet (apparently rainy) weekend to recover in time to get back to the office on Monday.
I am still trying to think of ideas for an Abigail Massey novel. My visit to Halifax prompted me to wonder if perhaps that's the direction I should go: have Abigail and her pals go to 1943 Halifax for some reason, perhaps to greet a war brides ship or a hospital ship. I'd like to get them into Pier 21 since my mother's family arrived there about 10 years later and I find it an interesting and quite dramatic place.
As usual, I'm worried about the research but there does seem to be a massive amount of information on Halifax available so I hope it would not be too hard.
While in Halifax, I had the chance to see and hear both Lawrence Hill, highly respected author whose most recent novel, The Book of Negroes, was recently named winner of the Canada Reads competition for 2009, and Halifax poet and singer Shauntay Grant, a performance artist whose poem "Up Home" is now a highly successful children's book by the same title.
As any of you who have read this blog in the past will know, I was not overly impressed with one of Hill's earlier efforts — Some Great Thing. My review of that book appears in an earlier post. Hill in person, however, is exceptional. A warm and welcoming man, his presentation proved a wonderful kick off to the conference. And he read an abbreviated version of the first chapter of The Book of Negroes during that presentation, prompting me to go out and buy the novel. I've just started reading it and am very impressed.
Meanwhile, my garden is showing very healthy rows of green now, all of which popped up while I was away. Exciting times!