So you think you can write?
That was the question, and 315 budding wordsmiths — almost three times as many as last year — answered by the Sept. 12 entry deadline.
As part of the Times Colonist’s continuing commitment to literacy, the fourth annual edition of what one observer once described as a cross between Canadian Idol and a Vancouver Island public writing workshop is in full swing.
The challenge was to craft a 250-word piece of writing. It could be a short story, monologue or poem among other formats, but it had to contain these six words: arm, feature, harbour, press, type and tide, as either nouns or verbs.
There was another condition: To level the playing field, only unpublished writers could enter.
Those who make the Top 25 list will receive Bolen Books gift certificates. Four finalists whose identities will be revealed Oct. 6 will then compete for the grand prize, a trip for two to the 2014 Galiano Literary Festival.
Judges will give them four weekly assignments to be critiqued during the ultimate prose or poetry test.
An online vote by Times Colonist readers will also determine a Reader’s Choice award winner. This year’s prize is a netbook computer from Mother Computers.
Watch the Times Colonist each Sunday for progress, profiles and samples of intriguing submissions.
Who are the judges, anyway? Three of Vancouver Island’s literary lights who weren’t above answering some questions of their own.
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Lynne Van Luven
One of Victoria’s most respected literary academics, Van Luven was founding director of the professional writer minor in journalism and publishing in the University of the Victoria’s Department of Writing. The Saskatchewan-born writer and editor had several jobs, including work as an aide in a Regina nursing home, on the road to a journalism career that took off after she graduated with a BA in English and psychology at the University of Saskatchewan.
Long before she landed a five-year term teaching journalism at Ottawa’s Carleton University that preceded her arrival at UVic in 1997, Van Luven worked as a newspaper reporter for 12 years, then pursued her MA and PhD in Canadian literature at the University of Alberta. She worked as a sessional lecturer for several years before jumping back into journalism as a reporter and copy editor at the Edmonton Journal, later writing reviews, opinion pieces and articles for scores of publications across Canada including Books in Canada, Quill and Quire, the Times Colonist and Monday magazine.
She’s also an occasional contributor to CBC Radio, co-edited Pop Can, a textbook on pop culture in Canada, and edited Going Some Place, a Canadian creative nonfiction anthology, among many other literary endeavours. Her other anthologies include Nobody’s Mother, a 2006 compendium of essays; Nobody’s Father: Life Without Kids, the 2008 “sibling anthology” she co-edited with Bruce Gillespie; and 2011’s Somebody’s Child: Stories About Adoption, the third book in the Touchwood Editions-published series about family in the 21st century.
The associate professor at UVic also co-edited In the Flesh: Twenty Writers Explore the Body, published by Brindle and Glass, with Saltspring Island novelist Kathy Page.
What inspired you to write?
I loved reading and hearing others’ stories.
Have you ever participated in such a competition?
Yes, once when I was 21, I entered the Edmonton Journal’s short fiction contest. That was eons ago. I actually won for a story about an old man in a nursing home, where I had worked for the summer.
What do you look for when you evaluate a story?
I look for precision of language and a compelling insight into the human condition.
Do you have any tips for potential competitors?
Yes, even after you think the poem or story is done, let it “sit” for a day — or at least several hours — so you can return to edit it with fresh eyes.
What value do you think writing has for the non-professional?
It helps clarify thought and communication. It helps one pay attention to the world outside one’s door.
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Sara Cassidy
A mother of three who teaches writing at Camosun College, Cassidy is also artistic director of the Victoria Writers Festival. The prolific editor and writer of fiction, poetry and non-fiction grew up in Manitoba and worked and studied in Montreal, Scotland and England. When she wasn’t treeplanting across Canada, she began to write for magazines, newspapers and radio.
Cassidy’s interest in social justice motivated her to volunteer as an international witness to Mayan refugees returning to their villages in Guatemala after being displaced by war, an experience that inspired Slick, her first novel for youth.
