Black Ink

New York-based novelist Colin Channer is heating up the literary scene again with his annual Calabash International Literary Festival, which will take place in Jamaica from May 26-28.  Actor Delroy Lindo is expected to be one of highlights of the fest, in addition to Marlon James, Sonia Sanchez, Diana Evans, M.G. Vassanji, and dancehall singer Tanya Stephens:

Among the new features of the three-day event, which will be held from May 26 to May 28 in Treasure Beach, St. Elizabeth, is an onstage conversation with British author, Geoff Dyer, while on opening night, actor Delroy Lindo, will read from Calabash's anthology 'Iron Balloons: Hit Fiction From Jamaica's Calabash Writer's Workshop.'
"There is nothing like hearing an actor read a story because all the nuances of voice and subtleties of body language come into play. He is one of the most respected actors in Hollywood, on the Broadway stage and London's West End, so it is going to be one of those small changes that make a big difference," Mr. Channer said.

Read more about the festival here.

So I’m not unemployed just yet, but I’m still quite busy working on my book, which explains why this entry wasn’t posted sooner. In addition, this past weekend my good friend Cimminnee and I decided to attend the “Black and White” seminar that took place at Blue Met. You may remember that in a previous entry I suggested a modification of the title and theme “Black and White: Black writers in a white world, black writers in a black world…” I haven’t changed my opinion about this.

The panel consisted of Kenyan publisher Binyavanga Wainaina, American professor and poet Ed Pavlic, Quebec author Nalini Warriar, and St. Lucian poet and playwright Derek Walcott (the only Nobel Prize-winning author at the festival this year). The animator of the event was Canadian literary critic Donna Bailey Nurse.

There was talk of early literary influences, and whether or not one can still appreciate the literature of Ernest Hemingway, Joseph Conrad and the like, despite the fact that their work contains traces of bigotry. One of the more popular questions posed to the writers was whether or not there is still a need for a Black genre in literature? This provoked a serious debate. Mr. Walcott was certainly adamant and controversial in his opinion about a place for Black literature. He believed that with the exception of African-Americans and Native Americans, the idea of having a genre based on race or gender is dangerous and narrows a writer in the literary field. He even deemed this a “silly question.”

There were others on the panel that partly agreed, but there were many more members of the audience who disagreed with Walcott’s position on this question. My friend Cimminnee aptly pointed out that if this is a “silly question” then Walcott is “silly” for sitting on such a panel. After all, wasn’t the Black genre the focus of the “Black and White” event?

This is an ongoing debate that I don’t think will end anytime soon. It’s very much like when a black writer is asked if he/she sees himself or herself as a black writer, or male/female writer, or a black male/female writer.

I too have to agree that narrowing oneself is a dangerous act, but in Canada there hasn’t always been equal opportunity for the voices of Black Canadian artists. Like the aboriginals and the older generations of Asian immigrants in British Columbia, Black Canadians haven’t been fairly represented in the Canadian history books. People still don’t know that slavery existed in this country. I don’t see an overwhelming emphasis on Black Canadian writing within academic institutions in Canada. When I took a Canadian lit class while earning my bachelors degree we dissected Canadian literature from the likes of Susanna Moodie, Hugh MacLennan, Ralph Connor and Lucy Maud Montgomery. The professor of this course didn’t add one Black Canadian author to the list. Those lectures left me wondering, “Where are the George Elliot Clarkes, the Austin Clarkes and the Dany Laferrieres?”

So is there still room for a Black genre? Of course there is, but it should not be the be all and end all of literature for Black writers.

See the Black Ink Album menu to the right for my amateur photos I took at the festival.

I’m a Jesus freak.  Yes, it’s true.
In the wake of Christian Conservatism in America, there are finally people standing up and showing more compassion in “Jesus’ name.”  Following in the footsteps of religious writers like Anne Lamott, Donald Miller is fast becoming an example of the new breed and less-repugnant face of Christianity in America.  Though I don’t agree with every philosophical detail of these new voices of the contemporary church, I do think that writers like Miller finally bring some equilibrium to the Christian movement in America:

Christian. For some, the word can conjure images of happy, balanced people. People with unshakable faith and an answer for everything.

For others, it can be synonymous with conservatism.

Donald Miller doesn’t quite fit in either category.

He’s hated his life, doubted his faith and admitted to losing his Bible under a pile of dirty clothes.

He voted for John Kerry in the last presidential election and has said his most spiritual experiences have come from spending time with non-Christians.

He writes his books in Portland’s haunts over strong coffee or local beer, thinks activist folk singer Ani DiFranco is sexy, was raised in a Baptist home but later doubted his faith and religion. He grew up without a father and now serves as a mentor to other fatherless boys. He doesn’t claim to know the answers but uses examples from his own life to explore what it means to be Christian.

