“Good poems are the best teachers. Perhaps they are the only teachers. I would go so far as to say that, if one must make a choice between reading or taking a part in a workshop, one should read.”
–Mary Oliver
I read a lot. Not just a bit, but a lot. I get a ton out of reading, and sometimes read books more than once. I rarely attend workshops, usually because I can’t afford it mentally or financially. But this year I decided to attend the Federation of BC Writers’ (FBCW) Summit: For the Love of Genre. This was an entirely online workshop, with no simultaneous sessions, so it worked well within my limitations.
I could go for my hike in the morning, have breakfast and a shower, and roll into the 11 am session just in time. After lunch I could do my counselling homework then head to the 2pm session to soak up some writing ideas. At 3pm I could have my nap until dinnertime, finishing dinner in time for the 7pm session that evening. But by the time 8pm rolled around I was exhausted—cognitive overload had set in. So I didn’t attend all the sessions (like the one on romance writing lol). Still, I’m now tired enough that I feel like I have to sleep for a week.
Regardless, I enjoyed the week and attended some really good sessions. I particularly appreciated the sessions where the speaker was obviously jazzed up and excited about their topic. This applied particularly to Premee Mohammed’s keynote speech about genre itself and the difficulty in fitting into a particular genre when you write across them, and also to Isaac Yuen’s talk about nature writing, in which he shared three books in each of six ‘categories’ of nature writing. Premee and Isaac were so enthusiastic about their topics that they talked fast and were highly animated and keen on what they were sharing. I really appreciated that. Isaac gave us some homework to do when we had a chance, an exercise that will really help with writing nature.
There were some sessions that were well-taught – the poetry session, with Cornelia Hoogland, was one. She outlined how to read poetry and break down its structure so you can emulate that structure with your own poem. For example, a poem that uses a negative three times in the first stanza. To emulate this, you need three negatives in your first stanza. Deconstructing a poem is not only key for emulating it, but for understanding the poem itself. I love poetry but don’t read enough of it; Hoogland’s session made me want to incorporate more poetry into my life. I think I’ll start with Anne Carson, whose quotes I’ve read in many books recently.
The memoir session with Tara McGuire, author of Holden After & Before, could have benefitted from some finessing. She talked about different structures we can use in creative non-fiction/memoir, including the hermit crab essay, autofiction (I still don’t quite understand how this works); metafiction, where you connect with your reader by connecting the future reader with the present work; and perhapsing, where there are spots in your memoir that you don’t actually know what happened, and you say “Perhaps he said this…,” or “Maybe she did this…”. She had us do an exercise to create a personal glossary, where we used the first letters of our name to write a sentence or two about what the letter stood for. For example, I used one of the O’s in BOON to write “O is for outside, where I need to spend more time challenging myself and getting fresh air. Pushing myself up hills and watching the forest green up.”
Gail Anderson-Dargatz’s session on Writing Across Genres was also good. While Premee Mohammed talked about the same topic, the two of them had completely different takes on it. Dargatz talked about the pros and cons of crossing genres: she’s written several literary novels, two thrillers, and many hi-lo books, which are for adults who are just starting to read and want something other than Dick and Jane to entertain them. Whereas Premee Mohammed talked about crossing genres in her first book: horror, fantasy, fiction, etc., which made it difficult to sell to editors because they didn’t know how to market it. Now that she’s more established it’s been easier to sell her novels, but they still can’t be slotted into a specific genre.
I do wish presenters would provide session titles that match what they’re talking about. Lydia Kwa, for example, was supposed to be talking about Writing Strange. But instead she had us do a meditation exercise to generate new ideas. It was relaxing and generative, and she had a soothing, hypnotic voice that helped us get into that meditative state, but it definitely wasn’t what I was expecting from that session.
The same could be said of Joseph Dandurand’s session on storytelling. It mainly consisted of him reading from his work, which was fabulous, but not talking about storytelling per se. I went away from this session enamored with his writing, but not feeling like I learned about storytelling.
The only session I wasn’t that keen on was the travel writing session, with Bill Arnott. I found his PowerPoint presentation too simple, and he seemed a bit condescending. I did like his idea that you can write about travel from your own backyard, or through your neighbourhood or somewhere close by. And I can see how that can give you an ‘in’ with travel writing, something to build your resume on. But his response to a question about how you get the funds to do travel writing was a bit glib, and I felt like he was holding back to avoid having to share where he gets his travel funds.
One takeaway from the conference was that good writing is good writing, regardless of genre. I got something out of all the sessions I went to, even the one on pitching fantasy with Jen Landels and the one on science fiction and language with Tash McAdam. I don’t write science fiction or fantasy, but the ins and outs of pitching are the same across genres (master that elevator pitch!), and language is an important aspect of all writing—especially if you’re trying to understand words based on their etymology (Tash reads Latin, go figure).
One thing I’ve said before and will say again: just because someone is a good writer doesn’t mean they’re a good teacher. Having been in academia for 13 years, I have a good sense of what good teaching looks like. There is a skill to putting your words in order and bringing students along for a ride through your consciousness and teaching them something in the process. Something that some presenters might want to think about.
Other thoughts: it could have been a bit shorter. Seven days was a lot—maybe five days would work better. Also the writer’s socials could have been more inclusive—I only attended one, and found that the same people were speaking all the time and there wasn’t much room to jump in.
All in all a good conference. Looking forward to putting some of the exercises in practice.