The award-winning wordsmith and former publisher of the poetry magazine Boom has also written reviews and articles for magazines and newspapers including the Globe and Mail, Halifax Chronicle-Herald, Today’s Parent and HERizons magazines. Her poems and fiction have been published in The Malahat Review, The Fiddlehead, Geist Magazine, Boulevard and the Times Colonist, and she won a gold National Magazine Award for an article she wrote about new urbanism.
Cassidy’s current projects include poetry for young readers and a short story for adults. Her latest novel for youth, Skylark, is being published by Orca Book Publishers, and her poem Gravitas will appear in the upcoming issue of Geist.
She is also the author of Ultrasound of My Heart, a chapbook of poems.
What inspired you to write?
Blank paper — and a pen — being foisted into my hand by my mother, who had things to do. Also, an eighth-grade teacher, Mr. Beaumont, who insisted on a 300- to 500-word essay every school day. Form and subject absolutely open.
Have you ever participated in such a competition?
There is no competition quite like So You Think You Can Write. I have been bombarded by regular assignments as a writing student, experienced a rigorous schedule of production as a treeplanter and suffered sustained public exposure as a small-town reporter, but never those three requirements at once.
What do you look for when you evaluate a story?
The writer’s wakefulness to her task. So, an awareness of her tools, an interest in every word, a willingness to get her heart and limbs caught in the machinery of her story, a desire to tell rather than simply speak; an ability to lie and be muddy with the readers is fine, as long as the writer never lies or is muddy with herself.
Do you have any tips for potential competitors?
Trust that the world will — or, line up your friends to — tend to what you must neglect in order to throw yourself into the work. Expect to improve. If you’re stuck, tell it as you would to a best friend, or, alternately, to someone who has needily asked you to tell them a story.
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Daniel Griffin
Originally from Kingston, Ont., this widely honoured author and father of three now lives in Victoria. It’s been a long road getting here, however, for the scribe who has lived in Guatemala, New Zealand, England, Scotland, France, India and the U.S.
Griffin’s short stories have been published in magazines and journals across North America. His stories have twice been selected for the Journey Prize anthology, and were collected in the 2008 edition of Coming Attractions.
He is perhaps best known for Stopping for Strangers, his 2011 collection of short stories published by Vehicule Press that earned him a Danuta Gleed Literary Award nomination. He is currently at work on a novel.
What inspired you to write?
I’ve always written. I remember when I was about six and not really be able to write more than a word or two (I was a slow learner) I once asked my mother to write stories out for me. I wanted to record, I wanted to write, and I actually think this was going to be more like a diary. I don’t think it lasted more than a day or two. Years later there was a specific time when I started writing fiction. It was after university and I felt like I had some time and wanted to try fiction. I’d been writing non-fiction of various kinds and trying to get it published, but I’d always most loved fiction. A novel seemed daunting, but I’d been reading short stories and reading about the craft of writing. I think I was a little embarrassed to admit I was going to try writing fiction. It wasn’t something I really shared, but eventually I just sat down and started.
Have you ever participated in such a competition?
No, I’ve never been much of one for competitions, especially not ones that had any kind of theme or requirements. For most of my life I’ve felt that I don’t choose the stories I write, but that they choose me and so that’s left me out in the cold on competitions like this.
Do you have any tips for potential competitors?
Let yourself write anything to get started, just get something down. There’s a phase to writing in which you just have to free yourself to write crap. Get ink on paper. But that’s just the start, just the very tip of the iceberg. The real work is in the rewriting — five per cent writing, 95 per cent rewriting. And so that’s my real advice: revise, rewrite, rework. The three Rs.
What value do you think writing has for the non-professional?
Writing is a heart- and passion-driven thing. You have to really want to do it. I’m not sure it gives value much beyond that, though of course I find satisfaction in the work — a kind of quiet joy: the craftsman’s pleasure at seeing something gradually improve, a piece of art slowly rendered from a blank page.