(via The News Tribune)

I’m currently on a weeklong leave of absence from my day job to spend more time on my book.  Initially I thought I was going to start off this writing week with the removal of the small cyst that moved in and started living on the back of shoulder, but I realized last night while looking at my appointment card that my surgery is scheduled for next week Tuesday, not today.  This works out, as I certainly didn’t want to write with a sore shoulder, but I still found myself creatively stifled.  I managed to churn out a few pages today, which wasn’t at all what I expected, but I suppose this was better than procrastinating all day like I’m so easily tempted to do.  Tomorrow will be better.

So the schedule for Montreal’s Blue Metropolis International Literary Festival has finally been released.  I immediately went searching for the list of authors to get an idea of the types of faces I’d be tempted to go see at the festival.  I’m sad to report that there will be no presence of Jamaica Kincaid at this festival, which is an absolute bummer.  There’s supposed to be a big tribute of sorts to Montreal writer Michel Tremblay.  I’m already trying to make plans to see the discussion between Writers and Company’s Eleanor Wachtel and the fabulous West Indian poet Derek Walcott.  This on-stage interview is scheduled for Saturday April 8.

On the same day, Donna Bailey Nurse is expected to be at the festival and she’ll be hosting the panel Black and White.  Now this is supposed to be a panel of black writers talking about the experience of writing in a white world, but I wish the organizers at Blue Metropolis would stop with the title and the whole theme itself.  Firstly, this isn’t a “white world.”  Secondly, as one black novelist stated on the panel last year, why is it that no one asks “what it’s like for Jews to write in a Gentile world?”  Thirdly, Nurse has just published an anthology on black Canadian writing.  The book has 29 contributors from which to choose.  You’d think this would be the perfect time to assemble a panel of black Canadian writers and give them a platform to discuss the state of black writing and publishing in Canada.  Why the hell didn’t they put together a panel of black writers to discuss blogging or urban literature in North America?

I was excited about the Black and White event last year.  Now I feel as though it’s going to be a lazily organized repetition of the same discussion that was held one year ago at the festival.  Derek Walcott will be one of the guests and probably the highlight next to Nurse.  They’re also going to have an Indo-Canadian writer on the Black and White panel.  I’m going in to this event with no expectations.

Thankfully, the organizers have actually succeeded in putting together a hip-hop literary show, which will feature the likes of UK hip-hop writer Patrick Neate, Montreal poet Kaie Kellough, and UK poet Luke Sutherland.  Blue Met has even tapped the boys from The Goods to take care of the music.  Now this sounds promising.

If I'm a lousy writer then an awful lot of people have lousy taste.
-Grace Metalious

Earlier this morning I went to my local medical clinic to have a sebaceous cyst removed from the back of my shoulder. It’s actually not as bad as it sounds, but my shoulder hurts like a bitch right now, which is making it painful to type. Anyway, while sitting in the waiting room I decided to sift through the clinic’s magazines and read up on all the glam going on in Hollywood. I started reading the overrated Vanity Fair issue with Tom Ford and a couple of famous naked white women on the cover (who look like they could use a few sandwiches). Much to my delight I found an article on Grace Metalious, author of the scandalous and explicit 1956 novel Peyton Place. I was even more excited to discover that the life of the New Hampshire author is coming to the big screen. Sandra Bullock, who is also producing the flick, will play Metalious. I don’t know if this is a good thing or a bad thing, but I’m really excited about seeing this movie. Hopefully, it’ll be done right:

"Peyton Place" came out in September 1956 from Julian Messner, a small publisher that was willing to take a chance on its scandalous contents because it also saw the possibility that those contents would cause it to take off. Which it did. Rather quickly, helped by an Associated Press interview with the author, word of it got out and it began to climb the New York Times best-seller list.
On Nov. 25, it reached No. 1, the first of two separate stays, totaling 29 weeks, at the top spot. It remained on the list for almost a year and a half. In the fall of 1957, a paperback edition came out…

A daughter of French Canada who had always lived in the small, poor towns of New Hampshire, she apparently was less able to cope with the stresses of success than with those of poverty. Besides "Return to Peyton Place," she published two other books, "The Tight White Collar" (her own favorite) and "No Adam in Eden," before dying in February 1964 of chronic liver disease.

(via The Washington Times)

Here’s a piece of Canadian history for you.  In 1734, an African slave by the name of Marie-Joseph Angelique set fire to her slave owner’s home in Montreal (yes, there was slavery in Canada) to avoid being sold, and to run away with her lover.  The fire not only burned down the slave owner’s house, but it destroyed most of the city of Montreal as well.  As a result, Angelique was accused, tortured and hanged shortly after the incident, which has been documented by several Black Canadian scholars within the last 20 years.  The latest publication about this tragic affair is The Hanging of Angélique: The Untold Story of Canadian Slavery and the Burning of Old Montreal written by Afua Cooper.  Cooper’s book is on Maclean’s magazine’s list of “recent, new and upcoming books”.  An interview with the author can be found in one of the January issues of The Hour:

The French wanted to make an example of Angélique. So Montreal Judge Pierre Raimbault found her guilty on circumstantial evidence and sentenced her to death.

