I hope your Christmas celebrations were happy this year, despite the difficulties. Calgary was fortunate with its weather. A few days before Christmas, we got a huge dump of snow, which made for a pretty holiday season. The weather turned relatively mild after that. High temperatures slightly above freezing and abundant sunshine continue into January. I find our city parks crowded on weekends, with people making the most of what’s available during Calgary’s lockdown. Between writing, reading, clearing out my basement clutter and outdoor activities, I expect to have plenty to keep me occupied this winter. Best wishes to you all for a healthy and happy 2021.

I write this minutes after sunrise in Calgary, at 8:37 am, this shortest day of 2020.

My clutter clearing project continues (see my recent blog post). Yesterday, in a box of old papers, I stumbled upon an article from Writer’s Digest magazine, ‘How to know when workshop criticism is useful or destructive, irrelevant or priceless.”  The article published in the late 1990’s or early 2000’s shows how times have changed. Among irrelevant criticism, author Nancy Kress includes comments from people with a political agenda.  She writes, “I have heard stories condemned for their negative portrayals of a woman, a union organizer, a military officer, a high school teacher and a wolf (the latter condemnation came from a wildlife advocate).  None of the criticism dealt with literary concerns (“This portrait isn’t convincing”). Instead, each centered on a political concern (“When you show a woman as weak and manipulative, it just reinforces stereotypes”).” I don’t know if Kress’ comment was controversial at the time, but I doubt today she’d advise writers to ignore a critique centered on insensitivity to a particular group.

Today I write about one of my winter COVID-19 projects on the BWL Author blog.

Monday evening, I watched the live streamed Scotiabank Giller Prize show. Today, on the BWL Author Blog, I ask the question, Do Short Stories Sell?

I’ve published ten short stories in the past twenty years. Payment ranged from copies of the magazine to $1,000 to perks like broadcast on CBC radio and having my story turned into art displayed in the Calgary Public Library.  One change I’ve noticed since I started writing almost thirty years ago is that short stories have shrunk in size, unless you are Alice Munro and can publish in The New Yorker. In 1991, my creative writing instructor told us to bring in short stories of about 5,000 words for critique. He said anything less wasn’t really a story. Ten years later, when I aimed to get my work published, I researched magazines and determined that 2,500-3,000 words was the ideal length for a publishable short story. Not long after that, I found it harder to find markets over 2,500 words. I’m not in the short story publishing loop now, but I hear a lot about flash fiction. The shorter the better is probably the way to go if you want to publish short stories.

Happy Thanksgiving.

October 12th is also my day for the BWL Author’s blog. Today I write about attending my first online writers’ festival, which was the first online version of When Words Collide Festival for Readers and Writers.

I learned today about a new poetry form – Haiflu – attributed to poet Liv Torc, who coined the term for National Poetry Day. It means a haiku written in response to the Coronavirus pandemic. It seems my Lougheed contest winning haiku is haiflu.

The Lougheed House has now posted my recording of the haiku on Twitter.

Today, on the Books We Love Author Blog I write about my poetry contest win in the 2020 Lougheed House Haiku Contest.

On Youtube, I stumbled upon this excerpt from the Print(ed) Word Documentary, presented at the Calgary Central Library in January 2020. Sylvia Arthur and I discuss our art book collaboration for my short story, “When a Warm Wind Blows Off the Mountains.” The art book is on permanent display in an alcove off the central library’s fourth floor Great Reading Room.

Today, on the BWL Author Blog, I write about Calgary’s annual When Words Collide Festival for Readers and Writers. This year’s festival is online. It’s free and open to everyone.

When Words Collide Festival for Readers and Writers is going online this year, from Aug 14-16. It’s free and open to everyone. The organizers are planning five choices of panels, presentations and more every hour from Friday afternoon to Sunday. Most will take place on the Zoom platform.

I’m scheduled for two panels:

Ten Things I Wish I’d Known

When you started writing, what assumptions blocked your progress, lead you down dead ends, or limited your opportunities and experiences? Panelists share their initial faulty thoughts that slowed their journey into the writing world. Host: James Kademan Friday, 3 pm

Access Denied: A panel for writers on how to handle rejections and critiques, and communicate with editors/agents/publishers. Sat, 1:00 pm.

No registration or payment required. You can check out what’s happening on  WWC website.