On the morning of June 21, Raimbault went to the prison where Angélique was being held and told her she would die by public hanging that same day on a specially built gallows on rue St-Paul, right in front of the charred remains of the Francheville home. Afterwards Angélique's corpse would be burnt on a pyre…

… when Montreal's hangman and torturer Mathieu Léveillé - himself a black man from Martinique - crushed her bloodied legs and knees, Angélique confessed that she, and only she, had set the fire. Half satisfied, Raimbault sent Angélique to the gallows.

Angélique was barefoot, dressed in a knee-high white chemise with the word "incendiaire" embroidered on the front and back. Since she could not walk, she was piled into a rubbish cart in which she held a two-pound torch that symbolized her crime, arson.

Léveillé drove the horse-drawn rubbish cart surrounded by guards through the blackened streets of lower Old Montreal, where residents stood roadside jeering and spitting on Angélique. 

(via The Hour)

  She was funny, with a dark, dry, self-deprecating wit.

Ms. Butler, who never married, described herself this way in 1999: "I'm also uncomfortably asocial — a hermit in the middle of Seattle — a pessimist if I'm not careful, a feminist, a black, a former Baptist, an oil-and-water combination of ambition, laziness, insecurity, certainty and drive."

(via Seattle Times)

The first African-American woman to break barriers in the SF field continued to break the mold right till the end. Butler died this week at the age of 58 after she slipped and fell on the sidewalk near her house; news of the accident spread fast on SF networks, and tributes have been coming in from Greg Bear, Harlan Ellison: peers who were also fans. She had just published Fledgling, which promises to change the face of vampire fiction. The protagonist of Fledgling, Shori Matthews, is a 53-year-old vampire who looks like a 10-year-old black girl—probably the first time Dracula’s many literary descendants have included a black female among their numbers.

Butler came up with two fabulous twists on the vampire story. In her version, vampires are actually members of a matriarchal race that predates humanity: aside from needing human blood to survive, they are shy, peaceful people. And Shori’s skin colour is because of an experiment to see whether black-skinned vampires might be able to bypass the race’s legendary intolerance of sunlight.

(via Business Standard)

Just in case you missed it, CBC Arts has a four-part series called Hang the MC, which examines how hip-hop culture has become a scapegoat for violence: 

French rap has always sounded similar to American rap, particularly within its hardcore camp. The reason is environmental. Social conditions in the low-income banlieues (suburbs) that ring Paris and other French cities mirror those within U.S. ghettos, which are renowned for incubating hip hop. Vast immigrant populations live in communes, crumbling Lego stacks of public-housing developments. Poverty is rampant, unemployment is severe, illicit drugs abound. Dans la banlieue (les banlieues is grammatically correct; la banlieue is what the locals say), people of colour are made to feel marginalized from mainstream society, citizens in paperwork only.

My how people in the literary world love to tell torrid tales. This whole James Frey ordeal is really ridiculous. I’m still questioning where the editor and publisher were during this entire affair. And to add to the JT Leroy hoax, the real JT Leroy (aka Laura Albert) is taking up more space in the New York Times. Her partner and father of her son has now come forward and revealed that he just couldn't go on with the sham anymore:

Geoffrey Knoop, Ms. Albert's partner for the last 16 years, said in a telephone interview on Saturday evening that he had seen Ms. Albert write the books of JT Leroy in their San Francisco apartment. He added that for much of the last decade, he had been present when Ms. Albert conducted telephone conversations as JT Leroy with unwitting editors, writers and celebrities, using the voice of a young man with a West Virginia accent. Ms. Albert, 40, is originally from Brooklyn.

"The jig is up," said Mr. Knoop, 39, a rock musician. "I do want to apologize to people who were hurt," he added. "It got to a level I didn't expect."

Why do the liars turn themselves into the victims?

Some time in December you may remember I wrote about Revival, an anthology edited by Toronto literary critic Donna Bailey Nurse.  The anthology, which features the best in Black Canadian writing, is highlighted in the Toronto Sun by columnist Nicholas Davis.  It also happens to be on the programme for the Harbourfront’s Kuumba Festival in commemoration of Black History Month:  

"In my particular job I was getting a lot of black books sent to me," says Nurse, who is a critic for Book Television and a frequent book reviewer for various newspapers across the country. "And I had a great awareness of the excellent work that was out there. But I didn't think there was enough awareness from the general public of the quality and volume of work by black writers in this country. I put this book together to make sure the work got out there."

Of the 29 authors who contributed pieces to revival most of them -- like Suzette Mayr, David N. ODhiambo, H. Nigel Thomas and Esi Edugyan -- are unknown to mainstream Canadians. This was a conscious choice by Nurse.

"I was tired of seeing the same names again and again when there were so many other people doing excellent work who were not getting the same high-profile space."